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- [00:02]
Sarah James McLaughlin
From the waters of Lake Erie.
- [00:04]
Brett
It was raising flags. He said there's no way that that fish should weigh 7.9 pounds. It's just not big enough.
- [00:12]
Sarah James McLaughlin
To a nondescript office building in Richmond, Virginia, home to a 700 million dollar fund for children with special needs.
- [00:19]
Brett
If there was a cliche list of how to blow money that you just stole very quickly, this guy did all of them.
- [00:27]
Sarah James McLaughlin
To the ski slopes of Salt Lake City, where a former Olympic snowboarder landed on the FBI's most wanted list.
- [00:34]
Brett
Ryan Jim's wedding is one of those interesting Norcos who have had two very successful careers, one legal and one illegal.
- [00:42]
Sarah James McLaughlin
We're pulling back the curtain on a fresh lineup of opportunists who stopped at nothing to get ahead. These are the stories of people who saw a loophole, a moment of weakness, a chance to get ahead and took it. I'm Host Sarah James McLaughlin. Join me for a new season of the opportunist on May 19th. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:22]
Brett
I'm Brett.
- [01:23]
Sarah James McLaughlin
And I'm Alice.
- [01:24]
Brett
And we are the Prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, we take a look at the trials in the West Memphis three case. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my buzzing co host, Alice.
- [02:25]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Brett. You know, we're committed that we have literally worn out our microphones, hence the buzzing descriptor, y' all. We've been playing with my microphone for the past 40 minutes because we have recorded so much West Memphis 3 that it's quite literally fried all of my microphones.
- [02:40]
Brett
But we're back and I just want to say to the 111 of you who hung out through all that, you guys are awesome. Thanks for sticking it out.
- [02:49]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Sorry.
- [02:50]
Brett
And to those of you who are joining us for the 15th episode of the West Memphis Three case, thank you. So sticking it out as well. I can't believe we've made it this far, but here we are and we're not finished yet. So I think we should just dive right in. What do you think, Alice?
- [03:06]
Sarah James McLaughlin
It's about time. It's about time we dive right in.
- [03:09]
Brett
Let's dive in. So we've been talking about this case for 14 episodes, and throughout that, we've been discussing things that happened in the trial, and we're going to talk more about some of those things later on. But we wanted to talk in more detail about some of the important things that happen during both Damien and Jason's trial, as well as Jesse Misskeli's So Damien, as we know, we have seen this throughout this case. He does not always bathe himself in glory with his comments and his actions. And he would do this in this trial. At one pretrial hearing, he blew kisses at the family, a fact that would be repeated at his trial before the jury. And this is one of those things that is so prejudicial, I'm kind of surprised it came in. I think the only reason it did was because Damien testified. And so on cross examination, this was used as sort of an example of him losing his cool. But you can imagine, you know, the jury hears, oh, this guy is professing his innocence, is blowing kisses. The parents of dead children. Not a great moment for him. And the thing is, you gotta remember, Jason is just like, along for the ride, right? So Damian's blowing kisses at people. Jason's sitting over there next to him, and he is having to sort of do this trial with Damian and all the negative that comes along with it. Now, I'll say this about that. Some people have questioned that, and people try and throw shade on the judge or whatever. This was essentially the decision of the defense counsel. I was listening to True Crime Garage, and they were interviewing Dan Stidham, and he made a point that I've made several times, which is Jason's lawyers never moved to separate those trials and say that they had a defense that was contradictory to Damien's, it was incompatible with Damien's, that was hostile to Damiens. If they had done that, they would have had a really good argument for severing the trials. But they never did make that claim. And since they didn't make that claim, there wasn't a good argument for severing the trials. We don't often do that for all sorts of reasons. You can imagine it's expensive to have a separate trial. They're on trial for the same crime, etc. Etc. So it was never going to be severed unless they made that argument, and they never did. So that was squarely on the attorneys. And I think it was really harmful for Jason to be in the same trial as Damien. And the trial was almost entirely about Damien. The main piece of evidence against Jason was the testimony of Michael Carson and the, quote, lake knife. So on the lake knife, during a search of the lake that earned Jason's trailer park the name Lakeshore, police discovered a knife. The knife was presented at trial as the knife involved in the murders. Prosecutors would suggest that the wounds on the boys were consistent with the serrations on the knife. The knife was determined from a map made by the police that it could have only been tossed in the water from the pier behind Jason Baldwin's trailer. So obviously their theory is that after the murder, he goes out on that dock, throws a knife as far as he can throw it. I don't know if that's actually true or not. I don't really know how you could specify to that much detail. That was literally the only place it could have come from. But nevertheless, that's what they said. Now, to arrive at that location where it was found from any other location, it would have had to have been thrown over about a hundred feet. And the police couldn't imagine that anyone could do that. Deanna Hokum would testify that the knife matched one that Damien carried.
- [06:52]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Yeah. No, that not severing trial part is incredible. And you can tell why, right? Only one of them gets. Well, spoiler alert. Only one of them gets the death penalty. Who's Damien? And so if I'm anyone else's attorney, maybe not Jesse, really, Jason, if I'm looking at the case file, I don't want Jason having to be tied at the hip with Damien. And you're going to see this throughout trial. But back to Michael Ray Carson. So he's the one who testified about this lake knife that apparently came from Jason Baldwin's pier. Right. So most of this trial, of course, the evidence was directed at Damien Echols. So what evidence was there against Jason then, since we know that most of this trial was aimed at Damien? So Michael Ray Carson was held in Craighead County Detention center in August and September of 1993. His roommate when he arrived at the facility was none other than Jason Baldwin. At some point during his incarceration, Jason and a couple other inmates were playing spades and they invited Carson to join them. At some point during this game of spades, Carson asked Jason if he really did kill the kids. Now Carson says that Jason said he did not. The next day, when the boys were alone, Carson asked Jason again. Now this time he told Carson that he did in fact kill the boys. The story that Carson then told law enforcement was gruesome. He said that Jason told him that they dismembered the boys. Though given the context, he probably means castrated, and then sucked the blood out of the boys scrotums. He also said that he put the kids balls in his mouth. And he also told Carson that he was going to kick Ms. Kelly's ass when he got out and that he had, quote, messed everything up. A couple months after Carson got Out of jail, he saw the West Memphis Three on TV and told his dad what Jason told him. And his dad was the one who convinced Carson to go to the police, even though apparently Carson was reluctant to tell police anything.
- [09:03]
Brett
Now, Carson suggested that a Daniel Biddle could confirm his story. He was one of the men supposedly playing cards. In 2004, Biddle swore out an affidavit saying that he'd never played cards with Baldwin and that he'd never heard Baldwin talk about the crime with anyone. In fact, Jason would get angry if anyone accused him of committing the crimes. Carson also suggested that Leonard Haskins might have overheard Baldwin. In 2004, Haskins was serving a life sentence for first degree murder. Jason and Haskins became close and often talked about his case. Haskins didn't provide the help Carson might have expected. He described Jason as stressed because he said he didn't kill the boys. Haskin thought it was impossible to believe Jason would have opened up to somebody like Carson, that he didn't even know. Montavious Gordon was another man in the detention center on charges of capital murder. He swore out an affidavit saying that Baldwin never confessed anyone as far as he knew. If he had, Gordon said he would have gone to the prosecutors to try and cut a deal. And I love the honesty there, because of course he would have. Doesn't necessarily mean that Michael Carson didn't hear this. Maybe Jason trusted him more than Montavious, and Montavious was not to be trusted. But nevertheless, Carson also told police that he stuck up for Jason when other people tried to mess with him. Everyone interviewed, though, including detention officers, said Jason never had any issues with anyone in the facility. Carson was given a polygraph, and the polygrapher found that he had been essentially truthful. Whatever that means is essentially truthful. So there you go. Your latest polygraph in this case.
