Mara Leveritt: Crime Investigation in the ”Devil’s Knot”

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Major crime scene functions handling
The crime and investigations
How the police conducted the investigation
The efficiency of investigations and problems encountered
What I would change
Pre-interrogation and post-custody interrogations
Works Cited

Introduction

The book outlines a description concerning the death of three boys who suffered from murder. It then proceeds to describe how three teenagers appeared before the court over the charge of the murders. The author of this book portrays the ignorance of actual evidence used in the conviction of the three teenagers. The book describes how the convicted teenagers held a conviction on the basis of demonic beliefs, leaving out loopholes for false evidence to come. This led to the release of the convicted teenagers in August 2011. It denotes that the stepfather to one of the victims could have any involvement with the murders. Assertions made concerning the murders held that one of the boys, Christopher, had a demonic ritual operated on him. This is because investigations made indicated that the criminals skinned Christopher’s penis before the boy died.

The investigations made also indicated that the boys received violent beatings followed by savage from the criminals. The young boy then suffered a castration after the skinning procedure occurred. There then arose a local lady, Hutchenson, who decided to get involved with the case. This happened weeks after the case happenings reached villagers from the place of residence of the victims. Hutchenson claimed that she had met two of the defendants, Echols and Misskelley, during an esbat. She also got her son to admit to the police that he had experienced viewing the crime occurring during the kidnap. She set up a meeting between the two defendants so as to assist them to get acquainted with each other. This was easy for her since she was a neighbor to Misskelley. Through the passing years, Hutchenson decided to reverse her statement regarding meeting the two boys during an esbat. Her son also contributed to complicating the case by changing his statements each time they wrote them. Misskelley was seventeen years old at that time and assumed to be retarded. However, his statement led to the arrest of four boys. They received a charge of murder over the plaintiff. The case displayed biased judgment by convicting the teenagers out of satanic views.

Major crime scene functions handling

The case concerning the murder of the three boys received various twists through the changing of statements. This caused the case to turn out to be complex. Some detectives offered to assist in the case trials, such as Lax. Lax acquired the desirable characteristics of a man in society, engaged in the literature review, and known to handle issues through detailed, careful research. He owned a company, Inquisitor, which dealt with financial fraud and insurance. He over the years builds his career and engaged in cases that were associated with murder. The families of the defendant were low-income earners and had difficulties hiring their own defense team. The judge thus appointed lawyers to the individual defendants. This happened in 1993. However, the appointed lawyers were approximately thirty years of age.

The crime and investigations

Records indicate that the murder took place while the young boys were in West Memphis, where a kidnap occurred. The police claimed to have located the bodies of the boys in a ditch, along a highway. The salvagers tied them together with rope and profusely beat them up. They claimed that the crime scene indicated no blood traces as if a thorough clean-up job occurred. The most astonishing thing was that one of the boys, Christopher, had a castration performed on him. One of the boy’s parents had reported a missing child in the early evening of the kidnap. This was Christopher’s parent, Byer (Leveritt 8). Their neighbor across the road also reported that her son Michael also went missing later in the night. She asserted that she viewed her son together with some neighborhood children riding bicycles at some minutes to sunset. These events together with some other mischievous activities occurred and were recorded by one officer. In the same neighborhood, a second officer received a report on the missing of Stevie, whose last location by his mother occurred as they rode bicycles with Christopher and Michael.

How the police conducted the investigation

Upon receiving claims of missing children, all known to be neighborhood friends, the police had to wait till the next morning in order to conduct a search in the nearby surrounding. The dispatched search team conducted a search on the neighborhood buildings, yards and parking lots. They also joined hands with local citizens who held a search in the farms as well as areas near the Mississippi River. The officers placed increased attention on the nearby woods where a team of over fifty men conducted the search. The police requested assistance from the use of helicopters when the search proved to be in no direction.

The search team decided to embark to other areas when they received no evidence of the boy’s presence in the woods. One person, a juvenile officer, decided to lag behind and continue with a detailed investigation. He noticed some crime scene indicators at the point which had a tributary of the main ditch. He signaled the police search team through a radio call. He had spotted a tennis shoe floating on the water when Sergeant Mike arrived. This he did, despite the profuse search that occurred till mid-day. When the officer went into the water so as to examine and pick the shoe, he noticed a child’s body inclined backward. The officers came back to the crime scene as news about the discovery spread through the town of Memphis. This made them limit the number of people who could get into the crime scene.

