Read Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three Online
Authors: Mara Leveritt
Though Hutcheson did not mention it, there was no moon that night. Police apparently did not ask how the scene was lighted, or how she’d been able to see what little she’d described. Nor did police question her claim that Damien had driven the car, despite their awareness that he did not have a license and had never been known to drive, and that no one in his family owned a red Ford Escort.
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By the third week after the murders, the sheer number of allegations that Damien had taken part in the killings was beginning to have an effect. On May 26, the day that Gitchell complained to the crime lab that he felt “blind-folded,” Detective Ridge interviewed yet another young man who reported that Damien had told him that he’d raped the boys and then cut them with a knife that was eight to ten inches long. By now, even if Gitchell had harbored reservations about information provided by a juvenile probation officer, a detective from another department, and a waitress turned self-appointed investigator, he was willing to set them aside. With little to show after nearly a month of investigation, the police in West Memphis were ready to talk to Vicki Hutcheson and to her little son Aaron.
On May 27, Gitchell, Ridge, and Allen drove to Marion, where they questioned Vicki Hutcheson in Bray’s office. She was a striking figure: five feet ten, 130 pounds, with red hair and green eyes. Aaron was there again with her. Under questioning by the West Memphis police, Hutcheson repeated much of what she had reported to Bray, and Bray added some details from the several interviews that he had by then conducted with Aaron.
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Bray informed the visiting detectives that Aaron had told him that he and the murdered boys had often visited the woods together. The boy said they had a clubhouse there, and that on some occasions they’d spied on five men who gathered in the woods. Bray said Aaron told him that the men would sit in a circle, chant, sing songs about the devil, and do “what men and ladies do.”
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The questions arising from Vicki and Aaron Hutcheson’s statements were many and serious. But their allegations supported the theory that a cult was behind the crime, and at this rather desperate point in their nearly month-old investigation, the police were ready to overlook a few difficulties presented by their stories. They arranged to interview the mother and child again.
The next day, Vicki Hutcheson handed the police an object that seemed to reinforce the connection between her account and Aaron’s—and also to link Damien to the reported rituals in Robin Hood. The object was a cheap pewter earring cast in the shape of a human skull. It featured a snake slithering out of one of the eye sockets and coiling around the skull. Vicki said that the earring had belonged to Damien, and that she had it because he’d dropped it while visiting her at her house. She said that when Aaron saw it, he’d told her that it was exactly like one worn by one of the men he’d seen chanting in the woods.
On the second day of interviews, Sudbury and Ridge asked Hutcheson if she would let them hide a tape recorder in the bedroom of her trailer. The idea was that she would invite Damien to her house during the coming weekend, get him into the bedroom, and lure him into discussing some of the activities she had reported. Hutcheson agreed and the trap was set. Hutcheson later said that Damien did come to her house, and detectives reported that a recording was made. But, they said, the recording was of poor quality and Damien’s voice was not discernible on it. The tape subsequently disappeared.
After nearly a month on the case, the police still did not have a single piece of evidence that would tie anyone to the crime. On Wednesday, June 2, they decided to polygraph Hutcheson. Durham reported that she was telling the truth.
To Gitchell, the news was a breakthrough. From that moment on, there was only one thrust to the investigation, and it was directed toward Damien Echols.
J
ESSIE HAD NO IDEA
, as May 1993 slipped into June, that his neighbor Vicki Hutcheson was discussing him with the West Memphis police in relation to the murders. He would later say he was surprised when told the extent of what she’d said, particularly the part about Damien driving Hutcheson and him to the orgy.
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He said no such trip had taken place and that, besides, “everyone knew Damien didn’t drive.” But Jessie’s version of events during that last week of May agreed with Hutcheson’s on a few points. Here’s what he said happened:
“When I first heard about the kids come up missing, it was early in the morning, about nine o’clock. I was going to work with a friend of mine.” Jessie said he heard the news on the radio as he and a friend drove east on I-40 toward Memphis, where they’d gotten a roofing job. When he returned from Memphis that afternoon, another friend told him that the bodies had been found.
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A few weeks later, Jessie said, Hutcheson asked him to introduce her to Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin. He found the request odd in light of her age, but he liked to help her out. The next time he saw Damien and Jason he told them that she wanted to meet them and brought them to her trailer. Jessie did not know that Hutcheson was in contact with Detective Bray or that Hutcheson believed she was doing undercover work for Bray.
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He was not aware, by the end of May, that the West Memphis police considered Damien a suspect. Nor did he realize that information provided to the West Memphis police by Driver, Bray, and Hutcheson connected him to their prime suspect. He was so unaware of the circumstances that were closing around him that, on the night of June 2—four weeks exactly after the night the boys disappeared—Jessie agreed to stay at Hutcheson’s house because her boyfriend was at work and she’d heard reports of a prowler in the neighborhood. According to both Jessie and Hutcheson, he slept on the couch with a gun nearby.
