Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three

by Greg Day

  71 There was initially much disagreement between Stidham and co-counsel Greg Crowe on whether Misskelley should cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for leniency in sentencing. In the end, though, they both agreed that he should remain silent, apparently to take his chances on appeal, should Echols or Baldwin prevail in their upcoming trial.

  72 Mark has since stated numerous times, including to this author, that he had surely cut his thumb while trimming venison with the knife, though he acknowledged that the knife wasn’t very well suited for it. Thirteen years later, the knife was sent out for more stringent testing using technology not available in 1994. As of this writing, it has been returned, but no results have been revealed.

  73 The issue of mosquito presence would also play a role in Damien Echols’s Rule 37 hearing, conducted between May 1998 and March 1999. There had long been concern among supporters that the absence of mosquito bites on the victims’ bodies was proof that they had been killed elsewhere and disposed of at Robin Hood Hills. Prosecution expert witnesses testified that because there is a span of time between a mosquito bite and the accompanying swelling of tissue, the victims could have died before the bites became visible. Dr. Neal Haskell, in particular, testified that tiny pinpricks could be present on a body that were indicative of mosquitoes feeding, but that the lack of blood pressure in the body would prevent them from getting food and thereby keep a typical “mosquito bite” from forming.

  74 Anyone who spends much time outdoors, however, can attest to the fact that the presence of mosquitoes ebbs and flows over the course of an evening.

  75 The Baldwin defense team was considering how to weave this “motive” into their defense. In the HBO film Paradise Lost, Baldwin defense attorneys Paul Ford and Robin Wadley discuss this very topic with Dr. James Rasicot, listed as the defense team psychologist. Rasicot not only believes that Mark had the means and opportunity but also offers what he thinks is proof of motive. “[Byers] has got the motive. His son, who he’s upset with—his son is the only one who is mutilated; the other two weren’t mutilated.” He adds, “All the pieces fit together.” Rasicot never gave testimony at trial.

  76 From the film Paradise Lost

  77 At the time, Mark believed this information to be accurate, though he later found out that it was a rumor. Berlinger and Sinofsky decided to leave the scene in Paradise Lost anyway, presumably because it demonstrated that false allegations about the defendants were making their way around West Memphis.

  78 When police interviewed John Kingsbury on August 5, 1994, Kingsbury told Officer Dale Weaver that it was Byers who had taken him to Brenda Atwood’s house on Osage Drive; Mark says it was Kingsbury who took him.

  79 John and Donna Kingsbury had two boys, approximately ten and seven years old. The older boy, though younger than Ryan by a few years, was still old enough that the two spent some time together. According to Mark’s account, the older Kingsbury son was over in Mark’s yard with Ryan and a few other boys. The younger Kingsbury boy came over to the Byerses’ house and began throwing rocks at the other boys and generally being “belligerent,” refusing to leave when the other boys told him to. After one of the rocks struck a window on the house, Mark came to the door and told the rock-throwing boy to go home. He refused. Mark finally went over and “dusted the britches” of the boy with the plastic end of a flyswatter and sent him home crying. Shortly thereafter, John Kingsbury came storming over, shouting, “Why’d you hit my boy? Who do you think you are?” The two argued back and forth until things got ugly, at which point Mark suggested to Kingsbury that he get the hell off his property before he “beat a mudhole right in his ass.” Although many, including KAIT TV News in Jonesboro, as well as Mara Leveritt in Devil’s Knot, reported that the Kingsburys sought and were granted a restraining order against Mark Byers, they neglected to mention that there were two restraining orders granted that day; Mark also requested and was granted a restraining order against John Kingsbury, preventing him from coming onto the Byerses’ property.

