The Hutcheson hidden mic recording

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[Kanga]

I know I read somewhere a while ago that a couple of weeks? into the initial investigation Vicki agreed to help the WMPD by having Jessie? introduce her to Damien at her house, she had some occult books on display to get him talking and they had a hidden mic in the joint and recorded their conversation.

I've been over to Callys today (some new stuff added in the last couple of days by the way if you didn't realise) and I can't find anything about the actual recording. I can see where she beat a possible upcoming charge which was obviously her payoff for helping out but I can't find anything about the recording. Maybe I'm going blind.

I know she recanted her testimony but I'm wondering if anyone remembers hearing or seeing a transcript of the the recording anywhere?

[Farm]

Vikki has offered three versions of her "playing detective" story.

I will try to look up links, but essentially she testified that the WMPD knew nothing about her efforts.

Then she said that they set up tape recorders, but Damien was too smart for them, and he never showed up.

The last version she claimed that the WMPD had crystal clear recordings of Damien denying he had anything to do with the crime, but they said they were inaudible, and erased them.

Of course, it always seems that the release of her revised editons tend to closely follow her incarceration dates.

Not to imply that the two are related or anything.

[Rugs]

Kanga,

Here's a start for you. From the testimony of Gitchell at the Echols/Baldwin trial:

Q: Now, let me ask you a little bit about the procedures of the West Memphis Police Department for audio and video surveillance. In this case -- first of all, do you have a set procedure for audio and video surveillance?

A: Yes sir.

Q: And what is that procedure?

A: We would get permission from the individual if we were in someone’s home. Or we would get a permission from that person in order to do that.

Q: Did you have audio and video surveilla-- audio surveillance in this particular case?

A: Yes sir.

Q: And where was that audio surveillance?

A: We did one at Vicki Hutcheson’s residence. And then we also set out on the skating ring parking lot in West Memphis and did a surveillance of that also.

Q: Tell us what kind of equipment that you used there with the audio surveillance at Vicki Hutcheson’s house?

A: Okay what we have is a transmitting device which was connected to an outdoor repeater and the signal would be transmitted with that repeater and could be received by us with walkie talkies and also with recording device.

Q: So you had a recording device, a transmitter, and receivers --

A: Right.

Q: Were one of those receivers in your office?

A: No not my office.

Q: Not in your office? At the police station?

A: At the police station. Any -- there’s several radios that we have, walkie talkie radios with that channel affixed in the radio, that you can receive that particular frequency on.

Q: So you had equipment where it would be placed in a home and you could listen in at the police station?

A: Right. Depending on a lot of factors. But we were able to, yes.

Q: Did you -- first of all, was Vicki Hutcheson working for the West Memphis Police Department in this investigation?

A: Initially, no she was not. We were not aware -- we were not even aware of her.

Q: Did she work with the West Memphis Police Department in this investigation?

Mr. Fogleman: Did you say “With” or “for”?

Mr. Davidson: I’m saying “with.”

A: Yes sir.

Q: And Vicki Hutcheson, is she the person you had the audio surveillance in her home?

A: Yes sir.

Q: Isn’t it true that the purpose of this audio surveillance was to try to catch my client saying something that you could use against him?

A: That’s correct.

Q: And you indeed did have a hook-up there at her house?

A: You mean the device there?

Q: Yes.

A: Yes sir.

Q: How long was it there?

A: I think just that one -- actual use time, just that one day or one evening, if I recall correctly.

Q: When was it placed in --

A: I couldn’t tell you the actual date. It would have been placed in possibly one evening and then actually utilized the next evening.

Q: Do you have notes saying what equipment was put in there, when it was put in there, when it was taken out?

A: Yes sir, no -- well detective Sudbury, lieutenant Sudbury, he was the officer that handled that. I personally did not.

Q: Are you familiar -- and do you think that there are notes saying when it was put in, what equipment was put in and that sort of thing? When it was taken out?

A: There should be a form which we have gotten permission from Ms. Hutcheson to do this. Exactly what the dates are or what is on it I’m not aware of. As I said that would be lieutenant Sudbury handled that, so I don’t know.

