Authors: Damien Echols
Domini and I had been arguing a little, though nothing serious. It was mostly in the vein of people of who have spent too much time together and just need a break. I had slept at my parents’ house for the past couple of nights to create some breathing space. One morning I got up, and with hair still tangled I went out to have a nice big bowl of Fruitloops for breakfast. Toucan Sam makes a mean box of cereal. While I was happily munching and contemplating the fact that I would soon have a bowl of pink milk, I flipped on the television. Nothing goes better with Fruitloops than cartoons. There were no cartoons this day. I went through every channel, but it was all the same show. It was special news coverage of three kids who had been murdered. It looked like every reporter in the world had descended upon the town of West Memphis.
It wasn’t just the T.V. that was talking about it—the whole town was abuzz. It was the conversation on everyone’s lips. I truly don’t believe there was anyone not talking about it, and the rumors were already starting to fly. I heard the same two words countless times over the next month—“Satanists” and “sacrifice.” Every day that passed without anyone being arrested only made that conclusion grow more and more firm in the minds of every gossipmonger in town.
The very same day I saw the first news coverage is when the police began to sniff around my door, although they later denied it and said they never considered me a suspect until several weeks down the road. Not long after the coverage began, a cop named Sudberry and one of Jerry Driver’s sidekicks, Jones, came knocking. I found it interesting that Jerry Driver himself didn’t show up. They came into the house and said they wanted to talk to me privately. Evidently they did not want my family to hear what they had to say. My mother, sister, and paternal grandmother watched as I lead Sudberry and Jones into a bedroom and closed the door. They sat on the edge of the bed, one on either side of me.
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This was the first time I’d ever seen Sudberry. He was potbellied with a horrible comb-over and had weak, watery eyes. He also sported the mustache that only cops and gay porn stars from the 70s seem to like. He didn’t say much, and just sat quietly while Driver’s cohort asked the questions. Jones was all saccharine and lying eyes as he said things like, “Something bad has happened, and we really need your help.” Instead of questioning me about the murders he stayed on topics such as, “What’s your favorite book of the bible, and why? Have you ever read anything by Anton LaVey? Who is your favorite author?” It seemed they couldn’t choose between conducting a murder investigation and filing a book report. Of course eventually came the inevitable, “Have you heard anything about devil-worshippers in the area, or any plans to sacrifice children?” To be quite honest I found it sickening. Instead of attempting to find out who had murdered three children they would rather indulge in these childish fairy tales and grab-ass games. A fine example of your tax dollars at work.
Before leaving they took a Polaroid picture of me. Later I found out that they showed it to nearly everyone in town, using it to plant ideas in the heads of an already frightened public. In court they denied taking the picture or ever even coming to see me that day. They had to, because Jones and Driver were from a different office and weren’t supposed to be involved in the investigation in any way. By that point the blatant lies no longer shocked me because I’d seen it too many times.
This visit was not a one-time occurrence. They were soon coming at me every single day. They came to my parents’ house, to the place Domini and I stayed, and to Jason’s house. It wasn’t always the same two; there was a rotating crew of about six of them. It the same questions, day after day. It became pretty apparent that these clowns weren’t looking for a murderer. Jerry Driver and his two cohorts put a bug in their ears, and they couldn’t shake it. Instead of conducting this like a real murder investigation and checking the forensic evidence, they were chasing stories of black robed figures who danced around bonfires and chanted demonic incantations. Soon that’s all anyone could talk about. The entire town was petrified because they were convinced hell had broken loose in Arkansas.
Every redneck preacher in the area was preaching sermons about how we were in the “end times” so you’d better get right with God or else the devil would come for you, too. You must keep in mind that this is a state in which one out of every four people can’t read above a fifth-grade level. Ignorance breeds superstition.
They literally believed these stories, and helped them to grow. After being shown my picture one man swore to the police that I caused him to levitate. Another
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swore that the police told him that they had found body parts under my bed.
These sorts of stories passed for investigation.
