Ridge: This is Det. Bryn Ridge of the West Memphis Police Department, currently in the West Memphis Police Department with James Kenny Martin, DOB: _-_-60, conducting an investigation of a Homicide of three 8 year old boys, which occurred on 05/05/93.
Okay, Mr. Martin, we have been talking for sometime and you're basically giving us your opinions on what kind of person could have done this type of crime, we have just turned the tape recorder on, so that maybe we can learn something from the conversations with your experiences with some of these sexual offenders. You are aware of the recorder?
Martin: Yes.
Ridge: And you don't have any problems with that?
Martin: I have no problem with that.
Ridge: Okay, you say that you work at W.B.Davis
Martin: I work at W.B.Davis Electric Supply, the week of this incident, I was on vacation, uh Wednesday, I can, Wednesday afternoon, approximately 5:00 o'clock, five or six o'clock, I am not sure, a girlfriend of mine, her name is Barbara, I know I was going to forget her last name. Barbara uh, who lives in that area, had told me that there were three boys missing. Uh, we, my wife and I watched a news report and we say that the three boys were missing. I went, my wife, I drove myself to work Wednesday night at 10:00 o'clock to Flash Market, 322, 3225 E. Broadway, I worked at Flash Market Wednesday night from 10:00PM to 6:00AM.
Ridge: This Barbara, do you know her last name, or phone number?
Martin: I knew I would forget Barbara's last name, but I know her phone number, 735 or 732, no 735 -____.
Sudbury: Where does she live at?
Martin: On the corner of Goodwin and Barton, she lives on the corner. Uh -
Ridge: Basically you understand, you've been to a lot of counseling and has overcome a problem with being a
Martin: I was convicted as child sex offender, yes.
Ridge: Okay.
Martin: I molested my stepson and my stepdaughter and from 1984 to 1988.
Ridge: Okay, and where are those children now?
Martin: They are in the state of Colorado, in Pueblo County.
Ridge: Are they your children, or
Martin: They were my step children at the time. They are no relation to me what-soever.
Ridge: Okay.
Sudbury: As a result of that
Martin: I was convicted uh, in November of 1988 to three years, uh, in the state, Colorado State Penitentiary at Freemont Regional Facility. I served three years at Freemont Correctional Facility, where I discharged from Freemont in January of 1991.
Ridge: Okay, you have some opinion as to what kind of person could have done a crime like this.
Martin: The maximun people that were involved in these murders,
Sudbury: Now what are you basing these opinions on? Just your incident or
Martin: I'm basing these opinions because, one, any investigators know that most people with this amount of money being offered somebody is going to talk, somebody, I mean you can look at all your, murderers and, in decades and find that people that were involved with. any a gang related, cult related, a, any form of a, multiple murder, that consisted of more than two people, somebody is going to talk, somebody is going to say something, somebody is going to say something, somebody is going to tell the police that that person is going to come in they are going to get everything screwed up and the next thing you know, that ballon, everybody is going to fall into the pattern and they are going to know who killed who and what happened.
Ridge: Do you think one person could have done this?
Martin: Yes.
Ridge: Okay.
Martin: The reason that I say that, is because hypothetically, we are going to take an eight year old boy, if you take an eight year old child, and you put a position of trust on yourself, where you've got the trust involved in this person, if, that person was sexually molesting that child, you have, three things, one, the child is not telling anybody, so that shows that the child is trusting the perpetrator, the child befriends the perpetrator in certain points. When you have three victims, uh, the perpetrator could have easily uh, being playing a game with the child and because one of the child, or all three of the children at one time, thought that this was okay for the person to molest them or do something to him, they could have been inacting a play role of a game. This in hand, could have involved anything. Could have been plahing {sic} cops and robbers, uh cowboys and indians, doing whatever. The child, I'm saying that the child was tied up, uh because I read in the paper that they were bound. They were tied up before they were killed, so, the perpetrator had to have gotten a trusting form of game, where he could allow these children to be tied up. You have an individual, you have three eight year old boys, one of them could have gotten away, unless they were all playing, you know a game where they could have gotten more less uh, felt non-threatening.
Sudbury: You know a lot of people, child molesters, while you were in the penitentiary in Colorado, what fashion would these people have tied these boys up?
Martin: Yes, some would have
Sudbury: And you yourself, when you were
Martin: Yes, I know some guys who have talen some children and uh, tied to a bed and just raped them, I mean you, and think nothing of it. Like this was okay for them, and it was okay, and then making out that the child wanted it that way.
Sudbury: In your particular case, did
Martin: No, I didn't go through any, In my case, in what happened, what I was convicted of, I turned myself into the a psychiatrist and explained to him, you know, I have a sick problem, that I needed help, I have been on-going molestation to my children, fondling them, uh having uh, a form of fellatio, cunnilingus, you know, I never did have any kind of penetration, uh the children said that they were some anal penetration, with my finger and everything, uh, you know, I can't remember a lot of times when, what we did and all of that. You know, this was many, many most of the times.
Sudbury: But, you, with some of the people that you talked to, said that they would have the type in the bedroom and what would be the fashion that they would have been tied, you think?
Martin: The guy that had done this, who have done it out in the open, uh they would get the child to trust him. They have to make it a game.
Sudbury: Would they bring their own material to tie up with?
Martin: Naturally.
Sudbury: So, they would bring their own material?
Martin: Yeah, not we'll say they don't, Let's say that you're not prepared for this. We are talking, if this was in a sexual manner, okay, and like I said, I don't know
Sudbury: Just for the sake of this conversation, let's say it is.
Martin: Okay, the circumstances is sexual, you have a person that I believe that is not scared. Somehow or another, one of the boys didn't want to do this, and wanted to get away, or he felt, the perpetrator felt uh, things were getting out of hands and he had to control it, all perpetrators have to keep in control. You never let the victim uh, control you, you always have to keep the victim, it's just like when I'm molesting my children, I was the one who controlled them. They knew that it was wrong, in what they were doing, but because of my position I was in, I was able to coerce them
Sudbury: How old were these children?
