West Memphis Three Revisited

[8bitagent]

I was a disaffected "goth" high schooler in a more rural high school in the early 1990's, even was put on a 51/50 for severe depression. So I think thats why I really connected
with the Paradise Lost narrative when it came to vhs stores. Then again even to this day I use index cards or a cup to gently put moths/spiders/etc outside. Even seeing a stupid action Jason Statham action film can
be triggering. I hate abuse of any kind and dont have much of a stomach for violence. So I thought well maybe, Echols was like that too. If all these reports on Echols are true, good grief thats disturbing.
I dont even think the "occult" aspect needs to be brought in. If anything its almost just more of a pattern of "sick morbid curiosity" like that cannibal psychopath in Canada last year whom I wont mention by name.

I apologize to Willow for being a little over defensive...I guess its kind of like someone saying a beloved charity you once supported was a scam, or a football coach you admired was a pedofile.

I know I keep bringing it up, but has anyone on here seen either West of Memphis or Paradise Lost 3? As "convincing" as the pro WM3 side comes through, there's gigantic elephants in the room
that keep nagging at you(such as the alibis, echols trial behavior, misskelly's statements, etc)

[Twyla LaSarc]

Thanks for the informative thread. I'd heard of this case but never checked into it much. You've raised some good points.

[Project Willow]

I apologize to Willow for being a little over defensive...I guess its kind of like someone saying a beloved charity you once supported was a scam, or a football coach you admired was a pedofile.

No apology necessary 8bit! I understand and expected these reactions, which actually have been milder than I thought they would be. I imagine there are some other folk around here who might not ever come to agree with me on this topic, but I love them just the same.

........

I am still making my way through the pretrial hearing transcripts. Legal proceedings both fascinate and bore me. I think of all the time committed to learning the language, rituals, and case law, and I'm slightly in awe at how it's all rendered into short hand speech in the courtroom. Once I get past the the awe I think, get to the point already!

[8bitagent]

While Im not really into modern day Tim Burton and goofy pop teen fluff, I kind of like Johnny Depp. Unlike Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise, he comes off as more down to earth.
Is there interviews where he claims all the stuff written about him in the above post?

I apologize to Willow for being a little over defensive...I guess its kind of like someone saying a beloved charity you once supported was a scam, or a football coach you admired was a pedofile.

No apology necessary 8bit! I understand and expected these reactions, which actually have been milder than I thought they would be. I imagine there are some other folk around here who might not ever come to agree with me on this topic, but I love them just the same.

........

I am still making my way through the pretrial hearing transcripts. Legal proceedings both fascinate and bore me. I think of all the time committed to learning the language, rituals, and case law, and I'm slightly in awe at how it's all rendered into short hand speech in the courtroom. Once I get past the the awe I think, get to the point already!

Well it's probably one of the most brave and bold positions, as the Echols=100% innocent position is pretty much religion. A quick google and youtube search, I found very few people who hold a similar position as you or that meticulously researched site.

No matter what though, people like Jack and others on here have convinced me the death penalty is not moral so Im glad Echols is not on death row regardless. (however I dont agree with how Breivik could be released in 20 years)
The death penalty is something Ive wrestled with, because like a lot of people certain crimes are just beyond the scope of the imagination. like the WM3 case.
Documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog meditates on this topic in last year's Into The Abyss.
I bring this up because the documentary and story kind of feels like the WM3 stuff. Only, despite the charasmatic lead killer of the trio *also* wooing an intelligent attractive young woman who works his case pro bono, it's clear from the getgo these guys are guilty as sin despite them proclaiming innocence. But it shows you how sometimes killers can truly believe or at least convince usually bright and intelligent
professionals into their cause.

I strongly believe you have to speak your heart. I respect the Dixie Chicks, despite making WM3 such a cause celeb, they werent afraid to speak their heart in 2003 with Bush and the war.

[8bitagent]

This hit the trades today; Charlize Theron in talks to start in a screen adaptation of Gillian Flynn's "Dark Places",

Dark Places is about a woman who investigates whether or not her incarcerated brother was truly responsible for the murder of their family in the 1980s, which happened when she was a child during the era of panic about Satanic ritual abuse.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/02/charliz ... ynn-novel/

[compared2what?]

I may have been an disaffected, outcast teenager myself, but I didn't go around disemboweling dogs for the fun of it.

(1) Look at the dates on which the cops collected those stories from a handful of children and teenagers who all lived in a town that was, at the time, talking constantly about the infinite evil of Damien Echols, whom all of them had heard on the grapevine was a devil-worshiping child killer.

