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They also worried about Jessie. He’d been sentenced to life without parole. But now, fresh on the heels of his conviction, the prosecutors were offering him a chance to shorten his time in prison, just for saying a few words. If, as Jessie’s lawyer had contended, the boy had buckled under pressure from the West Memphis police when they’d questioned him for a few hours, how would he react under the greater pressure of prison? Would he grab the offer Fogleman and Davis were holding out to him? Would he accuse Damien and Jason again, this time on the witness stand, under oath, in front of the jury?

Jason’s lawyers had those worries, and an additional one. They still believed strongly that Jason’s trial needed to be separated from Damien’s. They did not want Jason’s trial to be tainted by the stories of satanism, cult or occult practices, or general weirdness that were attached to Damien. They wanted to be free to take any approach they felt was needed to defend Jason’s life. If that meant arguing that Damien might have killed the children but that Jason certainly did not, they wanted to be free to say that. In a last-ditch pretrial motion, they told Judge Burnett that presenting their case would be difficult, if not impossible, if the two boys were tried together. But as in the past, Judge Burnett rejected the motion.

Prosecutors Davis and Fogleman had serious worries of their own. They had had virtually no evidence against Jessie, other than his tape-recorded confession. But the jury had considered that confession to be sufficient. Now they were heading into a trial with a similar dearth of evidence, but against defendants who had not confessed. Jessie had accused Damien and Jason, and that accusation had been the basis for the arrests. But if Jessie would not repeat his accusation at the upcoming trial, under oath, as a witness for the state, Davis and Fogleman would not be allowed to mention it. Even to play the tape of Jessie’s confession, in which he implicated Damien and Jason, without Jessie himself taking the stand, would violate the constitutional requirement that defendants be allowed to face their accusers at trial.

Fogleman and Davis realized that if Jessie accused Damien and Jason in court, the blow to the defense case would be devastating. On the other hand, even if Jessie did not testify, and no mention of his confession could be made, the defense teams would still have immense damage to overcome. Jessie’s confession had been leaked to the press within two weeks after his arrest, and his damning accusations against Damien and Jason had been intensely publicized. Jessie’s just-concluded trial, with all its attendant publicity, had again riveted public attention on the confession. It was almost inconceivable that any twelve jurors could be seated who were not already well aware both that Jessie had confessed and that he had accused Damien and Jason of the murders.

However much they might have been helped by the backdrop of publicity to the case, the prosecutors did not want to count on it. Facing a trial where there were no confessions, no direct physical evidence, and no clear motive, they wanted an eyewitness—even one whose story had changed repeatedly. But talk of reducing Jessie’s sentence did not sit well with the victims’ families. Davis and Fogleman met with them to explain why, now that they’d just gotten Jessie convicted, they were trying to offer him a deal. “Unfortunately,” Davis explained, “we need his testimony real bad.”

“All is not lost if he doesn’t testify,” Fogleman quickly added. “But the odds are reduced significantly. I mean, we’ve still gotsome evidence.” Fogleman then summarized the evidence they had against Damien and Jason, if Jessie’s confession was excluded. He listed

—Three fibers. Fogleman said he considered fiber evidence strong but added, “We can’t say it came from that particular garment to the exclusion of all others.”

—The Hollingsworths’ claims that they’d seen Damien and Domini on the service road. These reports presented two problems: they placed Domini at