Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three (33 page)

Mark was sitting on a bench at the edge of the field watching the game. At one point, he stood up to stretch his legs, handing his sunglasses to a friend as he rose. Without warning, he was struck squarely in the face with a clenched fist, sending him sprawling backward over the bench and onto the ground. This was what the inmates referred to as a “creeping.” When he stood up, inmates were scattering, and the whistle was blowing to call in the yard. Mark’s nose had been bashed in—broken, as X-rays would later confirm—and blood was flowing freely down the front of his whites. Still seeing stars, Mark staggered back into the barracks with the other inmates. Chow call was twenty minutes away, and Mark cleaned himself up as well as he was able to, considering that his nose now looked like a pound of raw hamburger. News of the fight spread rapidly through the barracks, and by the time Mark came off the chow line and started to eat his lunch, the sergeant was standing at his table. “Cap’n wants to see you right now.”

When Mark walked into the captain’s office, Green was already there. During the twenty minutes between the attack and chow call, Green had learned a couple of things about Mark, the most significant being Mark’s affiliation with the prison gang Dirty White Boys (DWB), a spin-off from the larger and far more violent Aryan Brotherhood.
¹⁴¹
Although DWB did not practice the “blood in, blood out” policy of its parent gang, it did have a reputation to maintain. An assault against a member had to be avenged. Immediately upon returning to his barracks, Green had started getting threats screamed at him from another barracks. “You’re a dead man, Green!” DWB had also been passing “kites”—notes tied to a string and tossed to another barrack—informing Mark that they were aware of the situation and were ready to retaliate. Although Green didn’t have a plan yet for how to deal with DWB, he knew that he at least had to get to the captain before Mark in order to try to clear himself of any charges Mark might bring against him.

“So what happened, Byers?” the captain asked.

“Well, I was sittin’ on the bench, not paying attention, and got hit with a foul ball.”

“Green?”

“I didn’t see nothin’. I just looked up and saw people were taking off, so I did too.”

Rules are rules. Nobody snitches.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” the captain said. “If anything happens to Byers, I’m coming after Green first. If anything happens to Green, I’m coming after Byers.”

With one problem taken care of, Green now began to worry about DWB. But with less than six months until his parole hearing, Mark wanted no part of an attack against another inmate, which would result in the loss of his good time credits, so he pleaded with DWB to let him handle the matter himself. Although they agreed in principle, it would be only a matter of time before they got tired of waiting for Mark and took matters into their own hands. There was, however, a solution. Mark had an inmate friend at the counting office who was responsible for coordinating the movement of cons between prisons. For twenty-five dollars, this inmate would place another inmate’s name on a transfer list and have him moved to another facility, which is exactly what he did to Mr. Green. For good measure, Mark had his friend tack twelve months onto Green’s parole hearing date, a mistake that was not rectified for six months.
¹⁴²

As for the broken nose, Mark thinks he got off easy. “I was just glad it wasn’t a shank.” As it was, it took several weeks to get him down to Cummins Unit, where the nearest ADC X-ray machine was located. By that time, Mark had had his nose “set” by a fellow inmate. “He stuck two pencils up my nose—one in each nostril—wrapped them in tissue paper, and yanked. I heard the sound—just like you can hear your teeth grinding in your head—and that was the last thing I heard before I passed out. I woke up with a wet towel on my face and in a whole lot of pain.”

One of the privileges of being a class I inmate was that you were given a job to pass the time. It didn’t pay, but it was a chance to break the routine and spend more time out of the barracks. Mark worked at one of Dermott’s prison industries, Janitorial Products. Here inmates manufacture soap products, including liquid dish detergent, oven cleaner, floor wax, and floor wax stripper, all made exclusively for ADC use. Mark ran a machine called the wet platform. (“At least I stay clean and smell as good as possible in this hell hole!”)

Preparing
for
Reentry

As his experience and prison smarts increased, Mark learned that although life inside involved one hazard after another, there were four especially dangerous times for an inmate: induction (while still a “fish”), chow call, pill call, and the time immediately following the receipt of your parole date. It was this last pitfall that Mark had to negotiate now, and it would prove to be one of the most slippery.

As Mark’s time grew short, his anxiety heightened. Short-timers in prison face the most abuse from the class III and class IV inmates. During this time, lifers and other long-timers were most likely to mess with an inmate who was on his way out, for no other reason than cheap thrills and petty jealousy. Lifers derived great satisfaction from getting a short-timer to go off, thus jeopardizing his parole status. Mark steered clear of them to the extent that he could, but it was not always possible. During his stay at the ADC, he had been “stomped” to the point of passing blood in his urine for several days and had sustained three or four broken ribs, several black eyes, a total of eight stitches in his head, and one broken nose. “I thought I got out pretty easy.” Easy, perhaps, but medical care was not always immediately forthcoming in the ADC. After the aforementioned stomping, where three inmates had kicked, punched, and “slocked” him (hit him with a padlock stuffed inside a sock) for several minutes, Mark had great difficulty getting in to see the prison doctors. He finally had to file a grievance in order to be seen and even then waited two weeks; he was given two extra-strength Tylenol and sent back to his barracks. The likelihood of these types of attacks only increased as word got around that he was paroling out.