Martin: How old were my children?
Sudbury: Uh, uh
Martin: Uh, it started when they were eight to 11, something like that, eight to 12, I can't you know, that last years, the exact years. Uh,
Ridge: Do you thing that this is going to be a well organized person or opportunist?
Martin: Oh, this guy knew what he was doing.
Ridge: Well organized?
Martin: Yeah, he's not no dummy. And I am not going to sit here and say, you know, speculation could be that he could do this again, if he's not caught. The probabilities are 80 percent, that he would do this again.
Ridge: Do you think that he's always killed his victims?
Martin: No.
Ridge: What do you think brought on this time?
Martin: Uh, fear, he, somehow or another something went wrong, and he had to kill them to keep them quiet, and he felt that his best interest that, killing them was the best way to go.
Ridge: Do you feel like he
Martin: And, I can tell you this, he did not kill them in the place you found them. He killed them in another place, he drugged them there. He brought them to that point and dropped them there. So, we're talking a person whose capable of carrying, not all three children at the same time, but able to pick them up and take them, so, we're talking, it has to be a male within, and I'm not going to eliminate female, but I would strongly believe that this is mostly a male. Between the ages of 20 to 30.
Ridge: Do you think that this person would ever admit that he did this crime? You say that a lot of people in the
Martin: Uh, this guy is, he's not going to admit, or he might later on eventually, but he's got his pants down and he's caught in the act, but he probably would start squabbling, but at this point and time, I doubt it.
Ridge: He's not going to say anything.
Martin: This is why I'm saying, you're going on almost two or maybe three weeks of this murder, uh, if it was more than three people involved in this, uh, murder, you have too much confidence in people. If all three of us in this room, a week ago, I'll say, just killed three boys, one of us is going to be upset. One of us is going to be kinda nervous, uh one of us is going to be saying something and it's going, we're going to see it on the news, we gonne see it in the papers, it's going to drive us into saying something.
Sudbury: How do you think that this man is feeling or whoever did this, boy, man, woman, or what, how do you think they are feeling about this?
Martin: This man don't give a fuck. He ain't got no remorse.
Sudbury: Proud of himself, feels good about it?
Martin: He feels like he's lucky. He probably feels, that they will never catch me. Uh, but he got, uh, he has gotten to have left something, everybody, I'll tell you, this was told to me and I read it in a book, called, Daddy's Girl, uh, you have three people that know who killed each person, and three of them aren't talking and that's the bottom line. If you have more that two people somebody is going to talk. If you have two people involved in this murder, if you have two perpetrators, that would be the maximun I would say, because those two could really keep a little, cause they could probably keep themselves up, you know, man I, you know, I'm not going to worry about it, they would try to slide it off. Those would be the two who were really uh, both would be sick individuals, but they would probably have no remorse for it.
Sudbury: These kind of people clean up after themselves very well? Or they would just drop what they have there and done
Martin: This looks like a sloppy murder for one, you're talking I mean, if, this guy, the reason why he put these kids in this ditch, is to uh, to eliminate the bodies, to cover them up.
Sudbury: Do you know where the bodies were located?
Martin: I heard about it, I don't know the exact point and detail. I, but, I'm saying that the bodies were found in a total different place than they were murdered.
Sudbury: Why do you feel that way?
Martin: From reading in the newspapers, cause I don't have any information with the police and never told me anything, I'm going on this as speculation and from I've read and heard. The bodies were found in a ravine, I guess, or some form of place, where they were covered with water. You had multiple of people in search of these three boys, nothing was found, I mean, you're saying that they were beating, my understanding is that they were beating very drastically, I mean, all most brutally amongst the head and various area of the body, there is going to be a lot of blood somewhere along the line there is going to be some blood, I mean you cannot
noone is going to sit here and tell me, you can take and beat up or bust the heads of three boys and all of them are going to sit up straight and the blood is just going to run out of their bodies, they were laid down somewhere, somewhere they were going to fall off or they were going to be put in something. Now a guy is just not going to bust these three boys and throw them right there, it's just not possible. He's going to want to move the bodies. If I had to take, and I go by the area, you know, thinking that you know my head, cause you know I mean, if you have to think like this man, you have to be sick individual, and I was myself sick, so I can think like this guy. I would say, the last person that see him was somewhere around Goodwin uh, this place could be in the fields in that area and this within, or say 200 hundred feet or where the bodies were found, you'll find the place where the murders took place. You will find the area. I would say that 90 percent of it would be in a secluded area. I mean, if this guy, if he was trying to molest these kids, he wants to be kind of a hidden scene, he don't want people to just walk up and say what's the hell going on here. He wants that isolated location. When you take three individual boys, let's say that one of them didn't want to participate, so the person, that's trying to coerce them they are starting to get upset, the child starts to get upset, well naturally to say that if one child gets upset, the other one starts to get upset, because now the children can feel remorse, where the perpetrator can't. He can't feel, you know he's molesting, you know he has no feelings. So, let's say that two of the boys starts to get upset, and the guy is trying his best to calm them down, it's like, you know chill-out. Well he gets to be in a threatening situation, uh he feels to himself that well, damn if someone catches me what I'm doing, God, you know all molestors heve stories. They are going to hang you by your balls, your nuts are going to be cut off, your going to shot with a pellet gun, uh, somebody is going to beat the shit out of you, you are going to go to prison, you will be tormented for the rest of your life, so naturally he's going to take a evasive action. He would probably most likely, kill all three individuals.
Ridge: At one point I want to ask you about, what do you think should be done to a person that has done something like this?
Martin: Psychiatric treatment is not going to help. You can give this psychiatric you know, this guys is beyond any treatment. And putting him away for the rest of his life, that's not going to do the system no justice, this guy, if he was to turn himself in, and try to show that he was, he is going to try and straighten his life out, I would say, he is a good candidate for a rehabilitation program or counseling. This guy, the way he's acting and the way, from my understanding of the murders and everything, this guy is beyond, I mean, he's, he don't even match the criminalogy of uh, I forget the guys name in Milwaukee, who killed all of them people and ate them this guy.
