Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three (21 page)

It was Christmas time in Arkansas, and Mark and Melissa were making the trip across the Mississippi River to the Memphis area cemetery where Christopher is buried. Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger had been with the Byerses sharing some Christmas leftovers and had asked if they could tag along. In their DVD commentary, Sinofsky and Berlinger initially let the scene stand on its own, as a depiction of grieving parents visiting their son’s grave, their first Christmas after his death. Then suddenly, the filmmakers begin describing an “incredibly powerful moment of bonding” between themselves and the Byerses. “This was an incredibly moving and odd scene,” Berlinger begins. “This incredible moment of a pentagram—you know, the star from the Christmas tree [there is a miniature Christmas tree topped with a star sitting on Christopher’s grave marker]—is creating this upside down shadow [on Mark’s forehead], and an upside down pentagram is the sign of the devil. And here this guy who has been preaching fire and brimstone and who has been talking about Heaven and Hell and who some people have questioned as maybe possibly being involved—all of a sudden, you know, the end-of-day sun, after the day had been an overcast day, at this precise moment, the sun peeks through the clouds and sends this upside down pentagram on his forehead. It’s just one of these weird things that happened, where you feel like something bigger than what you’re doing is happening while you’re making a film.”

“Was it a message from God?” Sinofsky blurts out. And he’s serious. The filmmakers now appear to believe that their film is under the influence of the Divine.

This dialogue segues into a discussion of Mark’s potential as a suspect in the murders. Berlinger says that he wouldn’t dream of doing to Mark what was done to Echols and then proceeds to do precisely that. He declares that “such a strong case could have been made against [Byers] that we were disappointed that the police had such tunnel vision with regard to trying to pin this on Damien Echols.” It should be noted that while Berlinger and Sinofsky are bloviating about messages from the Supreme

On the left is a pagan, or Wiccan pentagram (points down), and is the same image that was “miraculously” formed by a shadow on Byers’s forehead. The image on the right is a satanic pentagram with points facing upward, resembling a goat’s head with horns.

being, Mark Byers is on-screen sobbing, “Oh God, why did you let this happen? Please help us through this.”

As for the technical aspect of this “message from God,” the description is flawed. The alleged “upside down pentagram” was, in fact,
not
upside down; the geometric shape is defined merely as a five-pointed figure drawn with five connecting lines, all crossing at the center. Although the orientation of the symbol may be varied indiscriminately, neopagan groups such as the Wiccans generally depict the pentagram with the single point facing up. When the star is turned upside down, the two points face upward and at adjacent angles, forming a shape similar to a goat’s head, an often-used symbol for Satan. The directors’ uncurbed use of the phrase “satanic panic” in the years following the film’s release calls into question this misinterpretation of the symbolism. Oddly, at the time of his trial, Damien Echols claimed to practice Wicca and in fact attracted the attention of a Wiccan “coven” that appeared in
Paradise
Lost
2
.

The image on the right is the so-called satanic pentagram, with the two points facing up. The image on the left is a pagan-style pentagram, with the single point facing upward. The image on the left is the shadow image that miraculously “formed” on Byers’s forehead. For what it’s worth, in the film it also looks suspiciously like the camera is being maneuvered so that the shadow lands squarely on Byers’s forehead.
¹⁰⁹

The two expressed amazement that anyone could believe in a “literal” Heaven and Hell even though it is a foundation for many mainstream religions. Furthermore, they believe that this conviction is peculiar to the South. “Only in this part of the country is it possible for the prosecution to offer this kind of fantastical defense of people to just not question it because of deeply held religious beliefs”, Berlinger says. “If this trial was held anywhere else, it would be thrown out.” They offer no proof of these assertions, and the remarks lend a further air of bias to the films. They have such obvious contempt for Southerners—excepting those convicted of the crime—that had their true feelings been known, it is doubtful than anyone in town would have talked to them. Indeed, by the time the shooting of
Revelations:
Paradise
Lost
2
began, few would. By that time, the filmmakers were dependent on WM3.org, the convicted men and their families, and Mark Byers for color commentary.

The
Devil
Made
Them
Do
It

Based on the confession of Jessie Misskelley, information gained from Vicki Hutcheson, and talk among the local teens of cult activities, the police decided early on that the motive for the crime was occult in nature, and they went strictly from that premise forward to gather “evidence.” There were police interviews with teens who claimed that witchcraft was being practiced and that “esbats,” or satanic meetings, were being held in secret locations. Pentagrams and other satanic symbols were being found around town. An abandoned cotton gin the kids called “Stonehenge” was alleged to have been a center of occult activity, including the killing and eating of animals. Dog and cat carcasses were found in the area, animals that Jessie Misskelley claimed he and his mates had killed, skinned, cooked on a bonfire, and eaten. Misskelley said this was part of an initiation for new members. The new member would have to eat the leg of a dog, for example. “If he can’t eat it, he don’t get in.” And there was sex, of course; where there are teens, there will be sex. Aside from chatter around town, however, Jessie Misskelley was the only person (except Vicki Hutcheson) to place himself at these meetings.

Juvenile officer Jerry Driver, whose attention had been drawn to Damien Echols in May 1992 when Echols was arrested for trying to run away with then-girlfriend Deanna Holcomb, told WMPD detective Bill Durham that Echols described himself as a “gray” witch, something short of a devil worshipper, but nonetheless deeply involved in the occult. Driver hinted at Holcomb’s involvement in witchcraft, but Echols’s girlfriend—and mother of his child—was more direct. “She’s a kook,” said Domini Teer. “She’s the one that’s obviously involved in witchcraft and stuff because of the way she talks about it.”

