Episode 30: "It was like it never even happened" Vicki Hutcheson's story with some side comments on Ryan Ferguson and Henry Lee Lucas

n a 2004 story in the Arkansas Times, Vicki Hutcheson said about the trip to the esbat: “Every word of it was a lie.”  Lie or not, her testimony played no role in the Echols/Baldwin case and was not crucial to the conviction of Misskelley.  Jurors there were largely convinced by the confession, particularly where Misskelley described chasing down Michael. Some jurors told reporters that the occult trappings were not particularly convincing and were ultimately irrelevant to reaching a guilty verdict.  Though she later claimed coercion,  police interviews indicated Vicki was eager to play a starring role in the investigation, perhaps with hopes of collecting a reward. As Bray described her role in his notes on a June 2, 1993, interview: “She said she was trying to play detective because she had heard Damien was involved in devil worship and she thought it might be connected to the murders.” In 2004, Hutcheson told the Arkansas Times that she only testified as instructed by the West Memphis PD, under a threat that she would have her child taken from her and that she could be implicated in the murders.  There was no evidence of a police threat.   She testified in 1994 that “West Memphis knew nothing” about her plan to “play detective” when she set up   meetings with Echols. “I decided that on my own. Those boys I loved, and I wanted their killers caught.” As for the $30,000 reward, “it had nothing to do with it.” She did receive help from law enforcement in checking out occult books from the library, in an effort to impress Echols, and in setting up a recording device under her bed. Police said the resulting tapes were of such poor quality as to be of no use; she claimed to hear high-quality recordings.   She testified she never met John Fogleman until a month or two before the trial.    Her statements were filled with largely unsolicited and unschooled details about interactions with Misskelley and Echols.    Aaron considered Michael and Christopher his best friends, dating from when he lived on East Barton.  According to his mother, “those were his only friends.” In a May 28, 1993, interview with Ridge and Sudbury, she described picking up Aaron after school on May 5:  “I was waiting in where the teachers park on the side of Weaver Elementary, and watching for Aaron. It was approximately 15 after 3, and Michael Moore came to one side of my truck and Christopher Byers to the other and Aaron you know close to them … and they were telling me Ms. Vicki there’s a Cub Scout thing tonight, and Aaron  needs to go, and Michael’s father is their troop leader and  … Michael was really incessant upon Aaron going, and uh, they just keep saying there’s a Cub Scout thing. Ms. Vicki … he has to go, he has to go. And I said no this is Wednesday night. Cub Scouts are tomorrow Thursday night and they just kept on. Finally you know, they got it through he wasn’t going to go, because I just thought they wanted to go and play, and um, he said well then can Aaron just come to my house, and you can pick him up in two hours. Which I had done frequently so he had assumed I would do it then, and I just said no because I had some errand to ran. Aaron did not go. … I went home.” She went to the grocery about 5:30 and stopped somewhere to eat, with Aaron in tow. “He was never alone.”  They got home “probably about eight or so.”  Among her errands, she would tell prosecutors, was going to the liquor store to purchase two bottles of Evan Williams whiskey for Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Dennis Carter, who were both underage. His mother’s story on May 28 contradicted any stories Aaron told about his trip to Robin Hood that afternoon. She gave a different version of Aaron’s activities for May 5 on June 2, abruptly becoming unable to account for him that afternoon while he was nominally under the care of a babysitter. The June 2 version gave Aaron time to go to the woods.   On May 6, after discovering his friends were missing, she pulled Aaron out of sch