- [10:39]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Now, obviously, we know that a lot of the witnesses, the police rely heavily on these polygraph tests. So you would think, okay, he, what, essentially passed the polygraph test? Well, one big problem with this is Danny Williams. He's a counselor for Carson. He claimed that he had accidentally shared critical information about this West Memphis Three case with Carson, much of which Carson included in his testimony. Carson testified that he hadn't discussed this case with Williams, at least before he'd already spoken to prosecutors. Here's what Williams told prosecutors. I told him that I had met with Michael sometime in December, and I felt very uneasy and very bad that I had discussion some rumors or facts about this case and some things I had heard about satanic related killings and that what Michael had told me strongly indicated to me that he had basically repeated what I had told him to the police. And I felt pretty guilty that testimony was going to be used. We got to talking about the West Memphis case and I told Michael either that I don't remember if I told him that this allegedly happened in this case or in a lot of satanic related killings, that the scrotum or testicles are cut from the victim, that blood is used in the significance that sometimes they use the scrotum to drink blood from their victims. I don't remember. I think I remember something about the victims might have been allegedly maybe their skin removed. So Williams wasn't permitted to testify due to the whole therapist client privilege of a minor there. But you can see that what he's suggesting is, oh wait, I told him these things. I don't know if I was just talking about satanic killings or if I was telling about this case. But everything Carson said in his testimony, I told him that. Meaning Carson did not know of it independently.
- [12:27]
Brett
I would like someone to explain to me how choosing to testify in a murder case does not waive the therapist client privilege about the subject which you're testifying about. I don't understand that. I don't get it. Like, I mean, that's to the point that. I mean, I've read this several places to the point that I almost wonder if this is just wrong. That if. Because I don't understand. I don't get that. I mean, maybe that's the right ruling. I don't know. But I would just think if someone is going to testify about something like this, that opens the door. And you got to remember, you're sort of weighing rights here. And the primary consideration is the right of the accused. Now things can trump that. The fifth Amendment, for instance, if you're somebody who has information that might be detrimental or helpful to the defendant and you plead the fifth Amendment, we're seeing that in the Karen Reed case. You know, Aiden Kearney, turtle boy, he pled the fifth to avoid testifying in that trial. Maybe that would have been very harmful for Karen Reed. Maybe it would have been helpful for her. But either way, he's not going to be called. But this is a little different. This is. As we know, these kind of privileges are sort of created. We create them because these are important things and we want to provide some sort of privacy. But they're not constitutional rights really. I mean, they sort of emerge from various privacy interests. But it to me, I don't see how once you choose to testify, this isn't waived. That is just me.
- [14:01]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Yeah. And that's a really good point. This isn't a constitutional right, a privacy sort of issue, that these are wavable. So let's talk a little bit about Carson. So Carson spent his life in and out of prison. He worked as an informant, but was eventually cut loose due to his inability to tell the truth. Seems a little bit important when you're an informant and testifying in a trial. And he unsurprisingly continued to have trouble with the law. And I say unsurprisingly because he had a record before this of being in and out and being in trouble with the law. He continues to do that. Carson later described himself as being someone who was on serious drugs to the point he had no idea what he was talking about, which. So now we have basically law enforcement saying he's not truthful and then he himself saying, I don't know what I said because I was on drugs a lot of the time. All to say is, I think he has some major credibility issues. And everything he has to say, I don't even know that it's really worth the way that the paper is written on. Now, in the documentary west of Memphis, he basically recants his statement and apologized to Jason Baldwin. It's not quite that clear. It's not that clear cut, as he never specifically said he made it up, but he does apologize to Jason Baldwin. So I don't give a lot of weight to what Carson has said, but this was what was at trial at the time of the convictions.
- [15:23]
Brett
Yeah, I mean, I don't. I don't really give any weight to it. It's one of those things. Jailhouse informants, I do not discount them the way some people do. Some people think jailhouse informants can never be trusted. That's silly. People do talk about this kind of stuff. It does come up. The way Carson describes it is kind of ridiculous. Even without the other stuff. It's like he asked him the first time and he didn't want to tell him the second time. He's like, no, man, you can trust me. Gwink. Right. And then he unburdens his soul. I don't know. I mean, could it have happened? Maybe. But I think if you put a lot of stock in this and we talk about this sometimes in trials, in these cases, there are pieces of evidence that you only believe if you've already made your mind up so if you think the West Memphis three are guilty, you probably believe this. If you don't think they're guilty, you, you definitely don't believe it. I don't believe it. Regardless of whether they're guilty, it may be true, but I don't know how you can put any stock into it. Just as someone listening to this and trying to decide whether or not you think these people are guilty, particularly given what the therapist said, I mean, this just feels like the kind of thing that was made up. So anyway, let's talk about the physical evidence in this case, which is very little. There is very little physical evidence recovered in this case. We talked about some of this before. You had what appeared to be a finger or thumbprint in the mud. It was photographed, it was plastered, but it was never matched anyone, and it's unclear if it even could be. Detective Allen described it as uncomparable. Two different footprints in the mud were also identified. They were not made by the same shoe, supposedly, which is interesting right now. I'm saying this based on testimony in the trial, but for some reason this was not fleshed out at all. This is like a one off statement in the testimony that they weren't made by the same shoe. If they weren't made by the same shoe, that's significant. Personally, I don't know that you could really even tell enough about these shoes to know. One of the shoes was apparently from a tennis shoe. The other one was apparently from something that looked more like a boot. If a size could be determined, it apparently was not. And as I've said before, people will tell you these shoes were compared to really everybody involved in this case and nobody matched. I think it's because they're basically also uncomparable. Much like the thumb print. A single light brown hair was found beneath one of Chris Byers ligatures. This is the kind of thing you're like, okay, got a hair. It was compared to that of Jason Baldwin. The Arkansas crime lab said it was microscopically similar to Baldwin's hair. But the Alabama Forensic Science Laboratory, which apparently is one of the leading forensic science laboratories in the country, which I didn't know, but apparently they are, said it was not. And so it was never introduced into evidence. And this is sort of indicative of the problem with hair and fiber evidence. Two experts look at it. One says it's comparable, one says it's not. It's one reason this kind of evidence, unless it has DNA or something like that, is not used that often. Especially to compare in this way. Like you might have, for instance, this is a hair from someone who's black, this is a hair from someone who's white. And you can do that kind of comparison. But to actually say this hair came from this head is very difficult.
- [18:44]
Sarah James McLaughlin
So a green polyester fiber recovered from Michael Moore's Cub Scout cap and one green cotton and one green polyester fiber recovered from a pair of blue jeans. It was microscopically similar to a cotton polyester blend geranimals shirt recovered from Eccles's home which belonged to his half brother Tim. Now, defense attorney Val Price asked Echols to attempt to put on the shirt, which he was not able to do because it was too small.
- [19:13]
Brett
Shirt don't fit, must have quit. Kind of didn't work out that way.
- [19:17]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Didn't work out that way.
- [19:18]
Brett
Pretty sure this would be transfer, not him actually wearing the shirt, whatever.