The next morning, Jessie was awakened around 9
A.M
. by the sound of banging on the trailer’s door. It was his father. “He said [Detective Sergeant] Mike Allen wanted to talk to me,” Jessie said. “Did I have a problem with that?” Seeing that Allen was with his dad, the teenager answered no, he had no problem talking with the detective. He dressed and drove off with Allen at about 9:45
A.M
.
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As Misskelley later recalled, “He said we was going to the police department. I didn’t know what was going on. But I wasn’t scared. At that time I didn’t know what he wanted to talk to me about.” Once inside the station, Allen filled out a standard form. Along with the usual height and weight, he noted that Jessie had several tattoos, including one on his right arm that said “FTW” (it was noted that that stood for “Fuck the World”), one of a skull and dagger on his left arm, and the word “bitch” on his chest. Allen explained that he wanted to ask Jessie some questions about the murders.
But then he told me he couldn’t ask me no questions without my dad signing papers. I told him my dad wouldn’t have a problem with that. So we left the police station to go where my dad was at. While we was on the way, he told me if I knew anything, that there was a $35,000 reward, and if I could help them out, we’d get the money. We met my dad down on the service road. I talked to my dad about it. He said if I knew anything, to tell the police, and then my dad could buy him a new truck. We went back to the police station. I just told them what I knew—about the kids I seen on the side of the service road and what my friend told me. That’s all I knew. That’s when they gave me a polygraph.
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Allen was dispatched to get permission from Big Jessie, because Jessie Jr. was still a minor. The elder Misskelley was found at a McDonald’s restaurant, where, without consulting an attorney, and apparently without reservation, he signed the form the police needed to polygraph his son.
But the elder Misskelley did not sign a form agreeing to let Little Jessie waive his constitutional rights. According to police records, Jessie was read his rights twice within the next hour: once at 11
A.M
., by detectives Ridge and Allen, and again at eleven-thirty, by Bill Durham, the department’s polygraph expert.
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Each time, Jessie was advised that he had the right to remain silent, the right to have a lawyer appointed, and the right, if he decided to answer questions, to stop at any time. Ridge reported that Jessie said he understood and signed the Miranda forms. But that is an overstatement. Never having mastered cursive, Jessie could only print his name.
Detective Durham administered the polygraph exam. “It was just me and him,” Jessie later recalled.
Mike Allen, Gary Gitchell, and Bryn Ridge—they were in another room. Bill Durham asked me some questions and I answered ’em. He asked me did I know who killed ’em. I told him no. He asked me would I tell him the truth. I told him yes. He asked me did I ever do drugs. I told him no. He asked me three times, over and over, and then when I was through, he told me I was lying. I told him, “Okay, I have done drugs before.” He said, “I know you have because I’ve seen you sell them.” And that’s when I really got mad, because I told him, “I have never sold drugs. I’ve used them, but I ain’t never sold them.” That’s when he told me I was lying. He told me that my brain was telling him so.
Here is Durham’s account: Jessie was questioned briefly before the polygraph interview began. Durham wrote that in that pretest interview, Jessie “said that he has never participated in a Satanic ritual and has never observed one. He denied being involved in the murders and does not know who killed the three boys. He also said he does not suspect anyone.” During the polygraph test, Durham asked Jessie ten more questions. After the test, Durham wrote that Jessie had recorded “significant responses indicative of deception” on these five critical questions: “Have you everbeen in Robin Hood woods?” “Have you ever took part in devil worship?” “Have you ever attended a devil worship ceremony?” “Are you involved in the murder of those three boys?” And “Do you know who killed those three boys?” According to Ridge’s notes, Durham came out of the interview room and announced, “He’s lying his ass off.”
Jessie later said that Durham had insisted his polygraph machine could read people’s minds, and that it could tell if what was in their minds was different from what they said. “I didn’t know what was going on,” Jessie said. “Because how could my brain be telling him that I was sitting there lying? It got me confused. Then he stood up and he was talking. He kinda spit on me. I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, ’cause he was yelling when he did it. I drew back. I was going to hit him. Then Mike Allen came in and grabbed me.”
Jessie said the detectives moved him to another room while they talked to Durham. By now it was almost 12:30
P.M
.
Then Gitchell came and got me and took me to another room, and that’s when he started talking to me. The whole time, the same questions that they’d already asked me, they kept asking over and over again. When Gitchell asked me what the boys looked like, I told him all the stuff I’d heard. I kept telling Gary Gitchell I wanted to go home. He said I could go home in a minute, then he kept asking me the same questions, over and over again.
