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The knife in the lake. The knife in the lake. Now let's turn back to the knife in the lake.
We had a representative of the State hold up a grapefruit as an analog to human flesh.
Our filing in federal court says that, that, that the analog of a grapefruit to human flesh
being cut is like comparing cutting chalk to comparing cheese. It's a fraud. It can't
be done. He makes the marks himself. And he describes to the jury how they're measured,
and he says, "I'm telling you. You can superimpose them, they're exactly there." It's a classic
-- there is no testimony in the record to that. It's a classic instance of prosecutorial
misconduct, in attempting to inform a jury of facts that are unbased in the evidence.
It is a federal Sixth Amendment right violation, it is a critical claim in front of the federal
court right now.
In rebuttal argument, Prosecutor Brent Davis says, "Well take this knife" -- and you saw
it, there's a sharp edge on the front and the serration is actually on the back side
of the knife. And he says, "If you're cutting the *** with the sharp edge, then the serrated
edge will be making marks on the thigh of Chris Byers." No foundation for that in the
record, it's simply not true. And I assure you,that if you can stomach looking at these
autopsy photos, when you see, when you see the thighs of Chris Byers with hundreds of
marks on them -- you'd still be there with a knife trying to make that number of marks.
You will see, it is truly obvious where this predation came from. A phenomenon -- and this
is attested to in the federal writ, that, if you can bear this -- called de-gloving.
There was a big scene in the trial, it's in the DVD about the trial, in which the State's
pathologist is asked, "Well, how could you do that surgical operation on the ***? Wouldn't
you need a scalpel, wouldn't you have to do it in an operating room, could you do it on
a bank, could you do it in the water?" And he says, "I don't know how you could remove
the skin that way." It is well established in the medical literature that if something
like an animal pulls on the ***, the skin of the *** comes off like a glove, leaving
the corpus of the *** on the body, which is exactly what happened in this case.
Go then to another critical piece of evidence against Echols. Bryn Ridge says, "You know,
when I talked to Echols three days after the crime, he knew that one of the boys was cut
worse than the others." Well, we've supplied the court with any number of newspapers that
reported the fact that Byers was cut worse than the others. But the inference that Echols
knew this because he was there to see the emasculation of Byers is, as so much in this
case, simply false.
And then, and then, and this is truly -- there is a study recently on wrongful convictions,
including death convictions, they list the factors that are most common in the last two
hundred cases. One is false confessions by teenagers, mentally deficient people, or both
-- Jessie Misskelley. Another one is the production of jailhouse informants who say,
"Oh! The defendant confessed to me." Now you can have a tape recording of that, it's credible.
He says he can confess that the *** weapon is buried under his house, they find it, it's
credible. There is no form -- no prosecutor can put an uncorroborated jailhouse informant
on the stand, uncorroborated, and know that he is, that that is not perjury. There is
no one who can possibly know if it is perjury.
Let's look at Michael Carson.
Davis: Did you have an occasion again while you were in the detention facility to ask
him, was he involved in the *** of the three eight-year-olds?
Carson: Yes. I think it was like the next day. I believe it was the next day.
Davis: And, can you tell us what the scenar -- what was going on, what was happening
at the time that occurred? Carson: Well me and Jason Baldwin were scraping
up the cards, going ourselves for lunch, I said, "Just between me and you, I won't say
a word, did you do it?" He said, "Yes" and he went into detail about it.
Davis: You say he went in more detail. What did he tell you?
Carson: He told me how he dismembered the kid, or I don't know exactly how many kids,
he just said he dismembered 'em. He sucked the blood from the *** and the ***,
and put the balls in his mouth.
So, this supposedly happened within twenty-four hours of Carson -- who's in jail for about
three burglaries, including at sixteen years old, breaking into a house to steal guns.
Comes in and says Jason Baldwin, who has made a statement to no one, within twenty-four
hours confessed that to him. Did he, does Carson go to the police, does he mention it
to the jailers, no. Eight, nine months later when Jessie Misskelley is finally on trial,
Carson comes forward for the first time to say that Jessie, uh, Jason Baldwin told him
that he put Chris Byers' balls in his mouth. You have just seen, you have just seen someone
lie under oath to send a man to the death chamber. Lie under oath. And I won't go into
detail here, but it won't be that long before the story of Michael Carson and his years
since then are told by attorneys for Jason Baldwin. And when that story is told, if there
were ever any doubt, you will see that this is the classic form of jailhouse uncorroborated
perjury. And, of course, the forensics make that clear. That was an animal that caused
that wound to Chris Byers.
However, however, it was that testimony that led Dale Griffis to say, "Well, this is a
satanic killing. Damien Echols was involved in it, he's a satanist and I'll tell you that
it's a satanic killing." On what basis does Mister, does "Doctor" Griffis say this. First,
let's deal with "Doctor" Griffis. Do we have a graphic...
Ford: This is a mail order college, isn't it? What classes did you take between 1980
and 1982 to obtain your Master's degree? Griffis: (no response)
Ford: What classes? Griffis: (no response at first) I testified
-- Ford: I'm asking what classes, what classes
did you take? Griffis: I told you, I answered that before,
none. Ford: You did not take any classes. Between
1982 and 1984, when you became a Ph.D., what classes did you take?
Griffis: None. Ford: None. Okay.
Doctor, Doctor Griffis attended Columbia Pacific University by mail, he said. A Ph.D., a Ph.D.
in cult studies from Columbia Pacific University, which was shut down by the State of California
in 1997 as a fraudulent diploma mill. Dr. Griffis says that he knows that this is a
satanic crime because there is a wound on the left side of Steve Branch, and left side
facial wounds are satanic, as opposed to right side facial wounds, which I assume are Christian.
[laughter] And he says the other reason that he knows, oh well he says that it's a satanic
killing because it happened, it happened in between two -- May fifth is in between May
first, which is a satanic holiday, in the Catholic school I was raised in it was the
date of the beginning of Month of Our Mary, and Walpurgisnacht and vane. I called Ken
Lanning, who is the FBI -- and John Douglas will talk about this more -- the FBI expert
on satanic activities then, because they were coming in from all around the country. He
said they all had calendars of the satanic holidays. He said it was over for him when
he saw a calendar of 120 satanic holidays and murders, they said, were committed within
two days of each of them, okay, multiply 120 by two or three.
He relies on Carson. Okay, Carson, he's asked, assume that Jason Baldwin put the balls of
Chris Byers in his mouth, is this a satanic killing. Yes. As Ken Lanning said, "If they
had killed these kids with a whoopee cushion, Dale Griffis would have come in to testify
that a whoopee cushion is a satanic instrument of ***." Here is his new book. Here is
his new book, 2001, in which he details how he discovered that two thirteen-year-old girls
were taken over by the CIA, given electroshock treatment, and at the age of fourteen became
military pilots and committed assassinations for the CIA and then were brainwashed to forget
it. And it was only with his assistance that he was able to recover the memories of this
abuse of these thirteen-year-old girls by the CIA.