Latest / Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast / Episode 18: Covenant of the Divine Light

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Episode 18: Covenant of the Divine Light · Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

• Paul: Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis Three podcast. It's not known just how widespread devil worship is in Arkansas, but it is highly appealing to teenagers in search of power and identity. And that's sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And that's almost always found in these little ⁓ what I call homespun self style groups. And you know, they spring up and they go away. ⁓ ⁓ that ⁓ do their own thing. The voicek says most brutal, highly publicized crimes are probably not the work of real satanic worshippers. And true generational Satanists if they exist are not the ones that are gonna, you know, ⁓ do a crime that they're gonna be discovered that easily, nor are they the ones that go put satanic messages up on walls. True satanic cult or power hungry teenage misfits, the results are equally tragic and frightening. Doesn't matter what our belief is when we're dealing with this. The ones that are doing it. And further than that it matters, you know, what's been instilled in the younger ones minds by the older one. Sandy Finkbeiner, Eleven Action News. ⁓ Hello everyone. Welcome back. I am Kristen Rich, criminologist and victim advocate for the Byers family. And I am here with my co-host Paul, who is a forensic geologist and also a victim advocate for the Byers family. How are you doing, Paul? I'm doing really good. I'm looking forward to this episode. This is gonna be a little change of pace from what we've been doing. We're gonna be looking at a new way of looking at crime in nineteen ninety-three. Yeah, so last episode we went through some questions that were asked of Damien and Jason by the West Memphis Police Department once they had gotten onto their radar. And we're gonna continue with that. Not with Jason and Damien though. We're gonna move on to another person who was brought up in this investigation. So the person we're gonna talk about is a guy named Murray Ferris and We've mentioned him several times. We actually mentioned him right at the end of the last episode. Murray Ferris is one of the people that appears on Jerry Driver's list. So the West Memphis PD had reached out to Jerry Driver and he was advising them on people that might have ties to cults or the occult. And one of the people that he was clearly in discussions with was Officer James Sudbury, who was also the commander of the drug task force for Crintenden County. We have this strange collaboration between the drug task force and the juvenile officers of the county that are working this case pretty hard. And they are clearly approaching this from the perspective that it might be some kind of occultic or satanic crime. And in pursuing this, Jerry Driver put together a list, and on that list was a series of names that we've talked about. One of those names was Murray Ferris, but also on that list was Damian Eccles, Jason Baldwin. L.G. Hollingsworth. We're going to be talking a lot about LG Hollingsworth in a few episodes. Dominique, who is the girlfriend of Damian Eccles, a woman by the name of Lisa Bullard, who we're not going to mention after this. She's never investigated. She doesn't seem to have any connection to any of these people. Deanna Holcomb, who is the ex-girlfriend of Damian Eccles, Murray Ferris and Chris Latrell. And what is really intriguing is that Sudbury put an asterisk next to the names L. He deemed them capable of doing this crime. And the story really takes an interesting turn on May 9th. So remember, May 9th, James Sudbury is not there to question Jason Baldwin and Damian Eccles. Instead, he sends his colleague from the drug task force, Shane Griffin. And Shane Griffin does the questioning, gets a lot of interesting answers from Damian Eccles, answers that don't help Damien at all. And at some point, Jason Baldwin's mother, Gail Grinnell, shows up and shuts down the questioning, and that's the end of it at five o'clock. But it doesn't end there on May 9th. Shane Griffin doesn't just go home and take the questionnaire with him. It turns out Damian Eccles decides to share his experience with his friends, specifically with Murray Ferris. And so that's where this picks up in this episode on the evening of May the 9th at 844 PM. Murray Ferris is a white male, age 18. He lives on Lair Street in West Memphis. And he's six foot one, two hundred and forty-seven pounds. He is interviewed by detectives Ridge and Allen at eight forty-four PM on May 9th, 1993. So just as a side note, Detective Allen, you haven't heard a whole lot from him this weekend, or specifically on May the ninth, largely because he's investigating the tattooed man and he's investigating the Metro Cab man throughout much of this day. So he's now gonna be free for this interview with Murray Ferris. Murray Ferris's statement on the ninth is as follows On five hundred nine ninety three, Murray J. Ferris came to the police department because his friend Damien had told him that the police had been talking to him. Ferris stated that he was in a group of so called white witches and was wearing a star in a circle that he claimed he had just