(2) Look at the ages of the people telling them.

(3) Bear in mind that he did, by his own admission, have a dog's skull that he found in the woods, which he had taken to school for some kind of science show-and-tell type thing.

^^There was one cop in particular (Steve Jones, IIRC) who was very actively soliciting (and also spreading) gossip of that kind back when the only problem their decision to make him their prime suspect was the dearth of evidence. The same thing happened with kids and teens who said they'd heard him say he did it, some of whom later recanted and/or were discredited, although I don't remember how many. And....The same thing also happened in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, wrt investigators corroborating rumors by spreading them widely enough that eventually they come back in the form of apparent first-person witness testimony, ftm.

But never mind. My point is that there's still no record or report anywhere of his ever having been violent or sadistic to people or animals at any point in time prior to the murder investigation. And there are a lot of records and reports, many frankly hostile to him. Despite which, the form on him was consistently that he got in fights at school, was occasionally suicidal, and had some goth-ghoulish-teen-type affectations.

And that's true right up until the moment that all the people taking and offering information began doing so while under the shared assumption that they were talking about a violent, sadistic murderer.

That's not proof, although it is what put him on death row. .

[compared2what?]

Quote:

[b]Baldwin's cousin, Joe Bartoush

"On 10-27-92, I was at Lakeshore Trailer Park with Damien Echols when he killed a Black Great Dane. The dog was already sick and he hit the dog in the back of the head.

Additionally, I don't know how sick a Great Dane would have to be for an effete 5'9" teenager to be able to stomp it to death after hitting it in the back of the head But my guess would be: Too sick to be roaming around the trailer park. Human-vs.-Great-Dane fighting doesn't usually favor the human. They're very powerful, decidedly non-dainty-skulled dogs. Loud, too.

Plus I wouldn't expect the disappearance of a Great Dane from a trailer park to be both unnoticed at the time and unremembered.a year or two (??date??) later, in a community that size. Even a stray Great Dane. Not that I'd expect that, either. I just mean that they're not an easy breed to overlook or forget.

[Project Willow]

(1) Look at the dates on which the cops collected those stories from a handful of children and teenagers who all lived in a town that was, at the time, talking constantly about the infinite evil of Damien Echols, whom all of them had heard on the grapevine was a devil-worshiping child killer.

According to the exhibit 500 material it's perfectly reasonable that the grapevine already held negative views of Echols' beliefs and behaviors before the murders.

(2) Look at the ages of the people telling them.

Oh dear, C2W, signifying what? I spent too many years in the SA movement to get into a protracted discussion over children and lying. How does it play out on the ground exactly? The children are pressured by their parents or the police into making false statements? Are they made to memorize false statements or are they asked to make up their own? How and when did they confer with each other?

(3) Bear in mind that he did, by his own admission, have a dog's skull that he found in the woods, which he had taken to school for some kind of science show-and-tell type thing.

Yes, I know, and after reading his psych profile, this fits right in with his behavior patterns. The dog's skull was held as evidence from Echol's Juvenile case in 1992.

^^There was one cop in particular (Steve Jones, IIRC) who was very actively soliciting (and also spreading) gossip of that kind back when the only problem their decision to make him their prime suspect was the dearth of evidence. The same thing happened with kids and teens who said they'd heard him say he did it, some of whom later recanted and/or were discredited, although I don't remember how many. And....The same thing also happened in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, wrt investigators corroborating rumors by spreading them widely enough that eventually they come back in the form of apparent first-person witness testimony, ftm.

How many witnesses recanted and/or were discredited seems extremely important to me. If the theory is that Damien's conviction was the product of a social panic and rumor mongering, then there should be evidence for it, like yellowcake. Can you point me to some examples?

But never mind. My point is that there's still no record or report anywhere of his ever having been violent or sadistic to people or animals at any point in time prior to the murder investigation.

That's not true, and there are records. See state's Exhibit 500 here: http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/img/exh500.html

Here's a sample, from June 1992, almost a year before the murders.

Damien admits to a history of violence. He said prior to admission he did attempt to enucleate a peer’s eye at school. He was suspended subsequently from school. He was suspended on seven different occasions during that school year. He related that he was suspended on one occasion, because he set a fire in his science classroom and also would walk off on campus on several occasions.

Here's the transcript of the WMPD's interview of the victim in the attempted eye gouging: http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/shadi.html

This is not the only incident in the ex500 reports.

Maybe Echols was framed by the school, and then lied to his therapists. Maybe he was innocent or simply defending himself in each case, but where does one get evidence for that? I can't just dismiss the suspensions, arrests, hospitalizations and self reports as teenaged angst.

