by Greg Day
The grief that the community felt was beyond measure. Out of a school of 335 students, only 44 were in second grade. Everyone knew the boys personally, and students and faculty alike were devastated. One guidance counselor, Lila S. Lovely, said, “The children were crying and I was crying, and I just told ’em, ‘Y’all go ahead and cry.’” 63 Their classmates decorated the boys’ desks with little “memorials,” drawings made with crayons and construction paper, paper chains, and Valentine’s hearts. The children expressed their emotions, which ranged from sadness and fear to anger, to the grief counselors who had been sent to the school. “We’re going to make the counseling available for as many days as needed,” said Gary Adams, the assistant superintendent for elementary schools in West Memphis. Within a few weeks of the murders, the local Cub Scouts were planning the erection of a memorial “reading grove” in the school yard near the Weaver Elementary School library.
Christopher’s funeral took place at the Ingram Boulevard Baptist Church exactly one week after his murder.64 The service was conducted by Mark’s brother-in-law, Pastor Sonny Simpson. The police video surveillance cameras caught images of all those attending, as is standard procedure in homicide cases. Mark could be seen literally holding Melissa up as they made their way into the church. The media were lined up on the street like piranha, waiting for an attention-grabbing video clip for the evening news. It was the same at the other boys’ funerals. Todd Moore said, “The reporters would be watching, and if someone came out and they looked okay, they’d ignore them, but if they were crying, the cameras would rush them. It was disgusting.”
Although they were trying to deal privately with their loss, the Byerses experienced a full-on media onslaught. Everywhere they went, they were confronted with cameras and microphones and reporters whose need for a quote outweighed any privacy concerns they might have had for the victims’ families. Relatives and friends helped where they could, sitting with the couple and bringing meals for example, but the media was relentless, and it was impossible to escape their presence. This was becoming a national story, and the attention paid to Mark Byers in particular initially repelled him. Ultimately, however, he held it in a kind of perverse embrace until it threatened to swallow him whole, and it was this dance with the media, among other things, that would sully his reputation for the foreseeable future—perhaps permanently.
If Mark became enamored with the publicity, he had plenty of help, most of it coming from two young filmmakers from New York, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. Already minor celebrities in the world of documentary filmmaking, largely because of the success of their film Brother’s Keeper, the pair were savvy in their craft and well prepared to enter the world of the West Memphis Three. Upon hearing about the bizarre murder case in Arkansas, with its satanic overtones and themes of “devil worship,” the New York filmmakers descended on West Memphis. Armed with a budget from HBO—one that would grow considerably over the coming year, though never approaching “feature film” proportions—Berlinger and Sinofsky were granted an unprecedented level of access to the courtroom proceedings. They also had access to a grieving and cash-strapped John Mark Byers, and they leveraged this advantage to the hilt. Berlinger and Sinofsky sensed early on that once Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley were taken out of the equation, Mark Byers was going to be their star draw.
Mark and Melissa were living in almost total seclusion at the East Barton Street house when Berlinger and Sinofsky first contacted them sometime in late June or early July 1993, just a few months after the murders. The filmmakers pulled up in front of the Byerses’ house and sat there for a moment. Suddenly, they heard a low, menacing growl from behind their ears. “What’re you doin’ here? What do y’all want?” When they turned to look, they saw a couple of scary-looking dudes—John Mark Byers and Andy Taylor—standing outside the car. A local reporter who had led the filmmakers to the Byers residence hurriedly assured Mark that Sinofsky and Berlinger were “alright.”65 The filmmakers informed Mark that they would be doing a documentary on the trial and that they wanted his permission to film him. They promised to pay a total of $7,500 for Mark and Melissa’s appearances in the film. The Hobbses and the Moores had been given similar “honoraria” for their participation, as had the families of the West Memphis Three.66 Mark thought that this would be an opportunity to vent his rage at the tragedy that had befallen his family, but there was also a practical concern: the Byerses were broke. Since the murders, Mark had effectively closed his shop out in the backyard, so there was no money coming into the house, aside from his paltry disability check. The money from HBO wouldn’t be much, but it might keep them from losing their home. Mark ended up overplaying his hand in the film, but it would be three years later before the world would get their first glimpse of John Mark Byers in full performance mode.
Getaway
With the funeral and the initial police investigation behind them, Mark and Melissa scraped together what little money they had and took Ryan for a short vacation to the Gulf Coast during the summer of 1994. With all that had happened since May 5, everyone was emotionally drained, and Mark felt it would do everybody good to get away for a while. The family drove to the Gulfport-Biloxi area in Mississippi and hit the beaches. Ryan was thirteen at the time, and the sun and surf seemed to be just what he needed. They hoped that he might be able to forget the world that had fallen apart around him, if only for a short time. Mark and Melissa felt hollow and empty inside; they were just going through the motions. Even in this setting, seemingly so far removed from the madness still going on in West Memphis, Mark could not escape notice by the public. During a day trip to Ship Island, a barrier island boasting the finest beaches on the Mississippi Gulf coast, for example, Mark was lazing on an inflatable raft, letting the breeze and surf push him around while being warmed by the summer sun. A tourist floated up next to him—he turned out to be an attorney from St. Louis—and said, “Hey, aren’t you that fella from America’s Most Wanted?” There was simply no place to hide.