bought. He explained that the group believed in harming no one and gave a list of four members. He told of his necklace being a hex mark rather than a pentat type medallion. He explained that the group studied the first ten books of the Bible and that they prepared the members for purity. He submitted to photography and fingerprints. The last note says he told of a black witch in Marion named Deanna Holcombe. So there's a lot here that he's getting off his chest. So he's talked to Damien. Damien, during his interview on May 9th, had mentioned the covenant of the divine light, which is the little coven, the little group that Murray Ferris is not only a participant in, he's actually running it. And we're gonna learn a little bit more about that in the upcoming episodes. The names that he drops, we've mentioned earlier in the podcast. It's Chris Latrell. It also mentions Murray J. Ferris, and then there's the name McHale. And we brought up the word McHale when we were talking about Sir Michael and King David. So the question at the time was, is this a reference to Sir Michael? Well, Sir Michael was being interviewed that weekend, and that does not appear to be the same Michael in this case. So this McHale or Michael here. It could be Michael Eccles in the case of Damien Eccles, which was his name before his adoption. Was Michael Wayne Hutcheson became Damien Wayne Eccles. And then the final name there is a person by the name of Don Warwick. And we'll be getting into Don Warwick a little bit later. And then he brings up a fifth name of a female. This is Deanna Holcomb. This is Damien Eccles' ex girlfriend before he was with Domini Tear. And we're gonna be digging into her quite a bit in upcoming episodes. So the thing that's interesting In this report. And I will remind you that this is written by Detective Ridge. This is not written by Murray Ferris. In some cases, you'll see a statement actually written by the person that they're talking to. That's not the case here. This is written by Detective Ridge, not Murray Ferris. But it's interesting that the way Detective Ridge has written this has got to be the way Murray Ferris was explaining himself because. He's minimizing everything. He's minimizing this medallion that he's wearing around his neck. He's saying that he goes to church and he studies the books of the Bible because it gives him purity. He's toning down any of the satanic occult rhetoric that they may have talked to him about during this interview prior to taking this statement. And then he ends it with saying that, well, Deanna Holcomb's a black witch. Yeah. What's really intriguing is when you look at Ridge's notes here, Ridge actually signs it, gives the date, and then at the end of it. after he signs it, he includes that as a post script. So it's clearly one of those things he says on the way out. Now, this is really interesting because Murray Ferris is a member of a Wiccan group. They get together and he doesn't interpret this pentagram as anything other than I my understanding is it's some type of protection charm. There's a note that says that there's inscribed either on it or somehow associated with the pentagram. There's the I believe it's pronounced the tetragrammaton, which is the four consonants that make up the name of God. When you translate this into English, the Old King James would translate this as Jehovah. But in this case, it would have been included as part of this amulet or necklace or whatever we're going to call this thing. And his going to the church, this is something that he was seeking through synergy. So this is not a pure Wiccan faith that he's describing. He's actually blending in, it's very individualistic. He's Creating synergies with some of the faiths in the area around him, and he's mixing it in with his stuff here. And I don't think that he sees it as anything bad. I think he actually interprets it as putting together some type of protection around himself. With respect to the people that were probably around him at the time, however, you remember you got to go back to nineteen ninety three. Seeing the name of God inscribed on a pentagram would not have been a welcome symbol in any way, shape, or form. This would have been regarded as a form of occultism. Satanism or something like this, it would have been seen very negatively. And so the police do take note of this. In the file, there's a picture of the medallion, there's a drawing of the medallion, there's the writing of the tetragrammaton on the medallion with the four names of the members. So you could tell they took a very deep interest in what he was doing. And my understanding, and if I'm wrong, please join the Facebook group or meet us on X and let us know if this is wrong. But my understanding is this is due to the influence of another group. spiritual philosophy of something called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. I don't know enough about this to really talk about it. All I know is is that this is a very, very mixed up group of ideas that are coming together. Because my understanding is traditional Wiccans, they don't have much interest in what's going on in Christianity or Islam or any of these other groups, but he's blending these things together. So this is gonna catch their attention. Right. And that's not Like a typical, especially for a teenager, someone