Here is an article from June 7, 1993, with statements from witnesses, one of whom I believe has been accused of promoting a witch hunt atmosphere:

The Commerical Appeal

Also Sunday, the chief juvenile officer for Crittenden County, Jerry Driver, said he started seeing a marked increase in satanic-related graffiti and reports of animal sacrifice about a year ago. Driver said he's visited at least five sites in the county where he's found graffiti and animal carcasses. One location east of Marion, known to locals as "Stonehenge," after the ancient Druidic monoliths near Cambridge in England, on Sunday contained the remains of a dead gray cat with tan feet and a plastic bag containing a part of a rattlesnake.

The abandoned concrete cotton gin is covered with spray-painted graffiti, including backward swastikas, pentagrams, tridents and references to Lucifer. Besides broken bottles and spent shotgun shells, Stonehenge contained charred logs and several unopened condom packages. "Kids get involved in this as a joke," Driver said. "Ninety percent of them are in it for the so-called thrill. There's a small group that's in it seriously." Drug and alcohol use and sex often are common at the sites, Driver said, and serve as a magnet for kids out for a good time. For many, it's a fad, he said, "but a dangerous one." Driver could not provide an estimate of the number of young people in Crittenden County involved in such activities, but said the great majority are probably on the fringes and not seriously involved in satanism.

Local teens often travel to the site at night to socialize and marvel at its legend and chilling atmosphere. "Sometimes people think it's funny trying to scare other people," said Kim Floresca, 15, who just completed 10th grade at Marion High School. "It's supposed to be a place where cults go out, and they're supposed to sacrifice virgins and animals and stuff." Floresca said she once went to the Stonehenge site about two years ago with a group of teens who included Jessie Misskelley. The night was just a typical night, she said, and Misskelley did nothing out of the ordinary. Floresca said she never heard of the other two suspects visiting the site.

Floresca said Misskelley told her and other students the day before he was arrested that he participated in the killings. A group of students were driving last Wednesday after school to a friend's house to go swimming when Misskelley began telling his bizarre tale, she said. "He was saying he hit the little boy and the little boy ran off and he was taking him back to where Damien and the other boy were," she said. According to Misskelley's story, Echols had already killed the two other boys, she said. Floresca said she didn't believe Misskelley at the time.

Granted, I'm reading reports two decades old, but I'm just not hearing fanatical zeal in this.

[compared2what?]

(

2) Look at the ages of the people telling them.

Oh dear, C2W, signifying what? I spent too many years in the SA movement to get into a protracted discussion over children and lying. How does it play out on the ground exactly? The children are pressured by their parents or the police into making false statements? Are they made to memorize false statements or are they asked to make up their own? How and when did they confer with each other?

No, no, no!

I didn't mean that. I just meant that a lot of the hearsay testimony about him was, as one might expect, kids in his approximate age-range chattering after the murders.

That's not the same thing as, say, victims testifying to their own truths.

(3) Bear in mind that he did, by his own admission, have a dog's skull that he found in the woods, which he had taken to school for some kind of science show-and-tell type thing.
[/list]

Yes, I know, and after reading his psych profile, this fits right in with his behavior patterns. The dog's skull was held as evidence from Echol's Juvenile case in 1992.

Fine. I agree that he was a miserable, sometimes suicidal teen boy with a skull fetish and a thing for vampires.

^^There was one cop in particular (Steve Jones, IIRC) who was very actively soliciting (and also spreading) gossip of that kind back when the only problem their decision to make him their prime suspect was the dearth of evidence. The same thing happened with kids and teens who said they'd heard him say he did it, some of whom later recanted and/or were discredited, although I don't remember how many. And....The same thing also happened in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, wrt investigators corroborating rumors by spreading them widely enough that eventually they come back in the form of apparent first-person witness testimony, ftm.

How many witnesses recanted and/or were discredited seems extremely important to me. If the theory is that Damien's conviction was the product of a social panic and rumor mongering, then there should be evidence for it, like yellowcake. Can you point me to some examples?

Sure. I'll have to get back to you, though.

But never mind. My point is that there's still no record or report anywhere of his ever having been violent or sadistic to people or animals at any point in time prior to the murder investigation.

That's not true, and there are records. See state's Exhibit 500 here: http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/img/exh500.html

Here's a sample, from June 1992, almost a year before the murders.

Damien admits to a history of violence. He said prior to admission he did attempt to enucleate a peer’s eye at school. He was suspended subsequently from school. He was suspended on seven different occasions during that school year. He related that he was suspended on one occasion, because he set a fire in his science classroom and also would walk off on campus on several occasions.