Q: Did you ever oversee his placing this surveillance in there?

A: No sir.

Q: You’re just saying we’ll have to ask him about that?

A: Yes sir.

Q: Okay. Are there set procedures for doing that in the West Memphis Police Department?

A: Other than --

Q: For documenting that?

A: Just what I’ve described to you.

Q: This equipment -- you think it cost more than audio tapes?

A: Oh yeah.

Q: How long was this surveillance out there and in use? I’ve already asked how long it was out there and you didn’t know, but how long was it in use, do you know that?

A: For several hours, and it got to a point that we just turned it off.

Q: And isn’t it true that my client was on this surveillance?

A: That I don’t know, I could not -- I could not say. I don’t know.

Q: Did y’all transcribe this?

A: It was impossible to do that.

Q: Do you normally transcribe statements?

A: If they’re audible and understandable.

[Kanga]

Thanks Farm/Rugs. I had a look around without the beer goggles on this morning and found these as well, which should be taken with a grain of salt naturally:

From Devils Knot -

On the second day of interviews, Sudbury and Ridge asked Hutcheson if she would let them hide a tape recorder in the bedroom of her trailer. The idea was that she would invite Damien to her house during the coming weekend, get him into the bedroom, and lure him into discussing some of the activities she had reported. Hutcheson agreed and the trap was set. Hutcheson later said that Damien did come to her house, and detectives reported that a recording was made. But, they said, the recording was of poor quality and Damien’s voice was not discernible on it. The tape subsequently disappeared.




From the Arkansas Times 10/7/2004 -

The police encouraged Hutcheson to bring Damien back to her trailer, and obtained her permission for them to install a listening device under her bed, with the microphone attached to a lamp in the living room area.

"They put the recorder under the bed," she says. "It was a fancy one with several reels of tape so that one would begin when the other was filled."

Police suggested she tell Damien she was interested in becoming a witch, and that she check out books on witchcraft from the library to leave in prominent places in the trailer. (She didn't have a library card, so one of the detectives lent her his.)

Hutcheson turned the recorder on when Damien showed up a few days later. Hutcheson says he just laughed when she said she wanted to become a witch.

She told him she had heard that he liked to suck blood. Damien said he encouraged such stories as a "mechanism" to keep people from prying into his life.

"What's a mechanism?" she asked. She says Damien replied, "It means leave me the fuck alone."

Damien never said anything incriminating during the conversation, Hutcheson says.

The police retrieved the tapes the next morning, and asked her the following day to come to the police station to listen to portions of them.

"They would play parts of the tape and then stop it and ask me a question like, " 'Well what did he mean by that?' "

She said West Memphis Det. Bryn Ridge changed the tapes while Gary Gitchell, the department's chief detective, asked the questions.

"The quality of the tape was excellent," says Hutcheson. "You could hear Jessie, you could hear me, you could hear my roommate Christy. You could hear Damien excellent because he was sitting right next to the lamp."

But, according to the West Memphis police, the tape was of such poor quality it was not usable. Later, the police said they lost the tape.

Today, assistant chief Allen says he'd listened to the tape and it was not intelligible. "I also asked several other individuals about what I remembered about the tape and they remembered the same thing - that there was loud music playing in the background and you couldn't hear what was said."

[Farm]

Yeah, here's her testimony...

Q: At some point after the murders, did you decide that you wanted to play detective?
A: I thought I would play detective.
Q: And in the course of that, and without saying what you had (p. 972) heard, had you heard some things about Damien Echols?
A: I heard a lot of things about Damien Echols.
Q: What did you do to try to learn more about this person?
A: I had Jessie Misskelley, Junior introduce us.
Q: Are you referring to the defendant?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: After he introduced you to Damien, did you do any particular things to try to gain Damien’s confidence?
A: I had went to the library. Don Bray, the police at Marion, had given me his card to check out some satanic books because they can’t be checked out just by normal - -
Q: All right. You said Don Bray of the Marion Police Department?
A: Marion Police Department.
Q: At this time was the West Memphis Police Department aware of what you were doing?
A: West Memphis knew nothing.


Of course later, it was all the WMPD's idea that she try to implicate Echols.