who's trying to find their way, who's trying to decide what they believe, what they don't believe, what they're interested or they're not interested in, what kind of group do they want to be a part of, if they want to be a part of a group. But you have to remember the setting. This is the Bible belt in the early nineties. And if you didn't believe in some sort of traditional faith, you were an outsider, you were odd, you were strange. Wearing this type of medallion is, you know, blasphemy to these people. So he would have been a target just like Damien for having an interest in something besides a mainstream religion. Yeah. And then on the way out the interrogation, he coughs up the name of a black witch who happens to be the ex girlfriend of Damien Eccles. Now, as if this information about a black witch is not enough, Murray Ferris has one more bombshell he's gonna drop on the West Memphis PD before he concludes this interview. And it almost looks like he's giving this information as he's leaving the door, almost like it's a matter of fact kind of situation, because it's not included in Ridge's report, but it is a sheet of paper with a description of somebody named Lucifer. The description that he gives is of somebody who is around thirty-seven years old. He's white, has blonde hair. Wears reading glasses, is around five foot nine inches tall, around two hundred and forty to two hundred and sixty pounds, heavy set, beer belly, going bald, off white van or cream van, lives outside West Memphis around Earl, Arkansas. Now Earl, Arkansas is located off to the west of West Memphis, but it's not very far away. And most ominously, leads an evil cult. It is notable that he drives an off-white or cream colored van, as that seems to be something that just keeps popping up in this case. Yeah, we had mentioned multiple sightings of white vans in the area, and some were operated by religious figures. Now for this evil cult tip that he's dropping, there's no mention of where to go find him, when you can locate him, what his beliefs are, what his possible name is. We have mentioned that his name is Lucifer, but Murray Ferris doesn't tell them his name is Lucifer. That's actually revealed by other people talking about this exact same description. And there's an open question as to whether or not he's even a real person. Has Murray Ferris actually seen this person, or is he just giving up some hearsay description of what he looks like? This is pretty descriptive though. Maybe they just thought this was the important stuff to write down, but I have to believe there were some follow up questions, right? How many times have you seen him? Where have you seen him? Where do they meet? Is it at different locations around the area? Are you outside? Do you meet in a home? Like I feel like there had to be some follow-up questions to this description, but we don't see the answers. According to Detective Ridge, at least in his report, he includes no answers. He just has this description of this blonde haired, balding, white thirty-seven year old guy named Lucifer. I feel like from the description, it's fairly detailed that Murray Ferris has seen this. person, this alleged Lucifer, because I feel like if this was something that was repeated to him, if Murray Ferris hadn't actually encountered this guy, that's a lot of stuff to remember for an 18 year old. You know, it's kind of a specific description of a guy if you're just making it up. Yeah, there's a question as to whether or not he's an urban legend or whether or not there just happens to be an fellow Wiccan that's in a vehicle and he just happens to be from Earl and somebody whispered in Murray's ear and said, ⁓ that's the guy. That's that's Lucifer Lucifer. Hm, that could be. The next day a tip comes in from a local church. And we're gonna read that tip. This tip was received by Tony Anderson on Monday, May the tenth at eleven forty-five AM. It says, I returned a call to Jim A. G. and lists his phone number, youth counselor at First Baptist. Last week they were having a revival at the church. On Wednesday night, they had a youth night. Two boys came that night that have not been to the church in a year. They had pizza to eat and water balloon fights, etc. They were at the service from 6 45 until about 8 45. The boys are Chris Latrell and Murray Ferris. Mr. AG said the boys had attended church there several times about a year ago, but had not been back until Wednesday night. And then this past Sunday night at 11 30 p.m., Chris called Mr. AG. He has never called before. Mr. A. G. says Chris is scared about something. This is his gut feeling after dealing with youth for 15 years. Both of these two boys go to West Memphis High School and are noted for being involved in cult, white witchcraft. So my take on this is that Murray Ferris is pulled into the West Memphis PD. He's interviewed about this triple homicide. He's scared. He goes home. He calls his best friend Chris Latrell. He knows that they're both together the previous Wednesday night when the boys disappeared because I'm sure he was asked in his interview, where were you at 630? And he knows he was at church. And so this is my take on it. Murray gets interviewed, he goes home, he's scared because now he's been interviewed by the police department in connection with the triple homicide. He calls Chris. Now