Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three (22 page)

All things considered, the occult aspect of the trial was small, though the media focused on it extensively. Satan sells. But if the jurors believed that satanism was a motive, it wasn’t at the top of their list. Their notes indicated that they considered the following about Echols (Baldwin was just along for the ride):

• Echols was “dishonest, manipulative and weird.”

• He was a “satanic follower” of Anton LaVey [founder, Church of Satan], and Aleister Crowley.

• They believed Ridge’s testimony to be incriminating.

• They felt that Echols was lying when he said he had never been to Robin Hood Hills.
¹¹⁴

• He “blew kisses” to the victims’ parents, in court.

• He carried knives.

• He had stated that he would “eat [Joe Hutcheson] alive” while the family was living in Oregon.

• Wax was found on a book and shirt when Echols’s house was searched, wax that Dale Griffis said was indicative of satanic activity.

The most significant item on the juror charts was actually not on the charts at all, or rather was blacked out. One juror’s personal notes, recovered years later, showed the items scratched out to be notations regarding Jessie Misskelley’s confession, which was not to be considered in the Echols/Baldwin trial. Evidence that it had been considered would constitute a critical part of Echols’s habeas petition years later.

Paradise
Lost
Revisions

Berlinger and Sinofsky decided to really take the gloves off for
Revelations:
Paradise
Lost
2
. Berlinger has readily admitted that
Paradise
Lost
2
was strictly “an advocacy film.” Although he claimed that he wanted viewers to independently evaluate the evidence, Berlinger said, “If people come away from the next film not believing that the three are innocent, I would tell them that they are wrong, that they have fallen prey to the very same prejudice that the prosecutors were able to bring to this community.” What happened to “letting the story unfold” and believing that “the truth would come bubbling up to the surface”? All pretense of objectivity was stripped away with the release of
Revelations:
Paradise
Lost
2
, a film that delivered its propaganda straight-up. In case for some incomprehensible reason viewers hadn’t gotten the message after watching the first film, Berlinger and Sinofsky directed
Revelations
to be as subtle as a spear through the head. The very fact that this was a sequel to a
documentary
was enough to make the film unusual.
Revelations
, however, was unprecedented. The movie single-handedly indoctrinated thousands of new believers, helped to expand one of the largest movements of its type, and created media personalities out of ordinary people.

Revelations:
Paradise
Lost
2
chronicles the rise of WM3.org and the progress of Damien Echols’s appeals through the legal system. It also introduces us to journalist Mara Leveritt, who two years after the release of
Revelations
would publish her book,
Devil’s
Knot
:
The
True
Story
of
the
West
Memphis
Three
. The book was derived from her experience covering the murders as a reporter with the
Arkansas
Times
, and it received a tremendous boost from the legions of supporters who took the HBO films as gospel. Prior to the March 2000 release of
Revelations
,
Paradise
Lost
aired a second time on HBO, and the reaction was dramatic, driving even more truth-seekers to the Internet for information on the case. When
Revelations
was released, the WM3.org website was reporting some 133,000 hits per day, which gives credibility to Prosecutor John Fogleman’s declaration that the film was an “infomercial for the West Memphis Three.” Springing from this website were discussion forums where supporters of the three could share information and where those on the opposing side could challenge them in their beliefs. It isn’t possible to calculate the exact number of those who truly believe in the innocence of the three convicts, but the movement attracted a number of high-profile celebrities to their cause, including Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam; Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks; Johnny Depp; Winona Ryder; Henry Rollins; Metallica; comedienne Margaret Cho; and a number of punk-era band members, such as Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Michale Graves (Misfits), and Eddie Spaghetti (Supersuckers). It is axiomatic that without the HBO films created by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the three young men who once were sitting in prison for the murders of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore would be languishing anonymously in the obscurity of the Arkansas penal system.

The second film was also an opportunity to fine-tune the public’s perception of John Mark Byers. Mark was at his cinematic best, and if he felt that he hadn’t hammed it up enough for the first film, he made up for it in the second.