Ridge: So, you're out in the woods and you're wanting to have sex with these kids, how would you have tied them in order for you to, they would be tied up and you still have sex with them?
Martin: How would I tie them? There could be a lot of different ways. Anything specifically, I mean tie them behind their back
Sudbury: How would you tie them where it would be expose for you to get to them?
Martin: Well, I would tie them with their hands behind their backs, uh, I would tie their feet in, you know, where their feet are together in a straight out, you know, straight pattern. Uh, this way, their penis would be more less exposed, uh I can't really speculate that this guy is going to have anal sex with them. Uh, the possibility is great, but I don't know, I don't know the victims. You know, if I don't know if they had anal sex done to them, you know, I don't know if this was the case and most likely he would have to tie them in a fashion where, he could have anal sex. Uh, 90 percent of all your male child molestors, I'm saying male, we're talking to a boy
Ridge: Male victims
Martin: Male victims, right, uh they don't want to have anal sex with them because it leaves to much uh, scaring and evidence, so you want to take, he would probably most likely take his penis and rub up between the crack, you know the butts and, you know have, semen or just whatever and shoot it off like that or whatever.
Sudbury: So, how would you make penetration? What other kind of sex would he want to have?
Martin: He may, he could have tied them up like that, have their hands tied behind their backs and forced them to give him a blow job. You know, tell them, this is what, you know, if we're playing a game, uh if I was playing a game and acted this out, I would say that we were playing some form of cops, robbers, indians or whatever, you know it could be anything. We have a vast amount of games role model of things. He could have made it out because we have a lot of things showing on TV, that it could instill in these kids, that you know, you got to do this because, you know, you're the one that's tied up, and afterwards you know, you get with me or you get to hold me down and you get to capture me or something like that, but anyway, he would have probably got them to uh, give him a blow job
Sudbury: Do you think maybe during the course of the events, he just got carried away and accidently killed these boys?
Martin: No, he didn't accidently kill these boys. This was not anything
Sudbury: You're saying he knew that he was going to kill them when he went into the woods with them?
Martin: Yeah.
Sudbury: Or where ever he went with them.
Martin: No, don't get me wrong, I mean I am not saying that he had it premeditated, that he was going to kill them, no
Sudbury: Circumstances change
Martin: Circumstances changed this. I am not saying that he was doing something and he accidentaly killed one of the boys, and all of a sudden he decided he had to do these two, no. I am not going to speculate that, you know he, let's say, one of the boys didn't want to participate, and he said, you're going to do this, and if you don't do what the fuck I tell you, and I'm going to beat your fucking brains out, and he was just all hyper and the boys, he just hauls off and hits them. That's not a perpetrator, that's child molestors. They are unique birch individuals. They have got to play down on the children, they have got to be children themselves. Being over the wrong bullies, that's when that male or the men, or the beast inside of them takes over. That's when they start abusing them physically. Most of your child molestors aren't going to physically abuse they are trying to have sex with them, not trying to cause them to where they never do it again. 90 percent of you child molestors, if I molested this child, I don't want the child to run away, I want to child to come back so I can have sex with him.
Sudbury: Do you think most child molestors were victims themselves at one point or time?
Martin: 100 percent.
Sudbury: Were you?
Martin: Yes, I would say that every child molestor I've ever talked with in some form of fashion, he had some form of child trauma, whether it was physical, sexual, mental, they had some form of child problems during their time, when they were growing up, and this, is, but now you got to understand, let's say we take a physical person who, that this man may have not been a child molestor, just say that he was a physical child abuser, you know, he abuses his children. Let's just say that he knew them and these children hypothetically caught him doing something, well, bad boys get punished. And so,
Sudbury: Are you saying that they stumbled over something that he was doing?
Martin: Well, it could have happened, I'm leaving the sexual role here, because you know, not every case is sexual. We have to go to another part. Let's say that this is just a regular physical child abuser. His mind is going to be and I've dealt with these kind of people too, his mind is that they, let's say that he was free basing cocaine out in the woods, hypothetically, you know, it is probable, it could have happened. They stumbled onto, well this guy is a drug environment and his mind is not even thinking straight, all of a sudden he thinks that these children have caught him, you know and they are on bicycles or he doesn't know what to do, they know him and they see him and he's scared that they are going to tell somebody that they caught him doing this and he may get into trouble, so what is he going to do? He doesn't really have an argument with them, but he scares the shit out of these kids and they just do whatever he says. Now, the probability of that, is like what I've talked with my wife about, cause she brought that up, and I said, that's possible but, the light ain't correct.Cause if you got three boys, one could get away, they know these woods, I mean they're like living, breathing area for them. They've been in there a thousand of times, they know the ins and outs. They know exactly how to get away, they'll just (puff) one can escape and run for help. We are talking three boys, who were cub scouts or boy scouts, or whatever, who were honored, and got and if you psychologically looked at each child, each one were unique, so we're talking an individual who could have just in advertly confused these three boys minds, that you know, made them in his priority of the den, where he could have killed them, or molest them or whatever else he wanted to do with them.
Ridge: Well, let me ask you a question. Did you have anything to do with the murder of these children?
Martin: No.
Ridge: Okay, have you been in that area of the woods?
Martin: I have not been in the area of the woods, I have been to Barton from McAuley, from McAuley up to I don't know what, the end of the road where they got them yellow things stretched over, I've been down there, on over to Goodwin and rode, I just saw a scenic area of view, because psychologically, in my opinion, if I had a lot of the evidence, I could probably put the jigsaw puzzle together that you all are looking for, to capture this guy, because you got to think like this individual. You got to think, you know, you got to think, sick.
Ridge: Do you have any objection in taking a polygraph examination?
Martin: No.
Ridge: Okay.
Sudbury: Are you any kind of doctor
Martin: Do I see a doctor?
Sudbury: Are you seeing one now, for any kind of medication?
Martin: No.
Sudbury: No, I mean for physical reasons or mental reasons?
Martin: No, no.