As June approached, he began to prepare for his parole hearing. Because of the high stakes—freedom—and the risk of something, anything, going wrong, this is an extremely stressful time for a prospective parolee. A parole plan must be submitted by the inmate, detailing where he wants to live and with whom, where he plans on working, and how he plans to spend his free time. If he does not have a relative or approved friend to live with, he must find a halfway house or other interim housing where he can stay until he finds a place of his own. Also, a judge from the judicial district where the inmate was convicted—Sharp County, in Mark’s case—must approve the parole plan and agree to allow the parolee to reside in that county. Since Mark was requesting to parole out to Craighead County, a judge from that district also had to approve the plan. Fortunately for Mark, his sister in Jonesboro was willing to let him parole out to her, though her agreement had not always been a sure thing, particularly after the release of
Revelations
. “Brother, please don’t leave me,” Mark wrote after a telephone conversation with his sister, who had just viewed the film. “From the way our sister talked, you are all I have. I don’t even know if she’s going to let me parole out to her. Even that would be only a short time thing. She sounded really mad at me, like I planned this all out to happen. I don’t know what to do if I don’t parole out to Jonesboro. An out of state plan takes five or six months longer. I was told I will see the parole board the first week of June and should catch the EPA [Emergency Powers Act, designed to reduce overcrowding] and get out somewhere before Oct 6th. If I parole out to our sister in Jonesboro, all I have to do is tell my parole officer that I got my own place [and] then move to wherever. I’m now thinking about a CAVE or under a BIG ROCK. From the way she talked, when I get out I need to go hide somewhere. I just don’t know what to think or do. Please, please, HELP ME. Brother, right now I feel DEAD inside. I can’t even think straight. Things have gone to shit. I guess it’s my fault because I trusted the jerks in NY. What a dumbass I’ve been. Never again.”

Avoiding trouble—and troublemakers—was Mark’s number one priority in his last few weeks at Dermott. “People would fuck with you just because they could,” he said. An inmate whose parole date is coming up first learns to keep that information to himself as long as possible, though sooner or later, word gets out. Mark recalls, “There were lots of guys I knew who got close to their dates and went off on someone who was harassing them.” If an inmate makes it to the day of his release without catching a violation, he is wise to clear out his stuff and leave his barracks as soon as possible. On his release date, Mark stood nearly eight hours at the control booth waiting to be processed, during which time he was catcalled, elbowed by passers-by, spat on, and taunted to the point of such aggravation that he nearly lost control. Determined, he kept his composure, and on August 29, 2000, Mark Byers was a free man. Today, he is convinced that prison did indeed save his life. Perhaps, as expressed in the biblical gospels, it is necessary to lose one’s life in order to save it, and if so, Mark’s loss of his freedom to the ADC for fifteen months—plus six-and-a-half years of supervised parole—was what he needed to apply the brakes to a life that was careening out of control and set it straight.

“I’m working on my plans to start over,” Mark said after being released, “this time the right way, the only way.” After a successful parole hearing, Mark Byers was granted his freedom that day in August, with a supervised parole period ending May 26, 2007, marking the termination of his eight-year debt to the state of Arkansas. He has thus far made good on his vow never to return.

CHAPTER 6 

Redemption and Revelations 

I
wish
I
was
a
messenger,
and
all
the
news
was
good.

—Eddie Vedder

Good
people
are
always
so
sure
they’re
right.

—Last words of convicted killer Barbara Graham upon her execution in June 1955

When Mark Byers walked out of prison in Dermott, Arkansas, on August 29, 2000, he had a typical ex-con’s list of things to do. “After I get out,” he wrote just prior to his release, “I’m looking at the Mississippi side of the bridge at the Grand Helena Casino, some Crown Royal, and the first good looking woman I find. After that, I don’t know; that’ll do for starters.” In truth, his dominant thoughts involved getting as far away from Dermott as he could.

It is safe to say that Mark Byers looked only forward, not back, though to say that he left prison a free man is only a half-truth. He still owed six-and-a-half years to the state of Arkansas in the form of supervised parole. Although it may seem like a simple matter for a parolee to stay out of trouble and meet the conditions of his parole, the reality is much different for many. Mark was no exception, but with a little common sense (and sometimes a little is all he could muster), a good dose of support from his family, and a lot of luck, he managed to make it. Since his parole plan specified that he parole out to his sister in Jonesboro, it was there that he went on the day of his release, though his true desire was to get the hell out of Arkansas forever.

