Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [38]
By the third week after the murders, the sheer number of allegations that Damien had taken part in the killings was beginning to have an effect. On May 26, the day that Gitchell complained to the crime lab that he felt “blind-folded,” Detective Ridge interviewed yet another young man who reported that Damien had told him that he’d raped the boys and then cut them with a knife that was eight to ten inches long. By now, even if Gitchell had harbored reservations about information provided by a juvenile probation officer, a detective from another department, and a waitress turned self-appointed investigator, he was willing to set them aside. With little to show after nearly a month of investigation, the police in West Memphis were ready to talk to Vicki Hutcheson and to her little son Aaron.
“Nasty Stuff”
On May 27, Gitchell, Ridge, and Allen drove to Marion, where they questioned Vicki Hutcheson in Bray’s office. She was a striking figure: five feet ten, 130 pounds, with red hair and green eyes. Aaron was there again with her. Under questioning by the West Memphis police, Hutcheson repeated much of what she had reported to Bray, and Bray added some details from the several interviews that he had by then conducted with Aaron.106Bray informed the visiting detectives that Aaron had told him that he and the murdered boys had often visited the woods together. The boy said they had a clubhouse there, and that on some occasions they’d spied on five men who gathered in the woods. Bray said Aaron told him that the men would sit in a circle, chant, sing songs about the devil, and do “what men and ladies do.”107
The questions arising from Vicki and Aaron Hutcheson’s statements were many and serious. But their allegations supported the theory that a cult was behind the crime, and at this rather desperate point in their nearly month-old investigation, the police were ready to overlook a few difficulties presented by their stories. They arranged to interview the mother and child again.
The next day, Vicki Hutcheson handed the police an object that seemed to reinforce the connection between her account and Aaron’s—and also to link Damien to the reported rituals in Robin Hood. The object was a cheap pewter earring cast in the shape of a human skull. It featured a snake slithering out of one of the eye sockets and coiling around the skull. Vicki said that the earring had belonged to Damien, and that she had it because he’d dropped it while visiting her at her house. She said that when Aaron saw it, he’d told her that it was exactly like one worn by one of the men he’d seen chanting in the woods.
On the second day of interviews, Sudbury and Ridge asked Hutcheson if she would let them hide a tape recorder in the bedroom of her trailer. The idea was that she would invite Damien to her house during the coming weekend, get him into the bedroom, and lure him into discussing some of the activities she had reported. Hutcheson agreed and the trap was set. Hutcheson later said that Damien did come to her house, and detectives reported that a recording was made. But, they said, the recording was of poor quality and Damien’s voice was not discernible on it. The tape subsequently disappeared.
After nearly a month on the case, the police still did not have a single piece of evidence that would tie anyone to the crime. On Wednesday, June 2, they decided to polygraph Hutcheson. Durham reported that she was telling the truth.
To Gitchell, the news was a breakthrough. From that moment on, there was only one thrust to the investigation, and it was directed toward Damien Echols.
Chapter Seven
The Confession
JESSIE HAD NO IDEA, as May 1993 slipped into June, that his neighbor Vicki Hutcheson was discussing him with the West Memphis police in relation to the murders. He would later say he was surprised when told the extent of what she’d said, particularly the part about Damien driving Hutcheson and him to the orgy.108He said no such trip