After spending a few days on the Mississippi coast, the family drove east to Pensacola, Florida, and spent several days there. They did more of the same, sunning, floating, trying to forget. Soon, however, the money ran out, and they needed to return to West Memphis. It hadn’t been much, but Mark and Melissa felt that any small respite from the hellish existence they faced back in Arkansas was worth a try.
Thanksgiving 1993 was the first major holiday following Christopher’s murder, and the family didn’t quite know how they were going to approach it. It was Mark’s sister in Little Rock, the same sister who had taken Mark in after his drug overdose in 1977, who insisted that the family come to her house for the holiday. Mark was relieved, but Melissa had one condition: the stress would be too much for her to face straight, she said. Although she had not used in almost a year, she drove into Memphis and scored several Dilaudids to take to Little Rock. The dinner, partly because of Melissa’s highly drugged state, was a disaster. When Christmas came around, the couple didn’t even bother to put up a tree.
The Misskelley Trial
On January 26, 1994, the trial of Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr. officially began in Corning, Arkansas. Dan Stidham, Misskelley’s attorney, and the defense attorneys for Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin had won change of venue motions for their clients because of the extensive publicity the case was receiving. Misskelley’s trial had been moved 110 miles north of West Memphis, but there probably wasn’t a locale in the state where a jury who had heard nothing about the case could be impaneled. The leaks to the press had been rampant, including the most damaging evidence against Misskelley, the thirty-four-minute taped confession. Judge Pal Rainey’s order sealing the affidavits that had been filed was not enough to halt the leeching of information to the press. The court, however, decided that between the change of venue, the voir dire process, and the judge’s instructions to the jury, a fair trial would be possible. High-profile cases were tried all the time in America, and trial judge David B
urnett declared that his courtroom would be one of order and the rule of law, though many would come to question the latter.
After a number of pretrial hearings to determine his mental capacity and the validity of his confession, as well as to make the determination that he could face a death sentence if convicted, Misskelley was finally going to stand trial for the murders, nearly eight months after his arrest. The media attention took on a new sense of urgency, and the assaults on anyone who had anything to do with the case resumed. The families of the victims were already emotionally fragile, and it was all they could do to hold each other up as they sat in the courtroom day after day.67
The trial was supposed to begin on Monday, January 24. Two weeks prior to the planned start of the trial, however, Inspector Gary Gitchell received a Federal Express package from Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. The package contained a folding Kershaw hunting knife. It was smooth and sharp at the very tip and serrated the rest of the way down. Nine inches long unfolded, with a pistol-type grip on the bottom edge of the handle, it also came with a nifty Velcro case so that it could be worn on a belt. The knife had one other very interesting feature: it had blood on it—human blood, in fact, blood that was consistent with Christopher Byers’s blood and, curiously, Mark Byers’s blood as well.68 It was also consistent with about 9 percent of the population, or an estimated 24 million other people in America.69 Not exactly a smoking gun, but obviously a major concern to the police and the district attorney. In a case with so little physical evidence, the emergence of the knife was potential dynamite for both the defense and the prosecution.
The knife had been given to HBO cameraman Doug Cooper one night while the crew was having dinner at the Byers home around Christmas time, during the filming of Paradise Lost.70 Mark had become friendly with Cooper and at one point noticed that Cooper was carrying a pocket knife, a “dinky little thing, dull and sorta useless.” Cooper said he used the knife to cut cables and such in his camera work, so Mark showed him the Kershaw. Cooper liked it, so Mark gave it to him. It had been a birthday present from Melissa, and Mark had never liked it much. The serrated edge made cutting meat difficult, and it was impossible to keep sharp, so he wasn’t able to use it for hunting. When Cooper, along with Berlinger and Sinofsky, noticed that there were traces of what appeared to be blood down in the hinged portion where the blade folded up into the handle, they sent it to Gary Gitchell. Gitchell received the knife on January 9 and immediately sent it to Genetic Design, a DNA forensics lab in North Carolina, for testing. The police received the results on January 26, the first day of the Misskelley trial. Mark was not present for that first day; he was at the Clay County sheriff’s office being interviewed by Gitchell and Detective Bryn Ridge. The thoroughness of the interview was vital. Once the knife was made available to the defense, Mark would be subjected to questioning where it mattered most: on the witness stand.
At 9:45 a.m. on January 26, at the Clay County sheriff’s office, Gitchell began his questioning of Mark Byers.
Gitchell: What kind of knives do you have?
Byers: Uh, it’s uh, Case double-edge, and it’s a hunting knife; it’s got a narrow blade about a one-half-inch wide on it. My brother bought it for me when I was eight years old, for my birthday.
Gitchell: Okay.
Byers: I had one other knife—it’s called a Kershaw; you know, it’s got like a serrated edge, like a Ginsu.
Gitchell: Right.
