From "Blood on Black":
"I'm Going to Kill you, I'M Going to Rip Your eyes out"
In his book “Life After Death,” Damien claimed that the only act of violence he ever committed was a fight at school. Echols minimized the attack as just a typical schoolyard confrontation. Not so.
It was serious enough that, months later, in February 1993, when the other boy in the fight, Shane Divilbiss, had gone missing, foul play was suspected because Echols had made threat...
From "Blood on Black":
"I'm Going to Kill you, I'M Going to Rip Your eyes out"
In his book “Life After Death,” Damien claimed that the only act of violence he ever committed was a fight at school. Echols minimized the attack as just a typical schoolyard confrontation. Not so.
It was serious enough that, months later, in February 1993, when the other boy in the fight, Shane Divilbiss, had gone missing, foul play was suspected because Echols had made threats on Divilbiss’s life. Eventually Divilbiss turned up unharmed.
Divilbiss, 18, gave a statement to West Memphis Detective Mike Allen on June 17: “Alright, I was going to school and met Deanna Holcomb and in turn Damien Echols. Because they were boyfriend, girlfriend at the time, I began to hang around with them.
“I spoke with Damien Echols on several occasions just like friends, then emotional things began to develop between me and Deanna Holcomb. She broke up with Damien and soon went out with me, which led Damien to believe I had stolen Deanna from him. He threatened to kill Deanna, threatened to kill several of my family members, just not my uncle, but several others. He threatened to kill me and then later came up behind me in the hallway while I was at my locker.
“I knew he was back there so I just started to walk. I didn't look at him or anything. He jumped on me from behind draggin’ me down to the ground and clawing at my face with his fingernails. He uh, people was saying he was trying to rip my eyes out and my the scars is what it looked like. When I got up I turn around and I was going to fight but he was being held down by several of the people that were in the hallway witnessing it so I didn't have to.”
Echols routinely filed his fingernails into one and a half inch-long points.
Echols was suspended while Divilbiss was allowed back in class.
“One of the threats was against my uncle, whom had told him that if he had fought with me that my uncle would jump into (the fight),” said Divilbiss.
Echols “threatened him by say if he jumped in, he cut him to pieces and bury him in Deanna’s front yard.” The uncle was 16-year-old Kyle Perkins, also a student at Marion High.
“Most of (the threats) were generally just short, you know, like, I'm going to kill you or you know, like, when he had me down on the ground he said, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to rip your eyes out and all this stuff, you know, generally, you know, just short phrases. There was no long drawn out threats,” said Divilbiss.
Concerning Echols, Divilbiss said, “He was a very imposing person … when he was around ... quote friends he could silence them with just a glance. I mean, he could look at them and they would be quiet. You know, if they were saying something he disagreed with or if they were disagreeing with him, he would just have one look and they would be quiet. It seemed to me that all his friends feared him including Deanna Holcomb. The way it seemed to me that she was around him because she was afraid that if she left he would kill her. ...”
“She did tell me that he scared her, that she thought he was crazy. … She didn't tell me anything about sacrifices or anything but she did tell me that at one time they had sexual intercourse in a room full of people watching them, she told me of, you know, that is the main thing she told me, about like a circle of people were watching them, and that is with candles around and everything like that. .…”
Sexual intercourse between ceremonial leaders is a longstanding practice in Wicca, dating back to the witch cult founder Gerald Gardner’s proclivities for flagellation, nudity and exhibitionism.
Divilbiss said Echols was highly intelligent and “he know a lot about things; he knows how to work with a person’s mind; he can manipulate (a person’s) mind to ... what he believes in.” Divilbiss described Baldwin and Holcomb as “susceptible to another person’s mind.”
Divilbiss said Holcomb “said that he proclaim himself to be the son of Satan occasionally, that he did some strange things that led her to believe he was (demonic) ... He let off the image that he was generally, people would think like he was a Satan worshiper just by looking at the time I know him. You know, because of the way he dressed .... just his general outlook. …”
Divilbiss added that “if he were in black magic there would be bi-sexual tendencies ... because in all magic ... there are ceremonies which include bi-sexual sex magic is what it is called. It does include, you know, bisexual intercourse.”
Divilbiss said Echols wore “necklaces and things like that with bones on them” and had given Deanna a golden coin and a crow’s foot when they broke up. “The crow’s foot was generally used in black magic, was suppose to be a hex ... the crow’s foot was supposed to represent pain. Okay, I mean that he did things that represent black magic.” The crow’s foot often was used in death spells in witchcraft.
Divilbiss admitted he had “done a little study in that area and … looked up quite a few things.”
“I have meet a … priest who gave me information and told me about things you know so that is one way I know things about like ceremonies. I've never been in a ceremony but I do know how ceremonies are run sometimes. I do know about the … use of pentagram and I do know the … white magic use of a pentagram which are exactly two different things ...
“ ... there is a downward pointing pentagram but it used for warding off, for, you know, that is what it's supposed to be used for, it suppose to be used for ward that is a warding pentacle, and if it's right side up it's suppose to be invoking pentacle.”
Divilbiss ended up in the news again in a November 1998 appearance by his wife on the MTV show “Sex in the ‘90s: It’s a Group Thing.” April Divilbiss, 21, said she had two husbands, Divilbiss, then 24, and Chris Littrell, then 22, and was thinking of making it a foursome because having sex with two men was tiring her out.
The appearance prompted a custody battle over her 3-year-old daughter with the child’s grandparents (the father was not one of the two “husbands”).
Mrs. Divilbiss told the Associated Press that this was an attempt to deny her freedom of religion, describing herself as a pagan. ``The government feels they have the right to impose their own morality on us. We practice Wicca and within our religion this is a very moral situation. It's a highly thought of way to raise children.''
The Divilbiss story was featured in Time magazine on Nov. 7, 1999, detailing their lifestyle after the child had been removed from the home and then returned.
The article about polyamory noted: “The poly community is rallying around April, Chris and Shane, whose case may provide the tale of injustice every movement needs. The case could well be the first of its kind; it's surely the first to debate explicitly the worthiness of polies as parents.”
The case was also cited in “Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations” and in a July 17, 1999, story in the Salon Web magazine.
Marc Perresquia, one of the authors of “The Blood of Innocents,” and Shirley Downing, who had done extensive reporting on the “Satanic Panic” phenomenon, reported on the connection with the West Memphis 3 case in a Commercial Appeal story Jan. 15, 1999.
They wrote, “Divilbiss and Littrell, then both Crittenden County teenagers, weren’t considered suspects but were among scores of youths police interviewed.
“The pair, however, was among a smaller circle of young people who dabbled in the occult and associated with Damien Echols, one of three teenagers convicted for the murders.
“Statements by Littrell and Divilbiss helped shape prosecutors’ controversial contention that the slayings were ritual murders orchestrated by Echols and two followers involved in a teen ‘cult.’ ...
“ .... They attend Summerland Grove Pagan Church, which meets in a clubhouse of a Bartlett apartment complex.”
Summerland Grove Pagan Church recently still maintained a Web page, which noted the church was organized around Mayday 1994. Their bulletin board indicated a “Court Spell for West Memphis 3” posted in November 2010.
Divilbiss and Littrell did not know each other at the time of the murders but met about a year later. Neither testified, though Littrell was subpoenaed.
April Divilbiss “expressed surprise at a story she said she’s never heard fully before.”
The polyamorous relationship did not last. On Friday, March 23, 2012, Shane Divilbiss died in his sleep, leaving a new wife among his survivors.
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