- [19:22]
Sarah James McLaughlin
That's fair, that's fair. But hey, it gets the point across. Or at least it's a nice little kitschy thing to do, right? It doesn't have to necessarily fit, but it did not fit for what the jury saw. Now, a red rayon fiber that was microscopically similar to a bathrobe owned by Jason Baldwin's mother was recovered from a black and white polka dot shirt at the scene. Again, transfer if it is in fact that. Now three red cotton fibers were recovered at the scene. One from the Cub Scout shirt and one from a pair of blue pants and one from a bag cachet or dumped at a nearby pipe. More on the bag later. Now these were consistent with a shirt from Eccles home and a shirt from Michael Moore's home. I just imagine because we're not talking about like DNA or anything, just like slide after slide of people looking at microscope like zoomed in of these fibers and everyone kind of nodding because nobody can tell actually if they're microscopically similar, which is why you need the testifier.
- [20:26]
Brett
And I gotta say, I mean maybe I'm, I'm a victim of the CSI effect, but all this just feels so ephemeral. So.
- [20:36]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Well, it kind of feels like they're fiber. So okay, we know if they're the material cotton or polyester and that's about it, right? But beyond that, if you tell me it looks similar to the other green cotton fiber, I'm probably going to say okay. But if you told me it didn't look similar, I probably also say okay because I don't know, other than the color and the actual substance of it, which I think I could perceive by the eye, it would just be the fact that you're telling me they're both cotton, that's basically all I could rely on. But I think this is kind of like the anchoring bias or whatever, right? If a testimony is telling me that they are similar, then I'm going to say okay, they're similar, but do I know any different? Can I really make that assessment? I don't think I could.
- [21:15]
Brett
And of course, you know, 20 years later a bunch of experts are going to come in for the defense and say none of these even matched. It's not just that they're, they could have been from any number of shirts, they don't match at all. And it's like, okay, I don't know.
- [21:28]
Sarah James McLaughlin
So a Roadrunner Petro bag was recovered from a pipe near the scene. Echols father worked at Roadrunner Petro and the store shared a parking lot with Alderson Roofing where Eccles told police he worked. These stores are 12 miles away from the crime scene and across the river in Memphis. The idea being there's no way that the bag would have accidentally blown over here 12 miles away. Someone who's affiliated with Roadrunner Petra would have brought it here, it being Eccles. Now the bag contained a pair of Jordache size 33 to 34 blue jeans, a black medium sized thermal undershirt, a pair of white socks, two Bic razors, a plastic bag and a tan short sleeve shirt. These items were met, wet and moldy. Now blue wax was found on the black and white polka dot shirt. Three items with wax were seized from search warrants. One was from Damien Echols's trailer and it was a book with some candle wax on it. And the book was never on a broomstick. Another exhibit piece of evidence was from Jason Baldwin's trailer and it was a bar of soap with paint or wax on it. And yet another exhibit had a blue candle from Domini Tears trailer.
- [22:46]
Brett
So and as you may recall, Damien helpfully when he was talking to the police said that candle wax is something you would expect to find at the crime scene if this were satanically linked. Which is just yet another time that he kind of stuck his foot in his mouth as the police are like haha, funny thing about that, we did find wax. Now the wax on this shirt is often said to have matched the wax from any or all of the three sources. However, according to a bench conference it didn't. Which I think is interesting because seriously this is one of the things people always point to is the wax matched. So I'll read this from You, Scott Davison, said, your Honor, we'd also request a copy of the report of Lisa Sacavicious, if there is one. Regarding any candle wax. Fogeman? I don't know if there is one. She said that what she puts in a report is when there are matches. She claimed that didn't match anything. So this is sort of the statement of Fogman. Didn't match anything. Right. Despite this, Fogelman still asked about the wax during the trial. What did you find on this shirt? Blue wax. Is that blue wax consistent with candle wax? Yes. Okay. Now, look, this is. I'm kind of interested what Alice thinks about this. I'm going to keep going because I want to give you the full context here, but is this appropriate, what's happening here? So you have blue candle wax that you haven't actually matched to any of the other candles that you found. All you can say and what your witness says is it is consistent with candle wax. When Eccles then testifies, he chooses to take the stand, and he's forced to concede that he told the police that finding candles at the scene would be consistent with satanic murder and that the wax in the shirt was consistent with that as well. So here's how this goes. Davis, who's doing the cross, says. Now, did he also ask you about what type of things you would expect to find at the scene where these three boys were murdered? Eccles? If it was a satanic killing. If it was a satanic killing, yes. And one of those things. Did you tell him that those things were what you would expect to find? Yes. And one of those things you told him, One of those things you told him were candles, Right? Right. Did you hear the testimony from Lisa Sakavicius from the State Crime Lab that there was candle wax on the shirt of one of the victims? Did you hear that, Mr. Eccles? Yes, I did. That's consistent with what you told the officer, isn't it? Yes, it is. You have just told us that it is consistent with satanic murder, didn't you? Yes. So then in Fogelman's closing, he says, well, if you go back to the motive issue and you look at these defendants, it makes perfect sense. Somebody that would take the satanic police, even if he does it just part time and a perfect motivation, not that it was some kind of a ritual and you have an altar and all that. Although, remember, remember them asking about the candles, and lo and behold, there was candle wax in the black and white dotted shirt. Remember Elisa Sakaviches testifying about the candle Wax. But it doesn't matter whether it was a ritual or simply those beliefs motivated these defendants to commit this crime. And then from Brent Davis, who does the other closing, also remember Damien saying, and I think this is a real coincidence and y' all can play a little detective on your own. When you go back there, remember this book that just comes from the library, because it comes from the library. See all this stain on the back of it? You all go back there and look at that and kindly tilt it in the light and look at it and see if that isn't blue wax to you. See if that doesn't look like some blue wax to you. Now you run your fingers on it and it reflects. It's got kind of a shiny surface to it. You remember Damien telling us that one of those, I mean whoever was doing this would probably, if it was satanic involved, would probably have some candles out there. Well, we've got one of the boys shirts that had that blue wax on his shirt. And in fact the jury on a little board where they writing stuff down listed the wax as one of the reasons for Echo's conviction. They have wax on the book. Shirt mentioned wax on shirt, book. These are from various jury notes. So what do you think about that, Alice? Is that appropriate to bring in the candle wax? I mean, he didn't say there'd be wax there.
- [27:01]
Sarah James McLaughlin
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- [27:15]
Brett
You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help find you options within your budget. Try it today@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. This is an ad by BetterHelp guys. You know it as well as I do. Workplace stress is one of the top causes of declining mental health with 61% of the global workforce experiencing higher than normal levels stress. So you know what you should do? You should just quit your job, right? One way to get rid of stress. Unfortunately that is not something most of us can do. We can't just wave goodbye to work, but we can start small with a focus on wellness. Holiday is great, but it isn't a long term solution to stress. Don't forget that therapy can help you navigate whatever challenges the workday or any other day might bring. And that's where BetterHelp comes in.
- [28:12]
Sarah James McLaughlin
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- [29:08]
Brett
What is daddication?
- [29:10]
Sarah James McLaughlin
The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariona. We call him Dae Date for short. Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together. We did a good job.
- [29:31]
Brett
That's dedication. Find out more@fatherhood.gov brought to you by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.
- [29:42]
Sarah James McLaughlin
He did say that there was going to be wax there, but that was outside of court and he hadn't testified to it yet, did he? So he hadn't opened the door necessarily to let that in. I think they probably would have gotten there, but the manner in which they got there I'm not sure was appropriate. Does that make sense? Like it probably would have ultimate. Like there probably was no prejudice, no harm?
- [30:01]
Brett
He testified. That's true.
- [30:03]
Sarah James McLaughlin
He testified. Yeah. And that is the problem. What I'm saying is the order of it. Like it probably would have come in anyways. So.