Byers: And, uh, one of the men on the film crew from New York City—I think his name is Coop [HBO cameraman Doug Cooper], the one that had the camera—I don’t know if he’s here or not, but one day when he was here, we were talking about knives, and he was real friendly to me, and as a Christmas gift I gave it to him. You know, that’s all there was to it. If you ever want to see it or anything, he’s in possession of it. I gave it to him as a Christmas gift.
More important than how the knife came into Cooper’s possession, however, is the question of what significance, if any, this discovery had. For Dan Stidham it was the culmination of months of frustration that all three defense teams were experiencing during the discovery phase (the period prior to trial during which defense attorneys are able to examine all the evidence the state has against their clients). In a meeting held in the chambers of Judge David Burnett on the day before the scheduled start of the Misskelley trial, Stidham complained that he had insufficient time to evaluate the significance of the knife, or to decide how or even if he would use it at trial. Although he referred to the knife having “some sort of exculpatory information” was he actually considering using this information to accuse Mark Byers, on the stand, of committing the murders of his son and two other little boys? Why would any defense attorney want to take that kind of chance with a jury? How well would accusing the parents of one of the victims go over? Stidham already had Misskelley’s taped confession to deal with, and the knife would be superfluous unless he was able to neutralize that evidence. The Kershaw was never introduced at the Misskelley trial, and Mark Byers did not testify.
Most of the testimony at the Misskelley trial consisted of defense attempts to establish alibi witnesses for Jessie’s whereabouts. The prosecution was able to nullify the testimony of these witnesses on cross-examination, and even with the lack of physical evidence, they were able to obtain a conviction. Misskelley’s own words during his confession to police on June 3, 1993, sealed his fate.
Ridge: What did he [Echols] hit him [Christopher Byers] with?
Jessie: He hit him with his fist and bruised him all up real bad, and then Jason turned around and hit Steve Branch.
Ridge: Okay.
Jessie: And started doing the same thing. Then the other one took off—Michael Moore took off running—so I chased him and grabbed him and hold him, until they got there, and then I left.
Using the imagery evoked by the confession, prosecutor Brent Davis drilled home the significance of Misskelley’s statement in his summation to the jury:
Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll never know [if Michael Moore’s escape would have caused Echols and Baldwin to abandon the attack and flee] because Jessie Misskelley Jr. didn’t let Michael Moore get away. He chased him down like an animal and brought him back, and as a result of his action, Michael Moore’s dead, Stevie Branch is dead, Chris Byers is dead. And there’s no getting around it.
The taped portion of the confession—two segments totaling forty-six minutes—was played in open court in the presence of the jury. Misskelley would confess again, post-conviction, and against the strongest possible objection from attorneys Dan Stidham and Greg Crow.71 Misskelley must have been considering making a deal for a reduction in his sentence in exchange for his testimony against Echols and Baldwin. Much later, it was rumored that the state was prepared to offer Jessie fifty years in exchange for his testimony against Echols and Baldwin, but it will never be known for certain, since no deal was ever made. On February 4, 1994, Misskelley was sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree murder of Michael Moore and to twenty years each for the second-degree murders of Steve Branch and Christopher Byers. All sentences were to run consecutively.
One Down, Two to Go—the Echols/Baldwin Trial
With the Misskelley trial behind them, Mark and Melissa were preparing themselves to relive, yet again, the events of May 5, 1993, at the Echols/Baldwin trial, which began on February 28, 1994, three weeks after the Misskelley verdict. Something that attorneys for both defendants were interested in exploiting was the issue of the Kershaw knife. Mark’s statement to Gary Gitchell and Bryn Ridge on January 26 was convoluted and difficult to follow. He had stated that he had no idea how blood came to be on the knife, yet at the Echols/Baldwin trial, under direct examination by Val Price, he said he had cut his thumb while using the knife to trim venison. The decision to put Mark Byers on the stand was a difficult one for the defense to make. In one of their “strategy sessions” shown in Paradise Lost, they make the call. “Obviously, we thought long and hard about mentionin
g a father as a possible suspect,” Val Price said. Ron Lax added, “You know, we had suspicions even before the knife showed up.” What was the best way to get that information to the jury? Price, co-counsel Scott Davidson, and Lax all agreed: put Byers on the stand.
That there was a communication problem between the investigators and Mark, as well as between Mark and Price, was obvious, and this caused more confusion than it cleared up when Price questioned Mark about the knife on the witness stand. Val Price, a stocky man with a bulldog-like face, tried to appear as if he was in control of his witness, but Mark proved very difficult to pin down. Price’s bluster and feigned disgust with Byers and the responses he gave did little to help. Price plowed ahead into territory that Dan Stidham, Greg Crow (attorney for Misskelley), and Paul Ford and Robin Wadley (attorneys for Baldwin) had avoided. The chief question among the defense had been, “How do we handle Mark Byers?” Recklessly, Price waded in.
Price: Alright, do you remember giving the answer [to Inspector Gitchell], “I think Coop. No, that knife had not been used at all; it has just been kept up—put in my dresser—and I didn’t use it, and the reason why was because of the serrated edges.” Do you recall giving that answer to Inspector Gitchell on the 26th [of January]?