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while they were living in Jackson, [Mississippi], Byers worked for Gordon Jewelers and had a good job, but began staying out late and it was her opinion he was using drugs then. They left Jackson abruptly and she was never able to determine the reasons…. After leaving Jackson, they moved to Mobile, Alabama, where he again worked with Gordon Jewelers and was on the road a great deal of time. He had been out of town for approximately two weeks on one occasion and returned and informed her they were moving and he was quitting his job. Again, they moved quickly (within two days) and she never was informed of the reasons. She was surprised he would give up the good job he had with Gordon Jewelers. Leaving Mobile in 1982, they moved to Memphis, where Byers obtained employment with two jewelers, both located in Germantown, [Tennessee], and he worked for himself as well. They remained in the Memphis area until 1985, when they moved to Marion, Arkansas. She divorced Byers in 1986. Ms. Slone informed me Byers had some problems with the police or authorities in Germantown, [Tennesse], but it was apparently handled and she never knew exactly what had occurred. Ms. Slone stated it always seemed as though Byers had connections with someone, because he became involved in drugs and illegal activities, but never was arrested.” Lax added to his report, “We have since researched criminal records on file in Germantown, Tennessee, and have found no records relating to John Mark Byers.”

246. The boy was Kenneth Clyde Watkins. His mother’s name was Shirley Green-wood.

247. From a video-and audiotaped statement taken February 12, 1994.

248. Lax noted: “Ridge admitted there were no items found laid out in any type of pattern. There was no pattern to the placement of the bodies. There was no slab or log found to be in the area [that might have been used as a sacrificial table]. Ridge stated there had been no reports that revealed any new or unusual activities prior to the homicide, but that a friend of the victims stated that he was being recruited to be in some type of club and he would have to kill someone to get in the club.”

249. The information about the police decision to search the library records proved almost too much for Lax. The usually restrained investigator looked up Cotton Mather in an encyclopedia and dictated a lengthy memo. He noted that Mather, who had lived in Boston from 1663 to 1728, was a highly respected writer who had fanned the popular belief in witchcraft. He was the son of Increase Mather, who had served as pastor of Boston’s North Church and president of Harvard University. “Also, in this same encyclopedia I found the discussion of witchcraft quite interesting,” Lax wrote in the memo. “It is as follows: ‘Witch’craft: A supernatural influence, once thought to be acquired by certain persons by reason of some league with Satan or other evil spirits. Until the Sixteenth Century, belief in witch craft was universal, and the law of all Christian countries recognized it as a crime. Roger Bacon, Sir Matthew Hale, Blackstone, Richard Baxter, and John Wesley believed in witches. Though this old delusion was beginning to wane at the opening of the Eighteenth Century, a local frenzy broke out in New England just about that time. It began and endured mainly about Salem Village and, fanned by the utterances of Cotton Mather, it caused a special court to be constituted to try those suspected of witchery, of whom there were over one hundred in jail at one time. This court, in 1692, caused the death of twenty victims. With the tragedy, reaction set in, and over one hundred fifty persons charged with the same crime were delivered from prison the following year.’”

250. Bob Lancaster, in theArkansas Times, April 7, 1994.

251. Stidham said Jessie had reached the decision the night before, after meeting with his father and stepmother, his attorneys, and Phillip Wells, the lawyer appointed by Burnett to ascertain Jessie’s true wishes. When reporters checked with Wells, he reported that the prosecutors had offered Jessie a deal, though