Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three (19 page)

Ryan’s new friends—Marty Kerr, Justin Copeland, and Johnny McMann among them—were products of that environment. There wasn’t much to do, and the abundance of unoccupied houses, particularly the boathouses on the lakes, was too much of a temptation for the teenagers to resist. Much like the adult residents, Ryan and his friends helped themselves to just about anything they could get their hands on: fishing rods and reels, outboard motors, tackle boxes, life vests, canoes; anything that wasn’t nailed down they took. And as hard as it may be to fathom, when Mark found this swag—some hidden underneath the porch at his house—he trucked it up to Mammoth Spring and sold it at auction. With the family living in abject poverty, it is likely that Mark saw this course of action as a pragmatic one. After all, he and John Kingsbury had looted their share, so he was not above stealing to make ends meet. Ryan was collateral damage in much of the family’s trouble, and by the time his mother died, he had reached his breaking point.

During the period between September 1995 and March 1996, Ryan was living with his father, Jimmy Clark, because he’d been “running wild” in Cherokee Village, and his mother and stepfather were unable to control him. Two or three weeks prior to Melissa’s death, Ryan called Melissa and asked if he could come home. Once there, he told Mark that he had been smoking pot with his father and was generally uncomfortable there. It is likely that he also missed his friends back in Cherokee Village. After his return home, Melissa was, according to neighbor Norm Metz, “irritable” and had a “bad attitude,” though Metz added that he never asked her about it.

On Friday, March 29, 1996, when Ryan walked into his parents’ bedroom and saw Mark trying to revive Melissa, it was more than he could stand. He took off from the house in the family’s 1985 Dodge Omni with his girlfriend, Amanda Swindle, before the police or paramedics arrived. He was almost certainly in a state of shock. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” he told Officer Fred Waser. He and Amanda stopped at a local gas station and picked up five dollars’ worth of gas, and after stopping briefly at Amanda’s house and finding nobody home, the two drove around for a while until dark. Not sure where to go, Ryan finally decided to go down to Kilborn and Dorris DeFir’s house in Memphis, arriving there shortly after midnight on March 30. His uncle, Dennis DeFir, Melissa’s brother, was a police officer in Greenville, Mississippi, and made the three-hour drive up to Memphis to talk to Ryan and to be with Kilborn and Dorris. At 12:30 p.m. that day, Dennis and Kilborn drove Ryan back up to Cherokee Village. Strangely, when Dennis DeFir arrived at 75 Skyline Drive, he told Mark that he should come clean with police about Melissa’s recurring drug habit. How was it that Melissa’s brother, a police officer, knew about her drug use but her parents did not?

Ryan returned to Memphis that same day with his grandparents, while Mark headed off with James Lawrence to Marked Tree. Several days later, Melissa’s body was released by the medical examiner, and the family attended her funeral in Memphis. Ryan returned to Cherokee Village with Mark and lived at 75 Skyline Drive for about a month. Ryan had some remaining legal problems involving an incident in which he was accused of acting as a “lookout” for some friends who had burglarized a house. Once he was cleared of any wrongdoing, he headed back to Memphis to live with his grandparents. Amanda Swindle was out of the picture by this time; Anneleise Beasley was in. One of Ryan’s friends from his West Memphis days took Ryan back to Cherokee Village, where Anneleise snuck out through her bedroom window, and Ryan and Anneleise hid out together in the DeFirs’ garage for some six or seven months; according to Mark, Kilborn and Dorris never even knew she was there, and neither did her mother. One day, Mandy called Mark looking for her. Mark told her that he didn’t know where she was but that Ryan probably “had her hid out” somewhere. Kilborn had stumbled upon Anneleise in the house on one occasion during her stay there, but Ryan had convinced him that she was just one of the neighborhood girls. Soon enough, however, Anneleise tired of life at the DeFirs’ and called her mother to come and pick her up. There may have been another reason Anneleise wanted to go home: she was five or six months pregnant with Ryan’s child. As of this writing, Mark hasn’t seen Ryan since Melissa’s funeral.

