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293. Author interview, November 2001.

294. Jason’s mother, Gail Grinnell, had lost her job over the trial. She’d asked her boss for time off to attend it, and he had refused. Rather than leave Jason alone while he was on trial for his life, she’d quit the job in order to be at the courthouse. However, because she had been listed as a potential witness, Grinnell was not allowed into the courtroom. When it became clear that she was not going to be called, Jason realized how much had been lost. His mother had given up her job to spend the entire three weeks waiting, sitting in a lobby outside the courtroom, where she could not even see, let alone try to encourage, her son.

295. Ford told Burnett, “Your Honor, we would like to be able to argue to the jury that the state of Arkansas does not even believe it has proven the charges of capital murder because they are requesting that you consider first-degree murder, which places less burden on them.”

296. The North Carolina lab, Genetic Design, identified the DQ Alpha type as “1.2,4.” The lab reportedly tried unsuccessfully to amplify the results.

297. Fogleman told the jury that because Jason had long hair, Hollingsworth had probably mistaken him for her niece.

298. Arkansas law requires that for circumstantial evidence to be deemed substantial enough to support a conviction it must “exclude all other reasonable hypotheses.”

299. After the verdicts were read, Burnett asked the clerk to poll the jurors, but foreman Kent Arnold interrupted. “Judge,” he asked, “do you have to use names?” So far, the identity of the jurors had not been made public, and Burnett had further instructed that they not be photographed. He now consented to allow the jurors to be polled by number. All affirmed that they had voted for the convictions. In addition to Arnold, the jurors were Peggy Roebuck, Joan Sprinkle, Vicki Stoll, Barbara White, Sharon French, Peggy Van Hoozer, Howard McNatt, William Billingsly, John Throgmorton, Jennifer Dacus, and Oma Dooley.

300. Jack Echols, Damien’s adoptive father, recalled how kids in the schools Damien had attended were always “picking on him, hitting on him, fighting him on the bus.” Joe Hutchison, Damien’s biological father, told the court, “I didn’t do what I should have done, and as far as his raising goes, if anybody’s to blame for that, it’s me.”

301. The pages are stored, along with items of evidence and artifacts from the investigation, at the West Memphis Police Department.

302. Descriptions of Jason’s first year in prison are drawn from a letter written by him to the author, dated December 10, 2001.

303. Back in the jail, he said, he “cried it all out” and then he made up his mind “to never cry again.” He prayed “for all things to come out good”; that his mother and brothers “would hold up”; and that the God he felt had deserted him would, indeed, “bring the truth to light.” The warden at the jail where he was being held, along with other female staffers, joined him to pray that he would be protected in prison. One of the jailers tried to help the new convict by bringing a former prison inmate to visit. “He told me what to expect,” Jason later recalled, “and how I should not trust anyone there, no matter how friendly they acted toward me. He informed me that prison is a violent place, full of hateful people, and that I, especially being as young and small as I was, would always have to be on guard. ‘Great,’ I thought. He then told me that I would be okay, and he gave me $10 out of his own pocket to carry with me.” When Jason’s family came for their last visit with him before his removal to the penitentiary, Jason did his best to act unafraid. He told his mother and two younger brothers not to worry about him, that they were to stick together as a family, and that they should never lose hope. “Our love will get us through,” he said. But privately, he worried about what lay ahead for them. Rough as the future might be for him, he knew that he would be locked away in a cell, but they would have to “live out there” amid “all the lies and rumors.