Mark’s sister’s home is a single-level brick house sitting on an immaculately manicured suburban half-acre, and it was here that Mark began the fresh start that most ex-cons aspire to but often don’t achieve. He had no job, no car, no money, and no female companionship. His only real commitment was a monthly date with his parole officer. At age forty-three, he had before him a lifetime to figure out what to do with and a past that he might never let go of. During his time with his sister, Mark picked up work painting houses. He did a job for a friend of his brother, and word caught on that he was dependable and did good work. He bought a 1984 gold Buick Riviera from a friend, paying it off in installments. He had one objective, and that was to stay out of trouble for the next six-and-a-half years. At times it was all he could handle.

In 2002 Mark’s brother once again came through for him by hooking him up with a mobile home that, though needing renovation and a place to park, would provide Mark with the first home of his own since Cherokee Village. After gaining approval from the Arkansas Department of Parole, Mark located an empty lot in Millington, Tennessee, five minutes down the road from his brother, and spent the next year gutting the place and making it livable. By the beginning of 2003, he was finally home. He was doing pretty well painting and was living near family, and with the exception of his monthly visits to his parole officer, he had been able to put Brickeys and Dermott far behind him. Still, he was alone.

Jacki

Jacki Sizemore is a crafter—wood, glass, all types of mediums. She loved to work with her hands. Stained glass, edging glass, dollhouses and dollhouse furniture made from polymer clay—she loved them all. Not only did the work bring her great pleasure and satisfaction; it sustained her during some very tough times. Her health was often fragile. She had had two kidney transplants, a pancreas transplant, and an ongoing battle with diabetes, all while trying to raise a child. During the time that Mark was trying to cope with the loss of his son in May 1993, Jacki was on dialysis, trying to hold on until a compatible donor was located. “I didn’t pay attention to the world of news around me; I didn’t care. I remember a few years later watching a movie on HBO, thinking it was about the book
Paradise
Lost
[the 1667 work by John Milton]. I obviously didn’t read the information before clicking on it. I was so bored in the first five minutes that I changed channels.” So it was that years later she didn’t recognize the hulking giant of a man who offered to help her off the floor after she tripped over her own shoelaces in a Memphis bookstore. “I had an armload of crafting books—eight or nine of them—and as I went sprawling across the floor, this towering man offered me a hand up. I had no idea who he was; he was just a gentleman.” They spent about twenty minutes together over coffee before going their separate ways, though not before Mark asked for her phone number.

A week later he called to ask her out. Jacki begged off, saying she was in the process of moving and just didn’t have the time. They spoke on the phone for several hours, Mark trying his hardest to impress her. At one point in the conversation, Mark blurted out, “I’ve been on TV.”

Jacki shot back, “Yeah? Well if it was on Jerry Springer, we can stop talking now!” He told her something about his past, the murders, and the HBO documentaries. Then he offered to help her move. She declined. Jacki was an independent woman, and she’d handle things on her own as she always had.

Several times over the next few weeks, Mark tried to coax Jacki into going out with him. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested; she was simply distracted. Eventually, however, as her arms began to wear out from moving boxes and Mark’s calls to her started tapering off, she gave in and called to ask for his help. Within thirty minutes, Mark was there. While she unpacked, they talked into the early hours; they both
love
to talk. During the move, Mark had accidentally broken her VCR and an ashtray. The next afternoon, he showed up with replacements for both. As they began to date steadily, Mark put the VCR to use by playing the
Paradise
Lost
videos for Jacki, giving her the first glimpse into the reason people seemed to recognize him and so many regarded him with trepidation. Jacki’s initial assessment: “I saw a lot of underlying psychology and selective editing in the films that seemed to have no real point.” She saw little resemblance between the man she had been seeing and the out-of-control character in the films. To her, his grief was evident, as was the filmmakers’ efforts to make him entertaining (not that it was all that hard).

One night, Mark randomly said to her, “You know, you love me, and one day you’re going to be my wife.” Jacki was only a little surprised. “My initial reaction was, ‘No, I don’t, and no, I’m not!’ That was part of the 5 percent of the time I have been wrong since we met.” On June 7, 2003, Mark and Jacki were married in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and moved into Mark’s Memphis-area home to start their new life.

Not one to be easily intimidated, even Jacki was shocked by Mark’s ability to so quickly and completely self-destruct.

The
Cuckoo’s
Nest

The person who arguably knows Mark Byers better than anyone makes this assessment: “Mark is not one who does well with moderation. He is swimming fast and high or diving dark and deep. Over the years he has gotten better about balance.” His unsteadiness at times causes Jacki great concern. “But that is one characteristic that makes him Mark.” Mark’s life has been characterized by this dichotomy, and the years between his marriage to Jacki and his conversion to supporter of the West Memphis Three clearly reflects this.

