EXHIBIT A-IOI - West Memphis Three Case - Document Archive

Case 4:09-cv-00008-BSM Document 30-5 Filed 07/17/2009 Page 152 of 297
Copyright 1994 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times
SECTION: Part A; Page 21; Column 1; National Desk
LENGTH: 559 words
All Rights Reserved
Los Angeles Times .
February 5, 1994, Saturday, Home Edition
HEADLINE: DROPOUT FOUND GUILTY IN DEATHS OF 3 BOYS;
CRIME: JESSIE LLOYD MISSKELLEY JR., 18, IS SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON FOR THE BRUTAL
SLAYINGS. TWO OTHER DEFENDANTS AWAIT TRIAL IN ARKANSAS.
BYLINE: By LYNDA NATALI, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
DATELINE: CORNING, Ark
BODY:
An l8-year-old high school dropout was found guilty Friday in the brutal murders ofthree 8-year-old boys.
"It doesn't change anything for my son, who was tortured and murdered!" Melissa Byers shouted after Jessie Lloyd
Misskelley Jr. was found guilty ofone count offlrst-degree murder and two counts ofsecond-degree murder. "He
(Misskelley) deserves to be tortured! He murdered three 8-year-old babies!"
Misskelley was sentenced to life in prison.
Second-graders Steve Branch, Chris Byers and Michael Moore disappeared May 5, 1993, while riding their bikes in
their West Memphis, Ark, neighborhood. Their nude, battered and hogtied bodies were found the next day in a drainage
ditch less than a mile from their homes.
According to medical examiners, Branch and Moore drowned after suffering fractured skulls. Byers, who was castrated
during the attack, bled to death.
During seven days ofoften graphic and emotional testimony, the boys' parents sat in the one-story county courthouse
as the prosecution showed more than 40 gruesome photographs taken at the crime scene.
Witnesses, some choking back tears, described how the boys' skulls were shattered and how their bodies were
sexually mutilated.
The discovery ofthe bodies grabbed headlines and set into motion a massive police hunt that ended with Misskelley's
confession last June.
Misskelley -- who did not testify at his trial -- had told police that he watched as two other defendants, Charles Jason
Baldwin, 16, and Damien Wayne Echols, 19, killed the boys.
Because ofthe publicity surrounding the case, the trial was moved about 120 miles north ofWest Memphis to the
small town ofCorning.
West Memphis police Detective Bryn Ridge testifled that before Misskelley confessed to being present at the murders,
he had talked about belonging to a cult.
Police Inspector Gary Gitchell testified that Misskelley confessed after police played him a tape-recorded message
in which an unidentified young boy said: "Nobody knows what happened but me."
The defense charged that the tape was one ofmany measures used by the police to coerce Misskelley's confession.