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

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Case 4:09-cv-00008-BSM Document 30-5 Filed 07/17/2009 Page 18 of 297 Walking life's muddy edges; T, ;' fascination with occult links South's most d" _bing murders Knoxville News Sentinel (Tennessee) April 27, 1997, Sunday Echols, now 22, received the death penalty while his co-defendants were sentenced to life in prison. He has maintained his innocence. While acknowledging an interest in witchcraft, Echols says it is a religion to him and not a way to hurt people. The young men were the subject last year of "Paradise Lost: the Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills," an HBO portrait oftheir trials. Supporters have created a defense fund and launched an Internet campaign to free them. They believe the young men, dubbed the West Memphis Three, were unfairly tried by a community intent on locking away three town oddballs. A toke in the park The Job Corps murder. In Knox County, it's a shorthand reference to the murder ofColleen A. Slemmer, 19, a student at the now defunct Knoxville Job Corps Center. Slemmer was lured out the night ofJan. 12, 1995, by an offer to smoke marijuana in Tyson Park with fellow students Christa Gail Pike, then 18, her boyfriend Tadaryl D. Shipp, 17, and female acquaintance Shadolla R. Peterson, 18. Near a remote bike path on the University ofTennessee Agriculture Campus, Slemmer was beaten, slashed and tortured. Pike, jealous that Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend, and Shipp carved a pentagram in her chest. Pike kept a piece ofthe victim's skull as a souvenir. Last year, Pike became the youngest person to sit on Tennessee's death row. In January, Shipp was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Peterson has pleaded to being an accessory after the fact. She was sentenced to six years probation. Lawyers are pursuing appeals for Shipp and Pike, now 19 and 21. A quiet night at home Richard and Ruth Wendorf were enjoying a night at home Nov. 25,1996, in Eustis, Fla., when someone bludgeoned them with a heavy metal object. Several days later, Rod Ferrell, Heather Wendorf, the couple's 15-year-old daughter, and three other youths aged 16 to 19 were picked up in Baton Rouge, La., driving the Wendorfs' Ford Explorer. Authorities allege Ferrell, a former schoolmate ofHeather's, decided to drive from Kentucky to Florida to kill the couple and bring Heather back so she could wed one ofthe accused. A grand jury has charged Rod Ferrell with fIrst-degree murder. Ferrell's three friends, also from western Kentucky, are accused as principals in the killings. In January, jurors declined to charge Heather Wendorf, who told investigators she did not learn her parents were dead until after she left Florida with Ferrell. The other four await trial. Witnesses on the road Vidar and Delphina Lillelid ofPowell and their two children were on their way home April 6 from a Jehovah's Witness conference in Johnson City when they were confronted. Authorities theorize they were carjacked at a highway rest stop near Interstate 81 in Greene County, driven to a dead-end road and shot. Vidar and Delphina died with their 6-year-old daughter, Tabitha, and 2-year-old son, Peter, in their arms. Tabitha eventually died. Peter is recovering in a Knoxville hospital. Natasha Cornett and fIve others, who had set offthat day on a road trip from eastern Kentucky, are the alleged killers. The group was arrested two days later at the Arizona-Mexico border riding in the Lillelids' van. Cornett, who has a history ofmental illness, and three others ranging in age from 17 to 20 are being held in Greene County awaiting a preliminary hearing, tentatively set for May 21. Fourteen-year-old Jason B. Bryant and 17-year-old Karen Renea Howell are fIghting extradition from Arizona. Kindred spirits Miles apart in life, Cornett, Echols, Ferrell and Pike have several things in common. Their stories come from court hearings, interviews with friends and family and from their own mouths. All came from homes broken by divorce or separation.
Case 4:09-cv-00008-BSM Document 30-5 Filed 07/17/2009 Page 19 of 297 ,--, Walking life's muddy edges; T, J' fascination with occult links South's most d. Sentinel (Tennessee) April 27, 1997, Sunday _bing murders Knoxville News All felt like outcasts in their communities. "Freaks" is the word Ferrell and Echols have used to describe how they were perceived around town. "It's a waking of a brand-new dreadful day," Cornett wrote in a 1995 diary passage released by her then attorney. "It's my birthday.... Death shall finally take me.... It does not matter if! enter hell, because I live my whole life in it ..." For several, their choice ofdress compounded their feelings ofalienation. Most have said they preferred black and were ridiculed for it. Ferrell dyed his hair black, painted his nails black and adopted an all-black costume for which he became notorious around Murray, Ky. Cornett briefly married about a year and a halfago, with a wedding ceremony at which she wore a black dress and had a black cake. Unable or unwilling to fit in with the rest ofsociety, all four turned to magic and the occult. Echols became interested in Wicca, a common reference to the various traditions ofNeo-Pagan witchcraft. Pike gained a reputation around the Knoxville Job Corps Center as a witch, and she and Shipp dabbled in satanism. Ferrell embraced vampirism, shunned daylight and engaged in candlelit ceremonies in which he and some ofhis co-defendants drank their own blood. Kentucky authorities say he broke into a Murray animal shelter in October and beat 40 dogs and tortured two to death. Cornett and several ofher friends took part in a blood-letting ceremony in a Pikeville, Ky., motel days before heading down to East Tennessee this month. Also, family members or the suspects themselves say they have attempted suicide and self-mutilation. Echols and Cornett received mental health treatment for manic depression. Madonna Wallen, Natasha's mother, told a News-Sentinel reporter doctors gave the young woman medication, but it made her sick. Cornett's former lawyer said she was filled with self-loathing and spoke ofan imminent Armageddon. "... She said, 'We don't have anything to look forward to,'" Wallen said. "Tomorrow is nonexistent, I guess, to them." Reasons why Little about the backgrounds ofCornett, Echols, Ferrell and Pike surprises Knox County area mental health professionals. Their lives are symptomatic ofan American culture in which traditional family ties are weaker, social values are looser and public support for programs to help children is smaller, experts said. "I just don't see children as our priority," said Jim Griffm, who is involved in developing programs to help children in area juvenile courts for the Helen Ross McNabb Center, Inc. "Funding speaks ofit. It's just not there." Clinical psychologist Miller has evaluated young people for Knox County Juvenile Court for almost 30 years. In that time, the offenders have become more violent. They typically have grown up in homes in which they get away with more, either because the parent is more accepting or doesn't pay attention to the behavior, he said. Many were abandoned or neglected. Diana McCoy, a clinical and forensic psychologist in Knox County, said generally the juveniles she has seen who were attracted to something such as satanism felt inadequate. Satanism offers them a sense ofpower and belonging, she said. Miller said part ofthe problem behind the rise in violent young offenders can be traced to the lack of options in mental health care, especially for the poor. The longer juveniles go without help, the harder it is to treat them, he said. Still, professionals caution there are no absolute predictors when it comes to serious juvenile crime. Many children with similar backgrounds reach adulthood without incident. For example, dressing in black is not bad, nor is dabbling in the occult unless it becomes extreme, experts said. For some, the occult is a harmless way to rebel against one's parents, McCoy said.
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EXHIBIT A-IOI - West Memphis Three Case - Document Archive

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