I'd call that a school fight. In fact, I did call it a school fight. That's what I was referring to. Being suspended from school is not a sign of violence. He was a truant. In fact....Well. AFAIK, he didn't even get in a lot of fights at school; I think that might actually be the only one there's a record of, although I'm not positive. But the fact that a website dedicated to arguing that he was a murderer has to suggestively mention those seven suspensions to supplement it, rather than just listing the additional fights does kind of tend to support the idea.

I don't count property damage as violence/sadism of a kind that's on the same continuum as murder.

Incidentally, that B&E charge you mentioned earlier was just him and his girlfriend who had run away breaking into a trailer and sleeping in it because it was raining. Which is, I believe, pretty much the whole of the Major Criminal Activity for which he was known to local law enforcement.prior to the murders. Not including vandalism and whatnot..

Here's the transcript of the WMPD's interview of the victim in the attempted eye gouging: http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/shadi.html

This is not the only incident in the ex500 reports.

Yes. I looked at it. I've seen that stuff before. As I said, it's what sent him to death row. And as I also said, he did not have a record of sadistic violence prior to the murders. He sometimes fought with peers. He was troubled. He acted out in goth-y ways. And he had a fuck-you attitude. That was it.

Maybe Echols was framed by the school, and then lied to his therapists. Maybe he was innocent or simply defending himself in each case, but where does one get evidence for that?

Maybe he tried to enucleate someone's eye. That's not so unusual if you don't succeed. In fact it's basically just a description. I don't know what other cases you're thinking of. But I personally don't see anything in the records of his behavior that suggests he was other than:

(1) A miserable, snooty, troubled goth kid who got into the usual amounts and kinds of small-town trouble that a lot of teen boys like him do every day of the week, every week of the year without killing anyone.

(2) A miserable, snooty, troubled goth kid whom authorities greatly disliked.

I can't just dismiss the suspensions, arrests, hospitalizations and self reports as teenaged angst.

Certainly not. But since you also can't adjudicate him to be a devil-worshiping child-killer for having been suspended, hospitalized, angst-ridden, and arrested for a few petty or minor non-violent crimes, I'm not sure why it matters.

Here is an article from June 7, 1993, with statements from witnesses, one of whom I believe has been accused of promoting a witch hunt atmosphere:

The Commerical Appeal

Also Sunday, the chief juvenile officer for Crittenden County, Jerry Driver, said he started seeing a marked increase in satanic-related graffiti and reports of animal sacrifice about a year ago. Driver said he's visited at least five sites in the county where he's found graffiti and animal carcasses. One location east of Marion, known to locals as "Stonehenge," after the ancient Druidic monoliths near Cambridge in England, on Sunday contained the remains of a dead gray cat with tan feet and a plastic bag containing a part of a rattlesnake.

The abandoned concrete cotton gin is covered with spray-painted graffiti, including backward swastikas, pentagrams, tridents and references to Lucifer. Besides broken bottles and spent shotgun shells, Stonehenge contained charred logs and several unopened condom packages. "Kids get involved in this as a joke," Driver said. "Ninety percent of them are in it for the so-called thrill. There's a small group that's in it seriously." Drug and alcohol use and sex often are common at the sites, Driver said, and serve as a magnet for kids out for a good time. For many, it's a fad, he said, "but a dangerous one." Driver could not provide an estimate of the number of young people in Crittenden County involved in such activities, but said the great majority are probably on the fringes and not seriously involved in satanism.

Local teens often travel to the site at night to socialize and marvel at its legend and chilling atmosphere. "Sometimes people think it's funny trying to scare other people," said Kim Floresca, 15, who just completed 10th grade at Marion High School. "It's supposed to be a place where cults go out, and they're supposed to sacrifice virgins and animals and stuff." Floresca said she once went to the Stonehenge site about two years ago with a group of teens who included Jessie Misskelley. The night was just a typical night, she said, and Misskelley did nothing out of the ordinary. Floresca said she never heard of the other two suspects visiting the site.

Floresca said Misskelley told her and other students the day before he was arrested that he participated in the killings. A group of students were driving last Wednesday after school to a friend's house to go swimming when Misskelley began telling his bizarre tale, she said. "He was saying he hit the little boy and the little boy ran off and he was taking him back to where Damien and the other boy were," she said. According to Misskelley's story, Echols had already killed the two other boys, she said. Floresca said she didn't believe Misskelley at the time.

Granted, I'm reading reports two decades old, but I'm just not hearing fanatical zeal in this.

