Three eight-year-old boys — Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore — were reported missing on May 5, 1993. The first report to the police was made by Byers' adoptive father, John Mark Byers, around 7:00 pm.

The boys were last seen together entering a playground called Robin Hood Hills around 6:00 pm by a neighbor.^[2] Initial police searches made that night were limited.^[3]Friends and neighbors also conducted an impromptu and unsuccessful search that night, which included a cursory visit to the location where the bodies were ultimately found.^[3]

THE GRUESOME DISCOVERY:

Around 1:45 pm the next day,  Juvenile Parole Officer Steve Jones spotted a boy's black shoe floating in a muddy creek that led to a major drainage canal in Robin Hood Hills.^[2.

A subsequent search of the ditch found the bodies of three boys. They were stripped naked and had been hogtied with their own shoelaces: their right ankles tied to their right wrists behind their backs, the same with their left limbs.

Their clothing was found in the creek, some of it twisted around sticks that had been thrust into the muddy ditch bed. The clothing was mostly turned inside-out; two pairs of the boys' underwear were never recovered.^[4]

 All of the boys had been severely beaten on their heads and faces, and Byers had a fractured skull. He also had deep lacerations and injuries to his scrotum and penis.^[5]

THE RUSH TO JUDGEMENT:

The citizens in the town with a population of only some 27,000 expressed shock and outrage that such a heinous crime could occur in their small community.  

Rumors raced among the citizens, including one that the boys' death was tied to some sort of sacrifice to the devil by Satanists.  Rumors had circulated for years that teens in the area were conducting Satanic rituals, although no evidence had ever been found to substantiate their claims.  Others speculated the boys had been raped and sodomized.

The original autopsies were inconclusive as to time of death,^{[citation needed]} but the Arkansas medical examiner determined that Byers died of blood loss, and Moore and Branch drowned.^[6] A later review of the case by a medical examiner for the defense determined that the boys had been killed between 1:00 am and 5:00 am on May 6, 1993.^[4]

The official interpretation of the crime scene forensics for the case remains controversial. Prosecution experts claim Byers' wounds were the results of a knife attack and that he had been purposely castrated by the murderer; defense experts claim the injuries may have been the result of animal predation.

Police suspected the boys had been raped or sodomized; later expert testimony disputed this finding^[4][7] despite trace amounts of sperm DNA found on a pair of pants recovered from the scene.^[8]

Police believed the boys were assaulted and killed at the location they were found; critics argued that the assault, at least, was unlikely to have occurred at the creek.^[4]

MR. BOJANGLES:

The sighting of a possible black male suspect was implied during the beginning of the trial, at which time the possibility of conviction of the initial suspects seemed slim. According to local West Memphis police officers, on the evening of May 5, 1993, at 8:42 pm, workers in the Bojangles' restaurant about a mile from the crime scene (a direct route through the bayou where the children were found) in Robin Hood Hills reported seeing an African American male "dazed and covered with blood and mud" inside the ladies' room of the restaurant. Defense attorneys later referred to this man as "Mr. Bojangles."^[4]

The man was bleeding from his arm and had brushed against the walls. The man had defecated on himself and on the floor. The police were called, but the man left the scene.

Officer Regina Meeks responded (by inquiring at the drive through window) about 45 minutes later. By then, the man had left and police did not enter the bathroom on that date.

The following day, when the victims were found, Bojangles' manager Marty King, thinking there was a possible connection between the bloody, disoriented man and the killings, called police twice to inform them of his suspicions

After the second telephone call police gathered evidence from the restroom.^[9] Police wore the same shoes and clothes from the Robin Hood Hills crime scene into the Bojangles restaurant bathroom.

Police detective Bryn Ridge later stated he lost the blood scrapings taken from the walls and tiles of the bathroom.^[10] A hair identified as belonging to an African American was later recovered from a sheet which had been used to wrap one of the victims.^[3]

THE INVESTIGATION:

There has been widespread criticism of how the police handled the crime scene.^[3] Misskelley's former attorney Dan Stidham cites multiple substantial police errors at the crime scene, characterizing it as "literally trampled, especially the creek bed."^[4] 

The bodies, he said, had been removed from the water before the coroner arrived to examine the scene and determine the state of rigor mortis, allowing the bodies to decay on the creek bank, and to be exposed to sunlight and insects.

The police did not telephone the coroner until almost two hours after the discovery of the floating shoe, resulting in a late appearance by the coroner. Officials failed to drain the creek in a timely manner and secure possible evidence in the water (the creek was sandbagged after the bodies were pulled from the water).

Stidham calls the coroner's investigation "extremely substandard."^[4] There was a small amount of blood found at the scene that was never tested. After the initial investigation, the police failed to control disclosure of information and speculation about the crime scene.^{[citation needed]}

According to Mara Leveritt, investigative journalist and author of Devil's Knot, "Police records were a mess. To call them disorderly would be putting it mildly."^[3]

 Leveritt speculated that the small local police force was overwhelmed by the crime, which was unlike any they had ever investigated. Police refused an unsolicited offer of aid and consultation from the violent crimes experts of the Arkansas State Police, and critics suggested this was due to the WMPD being investigated by the Arkansas State Police for suspected theft from the Crittenden County drug task force.^[3] Leveritt further noted that some of the physical evidence was stored in paper sacks obtained from a supermarket (with the supermarket's name pre-printed on the bags) rather than in containers of known and controlled origin.