- [30:10]
Brett
Well, so basically the way it came in is Lisa Sacavicius testified that candle wax was found there. That's all she testified there was blue wax. It was consistent with a candle. She didn't say it's consistent with any candle we found. And in fact, you know, this is where how much of this is sort of incumbent on the defense attorney, and maybe you did. I'd have to go back and look at the Cross to stand up and say, hey, you mentioned that wax, but you didn't find any candles in my client's house that the wax matched. Right, but the prosecutor knows that. So I don't know.
- [30:45]
Sarah James McLaughlin
I would think that the defense. I would think that the defense would be objecting. Mischaracterizes or facts not in evidence. I would say, like facts not in evidence or mischaracterizes prior testimony, because he's definitely jumping inferences. But then he has Eccles agreeing with everything, which again, like we've said, most people agree with what they're being said. Now he is testifying, so, you know, he shouldn't be agreeing to everything. But I don't know if there were objections to it. But ultimately you have Eccles basically going down the Hansel and Gretel path for the prosecution.
- [31:16]
Brett
So in addition to this candle wax, there was also unknown DNA. We talk about DNA, there's DNA everywhere. Right. So it's not surprising that you did find unknown DNA on the ligatures bodies of the boys. Now, using the technology of the time, and even with later technology, the DNA has not been incredibly useful. Though the West Memphis Three have never been excluded as possible contributors to the DNA they have now. New DNA testing is apparently currently in the works. I guess we'll see how that all shakes out and that should provide better information. And if the West Memphis Three are innocent, I would assume would exclude them from all this DNA, but we'll just have to see. And don't put too much hope in that, because the DNA is not magic and it's been a long time and I don't know how well all of this was preserved, but there apparently is new DNA testing in the works, and so we'll just have to see what happens with these various findings.
- [32:19]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Yeah, I know a lot of people put a lot of weight into just test the DNA. What are you afraid of? Or X, Y and Z. Remember, DNA being tested uses it up. And obviously there's been a lot of advancements since this happened 32 years ago, so there is benefit in preserving it until you can get something usable. But most likely it's not actually going to tell us anything. It's either going to be unusable if they even test it, or it'll just be random DNA. I can see the Damien Echols camp saying, you don't find Eccles's DNA there, so therefore exonerates him. That's actually not the case. Right. It's just simply saying what we have is what we have. So a lot of Weight is put on this DNA right now or not right now for the past few years. I don't know that it actually will tell us much. But who knows? I could always be wrong. If the DNA testing is done and once it comes back. Okay, so an axe necklace taken from Damien's house, taken from Damien at his arrest, was observed by John FOGELMAN On Thursday, March 10 or Friday, March 11, 1994, to have some red spots on it. These were found to be blood. But it wasn't until the middle of trial that the prosecution realized what they might have from the trial. So Davis says, Tuesday afternoon we Learned that around 4:30 that afternoon when we were preparing for closing arguments, we received a call from Genetic Design which indicated that they had been able to isolate two separate DNA sources on that particular necklace. One DNA source being consistent with the DQ alpha type, which is a system for typing DNA consistent with Damian Echols. The other DQ alpha type source that was found on that particular necklace was consistent with the victim, Steve Branch, and also with the defendant, Jason Baldwin. They then indicated that they were going to attempt to run what is called an amplification process on the sources in order to amplify and hopefully do a more specific test. And that's what we waited for yesterday. And around, I think all of the attorneys were advised about simultaneously that around 3:30 or 4 yesterday afternoon, we found out that the amplification process had not been successful. So we were left with evidence, which the state is requesting that the court allow us to introduce as being newly discovered evidence that would be to the effect that there was blood flow found on this necklace that is consistent with the DQ alpha type of the victim, Steve Branch. And that DQ alpha type occurs in approximately 11% of the Caucasian population.
- [34:54]
Brett
You know, it's kind of funny because now DNA is like 1 in 10 trillion or something, right? In a DNA match. And it's. It's either going to be like, basically it has to be this person or it'll be something like it has to be this person or someone in their family on their mother's side, right? Like, it's very specific, but at the time it was helpful, but it was still pretty broad. And this happens so often. This is so weird, right? Because you have Jesse Misskeli, you have that shirt that has blood on it that turns out to be consistent with both Jesse Misskeli and I think Michael Moore, one of the boys, I think Michael Moore. Now you have blood on this necklace that is consistent with both Stevie Branch and Jason Baldwin. You have the blood on the knife that is consistent with both John Mark Byers and Christopher Byers, even though apparently they're not related. And that was like a 3%. This is 11%. That was 3%. Later on, we're going to talk about a hair with Terry Hobbs. It was found in one of the ligatures, which is like one and a half percent or something. And people focus on that a lot. But then you remember that, like, you've got this blood from Christopher Byers and John Mark Byers, which is only twice as likely. 3%. Right. And yet they're not related. It's just wild. But this happens repeatedly in this case, and it's. I don't know, it kind of blows my mind how often you have these coincidences where this could have been big if Jason Baldwin's blood had been different. I mean, imagine a world in which Jason Baldwin was never a suspect. Imagine a world in which it was Damien and Jesse. Then the prosecution is running with this. And they would just say the blood on this is consistent with Christopher byers, and it's 11% of the population, but it's consistent with the person who was killed. And they never would know that Jason Baldwin's blood was also consistent with it. And he could very well have been through, I don't know, whatever weirdness Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were doing. And so Damien's wearing a necklace with some of Jason's blood on it. Right. I'm sure they were blood brothers. Who knows? Who knows what all they were doing? So not all that surprising. But this could have been significant.
- [37:09]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Judge Burnett ruled that if this necklace came into evidence, the trials would have to be severed and a mistrial granted for Baldwin. And because of this, the prosecution decided not to introduce the necklace, which was.
- [37:24]
Brett
Wise because they never would have convicted Jason without Damian alone needed Damien. Okay, so another piece of evidence that I don't think was ever introduced but is kind of interesting. You may remember Damien Echols is known to sort of. He's the trench coat guy. He's always wearing his trench coat, you know, all around. Well, Steve Branch senior would find a black trench coat near the scene. This is interesting because if you tie it together with the Hollingsworth clan's sighting, they do not describe Damian as wearing a trench coat, which was a little unusual because Damian tended to wear his trench coat everywhere. So totally kind of random fact kind of feels like this. This little patch of woods had a lot of trash strewn about it. This could have been from one of the homeless people who who lived in the area. No telling where it came from. But it is one of those sort of interesting little tidbits that you see pop up in this case.
- [38:17]
Sarah James McLaughlin
And I don't know the condition of it, but it would be interesting if it were, like, relatively fresh, because it is a hot day. You know, trench coats are not typically worn when it's warmer out. But if it had been there for a while, then all bets are off. Because it's by the highway.
- [38:31]
Brett
Exactly. All right, let's talk about the softball game. So the softball game is an important moment. There are people who will describe this case is a case of confessions. And they will say that you have confessions from all three of the people in this case. Jason Baldwin's confession we talked about was to Michael Carson. Obviously, we have Jesse Misskeli's confession, which we're going to spend a lot of time on in a future episode or two. But then you have Eccles. Did Eccles confess? He gave these sort of weird statements to the police, but did he ever say I did it? Well, interview the softball game. So in early June, less than a month after the murders, witnesses at a girls softball game claimed to have heard Damian admit he was involved in the murders. Now, Echols has denied discussing the murders at this softball game. One of the ball games was Heather Cleats. That was Jason's girlfriend. And no one denies that. Echoes was there, as we talked about before, this might be something we'd be like. Was Damien Echols really at a girls softball game? There was nothing to do in West Memphis.
- [39:36]
Sarah James McLaughlin
I was gonna say, sounds like our town.