From that point, it just got rougher on down. They asked me, how did I know so much about the murder if I didn’t do it? I kept telling him I didn’t know who did it—I just knew
of
it—what my friend told me. But they kept hollering at me. Gary Gitchell and Bryn Ridge both. They kept saying they knew I had something to do with it, because other people done told ’em. After I told ’em what the boys were wearing, Gary Gitchell told me, was any of them tied up? That’s when I went along with him. I repeated what he told me. I said, yes, they was tied up. He asked, “What was they tied up with?” I told ’em a rope. He got mad. He told me, “God damn it, Jessie, don’t mess with me.” He said, “No. They was tied up with shoestrings.” I had to go all through the story again until I got it right. They hollered at me until I got it right. So whatever he was telling me, I started telling him back. But I figured something was wrong, ’cause if I’d a killed ’em, I’d a known how I done it.
The interrogations so far were not tape-recorded, and neither was the one that followed. The only accounts of what transpired are Jessie’s, and two written reports by Ridge—a handwritten version and a later, typewritten one. According to Jessie, the interview hinged on a moment when Gitchell literally drew him a picture. It was of a circle surrounded by
X
s. Inside the circle, Gitchell drew three dots. As Jessie recalled the exchange, “Gitchell pointed to the dots and said, ‘This is you, Damien, and Jason. The
X
s are police all around you. You can be in the circle or you can be out.’ I said I wanted to be out.”
Ridge made no reference to any such circle in his typed report, but he did in his handwritten notes. According to his notes, the polygraph examination had produced a change in Jessie. As police continued to question him after his experience with Durham, Jessie made several accusatory statements about Damien and Jason. Now, according to Ridge, Jessie said that he had “received a call from Jason Baldwin the night before the murders. They were going to go out and get some boys and hurt them…. He knew what they were going to do.” After that, Ridgewrote, “Jessie began to say something, and then says he doesn’t want anything to do with it.” But Jessie’s hesitancy did not last. Following that expression of reluctance, Jessie reportedly told the detectives
The statements sent a thrill through the station. But claims of a photograph, satanic rituals, a teenager with a folding knife, and even Damien’s alleged shouts of “We did it” were not enough to claim a solution to the murders. On the other hand, Jessie’s account had changed considerably since his arrival at the police station more than four hours earlier. He’d said initially he knew nothing of the murders. Now his statements were getting more elaborate, more accusatory, and more focused on Damien. The detectives upped the ante. According to Ridge’s handwritten notes, they showed Jessie “a picture of one victim in the coroner’s office.” The notes continue: “Jessie knew it was one of those killed by Damien. Jessie looked hard at the picture and said it was of the ‘Moore boy,’ and that it was one of the boys in the Polaroid.” This was apparently a reference to the photograph that was reported to have been in the briefcase seen at the esbat. Alongside this section of notes, there appears a circle, with the words “the circle” written inside. The next line of the text continues: “Jessie stated that he didn’t want to be a part of this, that Damien and Jason killed, he did not.”
With Jessie clearly shaken, Ridge wrote, “I left the room, at which time Jessie informed Gary Gitchell of his being present during time of the murders, [of his having] witnessed the murders by Damien and Jason.” Having tape-recorded nothing so far, the detectives decided it was now time to record what Jessie was saying. Ridge’s handwritten notes conclude: “Taped statement began after time given to get self composed.”
Jessie later said that after the session with Durham, he had decided to start “telling ’em back whatever they told me.” He said there were three reasons for that decision. The circle was one of them. The photograph of the murdered child laid out on the slab at the crime lab was another. “It was just a kid that was beat up in the face,” he recalled, “but when I looked at it, it shocked me.” His third incentive was a tape recording. After drawing the circle for Jessie and showing him the photo of the murdered boy, Gitchell had also played him a tape recording featuring the eerie, disembodied voice of a child. The voice said spookily, “Nobody knows what happened but me.” Jessie was not told—and would not know until much later—that the voice was that of Aaron Hutcheson. The six-word segment of tape that Gitchell played for Jessie had been extracted from an interview with Aaron that police had recorded a few days earlier.
Ridge made no mention of the photo, the circle, or the child’s voice in his typewritten report.
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He did note, however, that, “at about 2:20
P.M
., Jessie told Inspector Gitchell that he was present at the time of the murders…. We then prepared for the interrogation to be taped.”
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Until this day, Jessie’s most serious experience with the police had been an incident involving the theft of several flags belonging to the Marion High School marching band. After years in special education classes, Jessie had dropped out of school, but he had dreams of building a speedway, and he needed some flags for it. Not too cleverly, he had gone back to school to steal flags from the band. Driver had recognized that Jessie was “kind of slow mentally,” but Jessie’s age and intellectual limitations were of little concern to the police. Except for the permissions they’d sought from his father to question and polygraph him, Jessie’s claim that he understood his constitutional rights was treated the same as if he were a lawyer. Now, with the tape-recording about to begin, he was read his rights again, and again, without benefit of parents or counsel, he waived them.