Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [127]
To the reporter for theArkansas Times, it looked like the prosecutors were trying to portray Damien “as a devil-driven monster who was capable of the crime and therefore must have done it.”278But that was not how Damien appeared to the reporter. “He’s sardonic and remorseless,” he wrote, “but what he conveys isn’t cold-hearted menace; it’s a disturbed boy lost in a theatrical posture that he’s tried to fashion into an identity. More pitiful than scary.”
The Mysterious Christopher Morgan
As the next piece of their defense, Damien’s lawyers tried again to question Christopher Morgan, the twenty-year-old from Memphis who’d told police in California that he may have “blacked out” and killed the three boys in West Memphis. Though Morgan had quickly recanted that statement, the defense attorneys wanted the jury to hear Morgan, so that his account might at least raise reasonable doubt. But the prosecutors tried to block the appearance. They told Burnett that he ought to hold anotherin camera session to hear what Morgan had to say before he let Morgan say it in open court. Burnett agreed, and with the jury out of the room, the strangest, most secretive—and perhaps most revealing—part of the trial began obliquely to unfold.
At the start of thein camera hearing that followed, Morgan refused to answer questions about anything he’d said to the police. He asked for an attorney. Ignoring his request, Judge Burnett had Morgan sworn in. Morgan answered a few questions, then requested an attorney again. Judge Burnett again refused, and ordered Morgan to respond. Finally, with no attorney, Morgan testified at length under oath. He said he’d once had a job selling ice cream in the victims’ neighborhood but that he’d lied when he told police in California that he may have killed them. He said he’d spent the day of the murders either working at a car wash or jumping off sand cliffs into the Mississippi River, and that he’d spent that evening at a Memphis nightclub. Morgan said he’d gone to California a few days after the murders to pick up a car for a friend. He said he went to the police station voluntarily, when he learned he was wanted for questioning, and that he’d confessed in exasperation after seventeen hours of questioning by the Oceanside police. Morgan said he currently faced a federal drug charge in Memphis for possession of LSD.
Judge Burnett asked Morgan about a portion of his statement in which he’d told police that his confession had been false. “From what I recall, I may have told them, ‘Are you happy?’ They said, ‘Is that the truth?’ I said, ‘No.’” Morgan said that the police had kept him locked in a small room and that he’d finally blurted out the words “Maybe I could have,” so that they would leave him alone. Oceanside police did eventually let Morgan go without pressing charges. Fogleman interjected that the West Memphis police had “ruled out” Morgan as a suspect.
Prosecutor Davis then argued that Morgan’s testimony was “unreliable.” He said defense attorneys wanted “to throw it in a hopper to create a smoke screen,” but that the testimony was “absolutely” not relevant. Paul Ford disputed that claim, arguing that police had questioned Jessie under similar circumstances.
“Jessie Misskelley denied that he did it, denied that he did it, admitted that he did it, then denied it and denied it, and he’s in prison,” Ford said. “This may be the same thing.”
At this point, Judge Burnett decided to appoint an attorney for Morgan. The judge ordered Morgan to return to court with his attorney in two days.
“Lost”
Back in open court, the defense lawyers shifted their focus to the quality of the police investigation. With Chief Inspector Gitchell on the stand, Damien’s lawyer Scott