The horrific crime shocked a nation. Three young boys, cub scouts, were tied up, murdered and their naked bodies dumped in a drainage ditch. As a Deep South community bayed for justice, attention focused on a group of misfit teenagers, heavy metal fans accused of killing the children in a Satanic ritual. The case became a sensation at a time when a ‘Satanic panic’ over cults was gripping 1990s America. All three were found guilty. Jason Baldwin, then 16, and Jessie Misskelley, 17, got life sentences. Damien Echols, 18, was put on death row, where he remains.The prosecution’s assertion that a Satanic ritual had taken place has also now been discredited. The key expert witness on cults, Dale Griffis, had claimed in court that the marks on the bodies were clearly Satanic. However, it was later proved that Griffis had got his ‘PhD in cult studies’ from a fake Californian university that was later closed for being a ‘diploma mill’.
Defence lawyers have tested two hairs found at the scene. One was found entangled in one of the ligatures tying up one of the boys. It has been matched with DNA samples from Terry Hobbs, a stepfather of one of the victims. Another hair, found on a tree stump, has been linked by DNA sampling to David Jacoby, a friend of Hobbs who was with him on the day of the murder and provided him with an alibi.
Science….
It Works, Bitches!
http://xkcd.com/54/
I’ve read some other things on this case and it turns out that the kids that were convicted were fans of heavy metal and read books by Alister Crowley. It just goes to show you, we haven’t gotten past the witch burning age in some parts of the country.
There was an HBO movie called Paradise Lost made about this case a few years ago. It is so painfully obvious that these kids were railroaded, it was unbelievable. It is so bad, I think the prosecutor should be brought up on charges.
Incidentally, this was the only movie that Metallica has ever licensed a song for use within the movie. They just kept looping the song Welcome Home (Sanitarium) over and over throughout the movie.
“Under pressure, Misskelley confessed to the killings and all three were found guilty.”
I wonder what sort of pressure that was? plastic typewriter bag over the head? shotgun barrel in the mouth?
bad enough to wrongfully convict people on some BS ‘satanic ritual’ theory, but then …
“But for the moment the fate of the West Memphis Three still lies with the Arkansas attorney-general’s office. It was last week examining the evidence and appeared in no rush to make a judgment. ‘This process will likely take months, and possibly years,’ said a spokesman.”
christ. more months or years in prison for innocent men. typical bureaucratic indifference of prosecutors.
do not trust the people in charge. they do not care about sanity, fairness or proportionality.
Once again, we see that Satan’s death toll is lower than the original estimate, while the number of deaths due to parents continues to rise.
Sorry, make that allegedly due to parents.
I know about this story because of the Paradise Lost and always knew something was not right with the so called stepfather. He changed his story so many times. Hope this brings an end to this.
>>I wonder what sort of pressure that was? plastic typewriter bag
>>over the head? shotgun barrel in the mouth?
Maybe waterboarding. Our new Attorney General doesn’t seem to think that’s torture, so I guess it’s a green light for cops to dunk ’em and book ’em.
Mission accomplished!
Ach, but then there’s that damned DNA evidence.
MM says… “…I guess it’s a green light for cops to dunk ‘em and book ‘em.”
Ah, I remember the good ol’ days when the only things that cops dunked were their doughnuts 😉
#5 – You know what have to do, don’t ya Gary…?
It is time to outlaw parents.
Won’t somebody please think of the children?
A contender for world’s greatest dad. The guy framed his stepson for a triple child murder he himself committed and then slept soundly knowing the kid would be executed.
#9 OFTLO suggests… “It is time to outlaw parents.”
I’ll see if we can add it to the Liberal Agenda 😉
This specific case is reminiscent of so many other wrongfully convicted cases. There is always a rush to judgment and a clamoring for the accused’s head. Vengeance takes precedence to justice.
As the Duke case was winding down so many were screaming of the injustice. Forget that right after it happened, the general feeling was the Lacrosse players were a bad bunch. Yet, not long afterwards, on this very site, when a cop shot a 13 yr old in Seattle, it was the exact opposite. Then it was all the kid’s fault. Nearly everyone commenting on this based their opinion solely on the police statement and no one could be bothered to read the father’s statement quoting the two boys denying the police version.
These wrongful convictions will continue to present themselves. No, not everyone in jail is innocent. Far from it. There are more than enough though to really seriously reconsider our attitude to that base of our legal system, “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”.
A while ago I took a DU regular to task for pronouncing someone guilty right after the arrest even though there appeared to be a discrepancy between what the police claimed and what witnesses said. The poster claimed he had every right to claim the person guilty simply because he wasn’t part of the justice system and was allowed to speak his mind. That is the closed mind that will continue to put innocent people in jail.
Many times I have been asked “what if it was my wife or daughter murdered”? Well, that is why I wouldn’t get to sit on the jury. I would want vengeance. The accused would be entitled to justice though. If the accused is not the murderer, then I want the police to find the true killer.
What will be the predictable consistency in this case – as in so many others – is that the prosecutors will ignore scientific evidence and battle to continue to protect the convictions they acquired.
Their batting average is all that counts. Even on political steroids.
In the Paradise Lost 1 & 2 shows it seemed obvious that the charges where totally bogus. The retarded guy out of the group gets put alone with the cops and confesses so he can go home as promised by the Cops. The “evidence” is horribly mangled and interpreted to support a conclusion already made. The stepfather most likely did it, seemed obvious from the start.
Unfortunately, alleged perpetrators are tried by the press before and during the actual trial. It’s getting difficult to find an unbiased jury.
#15. even an unbiased jury could have been convinced by a coerced confession taken from a mentally retarded defendant, forensic experts who claim that animal bites are marks of ritual mutilation, and a fraudulent prosecution “expert” on cults.
can’t hang this one on the press – the cops and the prosecutors knowingly concocted a phony case against these guys.
I’m glad to see they have a chance to get out of that jail. I hope step dad really gets nailed, hard, if that really was him responsible. (From what’s said, I’d love to see some cops and DAs in the cell next to Step Dad, in general population. Anyone making book on how long they would survive?)
As for the movie, there was some flick that made Hitler look like a poor, misunderstood victim on TV about 1955. “Artistic license” and “fake but accurate” struck again. Deciding based on a /fictional/ account of something on TV? Dumb.
Prove the water board, Mustard. You are sounding like a 6th grade girl, gossiping about the girl everyone says nasty things about because everyone has something bad to say about her.
It would be wonderful if they could finally get cleared of this but nobody can give them back the years of their young lives this disgusting, narrow minded, ugly witch hunt has taken away from them.
#17. I also assumed that the guy was probably physically coerced into confessiong, since the guy who confessed was mentally retarded, he was probably rather easily manipulated into giving up a statement.
Not that his obvious mistakes about the crime (when it happened, how it happened) deterred the prosecutors and police from using it.
This is just another example on how much these people like to blame people different than thenselves.