Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

reluctantly admitting, “I don’t know.” All I knew was that my every cell had just been flooded with the fight-or-flight feeling, and I had a terrible sense of urgency.
    “Then pay attention to me,” she said.
    As I leaned forward to kiss her I heard glass shatter. “Shit!” I hissed as we grabbed our clothes. Even though I knew it was pointless and the jig was up, we still attempted to hide. It was a cop. Instead of opening the door and walking in, he felt the need to smash in a window and fulfill some sort of SWAT team fantasy. He later lied and said that we had busted out the window. He was a real piece of work—about four and a half feet tall, with the sort of mustache you see only on cops or seventies gay porn stars. He was the kind of guy who needed a badge and gun just to stop people from laughing at him. He found us almost immediately and started jerking us around.
    As he was escorting us out the door, Deanna’s father approached. He put his hand on my shoulder and began breathing hard, as if he were having trouble restraining himself. I looked straight into his eyes and grinned like a jackal. I wanted him to know he could do nothing to me that was worse than what I’d already been through. The cop pushed him away and said, “Relax, just let me handle it.” He backed off and the cop put Deanna and me in the back of his car before returning to talk to her mother and father. I noticed that even her older sister had come out for the occasion, and I gave her my most charming smile.
    While we sat in the car Deanna held my hands and said, “Whatever happens, you have to come find me.” I promised that I would, no matter what. She kissed me then, like she had seen the future. It was the last time we would ever touch. Another cop had pulled up, and they split us up, putting her in his car. She blew a kiss at me and waved good-bye as it drove off.
    *  *  *
    I arrived at the Crittenden County jail on the outskirts of West Memphis, and was escorted to my suite. It was a dark, dank cell that smelled like feet and corn chips, a tiny space with a brown solid-steel door. There was no entertainment except for the graffiti, which covered every square inch of the walls. I was amazed at the things people had thought important enough to write there. For instance, someone thought it vital that the world know someone named “Pimp Hen” was adept at certain sexual maneuvers. I felt a bit like an archaeologist in a tomb.
    I was left alone for what I estimated to be two or three hours, but it’s impossible to really tell time in a place like that. It’s a form of mental torture, and I only knew that it seemed like an eternity. I kept wondering,
Where is she? Is she in this building? Do they have her in a filthy hole like this one?
The graffiti offered no answers to these questions. I was pacing like an animal when a guard came and opened the door, motioning for me to follow. I was led to an office in which sat a bloated, corpulent man with beady little rat’s eyes. Jerry Driver, juvenile officer for the county, and I came face-to-face for the first time.
    He had a pleasant-enough attitude as he introduced himself. He started asking questions and I answered honestly, thinking there was no reason not to. He asked why we were in the trailer, and I told him we had run away because her parents wouldn’t leave us alone. No, we didn’t know where we were going, and no, we didn’t know what we were going to do once we got there. We figured it would come to us in time.
    This is where things started getting weird. The smile never left his face, which looked like folds of uncooked dough. “Have you heard anything about Satanists around town?”
    I thought that a bit odd, but answered, “No.”
    He continued to press on. “You haven’t heard anything about Satanists, plans to commit sacrifices or break into churches?” Those beady little rat’s eyes gleamed at me, like he was really starting to get off on thinking about this stuff. You could tell something just wasn’t right about him.
    I was pretty certain I would have remembered a roving pack of bloodthirsty devil worshippers if they had passed me on the street while chatting loud enough about such topics, so I told him, “I’m pretty certain I haven’t.” He seemed to be considering something as he chewed his bottom lip with tiny, yellow-stained rat teeth. Finally he shifted his obese bulk to pull something out of his desk.
    I could practically see his