Abomination: Devil Worship and Deception in the West Memphis Three Murders Read Online Free Page B

with shoelaces in an unusual fashion---left wrist to left ankle, right wrist to right ankle. His face and head were purple and bloody from a severe beating.
     
    Startled and shocked, Allen hurriedly left the area and immediately called Chief Investigator Gitchell. Realizing this was homicide, uniformed police officers hurried to Robin Hood Hills and hastily set up a perimeter with yellow police tape.
     
    Investigators determined that the remainder of the ditch had to be searched. While investigating the ditch area, numerous pieces of the boys clothing were found. Two pairs of children's jeans were found inside out, with the zippers intact, as if they were ripped off their bodies. Detective Bryn Ridge volunteered to enter the dirty water and scour for the other boys. While moving through the water, Ridge discovered sticks stuck in the mud, their ends wrapped with items of clothing. Searching in the water farther down in the gully ten feet from the location of Michael Moore, the naked bodies of Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers were found submerged in the water, held down by sticks lodged deep in the mud. Branch had evidence of a beating similar to Moore, but there was something more horrifying: a deep wound on the left side of his face. It looked as if his face was bitten. Byers had endured an awful wound as well: his penis and scrotum were cut off. Deep knife wounds interspersed the area around where his genitals should have been. Both boys were bound with shoelaces like the body of Michael Moore: left wrist to left ankle, right wrist to right ankle.
    Investigator Gitchell decided to videotape the crime scene while the other police officers worked to drain water from the ditch. A group of parents heard that bodies were found and headed toward the crime scene. Gitchell had the painful task of informing the parents that their sons were not coming home. 4 In front of the yellow crime tape, Gitchell informed the Moore, the Byers and the Branch families of the terrible findings. The parents of the boys broke down and sobbed, with television camera crews onsite to videotape their grieving. John Mark Byers, in shock, openly said what he hoped for the killer: “God shows a little mercy on his soul, because I sure wouldn’t.”
    An astonished crowd gathered near the taped-off crime scene. Police officers near the crowd heard whispers of devil worship in Robin Hood Hills circulate among the gathering residents. Locals spoke of bizarre rituals in the woods, with strange people frequently entering and leaving the undeveloped area.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    3. THE INVESTIGATION
     
    The West Memphis police began their search for the killers of the children by first scouring the area for evidence. Many groups of people had been through the area the night before---many tracks had been walked over. The police dropped a boat into the Ten Mile Bayou, the long canal nearby designed to alleviate flooding from the Mississippi River. A grappling hook thrown over the side of the boat caught a metallic object, and police soon pulled up both Michael Moore’s and Steve Byers’ bicycles.
    Marty King, the manager of Bojangles restaurant, contacted the police again and retold the story of the man covered in mud and blood who occupied the women’s bathroom for an hour. Detectives Ridge and Allen, who just completed the search in the ditch, cleaned themselves and headed over to the restaurant. Unfortunately, the cleaning crew of Bojangles had done a thorough job the night before and little evidence remained. However, near the toilet was a spot of what looked to be dried blood. Ridge scraped off the blood and put it into an evidence container. Neither Ridge or Allen considered the evidence material to the current case. Upon his return to the police station, Ridge placed the container with the dried blood into his desk and promptly forgot about it.
    The next day on May 7th, 1993, the Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee) headlines