Exile

With Melissa gone and Ryan having moved out, Mark had his own legal problems to deal with. On August 28, 1996, Mark entered guilty pleas before Judge Harold S. Erwin of the Sharp County Circuit Court on one count each of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and residential burglary, both class B felonies. He received a sentence of sixty months for each of the felonies and twelve months for the misdemeanor, all suspended. He was ordered to pay court costs of $100 and a $250 fine. He was further ordered to make restitution to Brenda Atwood in the amount of $20,000 and reimburse John Shavers for medical expenses in the amount of $1,962.19.
⁹¹
If he failed to meet any of the conditions of the suspended sentence, he would be subject to a minimum of seven and a maximum of twenty-one years in state prison, as well as a maximum fine of $21,000. One final and most curious condition of the plea agreement, negotiated by attorney Larry Dean Kissee, appears somewhat inconspicuously at the bottom of the document under “other conditions”: “Defendant is prohibited from entering and remaining or residing in Fulton County, or any county in the Third Judicial District.” This would include Lawrence, Randolph, and Jackson counties as well as Sharp. Although it has been argued that this last condition is a violation of the Arkansas State Constitution, Mark Byers was in no position to argue.

Mark had assumed that he would be given a reasonable amount of time to settle his affairs prior to vacating the district. He was wrong. A little more than a week after the order to vacate his house was issued, police visited 75 Skyline Drive to find Mark Byers still living there. He was told that if he wasn’t gone in twenty-four hours, he would be arrested. Mark protested that his car was not registered and in fact would not pass inspection. He was assured by police that no one would bother him in the Third Judicial District; once he got beyond that boundary, he was on his own. The next day, he fit whatever he could into his car and took off.

With no other place to go, Mark stayed with his sister in Jonesboro for a short time. His life, however, was quickly spiraling down. His mental state, which had been increasingly precarious, had become even more desperate since Melissa’s death. He would alternate his time between his sister’s house in Jonesboro and Marked Tree, where he stayed with James Lawrence. His life was a blur, tempered with liberal amounts of booze, pot, and prescription medications. The more he self-medicated, the more morose his outlook became, and he soon sank into a deep depression. Finally, in December 1996, Mark checked himself into the George W. Jackson medical center in Jonesboro for treatment for his growing depression and frequent thoughts of suicide. He remained in rehab for two weeks and was released on December 24, Christmas Eve, whereupon he returned to his sister’s. By late February or early March 1997, Mark’s cousins Joe and David Bingham, who owned several rental units in the area, had hooked Mark up with a small efficiency apartment, and he lived there until the fall of 1997, at which time he returned once again to his sister’s house. On New Year’s Eve, a church member and friend of his sister rented Mark a small studio apartment in Jonesboro, where he lived until sometime in March 1998. It was in this apartment that Mark’s good friends James Lawrence and Willie Burns were interviewed for
Revelations:
Paradise
Lost
2
, in which they can be seen sitting in the living room discussing Mark’s notoriety as a suspect in the murders.

From this apartment, Mark made one final move, this one very short. A larger unit in the same complex was vacated, and Mark snapped it up. It was from this location, 1609 Stone Street, Apartment B, in Jonesboro, that Mark made a deal to sell eighty-five dollars’ worth of Xanax to an undercover police officer. If John Mark Byers had ever been Teflon-coated—and in truth, he
had
dodged some pretty formidable bullets, both literally and figuratively—his streak came to a screeching halt on the evening of January 9, 1999. Between 1993 and 1999, Mark had lost everything: his son, his wife, his work, two houses, and his health.

Soon he would lose the only thing he had left to lose—his freedom.

CHAPTER 4 

Paradise Lost 

I
kind
of
enjoy
it
because
now
even
after
I
die
people
are
gonna
remember
me
forever.
They’re
gonna
talk
about
me
for
years.
People
in
West
Memphis
will
tell
their
kids
stories.
It’ll
kind
of
be
like
I’m
the
West
Memphis
boogeyman.