Chris is scared. Chris calls the youth counselor at First Baptist and says Can you call the West Memphis Police Department and tell them we were at church Wednesday night? He's scared he's gonna get pulled into the West Memphis PD just like Murray just was. He thinks they're gonna get fingered for this crime. That's how I read it. Well, yeah, these guys are definitely involved with some kind of what they call themselves white witches or white witchcraft. This is coming straight from Jim Agey, the counselor over there at First Baptist. And they took note that these guys were there hanging out with them, having water balloon fights and having, you know, just kind of normal church stuff. That this would have been incorporated into the Murray Ferris's routine for spirituality, but it clearly was noticed by the people there, probably is an unwelcome visitor. We got these two witches here and they don't seem to be converting. They, if anything, they might be influencing the people that are here at the church in a negative way. It feels like this counselor is torn. He calls and he says, Chris Latrell and Murray Ferris were present Wednesday night at this youth meeting. And at the same time he's saying, Chris called me, he's scared and he tells the police, Detective Anderson, that these two boys are known to be involved in a cult, which is white witchcraft. So while he's giving them an alibi, he's also saying they're scary and they're involved in something we don't approve of. Just so you know. Yeah. So at a minimum, the West Memphis PD is looking at them as a source for information on local occultic activity or cult activity in the area. One thing about Wicca is that it's hyper individualistic. Mm-hmm. My understanding is no two people worship the same. I guess there's some standard manuals like Buckland's book, which is I believe was published in nineteen eighty six. So a lot of people would use this as a guide or as a manual for a lot of this stuff. But my understanding is is that it's very individualistic in how Murray and Chris Latrell were doing this is gonna be different than the way the next coven in the next city over is gonna do it. There's no central temple where they all get together and meet and decide what the rituals and procedures will be. I think there were probably regional festivals they had the opportunity to participate in. But in terms of day to day worship, it wasn't that way. No. And I don't know a lot about Wiccans either. I do have a family member who was involved. And from what I understand, and I don't know if it was widely known back then, they're very peaceful. They're not about violence or hurting other people. They're very much about nature and being one with the earth and that kind of thing. It's not about any sort of like violence at all. Yeah. I've known some Wiccans too, and that's my experience also. But can I describe their philosophies? No. I have no experience with it. I don't understand it. And honestly, if somebody from Facebook wants to drop in there and inform us on how they operate, I would be very interested in hearing what you have to say. So you would think these guys are alibied. This is an issue that we don't have to worry about because from six forty five, that's about fifteen minutes after the boys disappear. They're in a church, probably about a mile to the southwest of the crime scene. So We know that they're not the ones responsible for making the kids disappear at six thirty. And they're accounted for all the way up until eight forty-five. However, the police are gonna take a very deep interest in them because they have connections to Damian Eccles, who on May 9th talked himself into being a person that they are deeply interested in. And this connection to Deanna Holcomb, his ex-girlfriend, being called a black witch by somebody that is in white witchcraft. is also going to draw a lot of interest. And to that point, the West Memphis PD is not well equipped for this stuff. The regional cult cops in the area belong to the Crittenden County juvenile probation division. It's Jerry Driver and he deals with youth and he's keeping track of all of this stuff. And his subordinate is Steve Jones, who seems to have some interest in it. We don't have any documented understanding of how far Steve Jones is into this, but we know that Jerry Driver Is very interested in the satanic cult crimes that he believed were happening all the way from New Orleans all the way up into West Memphis. So the West Memphis PD has to be informed on this. And there's an very interesting fax that comes in on May the 11th that shows that they were doing exactly that, that they were learning about how to identify cult crimes and how to profile for it and what to look for. And this actually comes from a gentleman up in the city of New York. So apparently on May the tenth, the same day that the police department is talking to Jim A. G. about these two boys and what they were doing on the day of the disappearance of Christopher, Stevie, and Michael, and they start talking about cults and white witchcraft and all of this. So on that same day, Detective Allen reaches out to a NYPD officer who apparently was known across the country as a famous cult detective. He went around and talked to police departments about cult activity. So Detective Allen has reached out to this guy