Sudbury: You're not seeing any kind of professional help at this time? Are you on any kind of medication?
Martin: I am not on any kind of medication or drugs or anything like that, no.
Ridge: The purposes of elimination, say, a month from now or two weeks from now, whenever, somebody says that there is a guy about 5'3", about 145 pounds, that they saw pull up to the end of McAuley in a little blue car, you didn't do anything, but you just look odd sitting there on the end of the street, alright, you told us that you were there, do you have any objections to us taking your photograph?
Martin: No.
Ridge: Alright, how about
Martin: I can say that I've been there, you know, I've been there twice.
Ridge: Okay, would there be any reason at all, for your fingerprints to have been down in that area?
Martin: No.
Ridge: You didn't, you didn't throw out any cans or nothing like that?
Martin: No, my fingerprints, I can honestly tell you my fingerprints, my foot prints, my nothing, no part whatsoever, my physical body has never been in the wooded area. The last time, you know, that's the far I've ever been to McAuley, that's the first time is when I went down there to look and I can tell you the two days that I've gone. I went there one night, uh it was, I was on my way to Flash Market and I just thinking about something, I got to thinking, I said, you know, these boys had been troubling my mind, every since it happened, because I'm thinking to myself, you know, you all are not going to catch this guy, you are not going to catch him. The only person that is going to catch this sick mother fucker is somebody like me, he's a sick, possessed goofy, stupid mother fucker. Cause this is who you are talking about, is a fucked up person.
Sudbury: Do you think you're fucked up, is that your opinion?
Martin: Well, I am not fucked up to the point where you know, that I am going to do anything, you know, okay
Sudbury: Do you still have the desire to touch children, do you still have those thoughts?
Martin: Every child molestor have these thoughts.
Sudbury: Are you still capable of doing something like that? I don't necessarily mean to do anything with this?
Martin: Oh,
Ridge: Do you fantasize about it, say it that way?
Martin: M-m, yeah I fantasize
Sudbury: Do you have children?
Martin: Yeah, I have children
Sudbury: Are they your children?
Martin: No, that they are my step-children, but you can bring them in here and I've never touched them, I've told them everything about me, they know, their mother knows, everything. Uh, these children
Sudbury: Since this incident that happened to these boys, how does that make you feel inside? Are you angry, does it make you sick, or do you have any feelings about it one way or the other?
Martin: It really upsets me, because one, psychologically, it hurts me, because I am trying to be better. If you looked at my past before I went to prison and after I got out of prison, my whole life style has changed. I mean I could never keep a job. I been at W.B.Davis where I've been able to take two vacations, I work at Flash Market, I keep myself busy. I do a lot of things, I don't make a lot of money, I'm trying to make it. I'm struggling, uh I have bills just like everybody else. And there are times where I have thought, I'd rather be in prison, you know, I've admitted things like that, but what this guy did, puts a big thing against people like me, who are trying to change. You know we have child molestors out there, who are fucked up.
Sudbury: You weren't really surprised when we got around to talking to you, are you? You said
Martin: Yeah, I was very surprised. When she told me that I was like, why would they
Sudbury: You said that you had thought about calling us at one time.
Martin: Yeah.
Sudbury: What kept you from doing that?
Martin: Well, my wife told me in one way, James these people went to school, they are criminologists, and they are this, you know, you, they would laugh you off the phone if, and think you are some psycho nut and I'm thinking to myself, well that's who in the fuck that they are looking for, it's some psycho nut in the first place. But, I thought to myself, yeah, she's right, you know, if I would try to come to you all with some kind of cock-amamy story, saying look, I can kinda help you all find this guy, you know, but I have to have information just like you all have to have information. I can't sit here and criminally think to myself that this is the way it goes. We are talking in a similar case of, well I'm not saying it was book written, or movie made, Silence of the Lamb. I mean if you take it, they had to go to this individual, who is a sick psycho individual to get information. But this guy was explained, they realize how to come about that and they were able to apprehend things, even though this guy being himself, might give him away. I am not at any point that I am in a position where I am trying to take anything or get anything out of it. I want that, the lives of these three boys, you know, they had no fucking choice and any child molester, who goes out and kill, that's the disgrace to all of it, he just makes every child molester in America just sick, because we don't want to kill them, we wanted to be a perpetrator. We were wanting to have sex with them. We were in a form, I know that this sound crazy, but you all have got to understand, but you got to think like this. And, this guy if he was sexually molesting them in the first place, he went over the line, far, I mean he just went over and killed them and wipped them out and that's not a perpetrator, and that's not every sexual molester that I've dealt with that you know, but we would go, but there are guys like that.
Sudbury: What kind of person would have sex, and I am not saying that this is the case, but after they were dead, they had sex with them.
Martin: Who would
Sudbury: What kind of person are we dealing with then?
Martin: There are guys out there. There are knicker, who are just child knickerphiliac, child molester knickerphiliacs, who just, you know, they have a strong belief of not enough sex. I've met some of those guys. I mean we are talking, these are guys who just, they like to kill their victims while performing sex with them. While they are fucking them or whatever you want to call it. They just want to, I mean, picking their brains out and all, choking them to death or taking something like leather and strangling them or cutting them or stabbing them or something.
Sudbury: Is this kind of person going to keep a trophy of his conquered quest or, something
Martin: It is a possibility, I mean he could, any sick individual could do anything, he could have cut a finger off, he could have blugged them, he could have taken something out of them, he could have taken something that belonged to them. Uh, like I understand that supposedly three bicycles that they were riding, only two have been found or something. This is speculation, I don't know. Uh, he could have took one of their bicycles, as a trophy of it, you know. People like that would do anything.
