West Memphis Three | No Kind of Justice | 4

0:00Jessie Misskelley:American scandal uses dramatizations that are based on true events. Some elements, including dialogue, might be invented, but everything is based on historical research. This episode contains descriptions of murder and violence against children. Listener discretion is advised.

0:32Jessie Misskelley:It's 1997 in Perigold, Arkansas. 34-year-old attorney Dan Stidham sits in his office, surrounded by stacks of paperwork. It's been three years since the teenagers Jesse Miskelley, Damian Echols, and Jason Baldwin were convicted of murdering three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Stidham represented Miskelley at trial and has continued working for him unpaid ever since. It's not been easy. Last year, Stidham and other lawyers representing Eccles and Baldwin took the cases to the Arkansas Supreme Court, but judges there backed the original verdict. Still, Stidham remains convinced all three young men are innocent, and he's determined to prove it.

1:13Jessie Misskelley:A criminal profiler named Brent Turvey has recently volunteered to examine the forensic evidence against the so-called West Memphis Three, and now he's come to Stidham's office to present his findings.

1:28Jessie Misskelley:Turvey pulls a manila envelope from his briefcase and spreads out a series of graphic photos on the desk. Stidham stands up. He's seen the images before, but they're still shocking. He looks at Turvey. Yeah, these tell a story, don't they? But I don't think they tell the state's story. One of the cornerstones of the prosecution's argument was that these were satanic, ritualistic homicides committed by a cult. You see anything here that would be indicative of that? No, most certainly not. To my eyes, there's no obvious ritual element here at all. In fact, it strikes me as something more reactionary, a crime done in anger.

2:02Jessie Misskelley:Huh, what makes you say that? Well, the violence is very unfocused, over the top even. Two of the victims, Christopher Byers and Stevie Branch, had many more injuries than Michael Moore. And this suggests to me that there was a punitive aspect to the crime. Punitive? Is that an alternative theory? Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I think it's more plausible that the victims were killed by someone they trusted. If a group of strangers abducted these boys, they would have been reported missing almost immediately. Well, is there anything in the photos that you think might have been missed in the original autopsy?

2:34Jessie Misskelley:Turby nods and fishes out a couple of close-up pictures of the victims. Yeah, I found these marks all over the bodies. There's one especially clear injury on the forehead here. You can tell by the dome-shaped pattern. That's a bite mark. A bite mark? Yeah, and the good thing about bite marks is that they're about just the best forensic evidence we could hope for. Not only can we match a bite mark to a specific person, just like a fingerprint, but we can know for sure the person responsible committed an act of violence. And what do you think this says about the culprit? Well, if you showed this to an ER doctor, they would immediately suspect the parents of child abuse.

3:09Jessie Misskelley:Those are typically the cases in which you see injuries like this. So what are the next steps to confirm your findings? Now, the best thing to do is find a specialist, a forensic odontologist. They could tell for sure whether these are bite marks or not. Then from there, you can take an impression of your client's teeth. And if that impression doesn't match the bite marks, well, then in my mind, you've got hard evidence that someone else is the killer. This is the breakthrough Dan Stidham has been waiting for, something that might convince a judge to take a second look at his client's case. So as soon as his meeting with Brent Turby is over, Stidham calls Jesse Miskelley in prison to deliver the good news.

3:47Jessie Misskelley:his fight for freedom might finally be coming to an end.

4:17Damien Echols:who we go back in time to meet benedict arnold the spy who betrayed the american revolution as america fights for freedom from britain arnold emerges as one of the rebels greatest generals but when his loyalty is pushed to the limit he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the rebellion and make george washington a prisoner follow the spy who now wherever you listen to podcasts you can also listen to the full season of the spy who betrayed the american revolution early and ad free on audible

4:52Jessie Misskelley:From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American Scandal.

5:16Jessie Misskelley:By 1997, the West Memphis Three had been imprisoned for three years. Jesse Miskelley and Jason Baldwin were at the beginning of life sentences, while the accused ringleader Damian Eccles was awaiting execution on death row. Many observers were already critical of the way the police had handled the case. They believed the three teenagers had been railroaded by investigators and that the real killer was still on the loose. But after the decision of the Arkansas Supreme Court to reject their appeals, the young men were running out of options. What they needed was new evidence. and that's why the findings of profiler Brent Turvey were so important.

5:52Jessie Misskelley:A forensic odontologist examined the crime scene photographs and compared them to dental impressions taken from the West Memphis Three. None were a match. That gave Damien Eccles' lawyers an opening. They filed what's called a Rule 37 petition, which allowed the original trial judge to re-examine the conviction and potentially grant a new hearing, modify Eccles' sentence, or even release him altogether. The ruling would only apply to Eccles, but from inside their prison cells, Baldwin and Miss Kelly were watching carefully. A positive result for Eccles would lay the groundwork for their release as well.

