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As the questioning of Peretti continued, Davis attempted to minimize the damage. He dropped the matter of time of death and asked Peretti about the effect that water might have had on the evidence. Yes, Peretti answered, water could have washed away sperm from the boys’ anuses, if they had been raped. And, yes, it was possible that not every rape of a child leaves lacerations on the victim. The beleaguered pathologist was then allowed to leave the stand.

“Getting to Be Absurd”

Next, the state called sixteen-year-old Michael Carson, the young burglar who’d recently come forward with a damning story about an encounter he said he’d had months earlier with Jason in jail. Michael’s testimony would prove critical. It, along with the knife removed from the lake and the fiber found with the bodies that was said to be “microscopically similar” to fibers in a woman’s bathrobe in Jason’s house, would constitute the entirety of the state’s case against him.

“He told me how he dismembered the kids,” Michael told Prosecutor Davis. “He sucked the blood from the penis and scrotum and put the balls in his mouth.”

Spectators in the courtroom gasped. Davis pressed on. Noting that Michael did not report what Jason had said until almost six months later, the prosecutor asked, “What caused you to come forward at that point in time?”

“Because I saw the family on TV,” Michael said, “and saw how brokenhearted they were about their children being missing. And I have got a soft heart. I couldn’t take it.”

Next, the prosecutor questioned Detective Sergeant Allen about the knife that was removed from the lake behind Jason’s house. When the prosecutor produced a map of the trailer park, Allen showed the jury where Jason lived, then pointed to a spot in the lake, a short distance away, where he said divers had found the knife. On cross-examination, defense lawyers attacked the tenuousness of the links, not only between the knife and Jason, but between the knife and the crime. Jason’s lawyer asked Allen, “Are you telling this jury that this knife is the murder weapon? Is that what you’re telling this jury?”

“No sir.” Allen replied. “I am not telling the jury that.”

When Detective Ridge returned to the stand, he acknowledged that contrary to what Gitchell had told reporters, the suggestion to search the lake had been Fogleman’s. Damien’s lawyer picked up the folding knife that John Mark Byers had given to the filmmakers—the one weapon that could be directly linked at least to the family of one of the victims. But when Price tried to question Ridge about his interview with Byers after blood was found in the knife’s fold, the prosecutors objected. They did not want the jury to hear that within the past six weeks, the police had formally read Byers his rights and questioned him about the murders—a revelation that might make him look like a suspect. Burnett immediately dismissed the jury and held anotherin camera hearing with the lawyers.

Both sides questioned Gitchell in the hearing. He maintained under oath that he and Ridge did not consider Byers a suspect. He said that they had questioned him about the bloodstained folding knife only because Stidham had insisted. Asked why, if Byers was not a suspect, they’d read him his rights before the interrogation began, Gitchell said that he was just trying to be cautious. It was the kind of catch-22 that the defense attorneys felt they’d been dealing with since the case began. And the absurdity did not stop there. When Damien’s lawyer asked Gitchell if, during their questioning of Byers, the detectives had been “trying to determine whether or not Mark Byers was involved in this homicide,” Gitchell responded, “Yes sir.” But when Price then asked, “So, at that time, you still had a question as to whether or not there might be other parties involved in this homicide than the three people charged?” Gitchell replied, “No sir.”

Judge Burnett said he couldn’t see the defense lawyer’s point. Price said he wanted to introduce evidence collected by the West Memphis police showing that Byers had been a suspect