The constant harassment continued to escalate. Soon instead of coming to my house they were taking me to the police station. Here it was easier for them to play “good cop/bad cop.” One of them (usually Sudberry, whose breath smelled as if he ate onions morning, noon, and night) got in my face and scream, “You’re going to fry! You may as well tell us you did it now!” The other cop would then pretend to be my friend and act as if he were rescuing me from Sudberry’s
“wrath.” I was only a teenager, and the whole thing looked pretty pathetic even to me. This continued day after day for a month. My grandmother grew worried and sold her rings to hire an attorney to come to the police station with me, but the police refused to let him in. They lied and said I never asked for him, even though I did so several times. My grandmother lost her engagement ring and wedding ring for nothing.
I didn’t think there was anything wrong with answering their questions, because I had nothing to hide. I had done nothing wrong, and figured they would sooner or later get this insanity out of their system. It didn’t work that way. The more I cooperated, the more abusive and belligerent they became.
The last time I went into the police station before the arrest I was kept for eight hours. I was not allowed a drink of water, a bite of food, or even to use the restroom. They screamed and threatened me the entire time, trying to force me to make a confession. The psychological pressure was enormous. They would have kept me all night if I wouldn’t have finally demanded they either charge me with a crime or let me go home. I suffered from extreme exhaustion, my head was pounding, and my body kept trying to vomit, although there was nothing in my stomach. I felt like I’d been run over. If you’ve never been through anything like that, then there’s no way you can understand. There’s no word that fits what they did to me other than torture.
Late one evening my mother, father, and grandmother left to go to a casino for a night of gambling. My grandmother loved playing blackjack more than just about anything else in the world, and my parents were more than happy to keep her company at the table. They would be gone all night. I, my sister, Jason, and Domini all settled down for an evening of watching horror videos. We were making fun of a movie that seemed to have been put together with more imagination than money when someone started beating on the door. Not knocking, but literally beating. You could feel the vibration through your feet on the floor. The beater screamed, “This is Sudberry, open the door!”
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My first thought was “To hell with that.” I was sick of these ass clowns tormenting me day after day. I figured it was more of the same and that they’d eventually get tired of waiting and leave. When the beating continued and grew even more persistent I knew something wasn’t right. They were being even more aggressive than usual. I went to answer the door to see what they wanted.
When I opened the door there were three cops on the steps, all pointing guns directly at my face. The barrels of the weapons were less than three inches away from touching my skin. Another cop was standing on the ground pointing a gun at my chest. Sudberry nearly tackled me in his eagerness to handcuff me and get me into a cop car. Looking over my shoulder I told Domini, “Don’t worry about it.” After all, it’s impossible for them to prove you’ve done something you haven’t done, right? At least that’s what I thought.
I didn’t see them arrest Jason; I was rushed out too quickly. I later found out they took him out right after me. After I was put into a car, I was driven straight to the police station and escorted to a small office by a cop that looked disturbingly like a pig that had been taught to walk upright. I never saw a single cop in the station who was even close to being physically fit, but this guy was the worst of the lot. He was so fat he was suffocating under his own weight. He weighed at least 350 pounds. He had no neck, and his nose was turned up like a snout. I’ve learned over the years that sooner or later a persons’ physical appearance comes to resemble whatever is in their heart. I shudder to think what this guy’s true nature was. For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking of him as “Piggy Little.”
Piggy Little was an old school asshole. You could tell he’d never succeeded at anything in his life, and he was out for revenge. He seemed to think his personal God-given mission in life was to harass and torment me in every way possible.
Perhaps I looked like someone who had stolen one of his Twinkies as a kid.
Whatever the case he felt like he had to keep his sausage-like fingers on me at all times so that he could push, pull, and shove me.
Eventually the head cop of the station came into the office and sat behind a desk. His name was Gitchell, and I’d seen him at the station a couple of times before, but I’d never had to deal with him. Now he wanted to have a conference.