Sudbury: What would he take that would be more personal to that person? An article of clothing or, you said finger or body parts, or
Martin: Body parts, clothing
Sudbury: Would that be his trophy? Would that be his, I mean in deer hunting, you would hang your
Martin: Yeah, I understand what you are saying. Yeah. he could be what they call, in a, we psycologically call it a well a guy in my position, and most child molesters call it, a gift, you know, uh, or a everlasting love. Uh, he could have taken something that he felt was uh, something that belonged to them. It had to be something that actually belonged to the child, I mean a ring or something like that, you know, that would mean that he would be trying to hock something in a burglary, I mean he would have to take something that was dearly beloved. You know, if he was going to do that sort of thing. Uh, we had a saying in most cases, uh most of your child molesters, they have the saying called, ate before their 7 and that means that, the child was molested before he ever reached seven years old. He was probably molested uh, he could have been anywhere between the age of one year, to seven years. When they get to be 8 years old, you have a total different mind of a child. The mind of that child is that they are more apprehension, they know a little bit more, they more knowledgeable.
Sudbury: Know right from wrong
Martin: Right, uh it's hard for you to molest an eight or nine year old child, or ten year old child. You really have to be in a position of trust. I mean if you were, if this was just a basic thing, looking at the fathers, step-fathers, something like that. It's possible they could be involved. It could be that they done something and psychologically, they are not going to admit it. They suppress it. Their child may be dead, they may have killed their own child, but even God made Abraham or whatever, tried to kill his own child. And was told to do that, you know. I've met guys in there that had done those things, you know. You know, just do their children in, just killed them, you all know that. There have been hundreds of cases where parents have killed their own childs for no apparent reason. Uh, it don't have to be just any type of person, like I said before, this is not a transit, this is not some guy that just walked into town and he's gone. I mean my boss thinks, that this guy just left, he's, you know, fuck you, bullshit, no way. This guy lives in the city of West Memphis, he breathes the same air as we do.
Sudbury: Do you think that he lives close to where this happened?
Martin: Oh, naturally.
Sudbury: Within walking distance?
Martin: Most probability.
Sudbury: Would he be the kind of guy that would be real familiar with the area?
Martin: Oh yeah, he probably knew the area.
Sudbury: He probably played in the hills when he was growing up?
Martin: Probably, yeah. There is a strong
Sudbury: And he still play in the hills?
Martin: Yeah, may still do
Sudbury: Is he the kind of guy that might would want to go back and gloat over what he's done.
Martin: Oh, yes, he could do that too
Sudbury: Feel the good that he got out of it, if he would go back
Martin: You can, every victim, every perpetrator that you have, always go back, always thinks back to that incident. It never leaves their minds. I can sit here and tell you the date and the time I molested my children, for the last time. You know, I can take you to the house and I haven't been there in two and a half years, five years, cause when I got out of prison at the state of Colorada, well I actually went to Mississippi and met my wife and moved to West Memphis. I left Colorado to start my life over again, because I said, I needed to learn, you know, to get my life straight and start over. Now, this guy, he lives right there. He's beggin to be caught.
Sudbury: Do you think that a person like that would come to a breaking point as you did? That will never happen, or
Martin: He will kill before he does, you will find yourself with another, I am not going to say multiple murder, I am not going to say the same MO
Sudbury: Now, all of these boys were white
Martin: Yeah
Sudbury: Does this guy gonna follow with his own race?
Martin: That's a very hard situation
Sudbury: Would they stay within their own race? Black on black, white on white?
Martin: Yeah, some most. Well, the pigmentality on this is you to remember, you got to get in a position of trust. We live in a day and age of racism, so most of your boys molesters that are hangin around uh, would say a white boy hanging around black
Sudbury: The molester couldn't be a opportunist? I'm in the woods, this kid comes up, one by himself, uh, here's my chance of doing what I feel like doing, do they have to know them? Or does it have to be a child?
Martin: Most of your, most of all your child molesters, I would say there are ten percent, all the molesters in the world, molest the ones that they don't know.
Sudbury: Well, the molester had a choice of three, why would he pick out one in particular one to go further with?
Martin: Uh
Sudbury: Cause he knew him better, he was the most frightened, uh he fought the hardest, uh
Martin: You're saying in the condition of the murder, the actual murder or the killing.
Sudbury: Or the sex acts, why would he pick out
Martin: One of the three boys? I'm saying that he may have known one of the three boys only, and
Sudbury: That's the point of this scenerio here, this is what happened, but there was three boys, would he have more attention to one of them, if he knew him, or because he had more fear, and he drives off the fear of
Martin: Possibility, strong possibility of that. Uh jealousy is not even in the mind of a child molester. This boy or this girl, or whatever, wanted to be molested, and he had siblings or friends or whatever, uh he's not going to be partial to one, cause his sexual
Sudbury: What are we going to ask this person that would trip his trigger so to speak, if we are in a position to talk to him? What's going to set him off? What's going to make him offensive, what's going to set him off
Martin: To adverse psychology of this guy, the child molester is weak that the thrill, the realization is not as great, the anticipation is not as real as the realization. It's that form of method. Uh, you would make it out like uh, you know, it wasn't as great as you thought it was or, you know, damn you know, we talked to the parent or something and you know, that this is be going on, if the guy was a true sex molester, uh and it just bugged him out that his parents were molesting him, he would be sitting there
Ridge: Let me ask you a question, what is his ultimate goal, self satisfaction, what do you think this perpetrator's ultimate goal was, self satisfaction or making himself feel that he's satisfied the child?
Martin: Making himself feel like he's satisfied the child. Every chold molester wants to satisfy the child, so the child can come back.
Ridge: Okay, how do you think that he would have achieved that goal?
Martin: By doing whatever he felt that the children wanted him to do.
Ridge: Do you think making the child trust him, was the satisfaction that he would have gotten?
