Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three (53 page)

425. In the interview in January 2002, Paudert said that none of the allegations of misconduct that had been reported to him related to the department’s investigation of the 1993 murders. Sergeant Lawrence Vaughn, head of the department’s new internal affairs office, agreed. Vaughn said that he had been working as a uniformed patrol officer in 1993 and had participated in the search for the children. “I was there on the scene at the discovery,” he said. “I was there when they were bringing the bodies out of the woods. There were so many people there, we had to set up a perimeter. We were sitting by the hearse. We assisted in putting the bodies into the vehicle.” (Inspector Gary Gitchell had begged the crime lab for information about the “Negroid hair” found in the sheet around Christopher’s body, but no explanation had surfaced. Yet, during the trials, when defense attorneys had asked the crime lab’s trace evidence expert, Lisa Sakevicius, if she had ever received “any Negro type hairs from any West Memphis police officers to compare with the questioned hair,” Sakevicius testified that she had not.) Vaughn also reported that Sudbury’s role in the murder investigation had been unique within the department. According to Vaughn, after the boys’ bodies were found, Gitchell had assigned all of his regular criminal detectives to work the murder investigation, and he’d temporarily reassigned the department’s narcotics unit, where Sudbury was second in command, ordering them take over the regular detectives’ duties. Vaughn said that Sudbury—who’d been the first West Memphis detective to question Damien, the first to report Jerry Driver’s suspicions, and present during key interviews with John Mark Byers and Vicki Hutcheson—was the only narcotics detective whom Gitchell had allowed to participate in the murder investigation. Sudbury, Vaughn recalled, “was the only one who worked both.”

426. Damien’s son, Seth, born six months before his father’s trial, turned eight in 2001. Seth and his mother, Domini, had left Arkansas after the trials, and their contact with Damien in the years that followed had been slim.

427. The wedding, which was approved by Warden Greg Harmon, took place on December 6, 1999.

428. She’d moved to Little Rock, and two years later the couple asked the warden for permission to marry. The wedding ceremony, held in a visitation room at the maximum security unit, began and ended with the sound of a bell. Damien wore his white prison uniform and shackles. His head was shaved in the manner of a Buddhist monk. A Buddhist priest from Little Rock, who also worked as a volunteer chaplain at the prison, performed the ceremony, which was attended by a half dozen of the couple’s friends, including some of the supporters from California. Officials at the prison stressed that while inmates generally had a right to marry, they do not have a right to sexual contact. “There was no reception, no honeymoon, no overnight stay in Branson,” a prison spokesman said, referring to a popular vacation spot in southern Missouri.

429. “Death Row’s Echols Ties the Knot in Prison Fete,” by Cathy Frye, December 7, 1999.

430. Though the handling of money was illegal in prison, and Jason had never had much of it to begin with, he was trying to understand finance. “I know to stay away from credit cards,” he said. “I know that mutual funds are a safer investment and offer a higher yield, but that right now is the best time to buy stocks. I wish I could get out right now and just buy a bunch of stocks while it’s low, and just keep buying stocks every month, every month…. I just don’t want my kids to live in a trailer park.”

Allen, Mike

America’s Most Wanted
(television show)

Appeals

Arkansas

Arkansas Crime Laboratory

Arkansas Democrat–Gazette

Arkansas law

Arkansas State Police

Arkansas Supreme Court

Arkansas Times

Arrests

Atkinson, Michael

Autopsies

Autopsy reports

Bakken, Kathy

Baldwin, Jason

Baldwin, Matt

Beasley, Mandy

Berlinger, Joe

Bicycles

Black clothing

Black man, reports of

Black T–shirts

Bland, Danny

Blood

Blood samples

Damien

Jason

Jessie

Blue Beacon Truck Wash

Bodies

Bojangles restaurant

Bouisson, Maurice

Branch, Steve

Branch, Stevie Edward

Bray, Donald

Burnett, David

Byers, Christopher

Byers, John Mark

Byers, Melissa

Cadwal lader, Sara

Capital murder

Carson, Michael

Castration

Catholicism

Champion, Lloyd

Children

Child’s tennis shoe

Christianity

Circle diagram

Clark, Ryan

Clinton, Bill

Coerced confessions

Confession ( Jessie)

Confession(s), false

Conflicts of interest

Constitutional rights

Corning, Arkansas

Coroner

Cotton Mather on Witchcraft
(Mather)

Craighead County

Craighead County Courthouse

Creative Thinking International

Crime

Crime laboratory

Criminal profiler

Crittenden County

Crittenden County Courthouse

Crittenden County Drug Task Force

Crittenden County Sheriff’s Office

Crow, Greg,

Crowley, Aleister

Cult activity/cults

Cult cops

Cult expert

Cult materials, search for

Cult theory

Cult-related crime

Davidson, Scott

Davis, Brent

Damien and Jason’s trial

Damien and Jason’s trial: closing argument

Damien and Jason’s trial: cross-examining Damien

Damien and Jason’s trial: meeting with judge

Damien and Jason’s trial: objections

Damien and Jason’s trial: sentencing phase

incident at Rector

Jessie’s trial

Jessie’s trial: closing argument

offered Jason deal

possibility of Jessie tetifying against Damien and Jason

Davis, Lorri

Death penalty

Death row

Defendants

Defendants’ families

Defense

Damien

Defense lawyers

Defense lawyers, Damien and Jason’s trial

Directed verdict

Discovery

Discovery materials

Discovery mess

Discovery records, Lax’s search in

Discrepancies

DNA

DNA evidence

DNA testing

Documentary

Dog skull

Dougherty, Robin

Driver, Jerry

Durham, Bill

Ebert, Roger

Echols, Andy “Jack,” 42

Echols, Damien