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

flat, dull, and small. I felt a wave of outrage directed toward me from the peanut gallery. The judge’s droning voice sounded strangely like an auctioneer as he began talking about a confession. I was so exhausted and in such shock that I could follow very little of what he was saying. It finally dawned on me that he was asking if I wanted the confession read out loud or just entered into the record. I was starting to feel a little pissed, and my voice was a little more forceful this time as I said, “Read it.” I could tell he didn’t like that idea at all. As a matter of fact he seemed downright uncomfortable as he looked down and started shuffling papers.
    Finally he stuttered that he wasn’t going to do that, but that he would call for a recess until after I had read it. During the recess I was taken into a broom closet filled with cleaning supplies, and was handed a stack of papers while two cops stood staring at me. My brain was so numb I could comprehend only about one-fifth of what I was reading, but at least now I knew who had made the confession. The name written at the top was “Jessie Misskelley.” My first thought was,
Did he really do it?
Followed quickly by,
Why did he say I did it?
Even in my shell-shocked state I could tell something about his “confession” wasn’t right. For one thing, every line seemed to contradict the one before it. Any idiot could plainly see he was just agreeing with everything the cops said. That’s when I knew why the judge didn’t want it read out loud. Anyone with even an average IQ could see it was a setup. The whole thing seemed shady.
    It’s no great wonder to me how the cops could make Jessie say the things they wanted him to say. If they treated him anything like they did me, then it’s quite amazing that he didn’t have a nervous breakdown. They used both physical and psychological torture to break me down. One minute they’d threaten to kill you, and the next they’d behave as if they were your best friends in the world, and that everything they were doing was for your own good. They shoved me into walls, spit at me, and never let up for a moment. When one of them got tired, another came in to take his place. By the time I’d been allowed to go home after previous interrogations I’d had a migraine headache, and I’d been through periods of dry heaving and vomiting. I survived because when pushed hard enough I acted like an asshole, just like the cops themselves. My point is that we were just kids. Teenagers. And they tortured us. How could someone like Jessie, with the intellect of a child, be expected to go through that and come out whole?
    It makes me sick and fills me with disgust to think about how the public trusts these people, who are in charge of upholding the law yet torture kids and the mentally handicapped. People in this country believe the corrupted are the exception. They’re not. Anyone who has had in-depth dealings with them knows it’s the rule. I’ve been asked many times if I’m angry with Jessie for accusing me. The answer is no, because it’s not Jessie’s fault. It’s the fault of the weak and lazy “civil servants” who abuse the authority placed in their hands by people who trust them. I’m angry with police who would rather torture a retarded kid than look for a murderer. I’m angry with corrupt judges and prosecutors who would ruin the lives of three innocent people in order to protect their jobs and further their own political ambitions. We were nothing but poor trailer trash to them, and they thought no one would even miss us. They thought they could take our lives and the matter would end there, all swept under the rug. And it would have ended there, if the world hadn’t taken notice. No, I’m not angry at Jessie Misskelley.
    *  *  *
    F rom everything I’d seen on TV and read in books, I came to believe the cops were the good guys, and that dirty cops were few and far between. So why was no one stepping up to expose this for the bullshit it was? Why were they all going along with something so fraudulent? The answer: to save their asses. The police assigned to my case were members of the West Memphis drug task force—cops who normally would not be investigating these murders; they were also offered additional help from the Arkansas State Police and they turned it down. It seems quite a few of the cops on the drug task force were being investigated by the FBI for drug dealing, money laundering, and