6 posts tagged “john mark byers”

Dan Stidham and, surprisingly to some, John Mark Byers, talk sense, acknowedging the impact of new evidence presented in Damien Echols' federal writ. Brent Davis on the other hand continues to live in the past with his confidence in the botched investigation of the Robin Hood Hills Murders, denying new technology and its revelations.

KAIT-8
Jonesboro, AR - Will Carter Reports
West Memphis Three: A closer look at the trials and new evidence.

"There's still no evidence linking these kids to that crime. The evidence points elsewhere," said Dan Stidham, Jesse Misskelley's long-time attorney.

The news he speaks of has been swirling worldwide since Monday when attorneys of the West Memphis Three filed a federal appeal stating that DNA evidence proves the innocence of the three boys convicted of murder in 1994.

"I don't see how anyone, how any competent person, could look at the evidence and come away without thinking there is something horribly, horribly wrong," said Stidham.

New evidence presented this week links gashes and scratches found on the three eight year old victims bodies to animal predation - meaning the boys fell victim to predatory animals after they were already dead.

"That brings a very, very important dimension to the case because it completely destroys the prosecution's theory, which of course is that this is a satanic-ritualistic homicide," said Stidham.

And the guilt of the West Memphis Three is fading fast in the public eye and now that of victims families.

"I believed with all my heart you killed my son, and I'm sorry for that."

That statement was made Thursday night by John Mark Byers in an interview with World News Tonight.

"I was a little bit stunned because I never thought that I would hear him say those words. He's been so adamant about his statements over the course of the last 14 years," said Stidham.

And that statement by the father of a victim is just one more reason the convictions of the West Memphis Three could eventually be overturned.

"I think that's very important, because if they can recognize that surely an appellate court can recognize that, and surely the Attorney General and the prosecuting attorney can recognize that. We can fix this. It's not too late to do the right thing," said Stidham.

So, with that said, we now take a closer look at the trials that lead to the convictions of the West Memphis Three back in 1994.

"These kids were throw away kids. They came from very poor families. They didn't have a chance," said Stidham.

The lack of money for Jesse Misskelly, Jason Baldwin, and Damien Echols could have been the very thing that convicted them of murder 14 years ago.

"The reason they were convicted is because of the satanic panic that occurred and existed here back in 1993. These were very horrible crimes. It was a national kind of crime that everyone was watching," said Stidham.

And with worldwide attention on the case, the pressure was on for police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and most importantly the jurors.

"The result was verdicts based on fear and panic and not on anything reliable or scientific," said Stidham.

Now some 14 years later, DNA evidence could eventually overturn convictions of the West Memphis Three, but that is something that would prove mistakes were made and the killer or killers are still on the loose.

And in 1993 it was the desperation of finding the killers that led straight to the West Memphis Three.

"Those three kids stuck out like a sore thumb in West Memphis in 1993. They were the perfect patsies. All the stars and all of the moons lined up, and what happened happened," said Stidham.

But not without a lot of help from the confession of Jesse Misskelley.

His long time attorney says this was a big mistake.

"Misskelley's confession was not admissible, yet they all said they knew about it and they considered it in their deliberation. That is a gross violation of all concepts of our ideals of justice and due process. I've always been stunned that Mr. Echols and Mr. Baldwin were convicted," said Stidham.

But what's done is done, and until the three are exhonorated - there is no price tag that can describe freedom from a wrongful conviction.

"Someone is on death row. If he is executed we cannot go back and undo that. Nobody can write a check to someone big enough to give them 14 and a half years of their life back. I don't think it matters. I think what matters is that we get it right. We still have a chance for justice," said Stidham.

We talked with prosecutor Brent Davis who wouldn't comment other than to say that he still believes the West Memphis Three are guilty of the crimes they were convicted on in 1994.

Stay with Region 8 News as we continue to follow these new developments in the 14 year old case.

Video link to John Mark Byers speaking declaring his new belief that Damien, Jason and Jessie are innocent. He does nothing halfway. Watch video here.

John Mark Byers has a change of heart.

COMMERCIAL APPEAL
By Marc Perrusquia
Originally published 04:20 p.m., October 29, 2007
Updated 04:20 p.m., October 29, 2007

New DNA evidence filed today offers fresh hope to three men who claim they were falsely convicted in the horrific 1993 West Memphis child murders and points a finger at a stepfather who sat through two sensational trials in a front row as a grieving parent.

Pam Hobbs tells members of the media that she has no comment outside the offices of Inquisitor Inc. Monday afternoon. Hobbs and family members of three boys murdered in West Memphis in 1993 met to go over new evidence in the case.

Mark Byers heads into the offices of Inquisitor Inc. Monday. Byers and family members of three boys murdered in West Memphis in 1993 met to go over new evidence in the case.
        
