Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row (35 page)

Twenty-nine

F
EBRUARY
15, 2012

I
n three days I will have been out of prison for six months. It’s passed in the blink of an eye. Part of that sensation is due to the shock I felt upon my release, and for weeks afterward. It’s taken a great deal of time for me to begin coming back to myself. It’s still not complete. Anytime I become exhausted or deeply stressed, the shock begins to creep into the periphery of my psyche like a fog rolling in. I have no idea how long it will take before I’m acclimated to the outside world again. Perhaps never.

People keep asking me what I was thinking the day I walked out of prison. The answer to that is nothing. I wasn’t thinking anything at all, much like the day I walked into prison. The trauma was just too great. I had been in the solitary confinement of that concrete cell for nearly a decade, with few visitors. To be suddenly thrust into a courtroom packed with people, reporters, cameras, and action was overwhelming. Each and every person had their own specific scent and energy. It was pleasant and cloying at the same time, but it was sensory overload. Just wearing real clothes for the first time was disorienting in itself, but then you add in everything else and it felt like someone had set off a grenade in my head. Activity swirled all around me, but it all also seemed very far away.

The moment it was over and the chains were gone, Jason and I were taken straight to the Department of Motor Vehicles in a small town called Marked Tree and issued ID cards. From there we drove to the Madison Hotel in Memphis. Eddie Vedder met us there, and an aide-de-camp had set up a hotel suite for us. The first thing I saw when I walked in was a buffet table. Cheeseburgers, fries, sandwiches, salad, soup, just about anything you can imagine. My first meal out of prison was a Black Angus burger, a turkey sandwich, fries, and a glass of Merlot. I felt sick immediately afterward, but it was worth it. Eddie sat on a couch, laughing the entire time. It was just a few of us, but there was a huge party going on in the main dining room downstairs—everyone was celebrating. When we went down to say hello, I tasted champagne for the first time in my life.

That day, Jessie Misskelley returned to his father’s home in a small trailer park in West Memphis. Jason and I were given a rooftop party at the Madison in the evening. Eddie and Natalie Maines sang. It was surreal. For the first time in eighteen years I stood outdoors in the dusk, looking at the Mississippi River and watching the sunset. My heart exploded, over and over. I stared at the bridge between Memphis and West Memphis for a long time. And then the night fell. I was drunk on it.

The next morning we boarded a plane (my first) with Eddie Vedder, who flew us up to his place in Seattle. It was heaven. I rested, and just spent time with Lorri. My nerves were frayed and raw. Still are, to a certain degree. And Lorri is still my only comfort.

And then I came to New York. When I walked the city streets for the first time, I was dazed. I walked out in front of cars. I stumbled over my own feet because I hadn’t walked any great distance without chains on them in eighteen years. Again, it was Lorri who helped me, saved me. I couldn’t truly appreciate the wonders of the city that first time because the surroundings were so unbelievably different from what I’d ever known. Only after a couple of months had passed and I returned to the city could I begin to take it all in. People still recognize me on the street. They shake hands, they hug me, some want to take pictures. I thank them all. And I’m grateful to them. After all, it was the fact that they care that saved my life.

I did speak to my mother on the phone once after my release. It was a difficult conversation to say the least. I’ve asked my mother and my sister not to talk to the press about me and my life, though they haven’t respected my wishes. They’ve given false information and salacious interviews, and they appear to enjoy the attention it brings them. I haven’t had contact with them because every conversation I’ve had becomes public knowledge immediately.

Jason came to visit me in New York a couple of times in the fall. It’s hard to describe our friendship—it’s a struggle to find the connection and the common ground now. We are navigating the world in very different ways, and I think of him as I always have: he is a good kid. There is a moment at the end of
Paradise Lost
when Jason’s lawyer asks him if he thinks I’m guilty. Jason responds that he doesn’t know—maybe. I haven’t seen the film for myself and I didn’t think of it over the years, but I think of it more often now. It’s a moment that is emblematic of the betrayal, pain, and deceit we were all subjected to—everyone involved in the case.

*  *  *

S
undance, late January 2012. Even I had heard of it, inside the prison walls. Now I would see it for myself. Our documentary,
West of Memphis
, would be premiering there. Lorri and I had both been producers on it, and we would see people’s reactions firsthand. We would also be meeting some members of two of the victims’ families.

When we arrived we were met by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, both producers of the film. Lorri and I hadn’t seen them in over a month and had missed them a great deal. As soon as I heard those New Zealand accents, the feel of “home” washed over me again. They have been with me every step of the way since my release, helping me. Thinking of them now makes my heart feel like it’s about to burst with love.

To say that Sundance was overwhelming would be a huge understatement. It’s not something I can write about, even now. I just haven’t had enough time to digest the experience. I’m still turning it over and over, examining it from every angle.

I met members of two of the victims’ families—John Mark Byers and Pam Hobbs and some of her family. They were there to promote the film alongside the rest of us. It was indescribable, sitting down to dinner with them all. The Hobbs family gave me a black pocket watch and chain, engraved with the words “Time starts now” and the date of my release from prison.

My son, Seth, came to Sundance. He was eighteen when we sat down together to talk outside a courtroom or prison. We’re slowly, tentatively, trying to create a bond. We don’t know each other, but we’re learning. When we talk on the phone, I have the entirely new and foreign feeling of being a father. It’s something I’m gradually becoming accustomed to, though I can’t say I know what I’m doing when Domini calls to tell me about some new parenting problem and asks me to get involved. There will be more to tell, I’m sure, as time passes. I want to have a relationship with him.