to get some information, hoping that it will give them some direction or some clues as to what they're looking at in this triple homicide. So on the 11th, there's a fax to Detective Allen from this man. His name is Marcos Quinnonis. And this is what Fat facts says. Number one, I am currently the official cult and occult expert for the New York City Police Department. I conduct daily training on the influence of the occult and destructive cults for law enforcement. I also conduct training for investigative detectives in our criminal investigations course. Two, as we discussed yesterday on the phone, permit me to forward some information that may be of assistance in your investigation. Three, there may be a possibility that the triple homicide can be occultic in nature. If this is the case, there are some areas your investigators can focus upon. Areas of focus. Missing body parts. In occultic crimes, particularly Satanism, the heart may be removed. The reason for this is because it is believed that the heart contains the soul and emotions of the victim. The cult members or individual will eat the heart. The blood is very important because it is the quote life of the body, and it is perceived as containing an enormous amount of energy. Fingers may be cut off. Which can be eaten or made as necklaces and bracelets. The cult may feel that possessing a body part will make them feel close to the victim. The brain or head can be removed to be consumed or kept as a memorandum. These individuals are not working with the same logic that society functions with. Their worldview is totally removed from society. Liver and kidneys are also removed for the above reasons mentioned. The crime scene. There can be a possibility that the crime was committed in another location and the bodies. Placed where found. If the crime was committed where the bodies were found, labeled as an occult crime, please look for the following. A circle. All rituals are done within a nine-foot radius circle. This is to protect the participants against demonic attacks. The high priest creates the circle. It is universal. Next, candle wax. Candles are used in rituals. Wax drops usually remain. It may be of different color, red, black, or white, etc. Next, an inverted cross. Satanists usually put up an upside down cross to mock Jesus Christ. Next, a pentagram. It is a five-pointed star. It symbolizes air, fire, earth, water, and the spirit world. 666. It is the sign of the beast, the devil. An altar. Usually it is a table or stones. This is where the victims are sacrificed. Next is reversed words. So he provides a list of reverse words. So murder is red rum. Evil is live or live, God is dog, Satan is Natas, Amen is Nema. Next, he lists that urine, feces, and blood. This is mixed and drank. Upon visiting the homes of the victims or perpetrators, look for occult materials such as occult books or videos, satanic signs and posters, book of shadows, a diary dedicated to Satan, pictures of Satan or demons, a written contract signed by persons selling soul to Satan. Human bones or body parts. If I could assist further, please call me today at two PM New York time. If I can view the crime scene photos, I can perhaps pick clues. I could also arrange training on the occult and cult groups for your investigators or police officers. Do not hesitate for further assistance. I hope to hear from you today. Yours truly, Marcos Quinnones. That was a lot of graphic information. This guy from looking at his background is deeply, deeply involved in understanding cult activity. His wife plainly says it, we'll give you some more information later, but this is his calling. This is what he believes he's supposed to do. He is supposed to help people by educating them about what the occult does and how to decipher crime scenes to determine whether or not this is part of cult activity. This is interesting. It's a big contrast From what we've talked about before, we have discussed a couple of different profiles. Those are basically demographics. You know, these are the kinds of people, gender, ethnicity, age range, you know, what kind of job they have, that sort of thing, about who might be responsible for this murder. This guy is telling you what you'll find at the crime scene. He's not talking about a particular perpetrator, what kind of person or persons you're looking for. He's telling you what you're going to find. It's going to tell you this has something to do with the occult. This is an occult ritualistic killing. And this is based on his experience. So let's kind of look at this. Let's see if this matches any of our crime scene from what we know so far. Missing body parts. The only possibility here is Christopher, of course. He is missing his testicles and the skin from his penis. When Officer Canonas talks about things that would be missing. that's not something he mentions. He doesn't talk about genitalia at all. He's talking about organs and the head, and that's pretty much it. Those are the things that might be missing from a satanic ritualistic murder. As far as the crime scene, it's universal that there is a nine foot circle, as far as we know. None existed at our crime scene. Candle wax, we will come back to that later, but upon first looking at the crime scene there was None detected, none taken into evidence. The inverted cross, there were