Leveritt also mistakenly presumed that the crime scene video was shot minutes after Detectives Mike Allen and Bryn Ridge recovered two of the bodies, when in fact the camera was not available for almost thirty minutes afterwards.^[11]

When police speculated about the assailant, the juvenile probation officer assisting at the scene of the murders speculated that Echols was "capable" of committing the murders, stating "it looks like Damien Echols finally killed someone."^[3]

One expert, in the film Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, stated that human bite marks could have been left on at least one of the victims. However, these potential bite marks were first noticed in photographs years after the trials and were not inspected by a board-certified medical examiner until four years after the murders

 The defense's own expert testified that the mark in question was not an adult bite mark, which is consistent with the testimony of the list of experts put on by the State who had concluded that there was no bite mark.^{[citation needed]} The

State's experts had examined the actual bodies for any marks and others conducted expert photo analysis of injuries. Upon further examination, it was concluded that if the marks were bite marks, they did not match the teeth of any of the three convicted.^[12]

Police interviewed Echols two days after the bodies were discovered. During a polygraph examination, he denied any involvement, but the polygraph examiner claimed that Echols' chart indicated deception.^[3]

 When asked to produce the record of the examination, he indicated that he had no written record.^[3] Officer Durham, who administered the polygraph, also did not keep any record of the test.^[3] Recently, the report was found and is featured on the West Memphis Three Official Website, under the Evidence Archive.^[13]

On May 10, 1993, four days after the bodies were found, Detective Bryn Ridge questioned Echols, asking Echols to speculate as to how the three victims died. Ridge's description of Echols' answer is abstracted as follows: 

He stated that the boys probably died of mutilation, some guy had cut the bodies up, heard that they were in the water, they may have drowned. He said at least one was cut up more than the others. Purpose of the killing may have been to scare someone. He believed that it was only one person for fear of squealing by another involved.^{[citation needed]}

At trial, Echols testified that Ridge's description of the conversation (which was not recorded) was inaccurate. At the time that Echols had allegedly made these statements, police thought that there was no public knowledge that one of the children had been mutilated more severely than the others.

This contradicted John Mark Byers' (the stepfather of victim Christopher Byers) statement to reporters only minutes after the three bodies were found, "that two boys had been badly beaten and that the third had been even worse."

At that time, Det. Gitchell had not released that information.^[11]Gitchell later said he had told John Mark Byers some details of the scene first, before the official release to the media. Leveritt also demonstrates^[3] that the police leaked some information, and that partly accurate gossip about the case was widely discussed among the public.

Throughout the course of the trial and afterward, many teenagers came forward with statements regarding being questioned and polygraphed by the local police. They said that Durham, among others, was at times aggressive and verbally abusive if they did not say what was expected of them.^{[citation needed]} After the test, when asked what he was afraid of, Echols replied, "The electric chair."^[14]

After a month had passed, with little progress in the case, police continued to focus their investigation upon Echols, interrogating him more frequently than any other person; however, they claimed he was not regarded as a direct suspect but a source of information.^[3]

 

The Conclusion Tomorrow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three

References

r^ ^a ^b "Second Amended Writ of Habeas Corpus". David P Davis Esq, Attorney at Law. Retrieved October 31, 2007.

2. ^ ^a ^b Sauls, Burk. "Case Synopsis". Free the West Memphis Three. Retrieved July 23, 2007.


3. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u ^v ^w ^x ^y ^z ^aa ^ab ^ac ^ad ^ae ^af ^ag ^ah ^ai ^aj Leveritt, Mara (2003). Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three. Atria. ISBN 0743417607.^{[page needed]}


4. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Stidham, Dan. "Case Synopsis". Free the West Memphis Three. Retrieved July 20, 2007.


5. ^ ^a ^b ^c "Christopher Byers Autopsy". West Memphis Three Case - Document Archive. Retrieved July 1, 2009.


6. ^ Leveritt, Mara (July 19, 2007). "New evidence in West Memphis murders: Victim's mother believes defendants innocent". Arkansas Times. Retrieved 2009-07-05.


7. ^ "Testimony of Dr. Frank Peretti". West Memphis Three Case - Document Archive. Retrieved July 1, 2009.


8. ^ "Testimony of Michael DeGuglielmo". West Memphis Three Case - Document Archive. Retrieved July 1, 2009.


9. ^ Testimony, Echols/Baldwin Trial, Regina Meek


10. ^ Testimony, Echols/Baldwin Trial, Bryn Ridge


11. ^ ^a ^b ^c Steel, Fiona. "The West Memphis Three". Turner Broadcasting System, Inc..


12. ^ "Revelations: Paradise Lost 2. HBO. 28 July 2000 Broadcast. 17 Mar 2006". Retrieved 2007-02-19.


13. ^ " "polygraph reports - General Case Discussion".


14. ^ Damien Echols Polygraph


15. ^ BBC - collective - paradise lost, revelations dvd