Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt

Damien’s, told Lax that he had been questioned twice. 191 The first interview, on May 10, five days after the murders, had lasted for three hours. The boy’s mother had been present and, Lax wrote, the boy stated that “everyone treated him cordially.” However, on May 27, police picked up Littrell from school and questioned him for another two hours, this time without his mother present. The boy told Lax that Durham had been “nice” to him throughout the interview but that Inspector Gitchell had become “extremely upset on occasions and would yell and scream at him.” At one point, Lax reported, the boy said Gitchell had “grabbed his chin” and put his face close to the boy’s, threatening that “he would have no reservation about keeping him in the holding tank if he wouldn’t tell the truth.”
    Lax also revisited Vicki Hutcheson. On this visit, he was particularly interested in an altercation that had taken place between 5:30 and 6 P.M . on the evening of the murders, in the trailer park where Hutcheson and Jessie lived. Because of the apparent importance police had placed on Aaron Hutcheson, his whereabouts at that time were crucial. Marion police had responded after a woman living in Hutcheson’s trailer park had reported that a neighbor had slapped her son. An officer had come to the trailer park, but left a few minutes later. Then the neighbors had argued again, and this time, three squad cars had responded.
    Lax interviewed five residents of Hutcheson’s trailer park. 192 All reported that Vicki Hutcheson had participated in the events that night when the police were called, and that Aaron had been with her. Lax didn’t know what Fogleman intended to do with Aaron’s many statements, but he felt better after talking to the neighbors. 193 Since he was there, he also asked the women about their experiences with Vicki Hutcheson in the days after the murders, and if Hutcheson had ever mentioned the $35,000 reward. One of the neighbors told Lax that the subject had come up twice. “At one time she told me that they were going to split the reward money between Aaron and another little boy,” the woman said. “Another time she told me they were going to give Aaron all the reward money.”
    Another woman said she also recalled hearing Hutcheson discuss the reward. “She had told me that Aaron was receiving it,” the woman said, “and she told me how she was going to spend the money, what she was going to buy with it.”
    “Did you ask her why Aaron was going to receive the money?” Lax asked.
    “Yes sir.”
    “And what did she say?”
    “She said because he had seen the murders.”
    “Did you believe it?”
    “No sir.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because he was out here in the trailer park.”
Byers on Film
    Family members of the victims were also listed among the witnesses Fogleman said he might call. Since they seemed to have no information that implicated any of the defendants, Lax did not interview them. The filmmakers Berlinger and Sinofsky, however, were very interested in the families. Their request to film the shower for Domini’s baby had been only the start.
    Since then they had contacted all of the principals in the case: the families of the victims, the defendants and their families, the police, the lawyers, and the judge. They’d offered money to the defendants and to family members of the victims who agreed to be interviewed. Damien was offered $7,500 if he would agree to two interviews. His defense attorneys, and the others, were reticent. 194 But the filmmakers noted that the finished documentary would not be released until several months after the trials, and ultimately, the lawyers gave their clients the go-ahead for a couple of interviews each. 195 Though Judge Burnett withheld his decision on the filmmakers’ request to videotape both of the trials, he too relented shortly before the trials began.
    From the summer of 1993 through the end of the year, filmmakers Sinofsky and