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” with what appeared to be blood and hair on it had been found in the mobile home where Damien lived at the time of the murders. The trailer’s new renter had found the club and notified police. But though the report created another sensation, it was quietly proven untrue. The stick turned out to be an old axe handle that had been used to stir red paint. The hair was from a dog. To Damien’s private investigator, the story typified what the defense had been dealing with throughout the case: wild suspicions, false claims, and convenient leaks from police to the press. Ron Lax had been trying since the beginning to find a consistent theory of the crime, a clear motive—something the defense could attack. But the state’s version of the crime had kept changing. Too much about this case was vague, contradictory, confusing. It was hard to find a clear path

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen The Second Trial JUST AS ICE HAD GRIPPED NORTHEASTArkansas at the start of Jessie’s trial, another unusual blast of cold heralded the start of Damien and Jason’s. Television crews encircled the Craighead County Courthouse, a building that reminded a reporter from Little Rock of “a Reconstruction mausoleum, smack in Jonesboro’s busy business district.” Inside, in Judge Burnett’s courtroom, prosecutors Davis and Fogleman and the defendants’ four attorneys were still questioning prospective jurors. The courtroom crawled with armed policemen, the Little Rock reporter noted: “three state troopers, five sheriff’s deputies on a normal day—surveilling us spectators as if seventy-five percent were convinced of an imminent attempt at a lynch.”250 Outside the courthouse, Jessie’s lawyer stood talking to reporters on the building’s icy steps. “Mr. Misskelley made a decision last night that he is not going to testify against his codefendants,” Stidham announced.251Reporters hollere

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen The Motive THE TRIAL WAS ENTERING ITS THIRD WEEK. Prosecutors Davis and Fogleman had welcomed the judge’s decision to bar evidence about other suspects. Still, their case was thin. In Jessie’s trial, they’d had a confession. Here they did not. Unable to call Jessie and unwilling to call young Aaron Hutcheson, the prosecutors had no eyewitness to the crime. And for physical evidence all they had were a few ordinary sticks from the woods, a couple of “similar” fibers, and the knife that was taken from the lake—nothing that directly linked the defendants to the murders. To some observers, their case was looking tenuous. Then, abruptly, Fogleman announced a motive.PROSECUTION SAYS KILLINGS CULT RELATED , theJonesboro Sun proclaimed. The prosecutors had not suggested a motive in their opening statement to the jury. But now, the paper reported that Fogleman was expected to call “an expert in cult-related crimes” to testify. The decision triggered anotherin camera hearing, as

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty The Verdicts AT LAST,AFTER SEVENTEEN DAYS OF TRIAL , Fogleman rose to face the jury with his closing argument. Ignoring Peretti’s testimony, he said the murders had taken place sometime between 9:30 and 10:00P.M . on the evening of May 5, at the site where the bodies were found. He described as “highly credible” Narlene Hollingsworth’s contention that she’d seen Damien on the service road near the Blue Beacon Truck Wash at about that time. As for Hollingsworth’s testimony that Damien was with his girlfriend, Domini, and not Jason, Fogleman simply told the jurors to draw their “own conclusions.”297He cited the two girls at the softball field who’d said they’d heard Damien brag about the murders. “Those were two scared kids up here,” he said. “They had no motivation to do anything other than come up here and tell you the truth.” He looked confidingly at the jury. But you might ask yourself, “Well, now, wait a minute. We’ve got a crime scene that’s clean. The killers were v

Chapter Twenty

Part Three

Chapter Twenty-One The Appeals WHENJASON HEARD HIS GUILTY VERDICT, he didn’t care if his sentence was going to be life or death.302Either way was the