West of Memphis

The investigators are now filing in and the reporters are getting ready

to cover this news conference.

Many parents in the community will be breathing a sigh of relief

if this indeed is the break that police have been waiting for.

Chief Inspector Gary Gitchell is about to begin,

and he's also bringing in some photographs.

Obviously these will probably be photographs of the suspects.

Of course, suspects unofficially at this point, although many believe

in this triple murder of the three 8-year-old boys.

Arrested at 2:44 p.m., Thursday, June the 3rd, 1993.

Jessie Lloyd Misskelley.

Jessie Misskelley is 17 years of age.

Charles Jason Baldwin. He is 16 years of age.

Michael Wayne Echols. Mr. Echols is 18 years of age.

He is charged with three counts of capital murder.

Were you surprised when these guys were arrested?

I was surprised about Jason

because he's, like, the quiet one of them all.

But I wasn't surprised about Jessie Misskelley and Damien Echols,

because I just expected it out of them sooner or later.

Killer!

When the police were asking for clothing

so they could give it to the dogs to pick up scent,

the bandana here was the only thing that I had in my household

that had Stevie's scent on it. I've never washed it.

When I get the need to just want to feel him again, um,

I'll grab it and I'll hug it,

and I'm so thankful I feel an embrace back.

I was walking the route to take Stevie to school,

and I checked him out, I believe, at 2:30.

Stevie told me a hundred times, probably a thousand, on the way home:

"I love you, mama." "I love you too, son." And it was just constant.

We got home, first thing I asked him, "Do you have any homework?"

He said, "I did, but I did it in school."

And he hung his homework on the refrigerator.

And Michael Moore came up,

and they started asking, could Stevie go to Michael's house?

And I said, "No, I'm getting ready for work, I'm cooking supper."

Both of them, you know, begging:

"Please, please, please, we'll be back," and all that.

I gave in and I said, "Okay." I said, "But, boy, you better be home by 4:30.

If you're not, I'm gonna ground you for two weeks from that bike."

I'm gonna say Christopher probably arrived at the house

around 3:35 maybe, and he asked me if Stevie was there.

I told him, I said, "I'm surprised you didn't run into him because him and Michael just left."

He left and he was gonna go searching for Stevie and Michael.

Uh, well, around 4:45, Stevie had... Still hadn't arrived.

Terry came in. I told Terry, "Well, let's go ahead and leave."

We went ahead, and he took me to work.

My night at work was a normal night.

Terry walked in, to the phone, didn't say hi, bye, nothing.

He just walked to the phone,

and I took two pieces of candy to the car and Amanda was there,

and I asked her, "Where's Bubba?" And she said, "Mama, we can't find him."

And I thought the worst, that he was dead.

I got out of the car, went through this door, got out of my uniform,

put sweats on and put a T-shirt on.

Because all I was trying to focus on is where's Stevie, where's he at,

and I gotta get out there, and I gotta start searching.

Last time we saw him was about 6:30 yesterday evening.

What's...? Give me your name.

My name is Mark Byers.

Okay. Has your son...? Has this ever happened before?

None of the boys have ever gone off anywhere.

None of the three have ever been missing or taken off ever before.

What's going through your mind as a parent?

I'm scared to death. That's, you know, plain and simple.

I'm scared for the safety and welfare of all three boys.

That particular day, I'd called the West Memphis P.D.

The dispatcher Lucy answered the phone.

She said, "We've had three children missing since last night."

I said, "Well, you know, I'm gonna go help too."

I'm not seeing anything.

Not seeing no kids running around on bicycles or nothing.

And then I thought about Robin Hood Trails

as I was driving down Goodwyn, and I said:

"Well I'll... I'm gonna go over there, just get out and walk around."

I was looking around, you know, just physically looking out and about.

And then I looked into the small ditch.

That's where I saw the tennis shoe at.

I called West Memphis Police Department

to have Mike Allen meet me out here.

And so I showed him the area of the tennis shoe.

And Mike had said he was going to take it out.

Mike fell into the water.

I was looking down on him like this.

He looked up and I said, "What?"

And he said, "it feels like my leg is caught on something."

Like a log or something."

And Mike fell backwards, and when he fell backwards,

his leg came up...

and one of the little bodies was on his leg.

From the moment they told me Stevie was dead,

I really lost it, lost all touch with reality.