  80 After a day of house painting, Mark had promised Ryan that he’d take him and his friends fishing on Lake Thunderbird in Cherokee Village. While Ryan stayed at the house to clean up and wait for a friend, Justin Copeland, to arrive, Mark went into town to pay a propane gas bill and to have a gunsmith take a look at a .22 caliber rifle that he was considering buying; the firing pin was broken, and Mark wanted to know whether it was worth fixing. Fourteen-year-old Marty Kerr and his younger cousin had gone along with Mark. On the way, they passed a group of Kerr’s schoolmates walking along the road. Kerr and one of the boys were adversaries, and the boys had been engaging in typical teenage boy behavior, the rival insulting Kerr’s mother and hitting on his girlfriend. The boys shouted taunts at Kerr as the car passed by, and Kerr insisted that Mark turn the car around. Mark told him to ignore it. Kerr said he’d just come back later on his scooter if Mark didn’t stop now, so Mark turned around and brought the car to a stop. Kerr leapt out of the car, grabbing a four-inch-long jackknife from the console of the Isuzu and palming it in the closed position, and headed toward the group of boys. Mark stepped out of the car next. From the backseat, Kerr’s young cousin scrambled out, kicking onto the ground the .22 caliber bolt-action rifle that had been lying on the floor of the car. Mark picked it up off the ground, held it at his side, and then watched as the brief fight ensued nearby. Kerr evidently got the best of the fight; the other boy, John Shaver Jr., was treated and released from the local hospital with, according to Byers, a “broken nose and a black eye.” Local news stories would say Shaver suffered a concussion. In either case, Mark and the boys picked up Ryan and Copeland and continued on to their fishing trip. When they returned at the end of the day, Hardy police chief Ernie Rose was waiting for them on the dock.

  81 Melissa’s father, Kilborn A. DeFir, died on March 2, 2005, at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

  82 Leveritt, Devils Knot, p. 313.

  83 This is Mark’s recollection. The autopsy report of Melissa Byers reveals no indication of sexual activity. Perhaps the examiner didn’t check.

  84 George Mateljan, World’s Healthiest Foods: The Guide for the Healthiest Way of Eating. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=90 Melissa’s potassium level was measured at 5.9 mmol/L (millimoles per liter). High potassium levels have been associated with sudden cardiac arrest. According to Mateljan, “elevated blood levels of potassium can be toxic, and may cause an irregular heartbeat or even heart attack. Under most circumstances, the body maintains blood levels of potassium within a tight range, so it is not usually possible to produce symptoms of toxicity through intake of potassium-containing foods and/or supplements.”

  85 From the Baptist Memorial Hospital resuscitation record prepared by Linda Krepps, RN, on March 29, 1996. The attending physician was Dr. David Kauffman.

  86 Center for Disease Control (CDC), 2003. Jim Clark, director of the state crime lab in Arkansas, pegs the number at between 4 and 8 percent of people die of undetermined causes in the United States, according to Mara Leveritt in a December 1997 article, “The Strange Demise of Melissa Byers,” on prisonpotpourri.com.

  87 Telephone conversation with author, February 12, 2007.

  88 As noted in Brent Turvey’s autopsy analysis, the words “hydromorphone” (Dilaudid) and “hydrocodone” (Vicodin) are both used. It seems most likely, given Melissa’s habit of injecting K4, that the references to hydrocodone were typographical errors. The Arkansas State Crime Lab, where the autopsy was performed, identified the substance as hydromorphone and further stated that it had passed to the urine and was negative in the blood.

  89 Mandy Lou Beasley was Mark’s schoolmate when he was growing up in Marked Tree. When Mark and Melissa moved to Cherokee Village, they ran into Beasley at Sharp County Circuit Court. Beasley was there with her boyfriend, who was facing a DUI charge. It turned out that Beasley was living around the corner from the Byerses on Hiawatha Drive. Melissa struck up a friendship w
ith Beasley, and the two often discussed getting Ryan and Beasley’s daughter, Anneleise, together, saying the two would make “beautiful babies.” Beasley became one of the neighborhood “party people,” and she and the Byerses would often party down by the Spring River. When the ambulance and police cars descended on Skyline Drive during the late afternoon of March 29, Beasley saw the commotion and came by to see what was going on, and she was there when Mark returned from the hospital. Although witness Fern Moyer told police that Beasley was Mark’s “girlfriend,” there was nothing to suggest that there was any relationship between the two prior to Melissa’s death.

