Supporters of W. Memphis trio feud over funds for defendants
By Marc Perrusquia
Thursday, January 17, 2008
As the West Memphis Three brace for hearings they hope will secure their release from prison this spring, supporters who have long proclaimed their innocence are locked in a distracting feud.
The division focuses on money -- more than $1 million -- raised to pay for new DNA testing of evidence linked to the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys.
Those tests have raised questions about the case and have given new life to claims by convicted killers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley that they've been wrongfully imprisoned the past 15 years.
Nonetheless, a splinter group of West Memphis Three supporters has launched a rival fund-raising organization, saying it is fed up with the handling of a legal defense fund that's attracted large donations from wealthy Hollywood actors and musicians along with smaller gifts from citizens across the country.
Leaders of the new organization contend there's been no accounting of defense funds raised so far and that the money hasn't been evenly split among the three defendants.
"How much money has been raised in the name of the West Memphis Three? ... How much of that money is being devoted to the defense of all three of them?'' reads an Internet Web site launched this week by the just-founded West Memphis 3 Innocence Project Inc.
Founded with assistance from one of the original defense lawyers on the case and an author who wrote a book about the murders, the nonprofit organization also aims criticism at Echols' wife, Lorri Davis.
A New York landscape architect, Davis, 44, married Echols, 33, eight years ago after learning of the case and corresponding with him by letters sent to Arkansas' death row. She has emerged as a leading advocate for the West Memphis Three and has become the defendant's primary fund-raiser.
"Isn't it a clear conflict of interest for a spouse of one of the WM3 to have what appears to be ultimate control over funding that is intended for all three young men?'' asks the new Web site that seeks donations of its own on behalf of the three defendants.
West Memphis 3 Innocence Project president Kelly Duda said he likes Davis and applauds her efforts but said she's given no public accounting of her fund-raising efforts. Among concerns, Duda said when he and associates contributed money, they didn't receive receipts.
"People have been asking these questions for a long time. The house of cards is crumbling,'' Duda, a Little Rock filmmaker, said Wednesday. "Donors have a right to know where their money is going and how it's being spent. That's not happening.''
Davis declined to discuss details of the fund she controls but said she's received no complaints from defense lawyers representing the three.
"They are all happy with the way the money is being spent,'' Davis said. Indeed, Echols' San Francisco lawyer, Dennis Riordan, said he had no misgivings about Davis' fund-raising.
"It's all accounted for,'' Riordon said. Suggestions to the contrary by the new organization are "absolutely false,'' he said.
Davis' New York publicist, Alice Leeds, dismissed the new group's assertions, saying her client's devotion to the case has left her with a mound of bills. "Right now, she's about $40,000 in debt,'' Leeds said.
Leeds also questioned the motives of two people affiliated with the new organization -- board member Mara Leveritt, who wrote a book, "Devil's Knot," about the West Memphis murders; and Paragould, Ark., lawyer Dan Stidham, Misskelley's original attorney. Stidham consulted with the new organization before becoming a full-time judge this month and has often been paid expenses for speaking to groups about the case.
"These individuals have been making their names and money ... by using this case for years,'' Leeds said. "It is about self-interest.''
-- Marc Perrusquia: 529-2545
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