Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [138]
He dismissed the charges of police ineptitude as a standard defense lawyer ploy. “They always get up here and say, ‘Well, the police bungled it up, because if they had done a better job, like they do on TV, we’d have all the answers. And so they claim the police messed up.” Nonetheless, Davis admitted that “there’s just a scarcity of evidence.” He explained, “Somebody did a good job of cleaning it up. The same person who made sure they punched the clothes down in the mud so they wouldn’t float up is the same person that cleaned that area, and they did a dang good job of it, and they removed most of the evidence.”
The idea that the defendants had cleaned up the site of a triple murder and castration so well in the dark that police had not been able to find a single definitive clue startled some courtroom observers, as had Davis’s mention of Visqueen. But the prosecutor continued, focusing on the theory that Damien’s beliefs had given rise to the murders. “The satanic or occult motive thing is kind of a foreign concept to me,” he said. “But when you’ve got people that are doing what was done to these three little boys, I mean, you’ve got—the normal motives for human conduct don’t apply. There’s something strange going on that causes people to do this. I mean, you’ve got some weird people.”
Gesturing toward Damien, Davis continued. “Well, I mean, you can judge him from the witness stand. This guy is as cool as a cucumber. He is nearly emotionless, and what he has done in terms of the satanic stuff is a whole lot more than just dabbling or looking into it for purposes of an intellectual exercise…. And I put to you, as bizarre as it may seem to you and as unfamiliar as it may seem, this occult set of beliefs and the beliefs that Damien had and that his best friend, Jason, was exposed to all the time, that those were the set of beliefs that were the motive or the basis for causing this bizarre murder.”
Then the district’s chief prosecutor summed it all up. “We have presented a circumstantial case with circumstantial evidence, and it’s good enough for a conviction,” he said. “I think Damien is the link with Jason. I think there is a connection between the two that you can consider in determining the guilt of this other defendant…. And when you go back there, sort through that evidence. Go through it carefully. Look at this knife. Look at those photos. Look at all the evidence, and piece it together, and when you do, you’re going to find that these defendants are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And you’ll feel—you can feel—good.”
March 17, 1994
The jurors left the courtroom at 5P.M . that night. They deliberated until 9:40P.M . While they were out, Damien granted a few reporters an informal interview. Ron Lax hung close by to listen. Sounding relaxed, Damien took the opportunity to knock the prosecutors’ main witness. If the jury acquitted him, he told the reporters, he planned to pursue a “mail-order Ph.D. and become an expert on cults.” He complained that he hadn’t been allowed to read books by Stephen King or Anne Rice since his arrest, and that he’d had to resort to Westerns, the only literary fare at the jail.
The next day was Friday, March 18, 1994. The jurors resumed their deliberations at 9:30A.M . At three-thirty that afternoon, they notified Judge Burnett that they had reached a decision. Damien and Jason were led back into court. Burnett warned against any outbursts. Uniformed police officers filed into position between the spectators and the defendants, forming what one observer called “a human wall.”
When all was settled, a hush fell