Our film was one of nine chosen to be shown in other parts of the country. In January, I also went to Nashville as part of the Sundance tour. Returning was an unexpected hell for me. I hadn’t been back to the South since my release. I had severe panic attacks; the fear that I would never get out of there made it hard to breathe and impossible to sleep. My temperature rose to above 103 degrees, and Lorri nearly called an ambulance. I don’t like looking back at it.

The memory from Sundance that I hold dearest is a snowball fight. One night I went outside with Lorri, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh. It was the first time I’d touched snow in almost twenty years. It was perfect. It was pure and unblemished, and as white as the moon. And then we went into a frenzy, running wild and throwing snowballs at each other. Peter was laughing like a child, and Fran squealed in delight as she was pelted. I’ll see it in my head until the day I die.

*  *  *

T
hese days, I try to look forward. I’m tired of looking back. I’m tired of the case. And I’m sick to death of the “WM3.” I am not the West Memphis Three, and it’s a title I’d prefer never to hear again. It does nothing but remind me of hell. Sometimes it seems as if I live in a world where I have no identity outside the case. That I am the case and the case is me.

Ultimately, I know that freedom isn’t enough. I’m a young man, and the only way all three of us will be able to live the rest of our lives is by being exonerated. I need the person or persons who murdered those three children, and who put me on Death Row for eighteen years, found and brought to justice. Wm3.org continues to be a vital source of information about all three of us and the case.
West of Memphis
I hope will shed even more light on our struggle for freedom. My legal team and several others are working constantly on new leads, DNA testing, and investigative work, and we’ll continue to do so for as long as it takes.

I want to make the world a more magickal place. To give magick a form that people appreciate, and that changes their lives. To create art that will make people want to forever reject the mundane and mediocre world they’ve been surrounded by. Whether my tools are the tarot, group energy work, or photography, I want to share with people all the wonder and beauty I discovered while trapped in a cell for nearly twenty years.

EPILOGUE

A
person can starve to death in prison, and not through lack of food. What I’m talking about is the withering and death of the human spirit from lack of decency or love for fellow human beings. The talking heads on television project the image of prisoners as animals, and it’s true. It’s true because the spirit that once made them human has been starved to death, and they become a black hole in human form.

Prison is designed to separate, isolate, and alienate you from everyone and everything. You’re not allowed to so much as touch your spouse, your parents, your children. The system does everything within its power to sever any physical or emotional links you have to anyone in the outside world. They want your children to grow up without ever knowing you. They want your spouse to forget your face and start a new life. They want you to sit alone, grieving, in a concrete box, unable even to say your last farewell at a parent’s funeral. It’s not just that things work out this way—they are designed that way.

I believe there are only two unstoppable forces in the universe. One is love, the other is intelligence. I also believe that a person’s capacity to love is directly related to their intelligence level, just as hate corresponds to a person’s level of ignorance. The only thing that makes it impossible for the system to destroy you and grind your spirit into nothing is to be more intelligent than it is.

In certain tribal cultures, spirit guides are represented by animals. The animal guides usher people into the next realm of development in their lives. In plain language, they make each of us grow as a person. My guide to growth is a beautiful monkey.

My wife is the single most erotic and intelligent creature that has ever existed. She can have all the poise and grace of a feline, but shining from her eyes is pure monkey mischief. She is my strength and my heart. Without her to keep me going, I would have died long ago. I have no reason to keep breathing, outside of her. She is my life.

In some ways maintaining a relationship while entombed behind these walls is like trying to overcome brain damage. When one area of the brain is damaged, the other areas have to find ways to compensate by evolving and developing new neural pathways that would never have come about under normal circumstances. In here, the normal ways of expressing, giving, and receiving love aren’t possible. If you don’t evolve, your relationship will die very quickly. You can’t kiss your wife good-bye every morning before heading off to work. You can’t hold her when she cries, or sneak up from behind with a surprise hug. There is no going out for dinner, or heading to a hotel for a weekend getaway. It creates tremendous stress fractures on a relationship that eventually cause the entire thing to crumble. When you have an argument you can’t even hold hands and talk sweetly to each other when making up. You’re limited to whatever emotion you can express in a ten-minute conversation on a telephone that other people are listening to and recording every word. The vast majority of people in prison find themselves alone, left behind by people who have moved on.

One of our—Lorri’s and mine—greatest inventions was moon water. Another prisoner once discovered me making moon water and said it was so illogical it nearly drove him insane. For months afterward he would stomp his feet in frustration and bellow, “This shit is crazy! It makes no sense! That shit is making my head hurt!” For some reason the thought of it seemed to hurt his mind. Then again, he was a little unbalanced to begin with.

Moon water can be made only once a month, on the night of the full moon. After the sun goes down and the moon rides high, you fill a container with water and set it on a window ledge so that the moon casts a reflection in it. You must leave it there all night, so that it catches as much of the moon’s light as possible. You have to remove it right before morning so that the sun’s light never touches it. It must then be kept in a dark place. My wife and I did this every full moon for years, and we would take a single sip of the water at the same time each night while thinking of each other. In that moment we were united, no matter how far apart we might be. You take a single sip each night so that you have enough to last the entire month.

For every way the system attempts to separate us, we can’t help but seek out new ways to pull ourselves together. In the end, hatefulness and ignorance always fail in the face of intelligence and love. The proof is in the moon water.

Hope

Immortality

And glorious nonsense

A sunburst in my brain

And plans of things to come

—D
AMIEN
E
CHOLS
, V
ARNER
U
NIT

Me, around second grade. This is the only picture of me I know of that survives from this time.