no inverted crosses at our crime scene. A pentagram, there were no pentagrams at our crime scene, there was no six six six at our crime scene. There was not a table or stones used as an altar at our crime scene. Now, I'm wondering we don't know this because it's not documented. Is it possible that the detectives not knowing what they were looking for missed some sort of circle or missed some sort of altar? Did they go back to the crime scene and look for these things? Maybe. But there's no documentation even after the fact that these things were present at the crime scene. They certainly weren't mentioned the day of the discovery of Christopher Stevie and Michael. None of the words, either reversed or otherwise, were noted there. They did not find urine feces or blood, at least not mixed together. There was some blood at the crime scene, but none of those things mixed together, which is what he's saying might happen. Now, the last part's interesting. When you're visiting the homes of the perpetrators or the victims, which is also interesting. I don't know if he's implying that they kill people in their own groups so that the victims also might have these things in their homes. Occult books, videos, satanic signs or posters, a diary dedicated to Satan, pictures of Satan or demons, a written contract, or human bones or body parts. The West Memphis PD will look for these things when They are carrying out search warrants on suspects in this case. So you can tuck that in the back of your brain and pay attention when we go over searches of suspects and note whether or not these things are found in their homes. Yeah, a lot of this information is going to be very persuasive to certain elements within the West Memphis PD, but not to everybody. We brought this up in the past. The West Memphis P D is not a monolith. They don't all think the same. They don't operate the same, but there's Going to be strong indication that a lot of the information we have here from Kinnonas, which overlaps with some of the information that Jerry Driver has. We haven't got into Jerry Driver and his views yet. We'll get into that later on. We're kind of keeping the fog of the investigation still in place and the West Memphis PD doesn't probably fully understand what it is that Jerry Driver is thinking. But this is their first look into this idea of a satanic killing happening here on May 10th. And this is coming from Mike Allen, who is probably the most reasonable of the main investigators at West Memphis PD. Now, we'll peel the fog back a little bit and say Detective Ridge is going to swallow this hook, line, and sinker. He's going to become a believer in this. It's not so clear that Gary Gitchell does. It's not so clear that Mike Allen does and a couple other people. But when Ridge gets together with Sudbury, this concept of a satanic ritualistic killing. is first and foremost on their mind from about this point on May 10th on forward. And in their crosshairs is going to be Damien Eccles and the people associated with Damien Eccles. We've gotten a tip already that LG Hollingsworth was allegedly out there the same evening at a laundromat while Damian Eccles was walking out on the service road. And this is all coming from LG's aunt, Narlene Hollingsworth. So these guys are all going to be examined in this theory of possibly a satanic Ritualistic killing. I'm always interested when well, whether it's a member of the police force we're looking at or someone outside of that, I'm always interested in who they're talking to, what their background is. So we looked into Marcos Canonas a little bit and he seemed to be a really well liked guy. So we want to talk a little bit about him and his work with the NYPD. He actually passed away in September twenty twenty one. And I found several things posted about him, but this one I thought was nice. It says he's a retired detective of the NYPD, the foremost expert on voodoo and ritualistic practices throughout the world. He passed away from cancer that he contracted from 911. Marcus assisted us over the last nine years in our investigations relating to animal torture for ritualistic practices. Not only was he instrumental to our cases, but he quickly became a close friend and confidant. A hero who lived and worked in the World Trade Center area, Marcos was relentless in his efforts of search and rescue missions for his fallen comrades and friends following the devastating terrorist attack of september eleventh, two thousand one. A dedicated animal lover, Marcos was an incredible example of a human being who fought every day for justice and change. He will be missed tremendously by all his family, friends, and all who loved, admired, and were inspired by him. A newspaper article after his passing, they were writing about his life, and it says he led an interesting life. A retired veteran detective who was the NYPD's top expert in religious cults and the occult has died of a September eleventh related cancer, his family says. Detective Marcos Canonas, sixty five, who trained police officers in the city and across the country in how to recognize occult and cult activity, died Sunday. Canonas was guided by his Christian faith and treated his job like a calling, his wife Lynette Sadinos told the Daily News. From the age of 15, he knew what he wanted to do because he had a message that