Gitchell was slightly more intelligent than his coworkers, which is most likely why he was the boss. He was no intellectual giant, but he didn’t have to be when compared to the rest.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked.
I stared at him blankly, saying nothing.
“You may as well tell me something now because your friend has already confessed. This is your only chance to make sure you don’t take all the blame.” I felt
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like I had somehow gotten lost in this conversation, or that I must be missing something, because it wasn’t making sense to me. Friend? Confessed?
“Who are you talking about?” I asked. It was his turn to look at me blankly. I had no idea who he could be talking about, because I knew it couldn’t be Jason.
He continued along the same lines with statements like, “You should just tell us something, because your friend is already pointing the finger at you. If you want to make sure he doesn’t put everything on you this is your only chance.”
This went on for at least half an hour, Gitchell talking while Piggy glared. When he finally realized this wasn’t going anywhere I was put inside a cell that wasn’t much larger than a phone booth. I was left there throughout the night, confined to a space so small I couldn’t even stretch my legs out. There was no water, no restroom, no anything. Every so often Gitchell came in and ask more of the same.
Once he came in and said, “One of the officers told me you wanted to talk to me.” I hadn’t even seen an officer in hours. “He lied,” I informed him. This continued until well after sunrise.
When I wasn’t being questioned I was constantly trying to solve this mystery.
Who could Gitchell be talking about? What had he said I did? None of it made any sense.
A cop came in and demanded my clothes. I’d never experienced anything like this in my life and thought him some sort of pervert, judging by the looks of him.
When I was given more clothes it was an old, ragged police uniform that was at least twelve sizes too large. It looked like they had brought me a pair of Piggy’s pants. I had to gather the waist and tie it into a knot to keep them from falling down. This is how I made my first court appearance.
I was taken through a narrow hallway through the back of the jail. When it suddenly opened up into a courtroom I was stunned, because of the contrast. The jail itself was filthy and roach infested to the point of making you not want to touch anything for fear of contamination. It was a place the general public was never meant to see. I’d grown used to seeing that, so the dazzling clean and well-lit courtroom was jarring.
I blinked like an animal pulled from its hole and looked around me. The place was packed from wall to wall, and the only faces I recognized were my mother and father. Everyone else in the place seemed to be shooting daggers of hatred at me with their eyes. Every few seconds someone popped up like a whack-a-mole game and snapped pictures of me. I hadn’t slept in about thirty-six hours, so everything had a slightly surreal quality to it.
The judge began rambling while I leaned against a wall to keep my knees from buckling. Four cops kept their hands on me at all times, as if they expected me to
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break and run at any second. When the judge got to the “How do you plead?”
part of the show, I said, “Not guilty.” My voice sounded flat, dull, and small. I felt a wave of outrage directed towards me from the peanut gallery. The judge’s droning sounded strangely like an auctioneer as he began talking about a confession. I was so exhausted and in shock that I could follow very little of what he was saying. It finally dawned on me that he was asking if I wanted the confession read out loud or just entered into the record. Starting to feel a little pissed, my voice was a little more forceful this time as I said, “Read it.” I could tell he didn’t like that idea at all. As a matter of fact he seemed down right uncomfortable as he looked down and started shuffling papers.
Finally he stuttered that he wasn’t going to do that, but that he would call for a recess until after I had read it. During the recess I was taken into a broom closet filled with cleaning supplies, and was handed a stack of papers while two cops stood staring at me. My brain was so numb that I could only comprehend about one fifth of what I was reading, but at least now I knew who had made the confession. The name at the top was Jesse Misskelley. My first thought was,
did he
really do it?
followed quickly by,
why did he say I did it?
Even in my shell-shocked state I could tell something about this “confession” wasn’t right. For one thing, every line seemed to contradict the one before it. Any idiot could plainly see he was just agreeing with everything the cops said. That’s when I knew why the judge didn’t want it read out loud. Anyone with an even average I.Q. could see it was a setup. The whole thing seemed shady.