Pam Hobbs' son, Steve, and two of his friends

were found murdered Thursday before last.

It's more a part of my life than I would like it to be.

Because frankly I'd like to be able

to not have those three 8-year-old boys' pictures in my mind.

What you found, you found three boys

that had been hog-tied and thrown in the water.

It appeared that they had been sexually mutilated.

That appears to be cult-related. The West Memphis Police Department

a lot of times would ask me about occult things as though I were the guru.

I probably was because there wasn't anybody else that was doing it.

This program is designed to help law enforcement officers

better understand Satanic cults.

I got some books and I spoke to police organizations around the country

that had some experience with it.

Okay, we have a rope here. If you look at it closely...

I don't know if the camera can pick this up.

But there's blood on this noose.

The police department asked me to put together a list of people

that we had on probation that might be involved in that type of activity.

Well, the guy that I knew that was involved the most in it

was Damien Echols.

The two guys he ran with, Jessie and Jason...

Jessie would fight.

Jason was not very aggressive, in that respect,

but I believe he would do anything that Damien asked him to do.

Eight months have passed since the three boys were killed.

Cameras are in place and miles of cable laid

in preparation for this highly publicized murder trial.

I guess they found that those three were the most likely to have done it.

Move back.

And then, of course, they had the confession from Jessie.

The most compelling evidence yet was introduced in open court.

Misskelley's taped confession made to police.

I saw Damien hit this one... Hit this one boy real bad.

Then he start screwing him and stuff.

Jason turned around and hit Steve Branch

and started doing the same thing.

Michael Moore took off running, so I chased him

and grabbed him and held him until they got there, and then I left.

If he does not run through the woods

and chase him down and bring him back, Michael Moore lives.

Did Damien invite you to some meeting?

He did. A cult, Satanic meeting. Okay.

Tell me some of the things y'all do, being in this cult.

We go out, kill dogs and stuff.

Some of my friends had said they saw a hog's head out here,

and they saw the body in a plastic bag.

The State is now trying to prove motive in this case,

calling this a cult-related killing. Whether that will be enough

to sway the women and men sitting on this jury remains to be seen.

Damien, any comment about the charges?

Did you do it?

I got a letter in the mail telling me that I had summons to be on the jury.

And I didn't want to be on there in the beginning.

But I didn't know how to get out of it.

Is it your opinion and do you want to tell this jury

that these crimes were motivated by occult beliefs?

Yes.

Blood is the life force.

They prefer to have a child that is young.

There's evidence of genital mutilation, and the red is the shaft of the penis.

Jason told me how he dismembered the kid.

He sucked the blood from the penis and the scrotum

and put the balls in his mouth.

You take this knife and drag it, and it rips and tears.

The knife is being twisted and the victim is moving.

Just like in the picture.

Damien, he had a book that he wrote in. It was pretty dark.

A lot of death, a lot of... He talked about dead children.

"Thirsty for blood and the terror of mortal men."

Look favorably on my sacrifice."

I think they went out in the woods.

They may not have been meaning to kill them.

And then it just got out of control.

And Damien, I think he was the mastermind

over Jason and Misskelley.

I do believe that. I do.

You begin to see inside Damien Echols.

And you look inside there and there's not a soul in there.

I know he's guilty, you know.

I can't imagine the fear going through them boys

watching one another get killed. Knowing they was next.

I can't believe the heinous crime.

"We, the jury, find Damien Echols guilty of capital murder"

in the death of Stevie Branch.

Guilty of capital murder in the death of Chris Byers.

"Guilty of capital murder in the death of Michael Moore."

A message has to be sent. You can't be involved in murder

and expect to get away with it.

Misskelley was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Michael Moore.

And 40 years for the murders of Steven Branch and Christopher Byers.

"We have determined that Jason Baldwin shall be sentenced

to life imprisonment without parole."

If I'd been on the jury, I sure would have found them guilty.

If there is ever an appropriate case for the death penalty in Arkansas,

you've got it in your hands now. That they burn in hell.

They wanna worship the devil, let them meet him. I hope they do soon.

"We the jury have determined that Damien Echols"

shall be sentenced to death by lethal injection."

I was kind of, I guess, happy, if I could...

Might say that word, that everybody else was as angry at them as I was.

Now my boy can play

and go on about his life in heaven the way it is,

and I'll go on with mine the best I can.

And I'm glad it's over.