Martin: Oh, yeah, if he got the child into a, let's say that me and you were friends, and you know, we've seen each other a few times and we got together a little bit and I came up to you like, man I like, I'm not trying to feel crazy about this, but you know, I've always wanted to do something with you. And you know, we are friends, you know, I understand how it goes, you know, that sort of thing. He's going to place himself where the child feels more comfortable, where the child maybe, let's say the child, hyperthetically, we're just going to pick one of the parents, we'll pick uh, Branch's father, here's a person whose not really the child's father. He's not the biological father, he's with the child, he plays with this child, he's almost taken care of this child til when he's grown up, and him and his wife has marital problems, the child is sitting over there and the child, and he know that he can rub his leg or he could do, he could go and do things together, they go out together, they really become close friends, in one sense. Well, let's just say that during the time the male, the man, decides it's not like, it comes out like, I'm going to molest you right now, you know, it's a working, it's an art to it. I mean you've got to sit there and go over your mind how you want to handle this, as if something happens, how do you back off, how do you make it out safely, as you've got to inadvertible make the child think that, what you are doing is okay, but, let's just say that he's gotten to that point, the child feels a little apprehensive at first, but he's going to let the child breath a little bit, I mean he's going to give the child more satisfaction. He's not going to, even though he's satisfying himself, he wants the child, to be extremely satisfied as that he keeps his mouth shut. I mean we are not talking here, I've give you a cookie if you keep your mouth shut, alright, here's $5.00, you don't say nothing to your mother, we're talking a guy, who could be the average joe, who could sit there and you can talk the child into doing whatever what he wants. Well, if you can get the child to stop that, well let's just say that Branch and his two buddies, they played together and run around together and everything, and they went to that area that they were murdered in and they, their stepfather goes out there or whatever, and he's out there and he plays with them and he does a lot of things with these boys and he advertily, you know does things with the child, that the other boy's see, and this uh, Branch says, uh you know, such n such, they were wondering about this you know, blaugh, blaugh, well, he feels though they understand over there and they sit down there talking and now, let's say that the man feels, that oh-oh, there, I might get caught and he's going to go to the police, they're going to go to the Dept. of Human Social, they're going to take away my wife, they're going to take away my child, they're going to take everything I've worked for, everything is going to be going off like a volcano. Just cave in like an earthquake, so he's got them out there and he's talking to them and he just apprehensive about it, and just wham, kills one of them, and he can't stop there, because that's just like stopping out here and putting a gun to you, you're going to sit there and say, you know, I won't say nothing, I won't say nothing, I promise, I won't say nothing, no, I have to shoot you too. So, he does a double offense, and he done killed all three of them. Even though he and psychologically, I use Branch not because, I use Branch for one reason, I use that child because it worries me, that he's more jumpy to go the press, he's more jumpy to go to the news media, where the Moores they don't want nobody, just get out of my life, you know, look what happened to my child, you know. This is the typical upset family, but the Branch's are making it out like you know, I want this son of a bitch caught, you know, this blaugh, blaugh. The Byers are in a similar area, but the reason I say Branch is because uh, this is not his biological child, now. This is a child that he has gotten with because of the mother. So, remorsefully, technically he would not be killing his own child. I was just using that hyperthetically. I am not saying that Mr. Branch did it, because that wouldn't be my way of doing it. Now, if I got around in certain areas and I found out more information, and the suspect felt, cause this, is hyperthetically saying a situation like this, if I would push on a suspect, it would have to be somebody extremely close.
Ridge: You said that these folks really are satisfied through the satisfaction of the child or they are feeling that they are satisfying the child
Martin: They are satisfying the child, power and control is a child molester's most powerful weapon.
Ridge: Talking about the power thing, you think it's necessarily a sexual thing or a power thing? There might be a difference.
Martin: Yeah, that's like, it's a sexual molestation in it, power and control in a child abusers uh opinions you know, if it's physical abused, the physical aspect in the power. The physical beating is the power, the sexual molestation is the power, the mental draining is the power, these are all the powers and controls. Uh, manipulation, manipulating the whole thing is the key, I mean that's the key to power and control. It's
Sudbury: Wouldn't that be torture?
Martin: Oh yes, yes
Ridge: The torture part of it could be sexual also?
Martin: Yes,
Ridge: Do you think that the perpetrator under that
Martin: You got to realize that sexuality of any perpetrator whether it's a rapist, whether it's a child moleter, whether it's a _________, whatever kind of sexual perverted person you want to think, this world is covered with sexual perversions. I mean we have people who don't care if they are married and they run around on their wives, because why, they think that it's okay, no, because they are sexual perverting that point that they don't feel that way, but it's a form of sexual longing, because what are they getting out og the other woman. It ain't love, they say it's love, they say, they're only getting sex, because they are married to another person. If they didn't love this person, when they get married to them then they would get rid of them, if they say it's okay, we got to get a divorce, I'm going here. And when you got a person that say, leaves their wife, for this other woman, he left her, she's out of the picture, okay he didn't really love his wife, because he got rid of her, he may have loved her or thought he loved her, but now he loves this other person, so it's a switch, and you know, we can't turn love off like hot and cold water, it don't work that way. You have to feel something. Well in every sexual perversion, even in murders, even in cold blooded murders, guy got a nut, he'll have too, I mean if anybody that walks up and a stalker for instance, we'll use a stalker, okay this is the big thing now, as people say. Stalkers are having an orgasm just by stalking the prey. It's like the hunt, you guys hunt, do you ever go deer hunting, you know how you sit in the tree and you've been sitting in that deer stand and you may have a bow and arrow, cause that's what most of the guys use, cause that's when the drilling pumps up, cause when you pull back that bow, knowing that you're going to hit this deer, when you pull back the drilling is pumped. You are getting an extreme high, in all form as well as, they call it in a sexual way, your drilling has been pumped up. Whatever all these sexual things in the back of the brain that causes you to have these sexual desires and it makes you overwhelmed when your sexual fantasy, they are all combined in the same group. So, you let go of that arrow and it hits that deer, when you know that you hit the deer, you feel a boom, you just got your orgasm right then. You just had it, well when the deer runs off, and you got to stand and trace and look around, now you're playing the investigative game, now you got to find the deer. Well, when you finally find the deer, then you feel the uh, manly beast of yourself, then you feel like the hunt is over, the deer is dead, it's over with, now you go, now you go to another one, or you do something else. Uh, it's over with, does a person have remorse for killing a deer, no, I mean this is a psychological profile of this guy did this, three murders. He's, to him it's like a hunt, he's done got an orgasm off of this, I mean, I know what I'm saying, he's really got, you know, and probably during the killing, it probably made him even more angered. I mean, he probably, just by the way of the beatings, this guy probably, after he did one, he just extremely switched that switch in his head, and he just, to him he didn't even know it. I mean, it's like it didn't even happen. I mean now, with the media, he's like he could be, he could be sitting there watching the media and saying damn, that's a crazy individual, hell, that son of a bitch. He could be any John Doe. The evidence is going to prove, because he's got to leave something, he's got to leave a trail, cause everybody does. And almost
Ridge: Let me ask you a question. Do you consider yourself to be above average, average or greatly above average intelligence?
