Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [197]
154. Lax described one report, for example, dated a week before the arrests, as “a handwritten investigative report by Bill Durham regarding a search of the crime scene area for a tree with a tree house, as had been described by ‘a witness interviewed on May 27, 1993.’” Lax noted that “the correct tree was found, but there was no indication there had ever been a tree house in that particular tree.” Since the interviews with Vicki Hutcheson and her son Aaron had not yet been released, Lax and the lawyers were left to wonder why, so late in the investigation, police had returned to the woods to look for a tree house they might have missed. The media were also trying to piece together the puzzle of what had led to the arrests, but with even fewer clues.
155. Author interview, May 2001.
156. Emotions surrounding the case were inflamed in early August when the owner of a book store in Jonesboro, the city where Jason was being held, announced plans to lead a march on behalf of witches and pagans, in support of religious freedom. The event drew loud opposition. Steve Branch, Stevie’s biological father, condemned it in the press. “I’m telling everybody, if they believe in God and Christianity—even if they don’t go to church—to be out there,” he told the Memphis paper. Stevie’s grandmother Marie Hicks said she would not attend the march, because if she did, “I’d take a bunch of grenades with me.” The local chief of police said he was “preparing for the worst.” In August 1993, the high priestess for a Memphis group of Wiccans told theCommercial Appeal that “Wiccan do not acknowledge the existence of Satan, so it is hardly likely that we could worship this entity.” She added, “We look forward to the day when Christians, Wiccan, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and all other practitioners of loving faiths can coexist in harmony.” But the march of about seventy Wiccan was not harmonious. TheCommercial Appeal reported: “With rows of pedestrians and dozens of police looking on, the two groups passed within inches in a bizarre Main Street meeting as Christian hymns and bellowed prayers competed with pagan songs and chants in a loud, confusing cacophony.” One man reportedly shouted, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you people. Don’t you care about the youngsters in this community? You know this is wrong!” A woman told the paper, “I just wanted to let my kids see there are bad people in this world…. There are evil people who do evil things.” On the other hand, one man told a reporter that he had driven to Jonesboro from Little Rock because he supported freedom of religion. He said, “I believe in speaking out against religious persecution of any type.” But his was the minority view. After the march a group of local ministers, led by Bob Wirtmiller, pastor of the Woodsprings Church of the Nazarene, vowed to see that the bookstore whose owner had organized the march was closed. Referring to the West Memphis murders, they issued a statement saying, “We want our children protected against any possible recurrence due to occult activity of any kind.”
157. “Initially, I thought Michael was voluntarily participating in church services,” Shettles wrote; “however, I was somewhat shocked to learn these ministers come into their cells with or without the inmates’ permission. Michael stated these ministers were preaching directly at him and telling him he needed to turn his soul over to Jesus or he would not be allowed into heaven.” Shettles wrote that when she mentioned the trial ahead, Damien “laughed and stated he definitely did not want any priests on the jury. He also kidded and stated, if he had a choice, he would not have any males, females, whites or blacks on the jury, either.”
158. Berlinger and Sinofsky had gained prominence in the world of documentary filmmaking in 1992, with release ofBrother’s Keeper, their look into the life of a dairy farmer