Read Online Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three by Greg Day - Free Book Online Page A

three youths, including nighttime search warrants, reserved for those cases where there is a likelihood of evidence being hidden or destroyed. But Gitchell and Ridge convinced Rainey that once the other “cult members” found out about Jessie’s arrest, word would spread to Damien and Jason. There was no probable cause for the arrests, no physical evidence linking the accused to the crime, and only the most questionable hearsay elicited from young people around town wanting to avoid trouble with the law. 40
    Jessie Misskelley’s trial began on Wednesday, January 6, 1994. The Baldwin/Echols trial immediately followed on February 28. Incredible as it was, both trials resulted in convictions for all three defendants. Baldwin and Misskelley drew life sentences, and Damien Echols was sentenced to death. The trials were thought by most to be the end of the line for the West Memphis Three. For John Mark Byers and the spreading corps of “Free the West Memphis Three” supporters, things were just warming up.

CHAPTER 2 
    I’m No Angel 
I’m no Angel, and I’m no stranger to the streets
And I’m half crazy, so I’ve got scars upon my cheek
—Greg Allman
 
He’s the missing link
The kitchen sink
Eleven on a scale of ten
Honey, let me introduce you to my redneck friend.
—Jackson Browne
 
    Marked Tree, Arkansas—the name conjures up images of a frontier-type town planted in the middle of a land once populated by Native Americans, or maybe a wilderness outpost where pioneer types sold animal pelts and bought supplies. A brawny outback town where gold miners or oil-seekers set up temporary camps while plying their trade. A wilderness paradise, abundant with game for hunting, fish for fishing; a place populated with rough and ready pioneers trying to scratch a town out of the dirt. If you had these thoughts, you wouldn’t be far off.
    The birthplace of John Mark Byers was incorporated in the 1880s, and its business at the time was steel—the laying of railroad tracks to be precise. The men laying tracks for what became the Frisco railroad built mobile camps, providing workers with living quarters and facilities as construction of the railroad moved forward from the west. The camps and the construction operation through these parts were run by Jonathan C. Edwards. When the section of the railroad that ran through Marked Tree was completed in 1883—the town was called “Edwards” at the time—Edwards left the camp with the first train to Memphis and advised those who chose to remain that they should decide on a name for the town and petition Washington, DC, for a post office so they would continue to receive mail.
    Geographically speaking, Marked Tree is located at the Arkansas end of the 150-mile-long New Madrid fault, in a part of the state known locally as the “delta.” West of the Mississippi River, one will find the low-lying area of eastern Arkansas, stretching all the way from the northern Missouri border to the state of Louisiana to the south. The Mississippi “Alluvial Delta,” as eastern Arkansas is known geologically, was formed by deposits left by the Mississippi and numerous other rivers, including the Saint Francis and Little Rivers, over a period of millions of years. Thus, the soil is rich and deep, and it is here where some of Arkansas’ most productive farmland lies. Arkansas contains some 43 percent of the nation’s rice acreage and is a major exporter of rice and rice byproducts. It also produces its fair share of cotton, soybean, and milo.
    Running track through the area proved to be difficult. The land itself had sunken anywhere from three to nine feet as a result of its proximity to the epicenters of the four massive New Madrid (Missouri) earthquakes occurring between 1811 and 1813, and the area was, and is, susceptible to frequent flooding. Only a system of levees made the area passable at all. The soon-to-be town, however, was smack in the middle of a direct line between St. Louis and