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208. Davis had also opted not to prosecute Lieutenant Sudbury and the other investigators on the local drug task force after a state police investigation turned up evidence that they had been taking for personal use guns and other evidence seized in the line of duty.

209. The memo cited an interview that state police investigator Steve Dozier conducted on June 24, 1993, with Tom Larson of Dallas, Texas. In his final report on the Rolex fraud, Dozier wrote, “This case has been reviewed by the prosecutor, who declines to prosecute the suspect, Mark Byers, at this time.”

210. Description by Bob Lancaster in theArkansas Times, April 7, 1994, after the conclusion of both of the trials.

211. Melissa also testified that a few weeks before his death, Christopher had told her about a man with dark hair who wore black pants, a black shirt, and a black coat, who’d driven a green car into the driveway and taken pictures of him. Stidham objected that the testimony was hearsay, but Burnett allowed the testimony.

212. When Byers was interviewed by Ridge and Sudbury on May 19, 1993, he said he’d begun looking in the woods at about 8:30P .M. “It had got dark,” he said. “I had on a pair of shorts and a pair of flip-flops, so I run back to the house and changed clothes and put me on some coveralls and boots that I had on probably for the next two or three days.”

213. Author interview, May 2001.

214. Early reports from the state crime lab to the West Memphis police had suggested that the boys were sodomized. Not having received the autopsy reports, detectives still believed that to be the case when they questioned Misskelley.

215. “The atmosphere was very laid-back and of a subdued nature,” Gitchell said. “We treated him with kid gloves, as if we were talking to one of our own children.”

216. At one point, under cross-examination, Gitchell said he believed that Jessie had gotten confused about the boys having skipped school, “and meant Baldwin was to have skipped school that day.” However, as the police knew, Jason had attended school.

217. Hearings held in camera—literally, in the judge’s chambers—are not necessarily held outside of the courtroom. The intent is that the jury not be privy to what is said, though reporters may attend, and the hearings are part of the trial record. Some judges order the jurors to be removed from the courtroom when they hold in camera hearings, as Burnett often did in this case. But it is also common in Arkansas for judges to hold brief in camera hearings quietly at the bench, without dismissing the jurors, who have been instructed not to listen. This practice, which Burnett also employed at times, results in quicker trials. Arkansas’s average trial length is one of the shortest in the country.

218. Later in the trial, Stidham attempted to discredit Hutcheson’s statement that she’d never been interested in the reward by calling to the stand one of her former neighbors, who’d been interviewed by Lax. Stidham said that the woman was prepared to testify that Hutcheson had spoken repeatedly about her plans for the reward money. But Judge Burnett would not allow the woman’s testimony. He claimed that he did not recall that Hutcheson had ever said she was not motivated by the reward.

219. Author interview, April 2001.

220. Lax file notes, January 30, 1994.

221. Stidham and Crow considered calling Buddy Lucas to testify about his treatment by the police, as evidence of the coercive tactics they said police had used on Misskelley. In what Stidham described as “a very difficult decision,” they opted not to use the boy. Like Misskelley, they said, he was low-functioning, and had been in special education at school. He was also very nervous and the attorneys thought he would not have made a good witness. Finally, as Stidham later explained, the lawyers considered that “the jury might have believed Buddy’s statement to police, which the prosecution surely would have used to impeach him.”

222. Author interview, May