That's a false dichotomy, the it's-either-satanic-panic-or-they-did-it thing. In reality, I don't think there was fanatical zeal, except for the zealous hatred Steve Jones harbored for Damien Echols, whose name he suggested as soon as the bodies were found, well before anyone began talking about his (or Miskelley's, or Baldwin's) involvement in local teen satanic activities such as those described above. And despite Echols not having a record of being anything other than a goth kid whom juvie cops hated.

I don't find that article very compelling evidence of anything other than that Jesse Miskelley evidently repeated the same story he'd just told to the cops to an acquaintance short afterward as if that were a perfectly normal, conversational thing to do, thus further demonstrating that he didn't quite grasp the full implications of incriminating himself and others in the murders of three small children.

Poor kid. And kids.

[Project Willow]

No, no, no!

I didn't mean that. I just meant that a lot of the hearsay testimony about him was, as one might expect, kids in his approximate age-range chattering after the murders.

That's not the same thing as, say, victims testifying to their own truths.

Well, it isn't wholly different either. Chattering with each other after the murders is understandable, but giving statements to the police raises chatter to another level. There is no reason to summarily dismiss the statements about Echols killing the dog. That he was being investigated for murder is not enough. Some evidence of the mechanics involved, of coordinating all of these supposed false statements among multiple, non-related witnesses, and/or evidence of their individual motivations to make such statements to police is necessary, otherwise it's just speculation in support of a forgone conclusion.

I'd call that a school fight. In fact, I did call it a school fight. That's what I was referring to. Being suspended from school is not a sign of violence. He was a truant. In fact....Well. AFAIK, he didn't even get in a lot of fights at school; I think that might actually be the only one there's a record of, although I'm not positive. But the fact that a website dedicated to arguing that he was a murderer has to suggestively mention those seven suspensions to supplement it, rather than just listing the additional fights does kind of tend to support the idea.

How is a school fight in which one is the protagonist, according to witnesses, not violence?

Maybe he tried to enucleate someone's eye. That's not so unusual if you don't succeed. In fact it's basically just a description. I don't know what other cases you're thinking of. But I personally don't see anything in the records of his behavior that suggests he was other than:

(1) A miserable, snooty, troubled goth kid who got into the usual amounts and kinds of small-town trouble that a lot of teen boys like him do every day of the week, every week of the year without killing anyone.

(2) A miserable, snooty, troubled goth kid whom authorities greatly disliked.

We're reading the same material here and making different assessments of it. I'm still lacking detail for why you're assessing it the way you do.

Being a troubled goth kid, AFAIK, does not entail the need to control others through the threat of violence. Echol's threatened to kill his parents, his peers, his girlfriend's parents. There's a difference between being upset and yelling, "I'm going to kill you!" and issuing repeated, specific threats against specific people, which he was arrested for on one occasion and hospitalized for on another. Other disturbing and aggressive behavior, including licking the blood off of the wounds of his fellow patients, was witnessed in at least four institutions, in two different states, and by numerous staff, including doctors and social workers. Here is an excerpt from an Oct. '92 report that frames things closer to your view, but even this I find troubling:

"He did not demonstrate bizarre and unusual behavior with exception on one occasion he did bite a male peer; however, this was in a fight type manner.(458)
"Damien has contracted that he will not attempt to harm anyone." (459)

The doc here includes in his report that the general idea is that Echols has a problem with hurting people.

But since you also can't adjudicate him to be a devil-worshiping child-killer for having been suspended, hospitalized, angst-ridden, and arrested for a few petty or minor non-violent crimes, I'm not sure why it matters.

I haven't gotten into the evidence in the case yet in this thread, outside of some witness testimony and Miskelley's multiple confessions.

That's a false dichotomy, the it's-either-satanic-panic-or-they-did-it thing. In reality, I don't think there was fanatical zeal, except for the zealous hatred Steve Jones harbored for Damien Echols, whose name he suggested as soon as the bodies were found, well before anyone began talking about his (or Miskelley's, or Baldwin's) involvement in local teen satanic activities such as those described above.

No false dichotomy, that article was in direct rebuttal to your belief that Echols was convicted via unfair targeting on behalf of police and lying witnesses.

Poor kid. And kids.

Agreed about the 3 young child victims who've been nearly forgotten in the circus of attention lavished on those convicted of the crimes, but Misskelley is a poor kid because he confessed on multiple occasions? Why did he confess at all?

[compared2what?]

No, no, no!

I didn't mean that. I just meant that a lot of the hearsay testimony about him was, as one might expect, kids in his approximate age-range chattering after the murders.