Forensic scientists retained in a new defense bid to overturn the convictions also contend that state pathologists and prosecutors made grave errors in analyzing wounds on the bodies of three 8-year-old boys found nude and hogtied in a watery ditch.

The bodies bore hundreds of wounds including a reported castration — evidence of a ritualistic, satanic slaying, prosecutors suggested at trial.

Prosecutors’ assertions of a satanic motive was key to the convictions of then-teenagers Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, all widely rumored to have been involved in cult activities. The three, all now in their 30s, are in prison; Echols is on Death Row.

However, forensic reports offered by the defense attribute nearly all those injuries to predators — possibly dogs or raccoons — who fed on the bodies after death.

West Memphis Asst. Police Chief Mike Allen said this afternoon that he hasn’t received full details of the DNA testing, yet said he stands by the convictions.

“I personally think they do have the three right individuals in jail,’’ said Allen, who investigated the murders as a detective in 1993.

He said defense lawyers are trying to make a suspect out of Terry Hobbs, a stepfather of one of the victims, just as they had once pointed fingers at another parent, John Mark Byers.

“It’s just like Mark Byers, for 14 years they tried to make him a suspect,’’ Allen said, dismissing new defense claims that two hairs now link Hobbs to the crime scene.

DNA testing by the defense determined that Hobbs was among less than one percent of the population who couldn’t be excluded as the donor of a hair fragment found on one of the bodies and that a second hair found nearby likely came from one of Hobbs’ friends.

News of the first hair broke this summer, and Hobbs told reporters then that his hair could have landed on any of the boys through normal contact with them while they were alive.

However, news of the second hair — reportedly from a friend who was playing guitar with Hobbs in the hours before the boys disappeared — adds intrigue.

“It’s questionable that even that the (first) hair they found was that of Hobbs,’’ Allen said, but when asked of the second hair he said, “I don’t know if it would be explainable or not.’’

Hobbs couldn’t be reached today. A cell phone he carried earlier this year has been disconnected.

The new defense evidence is incorporated in a writ of habeas corpus filed today in federal court in Little Rock seeking the release of the defendants, known as the West Memphis Three by a growing network of supporters including some well-known and wealthy Hollywood actors and pop musicians.

The filing seeks federal intervention in the case. Lawyers want the federal court to overturn the convictions of all three.

The three, all indigent and represented by court-appointed counsel at trial, now have a defense with deep pockets and resources to attract big names in the forensic pathology and to conduct expensive DNA testing.

Scientific testing in the case was authorized in a 2003 court order and has taken years to complete. Its completion adds a dimension of anticipation to a case that has long puzzled and mesmerized the Mid-South.

From the moment the bodies of West Memphis second-graders Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Steve Branch were pulled from a rainy-weather creek in a patch of woods along Interstate-40 on May 6, 1993, the case has stirred great fear and unending legal twists. Now there’s yet another.

A key finding of the DNA testing that Echols’s defense team conducted in DNA laboratories in Virginia and California involves two hairs found at the crime scene. Echols’ lawyers say the hairs link Hobbs — Steve Branch’s stepfather — to the crime scene.

A hair fragment attributed to Hobbs was found by police in 1993 in a shoelace use to tie the hands and feet of victim Michael Moore, defense lawyers wrote in the writ. The second hair found nearby on a tree root appears to have come from a friend, David Jacoby, the writ says.

Defense lawyers wrote in the 193-page writ that they can’t say for certain that Hobbs was involved in the murders, yet they note that the two hairs didn’t come from the victims or the defendants.

“That is an exculpatory fact of great importance,’’ defense attorneys wrote.

In a case light on physicial evidence, the hairs loom large. The convictions were built around a confession by Misskelley, a troubled youth with a low IQ, who told police how he watched as Echols and Baldwin sexually assualted and beat the boys.

“Certainly had the victims been forcibly sodomized by Echols and Baldwin, as claimed by Jessie Misskelley, it is inconceivable that those assaults could have been accomplished without leaving any genetic material.’’

The writ also tells how a team of leading forensic scientists retained by the defense believe that state investigators grossly misinterpreted wounds on the victims.

The defense forensic team, including Dr. Michael Baden, the celebrated former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, concluded that hundreds of wounds of the victims came from predators who fed on the bodies after they were dumped in the creek.

Those findings are key on several fronts. Students of the case have long marveled at the absence of blood at the crime scene. Yet defense experts now say the answer is simple: The victims were dead when most of the injuries were incurred and dead bodies of the deceased don’t bleed.

A state pathologist had testified at trial that victim Christopher Byers was castrated — something Misskelley said he witnessed in his confession. That, too, was puzzling because the state pathologist, Dr. Frank J. Peretti, said such an unusual and jagged removal would have taken him hours to perfrom under pristine conditions in a lab.

Yet defense experts say there was no castration. Rather, they concluded, the boys’ penis and testicles were removed by a predator that pulled the organs off in a manner similar industrial accidents known as “degloving.’’