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wash the blood away. The fact that the victims were tied ankle to wrist was significant because this was done to display the genitalia, and the removal of Byers’s testicles was significant because testicles are removed for the semen. He stated that the absence of blood at the scene could be significant because cult members store blood for future services in which they would drink the blood or bathe in it. He testified that the “overkill” or multiple cuts could reflect occult overtones. Dr. Griffis testified that there was significance in injuries to the left side of the victims as distinguished from the right side: People who practice occultism will use the midline theory, drawing straight down through the body. The right side is related to those things synonymous with Christianity, while the left side is that of the practitioners of the Satanic occult. He testified that the clear place on the bank could be consistent with a ceremony. In sum, Dr. Griffis testified there was significant evidence of Satanic ritual killings.

The high court ruled that all of this constituted “substantial evidence” of Damien’s guilt. As for the substantial evidence against Jason, the justices cited only Michael Carson’s testimony that Jason told him he had “dismembered the kids.” The court labored a bit longer over arguments that the trials should have been severed. But in the end the justices concluded that “almost all of the factors” they considered “clearly” weighed in favor of a joint trial.324Similarly, the court had little trouble approving the extraordinary nighttime search; the fact that the West Memphis magistrate who’d issued the search warrants had also instructed police in how to prepare the affidavit; and the vagueness of warrants authorizing police to search for “blue, green, red, black, and purple fibers” and “cult or Satanic materials.” The high court did deal at some length with arguments concerning the admission of evidence regarding the occult. But ultimately, all of those arguments were rejected as well. Relying heavily on the testimony of Griffis, the high court ruled that Judge Burnett’s decision to qualify Griffis as an expert had not been error; that allowing Griffis to testify had not been error; that Judge Burnett’s ruling admitting the dog’s skull, heavy metal music posters, and books Damien had read into evidence had not been error; and that there was no problem with Judge Burnett’s ruling allowing Jerry Driver to testify that he’d seen Damien, Jason, and Jessie walking together six months before the murders, carrying “long sticks or staffs.”325

The Supreme Court also rejected arguments that Judge Burnett should have required Christopher Morgan to take the stand, even if he had invoked the Fifth Amendment for every question he was asked. The justices ruled that the trial judge had the discretion to decide whether Morgan should testify or not. Since they found no “manifest abuse” of that discretion, they declined to second-guess Burnett’s decision.

And so it went. The high court approved of Burnett’s decisions to admit as evidence the sticks found in the woods months after the killings and the knife taken from the lake, based on Dr. Peretti’s testimony that wounds to the victims “were consistent” with injuries that might have been caused by such objects. Similarly, the high court supported Fogleman’s demonstration in front of the jury with the knives cutting the grapefruit. And it found no problem with the fact that, even now, two years after the trials, none of the court-appointed defense lawyers had been paid.326

Though the opinion was exceptionally long, its bottom line was simple: the convictions would stand. The only avenue of appeal left to the defendants now, in the state of Arkansas, was for them to claim that their lawyers had been grossly inadequate. But no court would appoint someone to do that, and all three of the inmates were indigent.

Paradise Lost

At a point when it appeared that Damien, Jason, and Jessie might slip into obscurity, Sinofsky and Berlinger, the filmmakers who’d recorded the trials,