That's not the same thing as, say, victims testifying to their own truths.

Well, it isn't wholly different either.

Sometimes it's not. But in this case, a police officer named Steve Jones decided that (a) it was a freaky ritualistic murder on the spot when he saw the bodies; and (b) it had been therefore done by the most Manson-esque type a small community had to offer, one Damien Echols, goth kid/occult tastes.

The entire town knew he was the suspect and why. And they also knew quite a bit more about the crime scene than they should have. Those were shocking, awful murders of a kind that most people never see. So everybody talked and gossiped and raged about them and the person common wisdom assumed to be the killer constantly. None of the stuff they were saying about him had ever been heard before then. None of it. He was not a scary guy.

This has all been documented. BTW.

How is a school fight in which one is the protagonist, according to witnesses, not violence?

I didn't say it wasn't. I said it wasn't a sign of violence, meaning: Getting into into a fight or two with a peer you don't get along with at school is not an indicator that a male teenager is predisposed to acts of sadistic violence, such as hog-tieing and murdering three eight-year-olds for the sheer thrill of it.

Lots of male teenagers get in a few fights with peers. Almost none kill second-graders.

Maybe he tried to enucleate someone's eye. That's not so unusual if you don't succeed. In fact it's basically just a description. I don't know what other cases you're thinking of. But I personally don't see anything in the records of his behavior that suggests he was other than:

(1) A miserable, snooty, troubled goth kid who got into the usual amounts and kinds of small-town trouble that a lot of teen boys like him do every day of the week, every week of the year without killing anyone.

(2) A miserable, snooty, troubled goth kid whom authorities greatly disliked.

We're reading the same material here and making different assessments of it. I'm still lacking detail for why you're assessing it the way you do.

Being a troubled goth kid, AFAIK, does not entail the need to control others through the threat of violence. Echol's threatened to kill his parents, his peers, his girlfriend's parents. There's a difference between being upset and yelling, "I'm going to kill you!" and issuing repeated, specific threats against specific people, which he was arrested for on one occasion and hospitalized for on another. Other disturbing and aggressive behavior, including licking the blood off of the wounds of his fellow patients, was witnessed in at least four institutions, in two different states, and by numerous staff, including doctors and social workers.

Dude. He never hurt anybody. The only threat he posed was suicide. Also, his girlfriend's parents didn't like him. Issuing specific threats? He was talking trash. How you can tell is:

HE NEVER HURT ANYBODY.

WRT to the blood-licking: Disturbing, yes. Aggressive, no. Nobody who didn't already know about the murders and want to find reasons for believing he committed them would think it was a predictor of that.

Here is an excerpt from an Oct. '92 report that frames things closer to your view, but even this I find troubling:
[

"He did not demonstrate bizarre and unusual behavior with exception on one occasion he did bite a male peer; however, this was in a fight type manner.(458)
"Damien has contracted that he will not attempt to harm anyone." (459)

The doc here includes in his report that the general idea is that Echols has a problem with hurting people.

Despite which, he didn't. Because as you may have noticed, there aren't any complaints from hurt people in those reams and reams of documents composed of one hostile and disapproving statement after another by adult authorities of the kind famous the whole world over for disliking troubled angry teens who are causing them headaches.

That's a false dichotomy, the it's-either-satanic-panic-or-they-did-it thing. In reality, I don't think there was fanatical zeal, except for the zealous hatred Steve Jones harbored for Damien Echols, whose name he suggested as soon as the bodies were found, well before anyone began talking about his (or Miskelley's, or Baldwin's) involvement in local teen satanic activities such as those described above.

No false dichotomy, that article was in direct rebuttal to your belief that Echols was convicted via unfair targeting on behalf of police and lying witnesses.

The targeting by police, yes. That's well documented. I wouldn't say most of the tale-tellers and hearsay-retailers, very few of whom were witnesses to anything, were lying, exactly. But close enough. All of what they were saying emerged in the wake of the murders in response to suggestions put about by cops, and was either false or unverifiable.

Poor kid. And kids.

Agreed about the 3 young child victims who've been nearly forgotten in the circus of attention lavished on those convicted of the crimes

Not by me. So spare me.

but Misskelley is a poor kid because he confessed on multiple occasions? Why did he confess at all?

You really feel no sorrow or pity for Jesse Miskelley?

And you really find it difficult to understand why he said what he did?

And you really regard what he said as a confession, despite his having required repeated prompts from the police to even come up with stuff like a time of day at which the crimes he was confessing to could have been committed during which the victims weren't all in school in classrooms full of witnesses?

You're right. We don't see the same thing in the material.

