Cover Photo by Grove Pashley, design by Micheal Swank

Cruel and Unusual

Jello Biafra, Winona Ryder, Marilyn Manson and other artists come together Saturday to help the West Memphis Trio

By John Esther

The word here is Trio.

Winona Ryder, Jello Biafra and Marilyn Manson are scheduled to lend a hand to the “Cruel and Unusual” exhibit and benefit at the Sixspace Gallery in downtown Los Angeles from 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday for the West Memphis Trio.

The West Memphis Trio is the name given to Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelly, three teenagers who were falsely convicted of killing three boys, Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch, in West Memphis, Ark., without a single piece of evidence linking them to the crimes.

Based on an idea by artist Chad Robertson, this free event was organized by three Angelinos: Kathy Bakken, Grove Pashley and Burk Sauls, founders of www.wm3.org, a Web site supporting the West Memphis Trio.

Participating “Cruel and Unusual” artists range from Exene Cervenka, the Clayton Brothers, Edward Colver, Robbie Conal, Glen E. Freidman, Camille Rose Garcia, Shepard Fairey, Jaime Hernandez, Emmeric James Konrad, Matt Mahurin, Liz McGrath, Pashley, Robertson, Floria Sigismondi and Raymond Pettibon.

” I’m glad to contribute,” said Pettinbon, who once did album covers for the punk band Black Flag. “But it’s not really this case itself that deserves attention so much as the systematic injustice of the court system.”

True enough, but it would be hard to find a more blatant disregard for law, reason and justice than the events that led to the sentencing of two kids to life in prison and put then-18-year-old Echols on death row.

It all started on Cinco de Mayo, 1993, when the parents of Byers, Moore and Branch called the police about their children missing.

After a shoddy law enforcement search, amongst other procedures that illustrated why the police there were already under investigation for widespread corruption, the three 8-year-olds were found the next day in the Robin Hood Hills outside of West Memphis.
The discovery was horrific. The boys had their clothes ripped off and their arms and legs were tied together with their shoelaces. There were several wounds to the bodies and heads. Christopher Byers was castrated.

Despite the carnage, the site where they found the bodies showed very little blood, an indication they had been killed somewhere else and then dumped. The situation also suggested they knew their assailant.

The ghastly murders sent shockwaves through the jerkwater county where the average income was in the bottom 10 percent. Many were hysterical. The investigation foundered. Rewards were offered.

Every hick in the area was bombarding the police with tips. Some tips led somewhere, but most did not. Some that were strong were dropped with no explanation.
Jerry Driver, once a commercial airline pilot, had moved to West Memphis with his wife and ended up becoming the county’s chief juvenile officer, without proper background for the job. For him, “an expert on occults,” the murders were not a surprise. He immediately suspected Echols.

Echols was a troubled kid who lived in a trailer park, suffered from depression to the point where he had been hospitalized on numerous occasions and endured the hassles created by the mother of his girlfriend who allegedly lied to police about Damien in order to keep him away from her daughter.

During his “relationship” with Echols, Driver got it into his head that Echols was a part of a cult. Drivers obsessed over Echols, keeping tabs on him from Oklahoma to Oregon.
Echols’ relationship with Baldwin, who also listened to heavy metal and wore black clothes, only confirmed Driver’s suspicions.

Misskelly, who had a violent past and an IQ of 70, was a good friend of Baldwin’s and by the time a waitress-turned-volunteer detective named Vicki Hutcheson thought she could get Damien to confess via Misskelly, local law enforcement had set their sights on the three so-called Satan worshippers.

Useful evidence about the case, including alternative leads, was lost as a matter of course while the wildest allegations came forth.

All of a sudden the townsfolk seemed to know of Echols’ animal sacrifices.
Aaron Hutcheson — who once had a good lead in the beginning of the case regarding an African American who he saw pick up the boys the night of the murders and who may have been the same man who showed up at a local restaurant with blood all over him on the night of the murders — now embellished stories about Echols’ satanism that seemed to be incredible, but still believable to town folks.

The local press failed then, and still fails now, to seek the truth, misquoting people and misstating facts so often that Bakken, Pashley and Sauls can only laugh, despite the dire circumstances.