- [39:38]
Brett
I know, exactly like, why not go to a softball game? It'd be fun, right? And a lot of people did. It was a big deal in the community. And so he was there. So Jody Medford, Jackie Medford, and Christy Van Vickle would claim and testify that they overheard Damien talking to Jason about killing the three boys and that he was going to kill two more. In fact, he said he already had one picked out. They immediately told their mother, Donna, and she reported it to the director of the park. And Katie Lafoy would confirm hearing this same statement. So all these people will testify. You can find their testimony on Callahan. You can listen to their testimony. They are young girls. Make of it what you will, but it does seem like they contemporaneously told their parents about this, and this stuff was discussed, and they have never recanted. To my knowledge. There have been people who've said they had, but that appears to not be true. And so this is what they said happened. Now, here's the thing about this. Did it happen or not? And if it did happen, does it matter? Well, Damien would later tell Aaron Moriarty in an interview that if he did say that, it would have been a joke. And he also told an Arkansas reporter that he might have said it, but if he did, it was a joke. And what this tells you is he 100% said it. Said it.
- [40:59]
Sarah James McLaughlin
He 100% said it.
- [41:01]
Brett
There's no question.
- [41:02]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Whether he really did it or not is another thing. If he said he might have said it, then he 100% said it. And we've already known of Damien because of his direct interviews with the law enforcement that he says crap all the time to get rises out of people. He blows kisses at the victim's family. This is what he does. He's a troll, right? Now, does it mean that he actually did it? Because guess what? This. Everyone's at this softball game. What do you do during a softball game? Like, there's a lot of innings. There's a lot of sitting around. You shoot the breeze. You talk smack. Big boy over here who wants to appear super tough. I could totally see him taking credit for any number of things that make him look badass, right? Whether it's drinking blood from a bat or drinking anyone's blood or doing X, Y, or z. I think he 100% said this. Can we?
- [41:52]
Brett
Absolutely said it. No, there's no question he said it. He said it. Everybody just needs to accept that he said it. The thing about it, remember, even after he's convicted, like, assume you think he's not guilty and you're like that. I can't believe y' all would say how? You don't know that. You don't know he said that. I can hear you. I can hear you through your radio in the future saying that. Remember what he said after he was convicted and sentenced to death? He talked about how he was going to be the West Memphis boogeyman. He got a kick out of this. Even at that late date, he got a kick out of it. He a hundred percent would have used these murders to make him look more like a tough guy. He would have done that whether he did this or not.
- [42:38]
Sarah James McLaughlin
And can we say one other thing? The fact that three young girls heard him all at once. If he were actually talking to Jason, he may have totally known they were listening in and said it loud enough to make sure all three could hear and seen their responses, whether he was trying to impress them because he likes little girls. Literally, he's talking to 11 and 12 year old girls on the phone late into the night as his like girlfriends, right? And I say plural because he's talking to more than one at a time or he's just getting a rise out of them because he sees three of them like tittering to each other and they. And their eyes get wide when they hear, did you hear what he said? And they run off and go tell someone good, you know, let them spread this rumor. Like, all right, now people are talking about me. Just like at the end of his conviction in the documentary when he's like, now people are talking. He loves this. He wants to be talked about.
- [43:28]
Brett
And here's the thing. So this is one of those cases. This happens so often. We can't actually ever know whether he said this because I'm just going to tell you, if all these girls came forward today and said it didn't happen, we made it up, I wouldn't believe them. Because so much has happened in the last 30 years and this case has become such a huge story that people's memories are basically worthless. Like, you come forward today and you're trying to tell me something. Watch.
- [43:57]
Sarah James McLaughlin
How do you even know what's your own when you own documentaries, right?
- [44:00]
Brett
Like, I don't remember anything from when I was 12. If something like this had happened and you come back later and you're like, hey, did that really happen? I'd be like, man, I don't know, maybe it did. And so this is unknowable except for one important fact. If Damian was like, I never would have said that. That is ridiculous. I never would have said that. That's absurd. You know, those people are. I don't know if they're lying. I don't know if they were coached, I don't know if they were threatened. But what I can tell you for certain, I didn't say that. But he doesn't say that. He's like, well, I mean, if I said it, it was. I would have clearly been joking there. I mean, you know, guys, this is.
- [44:37]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Like the deli murders case when bridge guy goes to the police and it's like bridge guy being, you know, Richard Allen goes to the police within the first week and says, if anyone saw me on the bridge, I was just looking at my stock ticker, right? You put yourself there, man. Why'd you do that? Oh, because you know that someone's going to be like, I absolutely saw him there. Same thing here. He's like, well, we're going to have at Least five people who overheard me. So, yeah, I. I definitely sort of. So, yeah, if I said it, though.
- [45:04]
Brett
It was a joke, though. Honestly, this is one of the few times I actually believed Damien. Like, I feel like he a hundred percent would have joked about this. So maybe he did it and he and Jason were talking about it, but if he didn't do it, he a hundred percent would have said this. So for me, it doesn't do a lot for me. I mean, this is really important for a lot of people. They're like, Damien, he admitted it. He was talking about softball game. People overheard him. That's critical information. It's like so much other evidence. Like, how do you determine whether to give weight to evidence? Well, you have to put it in the context of everything else, right? So if you think there's a ton of evidence that Damian did it, then this piece of evidence bolsters everything else. And you're like, actually, no, he was being serious. We know he's being serious because X, Y, and Z also shows he did it. This is consistent with that. So, therefore, I consider this to be important. But if standing alone, just standing alone, like, if this is it, if you're like, look, I don't know about anything else, but Damien Echols said he did it. A softball game, by God, he did it. That I don't find very convincing.
- [46:10]
Sarah James McLaughlin
But for what it's worth, our analysis here is how we're looking at evidence. The testimony was at trial, but he said this, right? So. So that there is a difference in the sense.
- [46:22]
Brett
It certainly did not help him.
- [46:23]
Sarah James McLaughlin
It did not help him. And this, because a lot of people are like, well, what's the evidence against Damien? This is evidence. And we're just saying after the fact, was this testimony, like, was it based in truth? His own words, I think, show that the testimony was based in truth. Now, whether they meant it or not, this is not great. You have, like, five different witnesses saying he said he did it. And that's what the jury's hearing.
- [46:46]
Brett
And one thing that absolutely could happen, because you know how kids are. I mean, just imagine Damian and Jason are walking, and Damon's like, yeah, I killed him, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna kill two more, right? And he's very clearly joking, and they're just laughing, and that's inappropriate, right? I mean, you shouldn't joke about three kids being killed. But nevertheless, they're just sort of joking around, and these girls take it, and it's like, ooh, Damien just said he killed him, right? And without any of the context and how he said it and his demeanor and anything else, they just go run into their mom and run into the softball lady and say, damien Echols, that creepy guy who's always around, he just said he killed those three boys. Right. And if you listen to their testimony, it doesn't sound like they're lying. They don't give any details. Right. I mean, they're kids, so I don't know how much you expect, but when you listen to testimony, it's very bare bones. I was there, I heard him say he killed the boys. And that's basically it.
