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“Ridge stated the victim who was cut in the area of his penis was known to have died from bleeding to death; however, they had found no blood at the crime scene. He attempted to explain this by stating the cutting could have been done in the water, or if it was done on the bank, it was cleaned off with water before the murderers left the area. He also stated he had testified in court about the absence of blood and that the friend of the victims [Aaron] reported that a bucket was used to catch the blood.”

Writings

More than speculation about buckets of blood, certain writings gave Lax cause for concern. He and the defense lawyers knew that Fogleman had dozens of pages of Damien’s personal writings—many that had been confiscated by Driver—and that he would use what writings he could to portray Damien as a killer. Shettles reviewed the writings for content in an effort to anticipate what Fogleman might introduce. “In my opinion,” she wrote, “there is very little material in the text of these writings that is damaging…. The major themes noted are despair, loneliness, and thoughts of death and suicide.”

But it was not only Damien’s personal writings that now appeared to be aimed against him, but his reading choices as well. While Jessie’s trial was under way, West Memphis police served a search warrant on the Crittenden County Library, looking for all books that had been checked out by Damien, Jason, Jessie, or Domini. The two books that had apparently interested police had both been checked out by Damien. They wereMagic, by Maurice Bouisson, andCotton Mather on Witchcraft, by the colonial minister Cotton Mather. Lax advised the defense teams, “Along with our attack on the inept police investigation, I feel that every opportunity should be taken to show correlation between the Salem witch-hunts in the seventeenth century and the persecution of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley.”249

Chapter Eighteen

The Second Trial

JUST AS ICE HAD GRIPPED NORTHEASTArkansas at the start of Jessie’s trial, another unusual blast of cold heralded the start of Damien and Jason’s. Television crews encircled the Craighead County Courthouse, a building that reminded a reporter from Little Rock of “a Reconstruction mausoleum, smack in Jonesboro’s busy business district.” Inside, in Judge Burnett’s courtroom, prosecutors Davis and Fogleman and the defendants’ four attorneys were still questioning prospective jurors. The courtroom crawled with armed policemen, the Little Rock reporter noted: “three state troopers, five sheriff’s deputies on a normal day—surveilling us spectators as if seventy-five percent were convinced of an imminent attempt at a lynch.”250

Outside the courthouse, Jessie’s lawyer stood talking to reporters on the building’s icy steps. “Mr. Misskelley made a decision last night that he is not going to testify against his codefendants,” Stidham announced.251Reporters hollered questions. Had Jessie been offered a reduced sentence if he testified—one that would give him an opportunity for parole, as Damien’s lawyers claimed? Or had no such deal been offered, as Fogleman contended? Stidham declined to answer but did say, tellingly, that the decision Jessie had reached the night before had been “the most difficult decision he will ever make.” Stidham said that as he spoke, Jessie was being driven back to the prison at Pine Bluff.252

Years later, in an interview in the prison, Jessie described the pressures he’d been under.253He said that when he was brought back to northeast Arkansas after his own conviction, he was told that if he did not testify against Damien and Jason, they would not be convicted, and that while he rotted in prison, they’d go after his girlfriend. “They told me that if I didn’t testify, Damien and Jason would walk free,” he recalled, “and they was going to go see Susie; they was going to get to her. That’s when they told me: talk or Damien and Jason was going to walk free and I was going to be locked up.” Jessie credited his father and stepmother with helping him to understand his situation.