was given to him that he should read the Bible. He lived by that. He lived by the Bible, she said. Canonas, a longtime resident of Manhattan's Lower East Side, joined the NYPD in January 1982 and soon found that his specialty after coming across information. But an occult group was trying to infiltrate the NYPD, his wife said. Somehow that evolved to him being a one-man department, she said. Canonas earned master's degrees in religion and helped more than 200 law enforcement groups with his knowledge of the occult. He was often called to review scenes of animal mutilation. He also performed exorcisms. One was for a New Jersey family which found biblical passages taped to the walls of the home they just bought. Along with a red room behind a locked basement door with a large circular black painting on the floor depicting dancing devils in a star. My role as a police officer is to protect life and property and to teach my fellow officers to appreciate non traditional religions, he told the news in nineteen ninety five. As for exorcisms, he said, you're selected to do this kind of stuff. It's my calling. Kinonis kept voluminous diaries of all of his cases and wrote nonfiction and fiction books about Satanism. His experiences drew the attention of Hollywood producers and horror author Wes Craven. He's a very interesting person. Cop that also does exorcisms. Yes. He's interesting. This is the world as it was in nineteen ninety-three, nineteen ninety four, nineteen ninety five. And it's really easy for us to look back at this period of time prior to nineteen ninety five that is frequently referred to as the era of the satanic panic and just say, ⁓ they were crazy, they were this, they were that. We're gonna cover it, but there was definitely a sense of moral concern That swept across the country, especially since about 1980 up until about 1995. And he was a big part of this. Not just him, but another colleague of his out in Ohio by the name of Dale Griffiths. These guys were doing seminars, they were teaching cops about satanic crime. And Dale Griffiths would play a major role in this case in West Memphis. So given this point of view, we got Murray Ferris that's out there who's showing the cops his Amulent and he's interpreting this as a protection charm. I guarantee you that anybody like a Kinonias or a Dale Griffiths, who again we haven't talked about that much, but they're not going to interpret it in the same way that Murray's going to look at it. There's going to be a huge difference in how he's perceiving what he's doing versus the way that the public is perceiving him doing it. And his coming into church on that Wednesday would have raised eyebrows. We have two white witches, Chris Latrell and Murray Ferris, in our midst, and then These three boys go missing that night. It's gonna raise their eyebrows and you know, Chris Latrell, of course, calls at about eleven thirty that Sunday night of Mother's Day and calls A. G. And then A. G.'s calling the next day reporting to the police what it is that he's experiencing. So it's a big part of this investigation, the religious aspect of it. And quite frankly, we're not religion experts. We're just reading the information that is here in the files and we're trying to, in a respectful way, convey that information and those concerns. But I'm also somebody that was a young man at this time. I remember the satanic panic. I remember that there was this period of time in American history where you couldn't turn on the TV and not hear something about the occult or satanic crimes. And a lot of the true crime programming that you saw on TV was tied to this. And you would turn on Geraldo Rivera, who was doing specials on it, and you were hearing it in church all the time. So we'll pick up on that at some point in the future. But right now we're gearing up for A major examination into the beliefs and the nature of Damian Eccles, who is going to be coming into the police station right around noon on May the tenth, ten minutes after this call was made to Mr. Agey. If you want to join the discussion, we strongly encourage you to contribute to the case by following Crooked Tree Pot on Facebook, on X, or to follow us on YouTube. Next time on Crooked Tree. ⁓ May the ninth and want to talk to you. I'm not sure about any of the dates. All right. Did they come back and talk to you on two other days back to back? I think so. Okay, was one of those days about a two hour time period and another day about an eight hour time period? The eight hour time period was when they took me to the station. But they said a couple things. They were gonna fry my ass. I might as well go ahead and confess now. Okay. Did this last how long did this last up until the time that if they turn you over to Detective ⁓ Durham? I was there eight hours in all. Before I talked to Durham, I was there about an hour. So eight hours beginning eleven fifty four? Mm-hmm. During that time did you ask for an attorney? Three times. And then after the the interrogation with Ridge and Sunbury Did they appear angry at you for the responses that you were giving? Yeah. Okay. During the two hour, well, let me back up. During the two hour time period between Ridge and Sudbury, we're questioning you, did they ever tape record that? No, there was a tape recorder sitting there, but they would not turn it on.