“ We were right there and they would get the facts wrong,” said Bakken about the post-trial motions. “One paper would say something and they would all pick up on it,” said Pashley. “For example, people kept asking us how we could say they’re innocent when they found a human skull in [Echols’] bedroom,” said Sauls. “The fact is they did not” find a skull. “That would have been proof!”

However, the prosecutors did use Echols’ little plastic skull earrings as “proof” of his satanic endeavors.

In the center of this prosecution stood John Mark Byers, Christopher’s stepfather. Here was a man with history of crime, drug abuse, snitching for the cops, violence and a whole lot of other damage, yet was incarceration-proof. Byers had conflicting alibis all the time, including the day of the murders, but the local yokels ignored these inconsistencies along with all the others.

The trial came with no proof of any sort linking the Trio to the crime, except for the illegally acquired confession without a parent or lawyer for the then-minor Misskelly, who later recanted.

Overseeing these witch trials was Judge David Burnett, who made several judicial errors, including participation in meetings with prosecutors about the case without defense attorneys present. On another occasion, Burnett urged the conclusion of the trial because he had a turkey hunt to attend.

It was a good-old fashioned persecution, a la “The Crucible.” When it was over, not only did the scared simpletons of that West Memphis jury deliver guilty verdicts, Misskelly and Baldwin, still minors, were sentenced to prison for life, while Echols, who was barely 18, was sentenced to death.

“ The United States is only one of three countries that allows the executions of minors, the other two being Iran and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” said Sapna Mirchandani, Program Coordinator to End Juvenile Executions for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. “Of those three, the US is the only one still active in carrying out executions.”

Young, innocent and repeatedly raped and beaten, Echols, 28, still sits on death row.
“ The real issue that goes above and beyond this case is the need to get rid of the death penalty." said Biafra. “They clearly have the wrong person.”

As is often the case when outsiders must come in and expose an unconstitutional court
system, this sham of justice would have fallen through the cracks of international attention had it not been for Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinosky’s outstanding documentary, “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.”

Sauls had actually heard about the case but did not realize what exactly what was going on until Bakken introduced him to the documentary. The more he and the others looked into the facts, the more they noticed “this obvious case of abuse of the justice system,” said Sauls.

So he, Bakken and Pashley organized because they felt compelled to rectify this injustice.

“ It was a responsibility I didn’t even want to take,” said Pashley.

Thanks to the success of “Paradise,” Berlinger and Sinosky did a follow-up, “Paradise Lost 2: Revelations,” which, among other things, paints a very suspicious shadow on John Mark Byers.

“ After seeing the first one, I was a bit ambivalent about getting involved,” said Konrad of Lincoln Heights. “After watching the second film, I called Chad up and said I am in. … Byers is a motherfucker.”

It has been over 10 years since the Trio’s arrest and conviction for a crime they clearly did not commit. Evidence against their convictions mounts, and some witnesses have recanted their testimonies, but the “Good ol’ Boy” justice system and the superstitious saps of West Memphis are “too deep in it now,” said Pashley, to admit their shortcomings.

“ You have the brutal murder of children, which already pisses you off,” said Bakken.

“ Then you have three teenagers, and it’s all so young, so shocking. They’re not psychos. And people are like, ‘Oh, my gosh, how could they do it?’ And it becomes even more freaky because they just did not do it and the real killer is still out there. We have all these horror stories” involved in the case.

“ Yes, three innocent people are in prison is horrible,” said Konrad. “Though we tend to forget three boys were murdered and the killer is still out there.”

The “Cruel and Unusual” exhibit will run through Sept. 20, but if you want to go Saturday, get there early. There will be an estimated 3,000 people at the event. All proceeds will go directly to the WM3 legal fund for DNA testing and other legal procedures.

As to why Angelinos should care what happens in Arkansas, the trio suggests “this is going on in America.”

But surely there must be innocent people on the California’s death row?
“ I’m sure there are,” said Sauls. “Find them and figure out a way to help them.”

The Sixspace Gallery is at
549 W. 23rd St., Los Angeles.
For more information,
log onto www.wm3.org.