Mark and Jacki were doing well in the years following their marriage. The house painting business was steady, and Mark had a reliable crew of three to five men whom he kept very busy. He was making better money than he had in many years but was also working much harder. The work was tedious, and he was frequently away from home for weeks at a time. This in itself was enough to put a strain on any marriage, but the problem was exacerbated by Mark’s drinking. When he was busy, Mark prospered. And when he prospered, he partied—and partied hard. Crown Royal Canadian whiskey was his drink of choice, and he could, and often did, down considerable quantities. It seemed as though when Mark was working, he drank. When he was depressed, he drank. When he had headaches, he drank. Whatever the root causes of his drinking were didn’t much matter; he was once again heading for disaster.

When Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005, Mark took his crew to Mississippi to work on the reconstruction of a friend’s home. He’d be gone for two weeks at a time, but whenever he returned home, he brought plenty of cash. After the work in Mississippi was completed, Mark landed a job in Missouri repainting more storm-damaged homes, these from a series of twisters that had roared through in the summer of 2006, including a massive supercell that had spawned some 105 tornadoes over four days in two states. This job also required time away from home, usually five days at a clip. The pattern at the job site was set early. He would party with the crew after work each day and continue upon returning home Friday evening. Sometimes he neglected to stop drinking long enough to drive home, drawing a DUI in the process. The fact that Mark was still on probation made this problematic. If his parole officer (PO) learned of this, he said nothing. Mark wasn’t always so lucky. A similar incident in Memphis
did
catch the attention of his PO, who decided not to revoke Mark’s parole. The two had always been on good terms. Mark never missed a parole meeting, always obtained permission before traveling out of the jurisdiction, passed all his urine analysis tests, and never gave the man anything to complain about. Although Mark was still reckless at times, he knew one thing for sure: he wasn’t going back to prison.

Mark didn’t leave his drinking on the job; it was becoming a problem at home that was too big to ignore. “He was drinking heavily,” Jacki recalls, “and now had a doctor giving him a prescription for Xanax. For about three weeks it was Mark’s
body
here, falling over everything and nodding out. The husband I knew was not home.” The jobs—inside jobs that inundated his brain with paint fumes—were taxing to his health, causing severe headaches that were aggravated by the tumor still living in his brain.
¹⁴³
“I had migraines. I self-medicated,” he said. Self-medicating or not, he drank plenty and was also popping 1 mg Xanax without regard. Mark’s history of mental illness would seem to advocate the avoidance of alcohol, and the combination of alcohol and Xanax can be deadly. Both drugs are central nervous system depressants, and the combination not only increases the effects of alcohol but delivers a double-whammy to the brain and heart and can seriously impair respiration. If Mark was aware of any of this, it wasn’t reflected in his behavior. He often had to be guided to the bedroom or to the car after a day of drinking, unable to navigate on his own. He and Jacki had been thrown out of restaurants as a result of Mark’s drunkenness. “I was at the point where I dreaded his coming home. When he was home, I was so stressed, and when he was gone, I had peace.”

Meanwhile, the company that was contracting Mark to do the painting in Missouri went bankrupt, owing Mark money. He still had to pay his crew for work they had already done and had also incurred legal fees and fines related to a drunk-driving arrest after an automobile accident. All of these expenses had to be paid out of Mark and Jacki’s personal savings.

At the same time, Mark was in the middle of a stressful movie rights negotiation. The movie deal wasn’t a mere vanity issue. Mark and Jacki needed the money badly, and they had precious few ways of getting it. With chronic health problems herself, Jacki had been unable to work for many years. As the weeks and months of 2006 went by, Mark and Jacki’s savings dwindled, and the couple was once again plunged into poverty. Mark lost his truck and had to hock his modest bass boat for bill-paying and grocery money. Mark’s response was typical but unusually severe, even for him. A three-day booze and Xanax bender came to a head on a Sunday afternoon in February 2007. After consuming nearly a gallon of whiskey in three days (by his own reckoning), Mark staggered out of the bedroom and informed Jacki that he had also taken eight Xanax tablets. Jacki took his pulse, which was weak, and sent him back to bed. She called Mark’s brother and while talking to him heard a loud thump. She hung up the phone, immediately dialed 911, and then rushed into the bathroom. Mark, who had earlier fallen four times on a fifteen-foot trip to the bedroom, had fallen backward into the tub and appeared to be unconscious. The paramedics on the line told Jacki not to move him. Were his condition not so serious, the instruction might have been laughable—the thought of tiny, five-foot-two Jacki trying to move her 275-pound husband from the bathtub. By the time paramedics arrived, Mark had somehow managed to pull himself from the tub and was lying half-on and half-off the bed. His blood pressure was dangerously low—60/40—and he was in and out of consciousness. He was taken by ambulance to Methodist North Hospital in Memphis.