- [47:41]
Sarah James McLaughlin
So one thing that did not come up in the trial was Jesse Misskelley. After the Vicki Hutchison stuff and Jesse contacting police about possibly seeing a suspect in the crimes, he was brought in by the police for an interview around 10am on June 3, 1993. With the interrogation starting around 10:30, Detective Allen, who was talking to Ms. Kelly, started to become suspicious that he wasn't telling him everything and read him his Miranda rights. After this, Allen got a permission form signed by Ms. Kelly's father. This was around 11am so about 30 minutes after the interrogation started. During his interview with police, Jesse said he attended several cult meetings where people had sex, sacrificed animals, that sort of thing. Jesse said he'd seen a briefcase at the meetings that contained two guns, marijuana, cocaine, and pictures of the victims. He said the Damien had been stalking these boys. Jesse said that he received a call from Jason the night before the murders in which he was told they were going to get some boys and hurt them and they wanted Jesse to go with them. After the murders, he got a call from the two of them saying that they did it and that they were worried someone had seen them. At some point, the police showed Jesse a picture of Chris Byers. Jesse took the picture, stared at it. It's horrific. And he became fixated on it. He became so distracted by it that Gitchell eventually removed the picture altogether. They then played Erin Hutchinson saying, nobody knows what happened but me. Now, this seems to have triggered Jesse. At this point, police didn't think Jesse was involved, but they believed he would be able to finger Damien and Jason. Police drew a circle and asked Jesse if he was in the circle and a defendant or out of it and just a witness. Shortly thereafter, Jesse told Gitchell that he was there during the murder. At that point, the police recorded the remainder of the interview.
- [49:42]
Brett
And look, we're going to, like I said, we're going to spend a whole lot of time on this, we're just giving you sort of an overview of how this went down and why it was important. I will go ahead and tell you, I do not believe anyone had a briefcase with two guns and cocaine in it and pictures of the boy. I mean, look, and like I said, we're going to spend a lot of time on Jesse's confessions, but just know there's a lot of BS in them. Like, there's a lot in them that's definitely not true. And what you're going to have to decide and what we're going to have to decide and what we're going to discuss a lot of is whether the fact that there's a lot in there that clearly isn't true undermines the rest of the confession. So Jesse told police he gave the shoes he'd been wearing that night, blue and white Adidas, to Buddy Lucas. Remember Buddy Lucas? He comes up all the time. When police went to Lucas, he gave them a pair of blue and white Adidas tennis shoes. But no forensics were ever able to tie the shoes to the murder. And you may remember Buddy talked about, like, wearing the shoes and like all this other stuff. So I don't know whether they would have found anything or not. I will say this. I think if they actually had blood on them or anything, they would have found them. But, you know, if this isn't the stabbing type murder, it's been described as at times, and if Jesse wasn't involved in a lot of that, then maybe he wouldn't have had the blood on him anyway. But nevertheless, that's the situation. So Jesse, as we said, first confessed to police after he took and was told he failed a polygraph. Before the polygraph, Jesse gave general information about Damian and Jason. He knew them and often saw them at the skating rink. And Jesse said that Damien was sick. He said he'd seen Jason Baldwin get in a fight. His nose started to bleed and Damien stuck his finger in the blood and licked it. He said that he'd heard a rumor that Damien and Robert Burch had committed the murders, but he didn't really know much about it. Now, interestingly, when Robert Burch was interviewed, he said that Jason Baldwin had told him. The rumor was that Jason and Robert had committed the murder. So I don't know how Robert got in this, but he's attached to various people. He was also one of the people to put Jason and Jesse together, saying that Jesse was the only friend of Jason's he knew, which is weird because everyone knew that Damian was Jason's friend. Now, one thing that I think is funny about this. So Jesse talking about how Damien was sick and everything. Jesse clearly didn't have a very high opinion of Damian. There's a really fun, funny thing that happens in the Paradise Lost movie, the first one. So there's this part where during Jesse's trial and he and all his family, they're sort of like in a room, they're talking about the case or whatever. And there's this woman, youngish woman, older girl. I don't know. I don't know who she is, but she's like. They're talking about Damien. And she says something like, oh, you know Damon, he's a good kid. And the look on Jesse's face, he's like, what in the world are you saying? And it's just obvious that, like, no one actually thinks that. And she starts laughing. She's like, whatever. But Jesse clearly did not think very highly of Damien, Whether that was just Damien in general or because he knew Damian was involved in this murder. I guess you have to decide what you think about that. But if you watch Paradise Lost again, watch for that scene. It's funny. Okay, so Jesse said during this discussion that he had not seen Damian in three weeks. And he talked about going to Vicki Hutchinson's house, warning her about Damien. He said he'd never been to Robin Hood Hills. Now, after he fails the polygraph, quote, unquote, fails the polygraph. We'll talk about that later as well. His story shifts dramatically at this point. He tells Brian Ridge and Gary Gitchell that the night before the murders, Jason Baldwin had called him. He told him that he and Damien were going to find some boys to hurt. Damien wanted him to go with them. As I said, Jesse talks about this old briefcase with the photos in it and everything else. He said during these, they would kill a dog, skin it, and eat part of it, which is just this dog thing that keeps coming up. He said that Damian drove a red car owned by Jack Eccles. This red car has come up several times. He said that Damien had targeted the boys, that he'd watched them in the woods before they were killed. Jesse said that all their meetings, their sort of satanic cult meetings were held on Wednesday, and it was a Wednesday when the boys were killed. Now, at trial, several witnesses, including Warren Holmes, would be called to dispute the polygraph and the confession. Now, he would note that 99% of confessions are true, but false confessions do occur. And he would say that Jesse was particularly susceptible to a false confession, given his Mental difficulties. Holmes said that Jesse didn't add anything to the investigation and the police didn't know much going into this interrogation with Jesse Misskeli, and frankly, they didn't know much more coming out of it. And that this was a sign that his confession was false. This is something. You could probably talk about it for one or two episodes, which we are going to do in great depth later. Because believing or not believing Jesse's confession in some ways, given the lack of evidence, physical evidence, everything else is the key to this case. So one, the last thing we're going to talk about with these trials, because I think it's worth discussing, because it comes up a lot. So people have said that the judge in this case, Judge Burnett, was biased and he was always ruling against the defense. If you've heard Dan Stidham in any of his interviews or if you've read his book, I mean, you know, this was a total railroad job, witch hunt, et cetera, et cetera. And you see this in every one of these cases. You see it in cases that are going on. You see it in classic cases, the side that loses, and it's usually the defense, because these people tend to be convicted. And that's why it's wrongful conviction will tell you the judge was totally in the bag, got everything wrong. So I did want to talk about a couple of these because I feel like Judge Burnett, he gets slandered all the time. And just real quick, one thing that people always say is how unfair it was that Judge Burnett was always the judge who heard the appeals. The same judge who tried the case was the judge all the appeals go through. Yeah, that's the way it works in every case.
- [55:38]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Always, always, always. Can you imagine? Think about it this way. No judge would get anything done if they had to learn the entire record of the entire trial to determine, like a small evidentiary issue, for example. That's not how it works. The judge holds jurisdiction over the entire case and all the appeals that go through it. That's why you get to appeal to a higher court. Because if you think that judge is in the bag, you have a panel of judges in the entire bonk court, potentially of the appeals court, and then the Supreme Court on top of that. So that's not special.
- [56:07]
Brett
And guess what? That's exactly how it worked. Because when they are eventually released, like, up until that point, every one of Judge Burnett's findings had been confirmed by the appellate court and the Arkansas Supreme Court. The very last thing was about DNA. And it's DNA Testing and the scope of what a hearing would look like. And Burnett said that the DNA alone was not enough to basically have an entirely new hearing that goes up to the Arkansas Supreme Court. The Arkansas Supreme Court says, no, you need to consider all the evidence as well. So they reversed him on that. Now, by the time it came back, he had been elected state senator, so he's no longer a judge. So it does go to another judge at that point, but it's just there's nothing unusual about how that all happened. Okay, so a couple of these things. So one of them is the polygraph. One of the arguments the defense wanted to make was that Jesse's confession was coerced because they told him he failed the polygraph when he didn't fail the polygraph. And they wanted to bring this in. And the prosecution said polygraph results are not admissible. And the defense tried to argue, well, I mean, we're not really trying to put the results in. We're trying to say that's what caused him to confess. This was not allowed to come in. Now, why is that? I want you to think about this logically. Now, Dan Stidham and various people will tell you it's because the judge is so corrupt. Right. The whole point is that Jesse didn't really fail the polygraph, Therefore they were lying to him, and that's what forced him to confess. What is the key question at issue if that is the argument?