6:27Jessie Misskelley:This is Episode 4, No Kind of Justice.

6:33Jessie Misskelley:It's May 1998 before Damien Eccles' Rule 37 hearing begins. On the steps outside the courthouse in Marion, Arkansas, a few members of an online support group for the West Memphis Three speak to reporters. But as one of them answers a question, she's interrupted by the familiar figure of John Mark Byers, the stepfather of one of the murder victims, 8-year-old Christopher Byers. He's never stopped believing the West Memphis Three are guilty, and in front of the reporters and their cameras, he accuses the support group of peddling propaganda and defending child murderers. One of the support group members tries to explain the importance of the bite marks on the victims, but when Byers dismisses this new evidence, the conversation takes a turn.

7:16Jessie Misskelley:Members of the support group imply Byers may have been involved in the murders himself, and angrily, Byers reminds them that he was exonerated by the original police investigation, and despite all the vicious gossip about him since, there's still absolutely no proof linking him to the crime. The support group member fires back, urging him to prove it. She says if he's so confident about his innocence, he should submit his own dental impressions to see if they match the bites. That's when Byers drops a bombshell. He pops a set of dentures out of his mouth and holds them up to the crowd. He doesn't have any teeth, so there's no match to take.

7:51Jessie Misskelley:But when the support group members ask exactly how long he's had those dentures, Byers dodges the question. Instead, he promises to take a polygraph test to prove his innocence once and for all. Then he walks away, muttering to himself that the demonstrators are wasting their time. But while Damien Eccles' Rule 37 hearing continues behind closed doors, the questions about John Mark Byers don't go away. His criminal record has only made people more suspicious. Back in 1987, Byers was arrested for making violent threats against his ex-wife. Then, shortly before the murder of his stepson in 1993, he was accused of stealing$11 ,000 worth of Rolex watches.

8:31Jessie Misskelley:His behavior following the convictions didn't help him stay under the radar either. After moving out of West Memphis with his family, Byers was arrested again, this time for stealing$20 ,000 worth of antiques. Then, in 1996, Byers' wife Melissa died suddenly under mysterious circumstances. Byers was never arrested or charged in connection with Melissa's death, but all of it means that he's never been far from the headlines in Arkansas, and now there's growing pressure on him to submit his dental records so they can be compared with the bite marks on the victims in the West Memphis 3 case. But despite loudly proclaiming his innocence, he refuses to hand over those records.

9:11Jessie Misskelley:At one point he claims he had the dentures at the time of the murders, but later on he changes that story, saying he actually had his teeth pulled in 1997. He had a periodontal disease caused by a prescription medication. It then turns out that periodontal disease is not a known side effect of the drugs he was taking, so Byers changes his story yet again, this time blaming a series of other unspecified dental problems. In the eyes of many who follow the case, this is strange behavior, and some think Byers should now be considered the prime suspect in the murders of the three little boys. So there's some relief and some satisfaction among supporters of the West Memphis Three when Byers is arrested by the police in the spring of 1999, only it's not murder he's charged with.

9:55Jessie Misskelley:On April 19th of that year, a routine traffic stop in Arkansas is interrupted when the police officer's personal cell phone starts ringing. He doesn't recognize the number, so he answers cautiously. A male voice at the other end of the line asks if he wants to buy some more stuff. At first, the trooper thinks it's a joke, one of his buddies at the station playing a prank. But he decides to play along. He asks a few more questions, and the caller eventually claims he has marijuana available for a good price. The officer stands on the side of the highway, scratching his head. Half of him still believes he's being pranked.

10:30Jessie Misskelley:Still, he figures it should probably be checked out. So the officer tells the caller he's busy on a date and asks if he can send a friend to buy the drugs instead. The man agrees and even provides exact directions to his house. Hanging up, the trooper calls an undercover narcotics agent he knows who travels to the address, and it's him who finds John Mark Byers standing outside. Byers doesn't yet realize that he accidentally called a cop, and after a brief negotiation, he sells the undercover agent some Xanax. Byers is then arrested on the spot. The news that their biggest detractor is in legal trouble once again might provide some grim satisfaction to the West Memphis Three, but by the spring of 1999, they have bigger issues to worry about.

