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By Root 702 0

a Memphis private investigator, decided to get involved in the case. A meticulous dresser, a self-described “anal-retentive” organizer, a collector of French antiques and books on art, Lax was not a stereotypical private eye. He headed his own investigations company, Inquisitor, Inc., with offices in Memphis and Nashville. Most of Inquisitor’s work focused on insurance and financial fraud. But in the past five years, Lax had widened the scope of his work. Defense lawyers had sought his help on cases where clients faced charges of capital murder. Lax had agreed, though he considered the death penalty an appropriate punishment for persons found guilty of some kinds of murder.141Lax’s investigative work helped get some defendants acquitted. His experiences also convinced him that bad police work often resulted in charges against innocent people. By the time of the sensational West Memphis murders, Lax had mo

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten Release of the Police Files AS FURTHER PROOFof Damien’s unstable mental state, while he was contemplating his death, he was also planning his marriage. Domini was pregnant and was expecting to deliver the baby in the fall of 1993. If Damien was coming apart, as he feared, the parts were greatly at odds. His writings, which the private investigators did not see, verged on madness and despair. When Shettles and Lax visited, they saw a severely troubled teenager who they feared might be suicidal. But Damien’s letters to Domini and his family were, by contrast, almost sunny. He wrote to Domini, “I told my mom to buy you an engagement ring with my next check. Remind her. Tell your mom I said hi, and I may be out by Christmas.” Reflecting on Domini’s pregnancy, he wrote, “I hope I get out in time to see our baby be born!” Whether he realized it or not, the wish was preposterous. The defendants’ trial dates had yet to be set, and the prosecutor had barely begun to release informat

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven The Pretrial Motions THE WORDS“OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW IS LIBERTY” are etched in stone above the entrance to the Crittenden County Courthouse at Marion. On August 4, 1993, two police officers led Damien, Jason, and Jessie, all wearing handcuffs and shackles, into the heavily guarded building for their first pretrial hearing. The courtroom was called to order, and Judge David Burnett, with black robes flowing and cornsilk-colored hair curling slightly at his collar, climbed to his seat at the bench.161Burnett told a reporter he’d read a book about satanism “for information purposes,” in preparation for the case. Now, in his official capacity, he told the defendants that they were each charged with three counts of capital felony murder. He asked them, how did they plead? Each replied, “Not guilty.” Burnett cut a familiar and genial figure at the two-story courthouse. Earlier in the summer, he and the three other judges in Arkansas’s Second Judicial District had met to discuss

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve The Private Investigation WHILE THE LAWYERS WRANGLED, private investigator Ron Lax delved deeper into “the discovery mess.” At the end of November 1993, despite Fogleman’s repeated assurances to Judge Burnett that the defense would have the entire police file by the end of August, the prosecutor suddenly released another large batch of material. One item in the batch, in particular, had sparked the defense lawyers’ interest: a transcript of the interview that detectives Ridge and Sudbury had conducted with John Mark Byers on May 19, more than six months earlier. This was the first the defense had seen of it. This lengthy interview, which was conductedbefore the arrests, had inexplicably been withheld, not just past August but for more than three months after that. Until now—three weeks before the Christmas holidays and with Jessie’s trial just six weeks away—the three defense teams had known nothing about the John Mark Byers element of the investigation. As with all the

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen The Bloodstained Knife BY THE SECOND WEEK OFJANUARY1994, reporters were gathering in Corning, Arkansas,