Martin: Average
Ridge: You're average. Okay, you are talking to insights into people's minds, is this just a hobby of yours, how they think about things or is this just how you think about yourself?
Martin: I have to sit here, I would I go about this. You know I, you know, I've done time in prison. I, I, you know, I was convicted for a sexual molestation.
Sudbury: What was your breaking point, why did you finally say this is enough, this is not right, I am going to tell on myself? I am going to confess to this. What made you
Martin: I, was sitting there and it happened on May 16, 1988, I had just got to a point where my wife was sitting there saying, you know, she was upset, she was saying, and my mind was thinking of this, you know, I'm going yes, I am doing this, God, you know, and I thought back to one incident, and that was the incident where I, where I was sexually assaulting my step-daughter. I had fondled her, I had performed condylegus on her, I had her to give me a blow job, I had everything going, and I was sitting there playing with her, and I could feel my fingers sliding in and I pulled out, cause she you could tell that she was jumping back and it was causing her some pain, and at that point, it was like, this demon inside of me, that said, oh, yes, I am going to get this, this is mine. I going to comfort, and when I tried it again, I kept insisting, and she stopped me, you know, I just said, okay and I had gotten such an enormous high, as they say, out of it, when I, cause at the time she was masturbating me and I was masturbating myself and masturbating her and all of that, cause when I ejaculated and everything, I mean I was just all over the place and then afterwards, you know I came to the realization of what I was doing. During that time when a person is ejaculates and everything, their penis dies down and everything, then it comes back and it's like, they just come back to reality, and I sat there, and went downstairs, and my stepson wanted to know when was his turn, basically because uh, he knew that it was a switch off and on. And, I didn't know exactly what to do, so I said, okay, uh what do you want to do, and he, was throwing things around, you know, well I could give you a blow job, or blaugh, blaugh, blaugh, and he ended up having anus sex with me. Well, it was about 2:00 in the morning and the went to bed, my wife came in from working, and I was laying down on the bed and everything, half asleep, she kinda woke me up and playing with me, and everything, and she said, you know, she was extremely hot and all of this, blaugh. blaugh, and I ended up having sex with her, and when I did, I started having anus sex with her, and my mind flashed back to when her son, just got through fucking me in the ass, so it was kinda another high all of a sudden. So, here I am fucking my wife in the ass, thinking about my son, fucking me in the ass, and it went on, and we had intercourse and then, I went up, and when I got up the next morning, I went in there to tell my stepdaughter, be quiet, don't say anything about what happened, cause my wife was standing in the door, and she was wondering, what the hell was I doing whispering to her, what was I whispering about, cause she knew what was going on. She knew I had been having all of this sex molesting. And, I just made, nothing, don't worry about it, so, I left and went to work, and she was upset cause she said that she knew what was going on. And, she said, you need to get some help, you've got to do something and I sat there in the car and I thought about it over and over, and I said, she's right. She is so right, I am having fantasies about having doing something with my stepson, and while I'm doing it with her and doing it with my stepdaughter and, where is it going to lead too, you know, so I said, I've got to go and get some help. So, I went to a psychiatrist and I told him and the next thing you know, I was on my way to prison.
Sudbury: Does a person generally do, a person that has been sexually abused do to their victim what was done to them? Or does it have any bearing on it?
Martin: It don't have no bearing, I mean, it all starts off as being a
Sudbury: What would you ask this person, if you really felt like this person had something to do with this. What would you ask him, what would be your first question? After you got the bullshit out of the way, who are you and what's your name and all of that? What is your question
Martin: How would I question him? One, I would ask uh, the questions that I would ask of a suspected person, would be the number one question: the main question would be what do you think about, we're saying a child molesting okay, what do you think about a guy who sexually assaults a child? What do you think about an individual who, you know, that does something with a child, you know and be derogatory, don't be, don't come up, be derogatory, cause most child moleters get offended by you know, statements, like baby maker, uh a kiddie bopper, uh sexual perverted individual, making it where, make the guy you know, think, you know, cause if this guy really is a child molester, he's going to take offensive, you know, not me, cause I know I am a sex offender, I know I am a child molester, so it can't bother me. You know, if you want to seat here and say you're a perverted, no good, you know, psycho, you know, fuck you, it don't matter to me, cause I know I am. But, if this guy was that type, he would take very offended conditionally. Make him come out, see what kind of story he's going to give you as being a child molester, because, see, number one, only a child molester knows what a child molester does. I mean I could sit here and go into a room and have it full of guys, who has been convicted of child molestation, but if uh, but he sit there and deny it, you will know it.
Ridge: Do you think there's any questions we would be impelled to ask?
Martin: That's hard to say
Ridge: If I were to ask you, do you
Martin: What you've asked me, no, cause I mean, see you can't ask me any question like that, you know, because if I would hyperthetically say that I murdered these boys, I couldn't be able to come off with any correct answers, or any answers that were bearing for the question. In other words, the person that you would be asking that would be trying to form the question into a question. Say, I was denying, okay, in denial, the guy is going to try and manipulate, you know, he feels that he's in the hot seat, he's gonna try and manipulate the situation, he's being questioned about something now if he has any guilt, whatsoever, he's going to try and put it off, he's going to try and con you into thinking of something else, to inadvertedly, put it off. You know, he can't come off, he's going to try and deny it, try and deny everything, so he can't come out and tell you anything. Certain questions you've got to ask, first of all: if this was a sexual situation uh, ask him derogatory sexual questions, like uh, have you ever molested a child in your life. Don't say have you ever molested a child in life, cause when you're fucking 12 year olds and you've molested this four year old, be like that. Just let him know, cause if they had done it, he's gonna jump, you know, he's, you know, I molested, I molested a child when I was uh 14, 15 years old, I molested a little five year old girl, that's when it all started.