11:15Jessie Misskelley:Damien Echols' Rule 37 hearing in Marion has now dragged on for almost a year. Judge David Burnett has to fit the case around his other court commitments, and that means he has heard just eight days of evidence spread out over ten months. Now, though, the hearings are finally coming to an end. Sitting in court, Eccles looks very different from the young man who appeared at the original trial. Now 24 years old, his hair is still jet black, but it's cropped short, and Eccles no longer carries the rebellious air of a frustrated teenager. Instead, he wears glasses and listens carefully to the proceedings from the defense table, with his hands folded neatly in front of him.

11:52Jessie Misskelley:Beside him is a new legal team led by Houston attorney Edward Mallett. At the original trial, Eccles was represented by a public defender, but in the years that followed, he became unhappy with how his case was being handled. He was acutely aware that he was on death row and didn't think his lawyers were doing enough to save him from execution. So he found a new defense team. It was helped by his new girlfriend, Lori Davis. In early 1996, she'd seen the HBO documentary about the West Memphis case at a film festival in New York and felt moved to write Eccles a letter. By then, Eccles was receiving hundreds of letters every month, but there was something about Davis's that stood out.

12:29Jessie Misskelley:So he wrote back, she replied, and before long, the two had begun a relationship. In August 1997, Davis abandoned her life as a landscape architect in New York and moved to Arkansas, where she began spearheading the efforts to secure Eccles' release. So now Lori is in court too, to offer her support as the Rule 37 hearing takes yet another turn. The defense has by now presented its evidence on the bite marks, and in a dramatic moment, a forensic dentist showed the dental molds he said did not match any of the West Memphis Three. This sparked great excitement among Eccles' supporters. It seemed like this new evidence exonerated him, but now the prosecution encounters with evidence from an expert of their own.

13:10Jessie Misskelley:The original prosecuting attorney, Brent Davis, has returned for the Rule 37 hearings, and he calls Dr. Harry H. Mincer to the stand. Dr. Mincer, how long have you practiced in the field of forensic odontology? I've been a dentist since 1955, and I've practiced forensic odontology since 1966. All right. And when were you first contacted regarding this case? In August of 1998. I was called by Dr. Dugan, and he said he was going to send me some material and ask me to look at it. This is Dr. Kevin Dugan, the forensic odontologist for the Arkansas State Medical Examiner's Office. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct.

13:49Jessie Misskelley:On the 26th of August of last year, I received three 5x7 color photographs from Dr. Dugan, as well as a letter asking me to determine if I thought any of the wounds on this young boy were human bite marks. Okay. Was there any information supplied with those photographs as to indicate how your opinion should come down? No. In fact, I don't know who the photographs represented until later. Okay. Now, Dr. Minzer, after you received those photographs, what did you do in order to try to make a determination if there were or were not light marks presented there? Well, I examined all the injuries and wounds, and at one point I made a one-to-one life-size reproduction of them on a computer.

14:26Jessie Misskelley:And was there any particular wound in these photographs that you honed in on, or were you just looking at the photographs generally? The most obvious wound that appeared at first glance to potentially be a bite mark was a heart-shaped mark over the left eyebrow on the forehead. And could you determine, in your opinion, based on a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that that was, in fact, a bite mark? After examining all three photographs and all the wounds, I came to the conclusion with reasonable certainty that it was not a human bite mark. A hum of surprise ripples through the courtroom.

14:57Jessie Misskelley:At the defense table, Damien Echols sits a little straighter, And with a satisfied look, the prosecutor goes on. Could you explain to the court why, in your opinion, the injury to the forehead is not consistent with a bite mark? Well, I mean, you find curved lines and wounds, but to say it's a bite mark, you have to see individual teeth. I couldn't tell in that thin line as to where one tooth ends and another begins. Normally, you have two front teeth, which are about the same width, and the next two teeth next to them, which are also equal in width to each other. I didn't see anything that makes me think I have two teeth of the same size here.

15:31Jessie Misskelley:Okay, doctor. And do you believe, based on your opinion and your expertise, that there's any basis for using that injury as a comparison with dental impressions to exclude or include any individuals? Well, if it's not a bite mark, then there's no point. Damien Eccles' lawyer, Edward Mallett, tries his best to recover momentum, but it's no good. The forensic evidence that was supposed to prove his client's innocence has been called into question. The experts are split. Some say the wound is a bite mark, but some say it isn't. On its own, it's clearly not going to be enough evidence to convince Judge Burnett to revisit Eccles' conviction.

16:07Jessie Misskelley:But the hearing isn't over yet, and Edward Mallett still has one more roll of the dice.

16:16Jason Baldwin:As Americans, we're constantly grappling with the fundamental question. Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we strive to create the world as it should be? Our answers tend to ebb and flow through the decades. But once, just after a war that nearly tore us apart, we came as close as we've come to answering it. And it's a story worth a closer look. I'm Michelle Obama, and I'm proud to announce Higher Ground's new podcast, Reconstruction, The Unfinished Promise. Guided by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell and featuring my husband, Barack Obama, this limited series uncovers the untold stories of Reconstruction, what they mean for us today, and how our past can shape the future we choose to build.

