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MARTY KING

Marty King testified as follows: (TR 2997-3010)

DIRECT EXAMINATION

On May 5 and 6, 1993, I was managing the BoJangles Restaurant on North Missouri Street in West Memphis. It is less than a half mile from the interstate, (TR 2998) I was working at BoJangles Restaurant on the evening of May 5, 1993. Something unusual occurred at the restaurant that night. About 9:30 p.m., a lady and her daughter came in to order supper. The lady said that she needed to take her daughter to the restroom. So I told her it was right around the corner. She immediately came back around, and I asked her if there was a problem. She said there was a gentleman in the women’s restroom. I found a black gentleman sitting in the women’s restroom on the commode with his head in his lap. He was about 5’8" or 5’9", 165 lbs, real thin man. He had his head in his lap and there was blood dripping off of his forearm. There was blood on the wall where he had leaned up against the wall, maybe staggered in. (TR 2999 ) He had mud on his feet, and he seemed to be disarrayed when I talked to him. He raised up and kind of slurred that he was all right. I gave him a few more minutes to come out, and he


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never did so I went back to check on him and I called the police. I asked them to come out there. A female West Memphis Police officer pulled on the BoJangles parking lot, and I saw her coming so I went to the front door. She went to the drive-through window. She never came to look inside the restaurant for the West Memphis Police Department. I saw her coming so I went to the front door. She kept coming around. She went to the drive-through window. I told her what the problem was and that the gentleman had previously left the restaurant walking, and she got a description and left. She did not come back to the restaurant that evening. I have never talked to her since then. (TR 3000 ) I just know her by sight. I went back into the lady’s restroom that evening. We had to clean it up. There was blood, mud. The gentleman had wasted a whole roll of toilet tissue by soaking up blood or grabbing for it. He had used the restroom all over himself and sat in it. I assume he was trying to clean himself up, but it had blood all over the toilet paper.The toilet paper roll was saturated all the way down to the cardboard roll. I just threw it in the garbage. There was a pair of sun glasses that he had tried to flush down the commode. I fished those sunglasses out and threw them in the garbage.


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There was quite a bit of mud on the floor. We cleaned this up with a water hose around and washed it out. (TR 3001) This was not the normal way for doing that. Normally it would be swept and mopped, but there was a large amount of mud on his feet, and that was on the floor so we just washed it down the drain. There was some blood above the commode and on the wall maybe where he was leaned up against the wall, and made the impression of a forearm There was some blood on the floor beside the commode, some on the doorknob and in the hallway where he had left. We never saw this man again. No other officer came out that evening. I opened that morning on May 6, 1993. On that day, an off duty officer named Billy Covington, a friend of mine, came in and I was told him about the event that had happened the night before. It struck him in a strange way. (TR 3002) He said,"Don’t clean that blood off the door handles or the wall, and I will get back with you in a little while." Later on that afternoon 2 detectives, Ridge and Allen, came out and took a report as far as what I had seen, description of the gentleman, and then they took blood scrapings off the wall in the women’s restroom, off the men’s door in the hallway and off the wall in the hallway. I found out they had been at the crime scene and had been wading in mud and water up to their knees. One of them asked me, "Did the man appear to have muddy feet like mine because



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we have been out there all morning long in the water and mud." And asked if his looked like the gentleman I had seen, and I said, "Yes, sir, they were muddy like that also." I had told Detectives Ridge and Allen about the sun glasses, and they asked me what I did with them, and I told them I threw them in the garbage. We fished them out and they took them with them. (TR 3003) They said they didn’t need the toilet paper that had been soaked down to the core with the blood. They said just discard that. I have not heard from Ridge or Allen or any other person about this since then.

CROSS EXAMINATION

BY MR. FOGLEMAN:
I am marking on the map, State’s Ex. #2: the interstate system, the railroad track, Balfour Street, and Missouri Street. Here is BoJangles. Behind my business there is a ditch there by the railroad tracks. (TR 3004) There is a small ditch on our side which would be facing Missouri and you’d have to go through it to cross over the railroad tracks. On the other side of the railroad tracks, there could be a big ditch that runs through there. I haven’t seen that when you’ve driven down the service road. I never paid any attention to what was behind there other than open field. There is a ditch, and there is a railroad track right behind my business. This area is all open field going back to the trailer park. Right in behind my business I have got a ditch,



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railroad track and a strip of trees along the railroad track. (TR 3005) I cannot say if the mud on the shoes came from the same place. Muddy shoes are muddy shoes to me. I don’t know where it came from, or where he came from that night. I didn’t see him come into the restaurant. I don’t even know that those sunglasses are his. I did not see him wearing them. I found him in the women’s restroom. He appeared to be disarrayed. When I spoke to him, he raised up like he didn’t know where he was at and was slurred and disoriented. He left blood and mud all over the restroom. He left it on the wall, the floor, door knob, and hall. (TR 3006) It was on the hall wall where he might have staggered. We cleaned that up. We tried to clean it all up before Detective Ridge and Allen arrived. We made efforts to clean it up before they ever came because they came the next night. When Meek came to the drive-in window, I was not aware that she was trying to find 3 missing 8-year-old boys. When she came there, this person wasn’t there anymore. He had already left. After that man left, we had got blood and mud all over the place.(TR 3007)

REDIRECT EXAMINATION

If this is the pipe that goes across the Ten Mile Bayou, and this is the Blue Beacon, and these are the woods, Missouri Street would be back over in here running parallel with this street. The field that Mr. Fogleman referred to right --


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okay, Missouri Street -- this is Missouri Street. He was pointing to, is the field right here. That’s the Missouri Pacific railroad track. Here’s the interstate and Missouri Street. BoJangles would be this dot right here in front on the interstate. This field is between Seventh Street. (TR 3008) There is one field here between Missouri Street where BoJangles is, and Seventh Street and the railroad track. Behind the apartment complex there’s another one. Behind the apartment complex, there is a field here, and there are woods. From the Blue Beacon to the truck stop and then this is where the field begins that goes to Missouri Street. Even though I tried to clean it up, Ridge tried to take scrapings. He took a pocket knife and scraped it into an envelope. I tried to give him the toilet paper roll that was soaked to the core, but he didn’t take that. They did not take any soil samples out of the drain. I saw the man leave on foot. (TR 3009) He went towards the back of the building which would be going toward the ditch, but then he left on foot down Missouri Street. (TR 3010)