—Damien Echols, 1994

Mark
Byers
may
be
one
of
the
most
amazing
characters
ever
to
be
put
on
film.

—Bruce Sinofsky

When they were first alerted to the story, documentary filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky of New York wasted no time getting their film crew down to West Memphis, Arkansas, for what they hoped would be a repeat of
Brother’s
Keeper
, the pair’s award-winning 1992 documentary of the trial of Delbert Ward, an illiterate farmer who was tried and acquitted for the murder of his brother in their Munnsville, New York, home
.
⁹²
Berlinger and Sinofsky’s plan was to use the same style of documentary for
Paradise
Lost
, in which they would “let the story unfold” rather than narrate the action. The unparalleled access they gained to the accused killers, the victims’ families, and the courtroom proceedings—
while
they
were
happening—
was a first for many of the principals, including presiding judge David Burnett. “I’d have to say that the making of the film
Paradise
Lost
was a new situation for the court and, I’m sure, for all the lawyers involved,” he said on camera in
Revelations:
Paradise
Lost
2
. “I think I indicated to the producers earlier that if either the defense or the prosecution had objected, there wouldn’t have been any filming.” The effect of their
not
objecting was palpable. Without cameras in the courtroom, there would have been no
Paradise
Lost
. Without the film, there would have been no “Free the West Memphis Three” movement. And without the movement, not only would the three young men have sat in prison without the benefit of decent legal representation during their appeals, but perhaps—
perhaps—
Mark Byers would have been left to grieve in peace as well. But what would have been will never be known because the film was made.
Paradise
Lost
premiered on HBO in June 1996, and the state of the case—and the life of John Mark Byers—would never be the same.

Televised trials often give viewers the illusion that they are part of the process, perhaps even a member of the jury. According to Bruce Sinofsky, this was one of the filmmakers’ intentions in making
Paradise
Lost
. But trying to place the viewing audience in the jury box was problematic, primarily because of the existence of
two
trials, one that the jury saw and one that the public saw. Jurors are often not present in the courtroom when motions are being heard, for example, or potential witnesses are being qualified, but the cameras in this case were still rolling. In the case of
Paradise
Lost
, the fact that the trials were not shown in real time, or in chronological order, didn’t negate the possibility of objectivity, but it surely impeded it. The way the film was shot and edited, with multiple camera angles, slow-motion video, and the evocative music of Metallica tugging at viewers’ emotions, left the audience feeling, among other things,
directed
. Indeed, Berlinger states as much regarding
Paradise
Lost
2
: “If people come away from the next film not believing that the three are innocent, I would tell them that they are wrong.”
⁹³
Paradise
Lost
is a very moving film, but those expecting objectivity would be disappointed in any documentary, according to Berlinger. “I don’t recognize the idea of pure cinematic objectivity in the first place,” he said after the making of
Metallica:
Some
Kind
of
Monster
in 2004.
⁹⁴

That the HBO films entertained is hard to deny. And if the producers wanted more entertainment, if other lawyers or witnesses were “too boring and dull,” they could always turn to the cutting room (exclusion) or John Mark Byers (inclusion) to spice things up a bit.
⁹⁵
Because it was not a live broadcast, as was the case in the O. J. Simpson and the first Menendez trial, for example, the filmmakers were able to cut back and forth between courtroom testimony, backroom “strategy sessions,” interviews with interesting characters, and crime scene footage to generally keep things moving on the screen.