- [57:46]
Sarah James McLaughlin
He's the one who knows whether he lied or not.
- [57:48]
Brett
Yeah. Did he lie or not? Did he fail or not? The whole question is going to turn on dueling experts. One saying, well, actually, no, he absolutely failed the polygraph. Which guess what defense? That's going to be really bad for you because now the jury is going to hear an expert say he failed his polygraph. He lied when he said he didn't do it. And if they believe that expert over your expert, it's over. Right. And your expert is going to say the opposite. And so it's going to become this battle over a question that is not admissible in court. So there was no way to bring this in.
- [58:24]
Sarah James McLaughlin
It's not admissible. But it's also an interrogation tactic. Whether you agree with it or not, you're allowed to lie. And often you do lie. We face this all the time. Right. You know what? Your co conspirator is across the hall right now. He's telling investigator A everything, and he's throwing you under the bus. Is that what you want? You're allowed to say that because the idea is, if you're innocent, you don't make up things, right? And so it's the polygraph is not admissible in and of itself. So going to turn into a dueling of experts of something that's not admissible. But also separately, that is just an investigative tactic that is allowed. It's just now taking the form of polygraph test.
- [58:59]
Brett
So the next issue that if you've read the Devil's Knot, you will think is the greatest injustice in the history of American jurisprudence, and that's whether or not the expert and his name is escaping me right now, could testify that Jesse's confession was coerced. So you had an expert who testified about coercive confessions, really from the police side. He also happened to be an expert on polygraphs, but he also was an expert on interrogations. And he's going to talk about signs of a coerced confession, a false confession. And then you had another Offshay, I believe his name was. Offshay was going to testify as sort of a psychologist about whether or not the confession was coerced. And Jesse's defense attorneys were really bad at making a narrow argument, and they really did a poor job of explaining what they wanted Richard Offshay in particular to testify about. Because there is something called the ultimate issue. If you've been watching the Karen Reed case, there was an ultimate issue argument made in that case, and that's the court's look askance at expert testimony, which reaches an ultimate issue, which is ordinarily the province of the jury. Used to, they couldn't do it at all. Moving through into the 80s, the rules became more lax on this. This is 1993. It was very much still up in the air. Here is what the rule says now. In a criminal case, an expert witness must not state an opinion about whether the defendant did or did not have a mental state or condition that constitutes an element of the crime charged or of a defense. These matters are for the trier of fact alone. So if you phrase it wrong and you ask the wrong types of questions and you make the wrong argument to the judge, if you're saying to the judge, our expert is going to testify that my client's mental state or condition when he confessed was one of coercion, and therefore the confession is invalid, you have just walked into the prohibition about what an expert can testify about. Here's what the American Academy of Psychiatry and the law says about this. One must be careful to know the admissibility test in a jurisdiction and to understand how close one's opinion can come to the ultimate issue. It is unlikely, for example, that under some form of federal rule of evidence 702, which is what that is, an expert will be permitted to opine that a confession was in fact, false. On the other hand, it might be educational for a jury to hear testimony about how an individual with mental retardation lacked the reasoning power to understand Miranda warnings and to employ their admonition. So they're essentially saying, look, you got to be careful. If you get too close to this, they're not going to allow you to do it. And that's exactly what happened here. They kept wanting the expert to be able to say the confession was coerced. And the judge is like, look, number one, that's a legal question. There's a legal question about coercion. And to the extent you're getting into the factual coercion, that's for the jury. But the funniest thing about all this, like I said, you read page after page, and the devil's not, how terrible. This is awful. Oh, my God. To the point that people will say that Offshay was not allowed to testify before the jury about what constitutes a course of confession. But guess what? Dan Stidham never really could get there. He never really could get through this ruling to that. But on cross examination, the prosecution walked right into it. They stepped on a rake, it knocked him in the face, they fell backwards, the door flew open, and all of a sudden he was able to testify on redirect. Stidham's like, well, based on what they just said, can I ask it now? And the judge is like, well, it's good for the goose, is good for the gander. And at that point, Offshay is able to testify about basically everything you would want him to say about when you have a false confession. So it turns out not to even be a big deal, number one. But number two, the judge absolutely got the ruling right in the first instance. And we mentioned all this just because, once again, and this is just a rule that you should apply in every case you follow, if you have a side that is telling you the judge is so biased, is so corrupt, they hate the defense. Most likely they don't understand the law, number one. And number two, they're just trying to bias you because the judge is actually making rulings that comport with the law that they don't like.
- [63:53]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Way to pour cold water on that argument.
- [63:56]
Brett
Yeah, well, I do what I can. I do what I can.
- [64:03]
Sarah James McLaughlin
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- [64:28]
Brett
And when I say in depth, I'm talking deep. Each listing features comprehensive information about the neighborhood, complete with a video guide. They also have details about local schools with test scores, state rankings, and student to teacher ratio. They even have an agent directory with the sales history of each agent. So when it comes to finding a home, not just a house, this is everything you need to know, all in1place.homes.com. we've done your homework. Okay, well, we made it through the.
- [65:04]
Sarah James McLaughlin
End of the outline, but it's not the only outline.
- [65:06]
Brett
We have finished the main outline and our 200 level classes on the West Memphis 3 case. We now have our sort of deep dive on various issues. So we're going to talk more about some of the things Damien Echols said at trial and in other places. We're going to talk in depth about the alibis of the three defendants. I'm going to spend a lot of time on Jesse Miskelly's confessions, whether or not those hold up to scrutiny. We're going to talk in depth about the history of the West Memphis Three, whether or not their history is indicative of the sort of violence you see in this case or not. And we're going to talk about alternative suspects that the police may have looked at, they may not have looked at, that may be interesting to you. And then once we've done all those things, we are going to give you our theories on the case. So we are closing in on the end of this coverage. I mean, we still got several.
- [66:06]
Sarah James McLaughlin
I was going to say. Well, once we get to our theories, then we'll start the October episodes.
- [66:12]
Brett
Exactly. We're gonna have an episode each.
- [66:17]
Sarah James McLaughlin
No.
- [66:19]
Brett
Okay, well, Alice, do you have time for a question?
- [66:22]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Let's do a question. You guys wait so long for me. Let's do a question.
- [66:26]
Brett
Okay, so if you're new here, if you leave a five star review and a question, we will answer it on the podcast. So go to Apple, leave that five star review. You can leave it either for the prosecutors or the prosecutors, legal briefs. Whatever makes you happy. Okay, let's see. It is June, so this is actually. This person's probably already taken the bar, but this is a Good. So Aaron says I'm in my 3L year of law school. Sorry, this probably was last year. So that means the bar exam is fast approaching. I know everybody is different, and I do have a bar prep company, but can you please share some tips, tricks, techniques, et cetera, for preparing for and taking the bar? It would be much appreciated.
- [67:09]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Don't do whatever Brett did. I don't know what he did, but I'm pretty sure he didn't study because he's brilliant and doesn't need to. Okay.
- [67:16]
Brett
I actually did because I was more afraid of the bar than any test I've ever taken.
