Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [134]
The second odd event occurred when Fogleman announced that the West Memphis police had suddenly discovered blood on a necklace they’d taken from Damien. The necklace had been in their possession since the night of the three arrests, ten months before. Upon noticing what appeared to be blood, they’d sent the pendant, which was in the shape of a hatchet, to the state crime lab for analysis. But the amount of blood had been so small that the crime lab had forwarded the pendant to a laboratory in North Carolina for more elaborate tests. As Damien and Jason’s trial was drawing to a close, the North Carolina lab had reported finding two types of blood on the pendant. One of these DQ Alpha types, as they were called, was a match for Damien. The other was reported to be consistent with the blood type of Jason Baldwin, Stevie Branch, and approximately 11 percent of what the laboratory identified as “the Caucasian population.”296Despite the ambiguity of the findings, Fogleman wanted to get the necklace before the jury. Although both sides had already formally rested their cases, he took the extraordinary step of asking Burnett to allow the introduction of new evidence.
The effort led to another heatedin camera session. Again the jury heard nothing of what transpired, as Damien’s lawyer reported that the defendants had shared the pendant. “If that is indeed Jason Baldwin’s blood on this pendant, and not Stevie Branch’s,” Val Price said, “then the evidence is of no value at all, and not relevant.” Jason’s lawyer complained that the attempt to introduce new evidence at this stage of the trial was outrageous. “This is not newly discovered evidence,” he said. “They’ve had it in their possession the entire time. They just didn’t do anything with it.”
Judge Burnett deemed the situation serious enough that he postponed the trial for a day while he wrestled with the problem. If he granted Fogleman’s request, the trial would have to be continued, at the very least. At worst, introduction of the new evidence would result in a mistrial for Jason, who stood to be harmed by evidence for which his lawyers had not been prepared. Finally, Judge Burnett told the prosecutors that if they wanted to introduce the pendant, he would grant Jason’s attorneys’ repeated requests to sever his trial from Damien’s.
Now the prosecutors faced a dilemma. They had fought every effort to prohibit Jason from being tried on his own. Now they were being warned by Judge Burnett that if they kept trying to introduce the blood-specked necklace, a severance would be ordered. Fogleman and Davis backed down. The matter of the pendant was dropped.
The bailiff notified the jurors to return to the courthouse on Thursday, March 17, for the conclusion of the trial. TheJonesboro Sun reported “rumors” that the unexplained delay had been caused “by results from DNA testing for traces of blood on Echols’ necklace.”
Chapter Twenty
The Verdicts
AT LAST,AFTER SEVENTEEN DAYS OF TRIAL , Fogleman rose to face the jury with his closing argument. Ignoring Peretti’s testimony, he said the murders had taken place sometime between 9:30 and 10:00P.M . on the evening of May 5, at the site where the bodies were found. He described as “highly credible” Narlene Hollingsworth’s contention that she’d seen Damien on the service road near the Blue Beacon Truck Wash at about that time. As for Hollingsworth’s testimony that Damien was with his girlfriend, Domini, and not Jason, Fogleman simply told the jurors to draw their