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252. In a memo dated February 23, 1994, Ron Lax wrote that Jessie’s stepmother had described the meeting to him. She said Jessie had told her and his father that he was not present at the time of the murders and that he knew nothing about them. He said he’d admitted to the crimes a second time, after his conviction, because he was afraid of the “men with guns” and of what would happen to him at prison. Lax noted that Mrs. Misskelley also said that “Jessie was laboring under the impression the prosecution would reduce his time significantly. Jessie stated he realized now none of this was true and said he would not testify.”

253. Author interview with Stidham and Misskelley, February 2001.

254. During that same interview, Stidham recalled the moment, right before Damien and Jason’s trial began, when he advised the prosecution, for the last time, to leave his client alone and that Jessie would not testify against his codefendants. “I said, ‘If you bother my client one more time, I’m going to hold a press conference, and I’ll tell the world what you have been doing to my client, how the prosecutors in this district met with my client without me ever knowing about it, about the promises to bring Susie to him for sex, and that someone brought him beer.’ I said I’d tell how they put him through an interrogation once, and then they put him through it all again—because they were afraid they couldn’t make their case if they didn’t have him.”

255. “Voir dire” means “to speak the truth.” It refers to the legal process by which lawyers question potential jurors to determine their suitability to serve in a particular trial.

256. “I remember the news conference that the West Memphis police detective held,” one excused juror said upon leaving the courthouse, “and the statement that Jessie Misskelley made has been well rooted in my memory.” Another noted only that he had formed a “strong opinion” about the case. A third admitted, “The way they were talking about the evidence, I just didn’t want to see it.” Two women who were excused said that even being questioned for the jury had been emotionally taxing. “I have small children,” one said. Another reported having been “close to tears” during the questioning. Another prospective juror was excused because she could not impose a death sentence. “I would have trouble with it,” Kathy Cravens of Jonesboro told a reporter. “I think because of their age, I would have a problem with it.”

257.Commercial Appeal, February 26, 1994.

258. “Simply put, jury selection is part of the trial proceeding, and must be held in the open,” a lawyer for the paper argued. The paper’s managing editor, Henry Stokes, said, “We believe that an open judicial process is the fairest for everyone. TheCommercial Appeal has asked for no more than Arkansas law already demands: that jury selection takes place behind no shadow.”

259. Burnett said the matter fell to the discretion of the trial judge and that he would continue to conduct the voir dire in his chambers. “To ask laypeople to come in from their work, their homes, their normal pursuits and to be bombarded by very sensitive questions, to where they have to verbalize their innermost feelings in front of a few hundred people, the eyes of the cameras, the eyes of the world—to me that’s unreasonable,” he said.

260. “Was the court’s order excluding the public and press from the voir dire valid?” the high court asked rhetorically at the end of its opinion. “It is clear by what has been said that we have answered with an emphatic ‘No!’” The court offered no opinion, however, as to how—or even if—the invalid process should be corrected.

261. Report of Jonesboro patrol officer C. Gellert.

262. Despite the lurid opening, reporter Marc Perrusquia’s piece took an unusual turn for reporting at the time, in that it also offered less sensational descriptions of the defendants. It quoted Dian Teer, Domini’s mother, as saying, “He liked vampire movies and vampire books, but I do too—so what? What really scares me is the one who really [killed the