Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [37]
Jessie did as he was asked. The next time Jason and Damien were in the neighborhood, Jessie brought them to Hutcheson’s house, made the introductions, and left. He walked to his own trailer, he said, and within fifteen minutes saw Damien’s mother arrive in her car to pick up the two boys. Jessie assumed that Damien had called for his mother to come, since it was well known that Damien did not drive. As far as Jessie knew, that was the only contact Vicki Hutcheson ever had with Damien and Jason.
But Hutcheson would tell Bray—and later the West Memphis police—that a relationship had developed between her and Damien after that meeting and that it was the start of an eight-day romance—one that she said was entirely calculated on her part, passionate on Damien’s, but sexless from beginning to end. She said the relationship had been strictly part of her “private detective” work.103“We talked about lots of different stuff,” Hutcheson reported.
He’s not real, real talkative. You kinda have to pull things out of him. But he kept telling me about the boys’ murders and how he had been—he never said “questioned,” he always said that “I was accused for eight hours, I was accused of killing those three little boys.” And I said, you know, I just acted like it was no big deal, and I said, “Well, you know, why would they pick you in West Memphis? You know, there are beaucoups of people. Why would they just pick you out?” And he just looked at me, I mean, really weird, and said, “Because I’m evil.”
Far from being frightened by her association with someone who allegedly had proclaimed himself evil—and who was suspected by police of having committed a triple homicide—Hutcheson said she’d told Damien that she wanted to see him again to learn more about satanism. She reported to Bray that she expected to get that opportunity soon, as Damien had invited her to attend something that he called an “esbat.” Hutcheson said that she’d looked the word up in a dictionary, learning that it referred to a gathering of witches.104Later, Bray said that when he heard of this plan, he warned Hutcheson that it would be too dangerous for her to attend such an event. But, he said, she told him that she didn’t care about the danger, if it would help catch the killers. If Bray instituted any protections for the young mother as she prepared to enter a realm that police suspected might harbor vicious murderers, neither he nor she ever mentioned them.
Hutcheson later reported to Bray that on the night of Wednesday, May 19—two weeks after the night the children disappeared—Damien picked her up at her house in a red Ford Escort. Beyond the description of the car, her details of the experience were thin. Jessie was in the car, she said. Damien drove them to a field north of Marion. They’d approached it by a dirt road, and she’d heard water running in the distance. When she climbed out of the car, she saw about ten young people, with faces and arms painted black, taking off their clothes and “touching each other.” Offended, she asked Damien to take her home, and he agreed. Damien drove the car, leaving Jessie behind at the orgy. Hutcheson said she could not identify anyone she’d seen at the esbat because of the paint on their faces. She could not provide any names, because attendees had only used nicknames, such as Lucifer, Spider, and Snake.
Though Hutcheson did not mention it, there was no moon that night. Police apparently did not ask how the scene was lighted, or how she’d been able to see what little she’d described. Nor did police question her claim that Damien had driven the car, despite their awareness that he did not have