Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [33]
On May 10, 1993, I interviewed Damien Wayne Echols, W/M 18, of 2706 South Grove, West Memphis, Arkansas. He denied any involvement in the crime. After approximately forty-five minutes, I asked this subject what he was afraid of. He replied, “The electric chair.” He then said that he liked the hospital in Little Rock. He said he had been treated there for manic depression. After a short period of time, he ceased to deny his involvement. (Admission through absence of denial.) He then said: “I will tell you all about it, if you will let me talk to my mother.” Detective Ridge brought his mother in to my office to talk to him. After talking to his mother, he again denied being involved in the murders. After approximately twenty minutes, I asked: “You’re never going to tell anyone about this but your doctor, are you?” He replied, “No.”
Ridge wrote in his notes that after the polygraph examination, “Detective Durham came and met with me and other officers and reported that Damien had been untruthful, and according to the polygraph, was involved in the murders.”
Tips and “Monstrous Evil”
Officially, few people outside of the county’s law enforcement establishment knew that within four days of finding the bodies, Damien and his friend Jason were already considered suspects. But unofficially, within a day or two after the murders, talk of specific suspects, specific details of the crime, and the department’s specific interest in cults already was rampant. As rumors linking the murders to satanists spread, the police began to receive reports that, whether true or not, reinforced their theory. Two aspects of the investigation—the focus on cults and the occult and on suspects outside the families—subtly began to merge.
News reports added to the speculation. As early as one week after the murders, an article inUSA Today focused on what it called the “monstrous evil” behind the crimes. The words, quoted from a sermon the Sunday after the murders, seemed to capture the region’s horror. The same words appeared the following week inPeople magazine, in an article reporting that some townspeople already suspected that a “Satanic cult” was responsible for the crimes. Ministers preaching about the crime’s incomprehensible “evil” fueled the atmosphere. One clergyman expressed the views of many in the town when he described the attack on the children as the “incarnation and manifestation of evil.” He told his congregation, “We’re not dealing with the garden variety of sin here. Anyone who would do something like this is not like you or me. They’ve reached the point that they refuse to recognize that anything wrong was done.”88
Citizens in West Memphis were scared. Donations to a reward fund created by the police swelled it to $35,000. The volume of tips increased. One tip led them to L. G. Hollingsworth Jr., a seventeen-year-old cousin of Domini Teer. A caller had reported that L.G. knew something about the murders, that he may have been involved in them, and that his aunt Narlene Virginia Hollingsworth intended to cover up for him. Durham polygraphed L.G. the next day. He reported that the teenager appeared to be lying when he said he didn’t know who’d killed the boys. When police confronted L.G. with Durham’s results, L.G. said he suspected that Damien was the killer.
Police also questioned Narlene Hollingsworth. She told them that on the evening of Wednesday, May 5, when she was driving just west of the Blue Beacon between 9:30 and 10P.M ., she’d seen Damien with her niece Domini, walking west against the traffic. She said she noticed that the pants on both were muddy. Now, even officers who’d tended to doubt the cult theory began to give it more credence.
Detectives turned to Driver for help. Working on his information, they contacted Damien’s former girlfriend, Deanna Holcomb, who was now sixteen years old. Durham polygraphed Deanna too, and reported that—like L.G.—she’d lied