When Echols took the stand in his own defense—a disastrous trial strategy as it turned out—he admitted to practicing Wicca (“white” witchcraft) and to reading about, but not practicing, “black” witchcraft, or satanism. He was asked about his tattoos—one of an Egyptian ankh, another of a pentagram, and a tattoo across his fingers that spelled “EVIL.” He also admitted to “doodling” the name “Aleister Crowley,” some Metallica song lyrics, and strange symbols he was “practicing” in a notebook he kept while in jail.
¹¹⁰
Alone, this may have meant little, but for some reason Echols lied about it on the stand, claiming he had written these things before being arrested, when in fact he had done so after.

The prosecution made a weak case at trial regarding the satanic ritual killing motive of which they wished to convince the jury. “Dr.” Dale Griffis was their sole “expert” witness, and it is hard to imagine a jury being swayed by his testimony. Indeed, the juror flip charts from the Echols/Baldwin trial show that the jury was clearly unimpressed with Dr. Griffis’s testimony. On the one hand they found him “knowledgeable,” but on the other they found him “biased toward occult findings” and thought that his “delivery” was “poor” and, most curiously, that he was possessed of “low self-esteem.” Griffis claimed that the number three was significant to cultists, as was the moon, which had been full the night of the murders. The crime also had been committed within a few days of a pagan holiday, Beltane, which is celebrated on May 1 and commemorates the start of summer. Griffis testified that the alleged sucking of blood from Christopher Byers’s penis (the only “proof” of which came from prosecution “snitch” Michael Carson who was briefly incarcerated with Baldwin while he was awaiting trial), or at the very least his emasculation, was related to the phallic symbol the “May pole” associated with the holiday “May Day.”

Griffis testified that the blood of the young held a powerful “life force” and that the occurrence of the murders near water held significance, though this probably was hardly occult-related. The location likelier had been chosen not only because it was secluded, but also because there was water available to wash up with after the crime. Although he maintained that the location of the murders, near water, had helped him to reach the conclusion that these were possibly satanic murders, Griffis never gave any other reason for the claim.

There was more. Griffis made much of Echols’s minor interest in Aleister Crowley. The pampered son of devout Christian parents, Crowley was born and raised in Victorian England. He was an esoteric poet and mystic who developed his own school of occultism which he called “magick.”
¹¹¹
Crowley is notorious for his occult rituals, saturated with the use of sex and drugs. He is best remembered as “the Great Beast”, a moniker Crowley claims was fostered by his mother, who truly thought her son to be the Anti-Christ. But Crowley was also an accomplished mountain climber, and made aggressive assaults on Tibet’s K2 and Kangchenjunga, the second and third highest peaks in the world respectively (though he didn’t reach the summits, he did exceed 20,000 feet on both climbs). Teacher, sexual deviant, drug addict, and magician, Crowley’s legend would exceed his accomplishments, though the mere mention of this man who biographer Lawrence Sutin called a “frightening mixture of egomania and self-loathing” tends to evoke a strong reaction.
¹¹²

The fact that the attorneys, judge, and probably a good number of jurors didn’t know who Crowley was—Griffis himself was shaky on the facts—didn’t stop Brent Davis from hammering Echols’s on his knowledge of Crowley.

Davis: Aleister Crowley is a guy that based on his writings believes in human sacrifice, doesn’t he?

Echols:
He also believed he was God so . . .

Davis:
He also had writings that indicated that children were the best type of human sacrifice, right?

Echols:
Yes, sir.

That Echols apparently believed that Crowley advanced the notion of human sacrifice, was strong evidence the youngster was essentially clueless about the belief system of Aleister Crowley, a system that was complex and probably beyond the scope of Echols’s understanding at the time. In his 1993 book
The
Magick
of
Aleister
Crowley
(Red Wheel/Wesier, York Beach, ME), longtime Crowley student and biographer Lon Milo Duquette was emphatic that Crowley “Did not—I repeat did—perform or advocate human sacrifice.” In a hearing outside the jury where Griffis was to be qualified as an “expert”, he stated that in “Crowley’s writings” it was stated that in order to preserve the “magical power” during a sacrifice, sex must be had with children before they reached the age of nine. This was significant to the state’s case because according to Jessie Misskelley, at least one of the victims had been sexually abused (though the autopsies were never able to confirm this). Sex with children, however, was at odds with Crowley’s beliefs.

Griffis also contended that there was evidence of “overkill”—multiple stab wounds; severe, probably fatal head traumas; and the castration of Christopher Byers—and that this also had the “trappings” of the occult, but again he could not be precise.

Griffis had been grilled by defense attorneys Val Price and Paul Ford in Burnett’s chambers for hours prior to his testifying. His credentials were suspect. Griffis had retired from the police department after twenty-six years, having reached the rank of captain. When it came to expertise on the occult and cult activities, he was largely self-educated, having obtained a PhD from a mail-order diploma mill in California.
¹¹³
His thesis,
Mind
Control
Cults
and
Their
Effects
on
the
Objectives
of
Law
Enforcement
, a two-hundred-page paper he coauthored with another PhD candidate, was the sole qualification for his doctorate. Griffis defended his record, stating that he had been qualified as an expert in three courts in three different states and that he received more than fifty calls per week regarding “nontraditional groups,” or cults. That was good enough for Judge Burnett.