  90 James “Jimmy” Lawrence may be remembered as one of two friends in Mark’s Jonesboro apartment who were filmed for Revelations: Paradise Lost 2. Lawrence made such notable remarks as “You can get mean. When mean gets mean, you can get mean” on camera. He and Mark had been friends since the two were kids in Marked Tree. James Lawrence died of heart failure in 1998; Mark was a pallbearer at his funeral.

  91 None of the restitution was ever paid.

  92 Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, Brother’s Keeper (IFC Films, 1992), DVD. Sinofsky said he read about the West Memphis murders in an article in the New York Times. According to Joe Berlinger, in his book Metallica: This Monster Lives, HBO producer Shelia Nevins had seen the story in the Times and suggested that there “could be a documentary here” and that “HBO might be interested.”

  93 Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, DVD commentary, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (Creative Thinking International, 1996). Released in “Collector’s Edition” with commentary on Paradise Lost, 2008.

  94 Joe Berlinger and Greg Milner, Metallica: This Monster Lives (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), p. 89.

  95 Vincent Bugliosi, Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder (New York, NY: Norton, 2008 p83). Bugliosi, the prosecutor for the 1970 case State of California v Charles Manson, et. al., commented that the televising of trials, though ostensibly done for the purpose of keeping the public informed, is all about entertainment:

  The media’s only motivation, though not an improper one, is commercial. Although televising trials may indeed educate the public, that obviously is not the principal reason why people watch trials such as the Menendez and Simpson cases on television. It’s a form of entertainment for them, pure and simple. Televise a breach of contract or automobile collision lawsuit and see how many people watch. The entertainment aspect of the Simpson trial became so ludicrous that time and time again, the talking heads, and those who called in on these shows, actually complained that certain lawyers and witnesses, as well as certain evidence, were too boring and dull for their tastes—which is to say they wanted, were almost demanding, better and more scintillating entertainment.

  96 Metallica donated all the music for Paradise Lost and Revelations: Paradise Lost 2 and would develop a relationship with the filmmakers that led to the documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (Paramount Films, 2004; DVD, 2005).

  97 Urban Desires, “The Interview” (1996), http://desires.com/2.4/Performance/Reviews/Paradise/Docs/interview.html.

  98 Ibid.

  99 The Movie Review Show with Robin and Laura Clifford, Show 136 (http://www.reelingreviews.com/reel136.htm).

  100 George Jared, “WM3 Judge Says Decision in Case Coming,” Jonesboro Sun, January 16, 2010.

  101 Jennie Yabroff “American Gothics” Salon.com, as reprinted in Industry Central, http://www.industrycentral.net/director_interviews/JOBE01.HTM

  102 Berlinger and Milner, Metallica: This Monster Lives.

  103 Rich Rosell “Staring at the Underbelly: An Interview with Documentary Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky” Digitally Obsessed.com http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/showinterview.php3?ID=51&

  104 The attorneys’ fees for each defendant were deducted from the honoraria when the court finally ordered payment to the defense lawyers.

  105 The film won awards at the Kansas City Film Festival, received a Peabody Award, and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Paradise Lost also won the “Golden Apple” award from the National Educational Media Network, USA, as well as the National Board of Review’s “Best Documentary” award for 1996.

  106 Konrad painted the atrocious “RIP,” a painting depicting Byers as the killer, and auctioned off at a WM3 benefit show.

  107 Annette Starke, “Life after Death,” Los Angeles CityBeat, August 2006.

  108 Comments made at the West Memphis Three support rally in Little Rock in December 2007. This is the same rally where Natalie Maines spoke and where Terry Hobbs claimed he was defamed by remarks she made.

  109 A list of questions was submitted to Joe Berlinger, including a question seeking his response to the commentary on this scene. He declined to answer.

  110 Next to Crowley’s name, Echols had also written the names of Jason Baldwin and Echols’s son, Damien Seth Azariah Echols, who was born while Damien was in jail awaiting trial.

  111 In his biography Almost Home, Damien Echols uses this spelling of the word over 20 times.

  112 Lawrence Sutin Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley New York: St. Martins Press 2000

  113 Columbia Pacific University was closed between 1995 and 2000 for dormitory violations, failure of its PhD programs to meet standards, awarding excessive credit for life experiences, and failing to hire “duly qualified” professors. In a defense challenge to allowing Griffis to testify as an expert, Judge Burnett ruled that there was no law in Arkansas requiring that an expert witness have a degree to be so qualified.