As the search intensified, the officers retrieved more sticks stuck into the mud in a pattern. Each stick held a garment belonging to the missing boys. The criminals fastened the buttons and zip of the trousers yet left them inside out. They retrieved Steve’s body downstream and recorded savage marks to his face as well as biting. He too held the backward position as Michael’s. On the retrieval of Christopher’s body, the officers noticed that all of them held the same position, submerged into the mud. Christopher’s body held more savage wounds than the other two. His scrotum was absent and received several stabs around his genital area (Leveritt 67). The coroner announced the three boys as dead, while the officers discovered two bicycles in the mud.

After this event, the police made crime scene videos and photographs so as to make murder investigations. The area had to be sandbagged so as to identify the crime spots as well as try to recover the castrated genitals. This was the most significant evidence tool as well as the equipment used to conduct the crime. Tacker offered assistance to the Memphis police in the conduction of investigations. However, the head of policed department declined, based on questioning. The Arkansas governor released information to the public regarding the state of the victims. The police head of the department wanted this to remain private so as to assist in the collection of information that could assist in identifying suspects.

The efficiency of investigations and problems encountered

The officers at the crime scene made assumptions regarding the nature of the murder that took place. He asserted that the three options revolved around a murder conducted by close figures to the children, members of a cult or a gang, and finally a crime committed by an individual or group of strangers. Members in a society focused their mindset on the involvement of cult or gang members. This followed the concerns of a lady who asserted that she heard satanic motion noises in the woods during the night which led to the murder. Coincidentally, the case file in the police department ended with the digits, 666. These raised concerns on whether it had reasons leading to focus on the case. The head of the department assured the pres that it had no involvement of being an anti-Christ form of a case. This developed the notion that the police may give preference to the satanic views dominated in society, leaving room for biased investigations. This created disparities between police officers who perceived the satanic view to be possible, and the rational officers.

The investigations contained other loose actions such as poor communication between the officers and the coroner. The coroner arrived more than two hours after the body’s removal from the water. This made it difficult for him to manage to assess the extent and nature of injuries made (Leveritt 6). The body temperatures rose by 20 degrees as compared to the river’s temperature at his arrival. He claimed that the bodies underwent quick deterioration. Reports also showed facial and chest strains as a result of their posture. The officers held concerns over the lack of physical evidence or blood that could lead to the capture of suspects.

The police department made disorganized records regarding the crime. These include updated reports, some of which did not contain the signatures of the reporter. There also occurred incidences of unfiled reports regarding the case. The crime did not receive much attention since the missing children incidences reporting. This could have been due to social factors such as the low financial status of the concerned families. They lacked enough influence to ensure the conduction of a thorough investigation. The report made by the police department held mistakes such as indicating the revealing of the knife which castrated the boy. Other inadequate information reported that the salvagers used a hammer to hit the boy’s heads. This information contained no proof and was thus regarded as unprofessional.

What I would change

During the search, residents assert that the sheriff delayed efforts to search for the little boys. The police could send a search team during the night when they realized that several kidnaps had occurred. The sheriff asserted that the situation was not in his jurisdiction to send out a group of officers to conduct the search at night. Once the officers on duty learnt of the missing children issue, concerns about the coincidence should have occurred. This is because the parents reported the boys to be friends, and they lived in the same neighborhood (Leveritt 98). A case about three missing children should have received more concern than the officers held. The case could bear a solid fight if the judge allotted credible lawyers to the suspects. Those allocated the duty to speak on their behalf did not qualify to represent murder suspects due to lack of experience.

Pre-interrogation and post-custody interrogations

The police carried out their interrogation procedures to residents in the area. This was a challenging task since the residents received information concerning the case. Some held information based on rumors, thus could not give true details regarding the occurrence of events. Most of the residents withheld information when the suspicions that the case involved satanic influence spread, to prevent the occurrence of the same events to them. Residents also spread the nature of questions asked during interrogation, thus making them collect inappropriate information. One such case is when Michael’s friend Aaron suggested that he saw Michael talk to a man in a maroon car, who had yellow teeth. The investigators asserted that if Michael went into the vehicle, then Aaron too would enter with his friend.

Other interrogation procedures asserted that Damien had a relationship with a young girl from their neighborhood. The girl reported that they terminated the relationship before the murder crimes occurred. The young girl, Dinah, claimed that Echols threatened Damien over the relationship. She said that he vowed to kill Damien and dump him in front of their yard, where he would then take charge of her. Records of Damien’s therapist reflected an account of his claims to gain power from drinking people’s blood.

Works Cited

Leveritt, Mara. Devil’s Knot. The True Story of the West Memphis Three. New York: Cengage Learning, 2003. Print.

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