17:06Jason Baldwin:Reconstruction, the unfinished promise, is available now on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.

17:15Damien Echols:I'm Raza Jaffray, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire, and one of its foremost generals is Benedict Arnold. He's a smuggler turned battlefield hero and admired for his aggressive tactics. But when a war wound, a new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the max, He turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander in chief General George Washington. And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in US history.

17:59Damien Echols:Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Betrayed the American Revolution early and ad-free on Audible.

18:27Jessie Misskelley:On June 4th, 1999, defense attorney Edward Mallett submits his written arguments to the court in Damien Eccles' Rule 37 petition. After the bite mark evidence turned out to be a disappointment, Mallett leaves it out of his submission altogether. Instead, he argues that Eccles' conviction should be overturned because of incompetence of counsel, that he was denied his constitutional right to a fair trial by the actions of his own lawyers. Back in 1994, there was no public campaign helping to fund Eccles' defense, and he had to rely entirely on state-appointed defenders. Those lawyers didn't seem to believe that any additional money would be approved by the court to hire expert witnesses.

19:06Jessie Misskelley:So looking for a source of cash, the defense fund turned to the HBO filmmakers, who were producing a documentary about the murders. Eccles agreed to participate in the film in exchange for$7 ,500. But instead of spending all that money on expert witnesses, his lawyers allegedly took a portion of the cash to pay themselves without Eccles' consent. Mallett also claims that the original lawyers failed to disclose several potential conflicts of interest. Prior to the trial, one of the attorneys had defended John Mark Byers on robbery charges, and another had previously represented one of the witnesses against Jason Baldwin, a 16-year-old named Michael Carson.

19:45Jessie Misskelley:Mallett argues these associations fundamentally undermine Eccles' ability to secure a fair trial. In response, the prosecution fires back sharply. They accuse Mallett of character assassination and argue that Eccles' original attorney isn't the one on trial. The judge, David Burnett, agrees. On June 17, 1999, he issues his ruling, saying Eccles has failed to demonstrate incompetence of counsel. He then states that the disputed bite mark doesn't count as new evidence, as the autopsy images were available to the defense at the original trial, so the Rule 37 petition is denied. It's a devastating setback for Damian Eccles.

20:22Jessie Misskelley:Mallett immediately appeals the decision to the Arkansas Supreme Court and begins to form a new argument, claiming Eccles was mentally incompetent and should never have been put on trial in the first place. But if that doesn't work, then Eccles would be almost entirely out of legal options, and there will be little left standing between him and execution. So while Eccles waits on death row, his alleged accomplices continue with appeals of their own. In the seven years since Jesse Miskelley and Jason Baldwin were convicted, forensic technology has advanced considerably, and it's now possible to test smaller samples and get better results.

20:57Jessie Misskelley:With that in mind, it's hoped that the courts can be persuaded to re-examine material collected during the original investigation, and that new DNA evidence will exonerate the West Memphis Three. Their legal teams are helped by a growing number of supporters. Experts volunteer their services for free. A sequel to the original HBO documentary keeps the story in the media spotlight. And even more than a decade after the murders, new information is still coming to light. In 2004, Vicki Hutchison decides to go public with her doubts about the case. Hutchison went undercover to gather evidence against Damian Eccles and later testified against Jessie Miss Kelly at his trial.

21:35Jessie Misskelley:But soon afterward, she contacted Eccles' defense team to say she was having second thoughts about what she'd done. Back then, she claimed she was pressured by the police into giving evidence, but she'd stopped short of admitting to anything illegal. Her statements hinted at possible police misconduct, but nothing she said then helped the West Memphis three. Now, though, Hutchison meets with journalist Tim Hackler of the Arkansas Times to confess to a secret that she's been holding onto for the past 10 years. She takes a seat opposite Hackler, her eyes wet with tears. I'm just so glad someone's hearing me out.

22:12Jessie Misskelley:I think it's important our readers hear your story, yeah. Now, 10 years ago, you were a key witness for the prosecution against Jesse Miss Kelly. What exactly did you say on the stand? I said Jesse and Damien Echols invited me to a cult meeting in the woods after their murders. What kind of meeting? To tell you the truth, I don't remember everything. I said they were having an orgy, I guess you'd call it. I told the jury that they called themselves Spider and Lucifer, that they painted their faces black, and oh, God knows what else. Well, Jesse's lawyers say your testimony served as the only direct evidence that he was actually a member of a satanic cult.