Paradise
Lost

The public’s awareness of the case of the West Memphis Three made a quantum leap in 1996 when
Paradise
Lost
premiered on HBO. Rarely has a documentary film captured audiences in quite the way that this movie did. The intensity and intimacy with which the camera followed the lives of the families of the victims, as well as the families of those on trial, set it apart from similar documentaries.
Paradise
Lost
struck a chord with a vocal segment of viewers, many of whom related to the defendants. Most felt that the motive of satanic ritual murder alleged by the prosecution played all too well with the two conservative Southern juries that convicted Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin with virtually no physical evidence. Movie reviewers relentlessly repeated what was quickly becoming the film’s tag line:
Damien
Echols,
Jason
Baldwin,
and
Jessie
Misskelley
were
three
teenagers
convicted
of
murder
because
they
were
weird,
wore
black,
and
listened
to
Metallica
.
⁹⁶
The film also introduced viewers to such phrases as “satanic panic” and “Salem Witch Trials,” expressions that would soon become a mainstay in the sympathizers’ lexicon, as well as on the tips of scores of journalists’ pens. Many viewers also became convinced that if the trial had been held in Los Angeles or New York, instead of in the so-called American Bible Belt, the verdicts would have been different.

But early evidence of a predisposition toward the defendants in
Paradise
Lost
is reflected by Berlinger’s own remarks. “I think by the end of the film, on a personal basis, we had much more sympathy for the accused’s families than we did for the victims’ families,” he said in a 1996 interview.
⁹⁷
This did not surprise anybody, with the possible exception of the victims’ families themselves, who say that they were told that the filmmakers would be advocates for the victims. In the
Paradise
Lost
DVD commentary, Berlinger admits that the families thought they’d be participating in a “pro-prosecution film.” Mark Byers says that he believed they wanted him to be heavily involved so that the victims’ stories would be told without compromise, but how did that jibe with the filmmakers’ intent? “Sometimes,” says Berlinger, “as a human being you feel awful about what you are witnessing or what you are filming; you have empathy, or you have guilt, or whatever. But as a filmmaker, you’re excited because you’re getting great stuff, and I’m always aware of the contradiction.”
⁹⁸

There was some disagreement among reviewers about how evident the film’s agenda was, though Berlinger himself estimates that 80 percent of the viewing audience thought the three were innocent. “I thought it should be 100 percent,” he said. What is clear from the first frame is that
Paradise
Lost
is a purpose-driven film and is focused, as one reviewer said, on “allowing the viewer to realize,
in
his
own
time
, that the trial and conviction is based on two things: the accused looked ‘weird’ and the evidence is totally circumstantial” [emphasis added].
⁹⁹
“In his own time” is debatable, but rare is the viewer who doesn’t come to that same conclusion, for one simple reason: it is, for the most part, true. Prosecutor John Fogleman and Judge David Burnett have long protested that the films are biased and don’t fairly represent the state’s case.
¹⁰⁰
However, a careful review of the police reports, trial and hearings transcripts, legal filings, and other evidence reveals a procedure that is strongly suggestive of a verdict reached on something other than the merits of the case. The intention of this chapter, though, is to analyze the effect the films had on John Mark Byers and determine to what extent he contributed to a portrayal that left many believing that he was not only a suspect in the murders of his son and two friends but also one crazy son of a bitch.

When
Paradise
Lost
premiered, Berlinger was asked whether he thought the convicted killers were guilty. “There is a chance they killed them,” he admitted. “But it certainly was not proven in that courtroom in due process.” However, in an interview with Salon.com, he said of his first meeting with Echols, “Within five minutes of talking to him, not only did I feel he was innocent, but all that evil that I had projected on him washed away. I walked away from that first hour-long interview . . . convinced of his innocence.” In the same interview Berlinger said, “I had fallen for the trap . . . and it was such a lesson for me, and I saw how the whole community had bought into the media hype.”
¹⁰¹
Whether the filmmakers realized the irony of using “media hype”—their own film—to disprove the impression that had been created by earlier media hype isn’t clear, but it hardly mattered.
Paradise
Lost
appeared to be a weapon in a media war that was waged too late. The verdicts were more than two years old when the film was released, and appellate courts don’t use documentary films, books, or the opinions of celebrity activists to render their decisions. The damage had been done by what Berlinger termed “a lethal brew of Bible-thumping fundamentalism, combined with shoddy local journalism, bad police work, and a narcissistic defendant [Echols] who seemed to enjoy being in the spotlight.”
¹⁰²