Ridge: You said that you were molested as a child?
Martin: Yeah
Ridge: How were you molested?
Martin: Well, it started off, my father and mother, I was physically abused by my father. Mentally abused by my family and sexually abused by my brother, and his friend.
Ridge: And, how were you sexually abused?
Martin: Uh, I was forced to give a guy a blow job, I was fucked in the ass,
Ridge: How old were you when this started?
Martin: Uh, 7, 6, or 7
Ridge: Do you have problems dealing with that?
Martin: Not now, I did, because I felt like that's what it was all like then. That's why I couldn't explain to nobody. I didn't understand why I was like I was. Now, I know why I was like I was.
Ridge: Is your father still around?
Martin: Oh, yes
Ridge: How do you get along with him now?
Martin: We never talk, it's like uh, he's really in his own world or something.
Ridge: Do you hold it against him?
Martin: No.
Ridge: How about his friends? Even though they're not your relative? Do you hold it against them?
Martin: I don't really know them, I've never seen them again, so you know, I don't hold it against them, no. I don't hold it against them. See, that's the part of it, you got to understand, you got to forgive yourself and forgive those, before you can forgive all of the other stuff, you know. If I can't forgive myself and say okay, I know that I was wrong, what I did to my step children, but I was wrong because of I was also a victim. Somebody hurt me and I hurt them, so it's a dominical effect. We call it a dracula effect. This is why I say he's probably going to do it again. If you don't catch this guy, you probably going to end up having
Ridge: Is there anything else you want to add?
Sudbury: How would this guy react to the questions or obviously whoever did this, wasn't able to please these kids and then he had to kill them? He just couldn't please them.
Martin: What question would you ask a non-pleaser?
Sudbury: Uh, you know, you were
Martin: You see, that's a hard, because you see
Sudbury: Generally being sexual abused and obviously, whoever did this wasn't capable of filling the role, he couldn't please them, so he had to kill them, but would he take offensive to that?
Martin: Not necessarily, because you say, it goes back to that question, it goes back to that answer, you have four people who committed a murder and three of them are not talking, because the problem is how were the boys not satisfied. If he was doing something with them and all of a sudden he knew that this wasn't right, and he wanted it stopped, and he didn't want to stop, or was it
Ridge: What if they were interrupted?
Ridge: Interrupted?
Ridge: You think that he would have kille them to stop from being discovered?
Martin: Yep, cause he had been interrupted, he would have ran, he would have took off, because see, he got to play a cat and mouse game with that, I mean if he was in an isolated area, and somebody come across on this, boom, then naturally you would have the fourth victim on your hand. Well, there is a possibility, let's not judge that that's what took place, let's just, hyperthetically say, he was molesting one child, the other two boys were out running around for their buddy. They came across their buddy, and this boy, this guy, probably say giving him a blow job, and all of a sudden here comes these two boys, and boom, and he, they were like, what the hell are you doing, and the guy, you know, the other boy you know, he got all worried and upset and he, psychologically a child could sit there and think well, all of a sudden you're gay, or uh their buddy seen this and now they think differently of him. So, the guy couldn't, could have been he was doing one and the other two came across and he decided he had to kill all three to keep their mouths shut. Now, that's probable, I am not saying that's what happened, but you got to isolate it all down, I mean to put the jig saw to puzzle with this type of case, you're looking at a river that's got a lot of inlets, and you know, you've got a lot of streams running off of this river, and each time you're going through the process of like me, you've got this man, you go and check this guy out, you bring them in here, you ask him all of these questions, you find out what he knows and you go about, you know. But, I tell you right now, this person that you're looking for uh, this process of elimination thing, is going to take a long time. This guy, he's going to do this again. The reason is, if because he's going to get upset, because with all the stuff that's going on right now, and I'm not saying that it's gonna happen, you know, a week, or it's going to happen next month, it might even happen within two years, but it's going to happen again, until this guy is caught.
Ridge: Okay, we are about ready to conclude this interview, uh, do you have any objections, of course you've been advised, you have the constitutional right not to give any samples, now you don't have too, do you have any problems in giving hair samples, or blood samples?
Martin: Nope
Ridge: Okay
Martin: The reason why is that I know, I am not involved in this
Ridge: I understand, just in case somebody says. this person may have had something to do with it.
Sudbury: This is for process of elimination and you know, that as treacherous as this is, that's about
Martin: Now, off record, can you all ask me a few questions? That curious me.
Ridge: I really don't have the authority to, because we got particulars about this case, that we cannot give, now if you have something that's general information, right now, maybe I can give you a yes or no.
Sudbury: -----------the only person that know exactly what went on in that area, like you said yourself, it's four people?
Martin: And three are dead
Sudbury: And we've already, and we don't want some proof to show up and say, I did all of this, unless he knows these exact things and occurrences, he couldn't have done it. Well, it will only be one person that will have that knowledge to even tell us
Martin: You're not going to get this guy come in and admit to it. The only way you're going to find this guy, the only
Ridge: I figure the only way is exactly what we are doing, is just taking samples and comparing to what we got,
Sudbury: Scientifically
Martin: That's a good idea
Sudbury: If he does this again, he does this again
Martin: But here's the thing, you are going to have a guy who is going to come in, you going to be questioning him, and he might refuse to give these things, you know I don't have to, I have the right, and I have enough witnesses that knows where the hell I was at the time that the whole thing happened, so I mean, there is no reason for me to be guilty, I
Ridge: Let me see the bottom of your shoes for just a minute, just so I'll know.
Martin: Okay, and these are not the only shoes I wear
Ridge: Oh, I understand that
Martin: You've got to realize that.
Ridge: I'm going to conclude the interview and we are going to set up a polygraph examination and these samples, no problems.
