Before the undersigned Notary Public, duly qualified and acting in and for said county and state, appeared Lyndall Stout, to me well known to be the affiant herein, who stated the following under oath:
1. My name is Lyndall Stout. I reside in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. My date of birth is XX-XX-1973.
2. I am a television reporter with station WBRE in northeastern Pennsylvania. I formerly worked as a reporter for station KARK in Little Rock, Arkansas.
3. In May of 2005, I was the principal reporter on a three part special report run by KARK on the West Memphis Three case. The May 2005 report was a follow up on an earlier report I had done for KARK two years earlier.
4. The May 2005 report addressed, among other topics, the issue of juror misconduct raised by defendant Echols for the first time in pleadings filed on his behalf in both state and federal court in the fall of 2004. Because some allegations in these pleadings concerned Kent Arnold, the jury foreman at the 1994 trial of Echols and Jason Baldwin, I decided to interview Mr. Arnold in preparing my report.
5. I spoke with Mr. Arnold on or about April 12, 2005. I went to his real estate office in Jonesboro in person to speak with him and to request an interview for my story. He declined to be interviewed on camera, but did agree to speak with me off camera for about 20-30 minutes. We spoke inside his downtown office that I believe also includes a furniture/interior design store operated by his wife.
6. We discussed various aspects of the case and the trial. Mr. Arnold stated that despite being instructed not to discuss matters not in evidence, he and other jurors talked about the Miskelley confession in their deliberations. When I asked him why they did so, Mr. Arnold said information about the confession had been in the newspapers and on the local TV stations. He said everyone knew about it anyway and he did not see a problem talking about it. I also asked him if he was aware of allegations that the Misskelley confession was inaccurate, had been coerced or had been recanted. Mr. Arnold said it did not matter.
7. Mr. Arnold asked me to keep most of the information we discussed out of my story and I agreed. He did not, however, ask for a promise of confidentiality, nor did I give him one.
8. After our discussion, I met Mr. Arnold's wife on my way out of his office. She also discussed the case with me briefly and said that at the time of the trial everyone knew Echols and Baldwin were guilty because they were "devil worshipers." I asked her how she knew this and she said something like, "you could just tell by looking at them."
9. I left and have had no other contact with Mr. Arnold before or since our conversation in April of 2005.