[compared2what?]

There is no reason to summarily dismiss the statements about Echols killing the dog

I didn't dismiss it summarily. I considered it as thoroughly as I could.

Then I pointed out that a kid his size would have trouble killing a Great Dane in the manner described. As would most people of any size, all of whom would have been covered with blood and gore if they had. As well might have Baldwin's little cousin, the witness, if he was close enough to hear Damien say he wanted to hear the dog's eyeball's pop, which presumably he was.


Stomping a Great Dane's eyes out of its sockets would require some very heavy duty boots. btw. Steel-toed, probably. And I'm not even sure if that would work.

It's actually very, very rare for a Great Dane to even be out and about by itself in a populated residential area where children are playing. Some people are scared of them.. And there's some potential that they'll cause damage or harm just by romping. Because they're huge.

I'm not saying any of that for any reason other than that it's objectively difficult to figure out how it was possible for a teenager to stomp a Great Dane to death in a trailer park without anyone besides his twelve-year-old companion knowing about it then or noticing very memorable signs of it later. Such as the absence of a Great Dane.

None of the details that lend versimilitude to a story are present, in a nutshell.

And the story about cops going around spreading and soliciting gossip about the satanic ways of Damien Echols doesn't suffer from that problem. It has names. Dates. Places. Multiple witnesses. Contemporaneous documentation. And so forth.

So I opt for the latter.

[compared2what?]

But Misskelley is a poor kid because he confessed on multiple occasions? Why did he confess at all?

Here's one of the places where he says the children had already been hogtied, beaten and raped a good six or seven hours before they were last seen alive. But that's not the only thing he got equivalently wrong. It's just an example.

DETECTIVE RIDGE: Okay, and when you left, did you hear any more hollering or anything?

*A83 MISSKELLEY: No.

DETECTIVE RIDGE: Alright, you went home and about what time was it that all of this was taking place?

*A84 MISSKELLEY: They call me up about

DETECTIVE RIDGE: I’m not saying when they called you. I’m saying what time was it that you were actually there in the park?

*A85 MISSKELLEY: I was there about twelve

DETECTIVE RIDGE: About noon?

*A86 MISSKELLEY: Mm-hmm. (There is an audible “ffff” at this point.)

DETECTIVE RIDGE: Okay, was it after school. . . had let out?

*A87 MISSKELLEY: I didn’t go to school

DETECTIVE RIDGE: Well, these little boys

*A88 MISSKELLEY: They skipped school

DETECTIVE RIDGE: They skipped school?

*A89 MISSKELLEY: They’s going to catch their bus and stuff, and they’s on their bikes and so,

DETECTIVE RIDGE: Alright, they were on their bikes, where were the bikes at?

*A90 MISSKELLEY: They, they laid their bikes down when they come out to the, I mean, when they hollered for them to come, come out there, they

DETECTIVE RIDGE: Where did they lay their bikes down at, that’s what I’m asking?

*A91 MISSKELLEY: I don’t know where they laid their bikes down at, cause I was, I was behind Damien and nem, way, way behind them.

He actually never talks for very long during any part of that statement before the cops interrupt with a leading question. You can probably see why.

[divideandconquer]

Divideandconquer: You are posting some fantastical info here. How do you KNOW that Hunter S. Thompson directed snuff films? Your allegations re: Depp border on if not ARE libelous. Do you have PROOF that he has a room devoted to vampires and if so, big deal? It doesn't make him a "SATANIST."

And what's with your vague allegations of adrenochrome and ritual murder? Are you implying that Depp has done this to get that drug?

And just because Depp appears in the movies you listed, it doesn't make him a SATANIST. He did not write these movies. Sweeney Todd, by the way, has NOTHING to do with SATANISM of the OCCULT. Oh but YOU might think that because he is the DEMON barber of Fleet Street. Have you even SEEN the film? It is a work of ART. It's based on a Penny Dreadful. Stephen Sondheim composed it and perhaps you're going to tell me HE's a SATANIST because he is a homosexual who sports a DEMONIC LOOKING BEARD or GOATTEE (is that because the GOAT is sacred to SATANISTS?)

Keith RIchards is a SATANIST? I never heard that said before. Where is your PROOF?

I can't even be bothered to look back for your other wild allegations. But your post really reeks of non-rigourous intuition.