- [67:21]
Sarah James McLaughlin
That's fair. And to be very clear, I don't know if this was your experience. I would assume it was similar to mine. The bar information was brand new to me. Didn't learn any of it.
- [67:29]
Brett
Was. Didn't learn any of it.
- [67:30]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Law school.
- [67:31]
Brett
That's why I learned, you know, Torch Trust and Estates, commercial paper, Family law contract.
- [67:38]
Sarah James McLaughlin
I mean, literally everything was brand new to me. So I did have to study. So I'll tell you, okay, I'll tell you, like, a real life piece of advice and then how I did it. Real life piece of advice. Don't kill yourself. You can study forever. You can study. Not enough. You can study too much. Like, you just graduated law school, have some fun and then decide when you're going to study. Like, don't study 24 hours a day. If you decided that you're going to study, like a day job, like 8 to 5 or 9 to 5, then just do that and then, like, have some downtime because otherwise I think you can go crazy. And then to study, like I would say, to study. Because unlike law school, where maybe grades matter, maybe grades don't matter, maybe there's grade inflation. It is black and white, like, whether you pass the bar or not. And if you do not pass the bar, then you do not practice. You do not get to practice law. And it stinks to have to study for it and take it again. And remember, literally all you need to do is the passing score. One point above it is all you need. You do not need to make 100 on it. In fact, you don't want to study enough to make 100 for it because then you've wasted your time. No one will ever ask you what you got on your bar exam. I don't know what I got. I passed. That's all that matters. So it's literally a pass fail situation. But you need to study enough to pass what I did back then. You Would like. I assume they still do this. Maybe it's gotten all fancy now. But it's basically a podcast, right? Or a YouTube video, because there's a video of someone teaching you the course. I did not go in person. I think I would have died if I had to go to a course in person. So I listened to it virtually, but I would download it. Like, I actually used Audacity. That was the first time I used Audacity was I would record it surreptitiously because you can't download it because they pay for it. But I wasn't spreading it around just so I can then play it 2 times or 2.5 times speed and get through a lot as quickly as possible. So that's like a tip that I did, and everyone I knew did something like that, because otherwise you'll be listening to, like, endless hours of class.
- [69:39]
Brett
So I did go to the classes I attended.
- [69:41]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Did you really?
- [69:42]
Brett
Yeah, I, like, I probably attended more Barbie classes than I did, actually.
- [69:47]
Sarah James McLaughlin
I can believe that.
- [69:48]
Brett
I can believe that because I like you. I didn't actually. Not because I didn't go to class, but because the Ivy League law schools don't actually teach you.
- [69:57]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Yale didn't teach anything. I mean, it didn't teach anything on the bar exam.
- [70:01]
Brett
So, like, you could not. You could not learn commercial paper in law school. So I was really nervous about that. And it's all very technical and everything. And so I definitely went. So this was like a. This is like a big deal for me. And I paid a lot of attention and I studied a lot. I think Alice is right that you've got to figure out a plan and you got to space it out. Don't drive yourself crazy. And I'll tell this story again, though. I've told it before. So when I went to take the bar, you know, you go in, it's a huge room now, you probably take it on computer, but at the time you're waiting on your paper to get there. You sit down at the table, they bring out the test. You have no idea what the subject's going to be. Open it up. You read the question. I read the first question, and I was like, I don't know the answer to this. It was like some weird trust and estate type question. I was like, I know the answer to this. I started kind of spiraling, right? I was like, oh, I'm going to fail. You know, I'm going to disgrace my family. Like, no one will ever talk to me again, Et cetera, et cetera.
- [71:00]
Sarah James McLaughlin
I'LL never have a podcast.
- [71:01]
Brett
I'll never have a podcast. I'll never be a lawyer. And as I'm doing this, the guy sitting next to me, he stands up and he walks over. They had this long table, had all this water on it and all these glasses and ice and everything else. And he walks over to the table, he picks up the water jug and he passes out and he lands like face first on the table, smashes on the table. Glasses go everywhere, ice goes everywhere, water goes everywhere. And I looked over at the guy and I thought, better off than that guy. And.
- [71:32]
Sarah James McLaughlin
And it is a curved test.
- [71:34]
Brett
Yeah, that's what I needed. And I hope he, you know, he. People rushed over. It's kind of funny. This is like when you know you're a bad person. Because I wasn't going to go there. I had to do the test, right? But like the proctors and stuff went over there, got him back together and he eventually started the test, finished test, finished out, the rest of the two day thing. Hopefully he passed. I don't know. But that was like, once that happened, I was good and from that point forward it was fine and I passed. And you will pass as well. And you probably already have passed because.
- [72:03]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Like I said, right, this is probably years ago. And one last tip is, unlike I've been able to cram things in my life, the bar exam is not something you can actually cram for because of the amount of information. And so one thing you do need to do that Brett said, have a schedule, like literally have a calendar where you decide which topics are covered because you can't learn what is it, like 15 topics of law in one a day or one week. So you need to just, like at some point you're never going to learn everything about trust and estates. You just have to move on because you have to cover another subject because you don't know which subjects will be covered, but it's going to be like what, five, six, eight of them, depending on the state. And so you have to know all what, 12, 15 areas of law, which is a lot to keep in your mind.
- [72:47]
Brett
Let us know how it goes. Yeah, let us know if you pass. Okay, well, if you have any thoughts, questions, horrible bar examples that you went through, shoot us an email prosecutors pod gmail.com@projectspot for all your social media and join us on, on Twitter, go on Facebook, the gallery, discuss this case. If you want to watch us record these episodes, you can join Patreon. If you'd rather just get the episodes early and Ad Free Patreon gets you that as well. All right, Alice. Well, this has been fun. We are closing in on the end of this case, as hard as it is to believe. But we'll be there eventually. But next week, we'll be back with more West Memphis three. But until then, I'm Brett.
- [73:31]
Sarah James McLaughlin
And I'm Alice.
- [73:33]
Brett
And we are the prosecutors. Okay, so inept co host.
- [74:02]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Hey.
- [74:06]
Brett
Here we go.
- [74:10]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Okay, you ready? Yep. Sorry, I'm trying to turn up all the inputs right now. Hold on one second. Okay, it's fine. I mean, everything's turned up to the max right now, so I think that's.
- [74:22]
Brett
What it has to be because.
- [74:23]
Sarah James McLaughlin
No, no, I think you're right, and it's still not. I clearly have to talk very close to it.
- [74:27]
Brett
Yeah, you need to.
- [74:29]
Sarah James McLaughlin
I'm doing it. I'm doing it.
- [74:35]
Brett
Ready?
- [74:36]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Yes.
- [74:39]
Brett
Y' all want to hang out for a little bit longer? Y' all ready? Yeah.
- [74:43]
Sarah James McLaughlin
I'm sorry.
- [74:44]
Brett
All right, here we go.
- [74:47]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Everyone gets a free shirt. Unshakes.
- [74:58]
Brett
This is something that break down later as far as believing or not in some ways given else. Is that supposed to be talking that whole time? Did I mess this up? I totally messed this up.
- [75:22]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Girl, you did not. This is the last day.
- [75:26]
Brett
Oh, yeah. I'll just keep going.
- [75:29]
Sarah James McLaughlin
Yeah, well, I mean, I could jump in now.
- [75:31]
Brett
Okay, go ahead. If you know. If you know what I'm talking about in this cryptic thing that I wrote, because this was a note to myself.
- [75:37]
Sarah James McLaughlin
No, go for it.
- [75:37]
Brett
But go ahead.
- [75:38]
Sarah James McLaughlin
You can keep going. You can keep going.
- [75:43]
Brett
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