Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 5, 1993                   TAG: 9306050017
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WEST MEMPHIS, ARK.                                LENGTH: Medium

TEEN-AGERS ARRESTED, HELD IN KILLING OF 8-YEAR-OLDS

Court officers subdued Steven Branch before he reached the defendant.

The teen-agers were arrested Thursday and charged with capital murder, but police Inspector Gary Gitchell wouldn't discuss a motive or reveal what was found during a search of their homes.

Jesse Lloyd Misskelley, 17; Michael Wayne Echols, 18, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, were arrested Thursday. They were charged in the slayings of three 8-year-olds who vanished May 5 while riding bicycles in their neighborhood. The next day, authorities discovered the boys' bodies in a drainage ditch in nearby woods.

Municipal Judge Pal Rainey called a recess after Branch's outburst and warned that further disruptions would lead to contempt of court charges.

Branch bolted from his seat and ran for Echols, the first of the teen-agers brought before the judge.

"I'll chase you all the way to hell," Branch shouted, adding "I'll see you dead" before he was restrained and led out of the courtroom.

The teen-agers did not enter pleas and were ordered held without bond until the case is transferred to Circuit Court on Monday. Police wouldn't reveal where they were taken to protect their safety.

Rainey later granted a prosecution request to seal all police investigative files in the case.

Gitchell said Misskelley was arrested at the Police Department on Thursday afternoon and Echols and Baldwin were arrested at Echols' home Thursday night.

Detectives in this city just across the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tenn., had gone door to door in search of leads.

Gitchell said last month that a preliminary autopsy indicated the slain boys - Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Steve Edward Branch - died of blows to the head.

The slayings of the three second-graders stunned the city of about 28,000, and many parents have not allowed their children to play outside unsupervised since the bodies were found.

On Friday, a crowd of up to 200 people behind the courthouse shouted "murderer," "freak," "baby killers" and "shoot 'em" at the teen-agers as they were taken away.

Echols' father, Joe, said police were trying to frame his son.

"For the past month, they've been following him, they've been harassing him everywhere he went," he said Thursday as police searched the family's trailer home. "I know without a doubt in my mind this boy didn't do it."