What was the true motive for the murders? The police filled the void with satanic ritualistic homicide; Berlinger and Sinofsky and WM3.org filled it with Mark Byers. The filmmakers had already made it clear in the first film that they believed the three to be innocent—“within five minutes of talking to [Echols] I [felt] he was innocent”—and they set out to make
Revelations
with a clear, unabashed agenda. Berlinger said, “Most people in Arkansas were pissed off at us. The Moores would have nothing to do with us. Pam Hobbs tried to sue us. Brent Davis wouldn’t talk to us. That left pretty much Mark Byers. He was more than willing to appear on camera, and we put him front and center.” Mara Leveritt was more direct in
Devil’s
Knot
. “Byers was more than ‘front and center,’” she wrote. “He was the film’s
target
” [emphasis added].

So many ask, “Why was Mark Byers the only victim’s parent to appear in
Revelations
?” In answer to this question, and getting to the heart of the matter, Byers had more than enough reason to participate in the making of the second film. For one, with Christopher and Melissa gone, along with Ryan, who’d gone to live with his grandparents, Mark’s life was so desolate and lonely that by his own admission, he wasn’t in full control of his life. “I went out lookin’ for fights and self-destructed” after the murders, he said, and particularly after Melissa’s death. Being considered a suspect by the public may have pushed him over the edge, and his behavior grew erratic and sometimes violent. He was filled with rage and hate and needed to feel like he was doing
something
. Berlinger and Sinofsky suggested that participating in the second film would be the only way to present the victims’ side of the story, the same line used on him and the other families during the filming of the first movie. According to Mark, the filmmakers told him that both the Moores and the Hobbses were participating in the film. Joe Berlinger denies this, but when
Revelations
was released in 2000, Mark was still in prison, and he states that he learned from his sister during a phone call that only he was in the film.

As was so often the case, however, Mark was motivated by pragmatism. “I had just moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas,” he said. “I had nothing. No phone, no car, very little food. Then they tell me this will be my time to tell my side, and I can tell the world how wrong they are about me.” Is that what they had in mind? In part, yes. But there was more. “The thing is Byers was just too weird for us to be able to stage anything,” Berlinger said. “We just turned on the camera, and he did his thing.” Since they had filmed Mark extensively for
Paradise
Lost
, they knew exactly what his “thing” would be. Mark never met a camera he didn’t like, and the cameras were ever-rolling in
Revelations
, where they picked up footage that would sear the images of his antics on the minds of anyone who might have somehow missed them in the first film. If one of the intentions of
Revelations
was to overshadow the convictions of Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley with the crazed behavior of John Mark Byers, for most viewers the tactic worked. While acknowledging the film to be “ethically ambiguous” and a “queasy balance between sensationalist propagandizing and unblinking activist journalism,” Jessica Winter, in an August 2000 article for the
Village
Voice
, also took square aim at Berlinger and Sinofsky’s leading man. “The massive bastard offspring of John Brown and Leatherface,” she wrote, “John Mark Byers enacts a Bible-thumping circus sideshow of grief for the filmmakers, who give every indication that he’s shedding crocodile tears for his stepson and his wife (her mysterious 1996 death was ruled ‘undetermined’). The festering layers of perversion and delusion reach no bottom here.” Winters concedes that the film is “cheap and suspect” but believes that it’s justified as “advocacy.” In
Revelation
s the ends seem to have justified the means.

At different points throughout the film, screens of text are displayed that serve to segue between scenes. One such screen appears in
Revelations
to introduce the “John Mark Byers knife” to viewers.

Mark
Byers,
stepfather
of
Chris
Byers,
gave
the
makers
of
this
film
a
used
hunting
knife
as
a
Christmas
gift
three
weeks
before
the
Misskelley
trial
was
set
to
begin.

The
knife
appeared
to
have
blood
on
it,
so
it
was
turned
over
to
the
police.

Since
Mark
Byers
and
his
stepson
have
the
same
DNA
type,
the
test
results
were
inconclusive.
Therefore,
the
defense
focuses
on
pre-trial
statements
that
Byers
made
about
the
knife.