  114 Their notes said, “travel crime scene [sic] 200 times—2 years … Lied.”

  115 Author Ann Rule, in her book Green River, Running Red, (New York: Simon and Schuster 2004) which chronicles the hunt for the Green River Killer, referred to the use of the phrase “dump site” as “crass … an unfortunate way to describe where human beings had been left.” I couldn’t agree more.

  116 Since Byers usually sports some facial hair, it is difficult to tell, but there do not appear to be any noticeable scars on his face.

  117 Dilantin is the trade name of the generic drug phenytoin. The manufacturer advises to “brush and floss your teeth as directed to reduce the risk of gum disease while taking Dilantin.” This is to reduce the side effect of “swollen or tender gums.” Cerner Multum, Inc., Version 5.01. Revised May 13, 2003.

  118 According to the American Academy of Periodontology, “tobacco use may be one of the most significant risk factors in the development and progression of periodontal disease.” Additionally, following periodontal treatment or any type of oral surgery, [tobacco use] “can slow down the healing process and make the treatment results less predictable.”

  119 An e-mail was sent to the producers of Leeza in December 2008 and again in September 2009. Neither was answered.

  120 Chris Champion, “Delta Witch Trials,” Telegraph Magazine, June 4, 2005.

  121 George W. Jackson Community Mental Health Center is now the Mid-South Health Center. Medical records from that facility were not available at the time of this writing.

  122 The fact that Mark was wearing the black cowboy hat that he had donned for the famous “pumpkin shooting” scene in Paradise Lost virtually assured that he’d be recognized by someone eventually. Could this have been what he wanted?

  123 This scene was filmed six months prior to the Rule 37 hearings in Jonesboro, even though in the film it appears at the end.

  124 Such was his state of mind at that time that he told the doctors at St. Bernard’s that he had no family, that they were all dead.

  125 Ann K. Finkbeiner, After the Death of a Child: Living with Loss through the Years (New York, NY, Simon and Schuster,1996).

  126 The Rolex deal was conceived in mid-1992 as a rather simple-minded attempt to make some quick money. As it turns out, it was a little too simple. The plan was that Mark would use his relationship with a Da
llas jewelry broker to have two Rolex watches, valued at $11,000, delivered to his West Memphis home on consignment; have someone other than himself sign for them; and then deny having ever received them. The watches would then be sold and the profits split between Byers and the person signing for the package. But the broker didn’t fall for it; proof was provided that the package was delivered to Byers’s home address, and nobody cared who’d signed for it. When the broker was unable to get payment from Byers, Gary Gitchell and Bryn Ridge of the WMPD were called in. The broker wanted his money and would not press charges if he was paid. So Byers confessed and paid. How? It was well known that Byers’s financial situation was dire; he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know how he would find the money to bury his son. Now he had to come up with $10,000 for the watches or face prosecution. The Rolex case was eventually “solved” about three weeks after the murders of Christopher, Stevie, and Michael a year later. The townspeople, mostly through local churches, had started a fund drive for the families of the boys to offset funeral expenses and later to pay for the time that the families would spend in court both in Corning and in Jonesboro. Mark Byers was forced to use $7,400 given to him from this fund to reimburse the Dallas jewelry broker and avoid prosecution for fraud.

  127 There is some discrepancy here. Tosh wrote in his official report that Mark actually had tried to sell him some “pot, good stuff.” Mark didn’t have any pot, though he was planning on buying some for his personal use with the money he made from selling the Xanax.

  128 Vickers has since been promoted to lieutenant.

  129 August 1, 1999, letter from Mark to his brother.

  130 The court ruling is contained in Arkansas State Supreme Court case no. CR98-872, Reeves v. State, which reiterates the constitutional ban that provides that “no person, under any circumstances, shall be exiled from the state; banishment or exile has been defined as an order that compels a person to quit a city, place, or county for a specific period of time, or for life.”