In DeCamp's and Nick Bryant's books on the Franklin Scandal, they relay Paul Bonacci's, the young man who claims to have been involved with the kidnapping of Johnny Gosch. tales of being forced into sex with adults and other children. In one case he recalls being flown into Nevada with another young boy whom he did not know. They took on another passenger there and headed to a secluded location where Bonacci says he was forced to have sex with the younger boy. The young boy, Bonacci claims in this book, was also forced to have sex with adult males, who then killed the boy with a gunshot to the head. Bonacci says he was then forced to have sex with the corpse. The passenger they took on in Nevada filmed the entire thing, and Bonacci recalled that his name was Hunter Thompson. He testified to this in court. Also search Rusty Nelson on Youtube who also claims Hunter Thompson directed snuff films.
Moreover, Hunter Thompson admitted he likes to kill [people] on David Letterman. By his own admission, he lived in the basement of this man.

"The autumn months are never a calm time in America. . . . There is always a rash of kidnapping and abductions of schoolchildren in the football months. Preteens of both sexes are traditionally seized and grabbed off the streets by gangs of organized perverts who traditionally give them as Christmas gifts to each other to be personal sex slaves and playthings."-Hunter S. Thompson, page 3 from his 2004 book entitled "Hey Rube"

Am I sure about Depp? No, but I believe there is enough evidence to question his motivation to defend these men accused of satanically murdering three young boys. It's not as if Depp stands up for anyone else, so what is it about this case? It's his extra close connection to Hunter Thompson, his involvement with that guy from the mafia who disappeared off the face of the earth, his flight to France, and his choice of pals that raises my suspicions the most. Not so much the movies.

[Project Willow]

Sometimes it's not. But in this case, a police officer named Steve Jones decided that (a) it was a freaky ritualistic murder on the spot when he saw the bodies; and (b) it had been therefore done by the most Manson-esque type a small community had to offer, one Damien Echols, goth kid/occult tastes.

The entire town knew he was the suspect and why. And they also knew quite a bit more about the crime scene than they should have. Those were shocking, awful murders of a kind that most people never see. So everybody talked and gossiped and raged about them and the person common wisdom assumed to be the killer constantly. None of the stuff they were saying about him had ever been heard before then. None of it. He was not a scary guy.

Of course it had been heard before, and that is documented. Echol's behavior and his beliefs and his propensity to disturb people with them was known in the community before the murders. What makes it so entirely out of the realm of possibility that Jones legitimately thought Echols was dangerous?

This has all been documented. BTW.

Where, in a Hollywood movie? Who else "documented" it, and what was their agenda? It's not like there isn't some huge organization that was very active at the time in debunking any and all reports of violent occult activity, one of the members of which got himself directly involved in the case.

Lots of male teenagers get in a few fights with peers. Almost none kill second-graders.

Some of them do.

Dude. He never hurt anybody. The only threat he posed was suicide. Also, his girlfriend's parents didn't like him. Issuing specific threats? He was talking trash. How you can tell is:

HE NEVER HURT ANYBODY.

YES HE DID. How can you even say that?

Because as you may have noticed, there aren't any complaints from hurt people in those reams and reams of documents composed of one hostile and disapproving statement after another by adult authorities of the kind famous the whole world over for disliking troubled angry teens who are causing them headaches.

That's your belief about the various authorities involved. I don't share it, at all, and it's not reflected in the material which to me reads as quite empathic and tolerant. I say that having dealt with a wide variety of clinicians my entire life, including those in southern institutions.

The targeting by police, yes. That's well documented. I wouldn't say most of the tale-tellers and hearsay-retailers, very few of whom were witnesses to anything, were lying, exactly. But close enough. All of what they were saying emerged in the wake of the murders in response to suggestions put about by cops, and was either false or unverifiable.

Documentation, please.

You really feel no sorrow or pity for Jesse Miskelley?

I've seen no evidence that he was coerced or pressured or railroaded or whatever you want to call it. I see plenty of evidence that he was the one most troubled by it all which is why he confessed. That is why, among the three convicted killers, he has the majority of my pity, as it were. See the testimony about his crying jags and changes in behavior immediately following the murder. http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/b_lucas_interview.html http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/cdabbs.html

And you really find it difficult to understand why he said what he did?

I don't find it difficult at all to understand his many confessions from what I've read of him. What I find absolutely incredible is the idea that he would confess multiple times, to various people, in various scenarios, and well past the time where it made any difference at all to his fate. That behavior does not conform to the theory that he was forced to confess.

And you really regard what he said as a confession, despite his having required repeated prompts from the police to even come up with stuff like a time of day at which the crimes he was confessing to could have been committed during which the victims weren't all in school in classrooms full of witnesses?

I already covered that, as has Miskelley himself, and variations in his initial statements do not in any way overcome the fact that he possessed details of the crime that were not publicly available.