Echols, Baldwin found guilty of murder

JONESBORO — Damien Wayne Echols and Charles Jason Baldwin were convicted of capital murder Friday in the deaths of three 8-year-old West Memphis boys.

As the verdicts were read, members of the victims' families sobbed with joy. On the other side of the courtroom, family and friends of the defendants cried out in grief.

Echols' 17-year-old girlfriend, Domini Teer, shrieked and fled the courtroom, sobbing.

The jury will decide the fate of the two defendants today when it returns to consider punishment. Echols, 19, and Baldwin, 16, face possible death penalties or life in prison.

Relatives of the murder victims said Friday that Echols and Baldwin should die.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated 11/4 hours Thursday night and Friday before returning the most severe verdicts.

This morning, attorneys for the two defendants will present evidence they hope will mitigate their clients' guilt in the eyes of the jury. Prosecutors said they would present no witnesses but would file briefs in favor of the death penalty. Lawyers for both sides will then present summations to the jury, and Circuit Judge David Burnett of Osceola will instruct them as to the law in the punishment phase of the case. They will then retire to consider punishment.

Echols of West Memphis and Baldwin of Marion, were each charged with three counts of capital murder in the May 5 slayings of Michael Moore, Steve Branch and Christopher Byers, all West Memphis second-graders. The three 8-year-olds were last seen late on the afternoon of May 5 heading toward a wooded area of West Memphis known as Robin Hood Hill. Their nude and beaten bodies were found by searchers the next day submerged in a drainage ditch near Interstate 40.

Baldwin, Echols and Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., 18, of Marion, were arrested June 3 and charged in the killings. Misskelley was convicted of first-and second-degree murder Feb. 4 in a trial at Corning. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus 40 years. He has appealed.

Misskelley was tried separately because of statements he allegedly gave police that implicated himself and the other teen-agers.

Echols and Baldwin were tried together but separately from Misskelley.

Evidence presented by Prosecuting Attorney Brent Davis of Jonesboro and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Fogleman of Marion included:

+y The linking of fibers found at the murder scene to garments found in the closets of the defendants.

+y A survival knife with a 9-inch serrated blade found near Baldwin's home.

+y Expert testimony that some of the wounds on the slain boys could have been made by that type knife.

+y The testimony of two girls who claimed they heard Echols boasting about the slayings.

+y And a prisoner who swore that Baldwin told him he participated in the killings.

Jonesboro defense attorneys -- Paul Ford and Robin Wadley for Baldwin, and Val Price and Scott Davidson for Echols -- belittled the state's witnesses, calling them unreliable at the least, and argued that the West Memphis Police Department's investigation was inept.

The scientific evidence, they contended, was inconclusive at best. They tried to link John Mark Byers, the father of one of the victims, to the slayings by introducing his knife that had traces of blood similar to his and his adoptive son's.

The prosecution faced its last major hurdle Thursday when it tried to introduce laboratory analyses of blood samples from a pendant taken from Echols the day of his arrest. With the jury out of the courtroom, Davis told Burnett that two kinds of blood had been found on the pendant. One was consistent with Echols' blood, and the other was similar to both Baldwin's and Steve Branch's blood.

The presence of that new evidence tended to pit Echols' and Baldwin's defenses against each other, and Ford --Baldwin's attorney -- said it proved that his client's case should have been severed from that of Echols'. Ford had repeatedly made such a motion throughout the proceedings.

Burnett agreed that the new evidence would justify a severance, and since it was too late to do that, he indicated he would declare a mistrial in Baldwin's case if the blood report were used by the state. After considering that possibility for a few minutes, Davis decided to proceed without the new evidence -- a risk that paid off when the guilty verdicts were returned.

The trial began Feb. 22, transferred to Jonesboro from Crittenden County because of widespread publicity. It attracted widespread media attention from the outset. Five television news vans were parked behind the Craighead County Courthouse during the trial, and a film crew making a documentary for Home Box Office taped the proceedings for a television special about the case.

On Thursday, the jury heard closing arguments from attorneys and legal instructions from Burnett. They deliberated until 10:30 p.m. before asking to be released for the night.

Jurors reported for work at 9:30 a.m. Friday, and deliberated until noon, when they broke for lunch. They took another break at 3 p.m.

The jurors had several options to consider. In each of the three deaths, they could find Echols and Baldwin guilty of capital murder, first-degree or second-degree murder, or innocent.

As jurors deliberated, the crowd of press and spectators that had filled the courthouse since the trial began milled about in the courtroom, the hallways and the sun-dappled grounds outside, where temperatures reached 70 degrees.

Davis and Fogleman passed the time chatting with law enforcement officers, reporters and other lawyers as they waited for a verdict.

"I slept like a baby last night," Davis said to a reporter.

As the trial drew to a close Friday, officers providing security became more alert.

Sheriff's deputies, state troopers and Jonesboro policemen watched more carefully as spectators entered or left the courtroom thorough a metal detector. When the jury reported at 3:33 p.m. that it had reached its verdicts, officers spread out to form a human wall between the court and spectator areas. Defense attorneys looked tense. Both defendants were ashen faced.

When the verdict was announced, Baldwin looked at the floor. Echols shook his head silently.

Burnett told the jurors to report back at 9:30 a.m. today, and then dismissed them for the day, sending officers to escort them to their cars.

He then ordered that the courtroom be cleared in an orderly fashion, and the crowd quietly filed out.

A few minutes later, officers escorted Echols and Baldwin out of the courthouse. They were shackled and wore bullet-proof vests under their coats.

Gail Grinnell of Marion, Baldwin's mother, sobbed as her son was led from the courtroom, and called to him: "I live you, son."

"I love you, too," Baldwin responded quietly, without breaking stride.

One of Echols' relatives shouted, "Hold on there, boy. You'll be getting out," an apparent prediction of a successful appeal. Echols nodded and replied, "I know."

Outside the courthouse, a group of young girls who have attended the trial almost every day to show support for Echols yelled encouragement as he was taken to a waiting unmarked police car.

Echols did not acknowledge their shouts.

A male voice shouted, "You're going to fry!"

Echols didn't respond to that, either.

The defense attorneys, all of whom appeared stricken by the verdicts, declined comment Friday afternoon, and left the courthouse without speaking to reporters. The prosecutors also left before they could e asked for comments.

Echols testified that he did not commit the crime; Baldwin did not take the stand. Prosecutors had hoped Misskelley would testify against his two friends, but he never did.

The crimes and the resulting trials caused widespread interest and controversy because the state used Echols' interest in the occult as part of its case. Occult drawings and books on the occult taken from Echols' room were entered into evidence. In his testimony, Echols insisted he had adhered to the tenets of Wicca, a religion that acknowledges what it calls "white magic." He denied he was a satanist.