Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

Missing, Exploited and True Crime => Crimes Against Children, Elderly and the Disabled => Topic started by: cartfly on January 16, 2011, 11:25:04 PM



Title: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 16, 2011, 11:25:04 PM
West Memphis 3 Case Profiled by CNN

Reported by: CNN
Saturday, January 15 2011

Click here to watch this report, or read the transcript below:

People on death row have a lot of time to think. Damien Echols is no different.

Since his conviction for the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys, Echols has been fighting to keep his thoughts moving forward: to study, to grow intellectually and to distance himself from the bitterness that threatens to consume him.

Echols was one of three teenagers convicted for that crime. They became known as the "West Memphis Three," probably the most feared and hated kids to ever walk into an Arkansas courtroom.

The crime they were accused of was particularly heinous: the boys' bruised and mutilated bodies were found in May 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas, their arms and legs bound with their own shoelaces.

Echols was the only one sentenced to die, believed to be the ring leader in murders driven by a worship of Satan.

That was almost 18 years ago.

Today Echols spends 23 hours a day alone in a cell with nothing to do but ponder all he's lost and wonder if the Arkansas Supreme Court will be the key that finally sets him free.

Later this year, an Arkansas Supreme Court judge will determine if Echols and the rest of the West Memphis Three should have their convictions thrown out.

Prosecutors would then have the chance to retry them all and since they were sent to prison, the cases against them seem to have fallen apart.

Echols' attorneys plan to present DNA evidence not available at the time of the trial, as well as testimony that they say supports arguments that Echols and the two others are innocent.

'West Memphis Three' cases receive new hearing

On a dreary, overcast day in late November, I was allowed to talk to Echols for two hours about his conviction, his hopes and his most hated question -- the one he fears will follow him for the rest of his life, whether he is freed or not. I wasn't sure what to expect.

An advocate who arranged my interview with Echols cautioned that "Damien does not suffer fools gladly."

I remember thinking how pale and gaunt Echols, now 36 years old, appeared as he was escorted down a hallway to a seat behind a thick glass wall.

The handcuffs left bright red marks on his pale skin after they were removed.

"That looks like it hurt," I said. Looking down and rubbing his wrist, Echols replied softly, "It does."

He seemed a little surprised I would notice something like that. Echols says he has given hundreds of interviews, so many that there seems to be no question he would not be prepared to answer.

The one question that has always bothered him the most also is the most obvious: Did you kill those children? Echols believes the answer should be equally obvious.

Echols: After all the new evidence that we have that's come up now, it feels to me like I shouldn't have to answer that anymore, that people should be able to look at the evidence now and know that I didn't do it, without having to ask me that. I don't know. I don't know.

Mattingly: People are going to be watching you right now. They're going to be asking that question in their minds. They're going to be judging you.

Echols: I know.

Mattingly: I'll just ask you the question. Did you kill those boys?

Echols: No, I didn't. No, I didn't.

Mattingly: When you answer that, what's different now, compared to when you were on trial? Do you think people are listening now, who might not have been listening before?

Echols: I think so. I think you have some people now who are looking at the evidence, who do. It's been long enough for people to get past their emotions.

The evidence Echols talks about is DNA and the fact that not a single tiny cell was recovered from the crime scene that belonged to the three convicted teens.

Police did find a hair on one of the bodies that was a possible match to the stepfather of one of the victims.

The emotion Echols refers to is the fear and raw anger of a public that he believes was out for his blood. The investigation, arrests and trials fueled the outrage, producing nightly reports of grisly details and shocking headlines.

Echols seemed immune to it during his trial, appearing only to be what he describes as a "smart-ass" and "white trash" 18-year-old.

But some wounds cut to the bone and today his scars seem just as deep.

Echols was so interview-savvy that I was surprised when he suddenly got emotional.

Mattingly: Are my questions upsetting you right now?

Echols: It's hard. (pause) And I don't know why. Because you would think I'd be used to this by now. (long pause) I don't know. It-- it's hard. It-- it-- it-- like I said, it doesn't get any easier. And you would think I would be used to this by now. But-- you don't get used to this. (sighs)

And it does continue to get worse as time goes by. Knowing that -- you know, even if I were to go to trial today, and we were to present all this new evidence, and they were to find us not guilty, I would still, for the rest of my life, have people looking at me and asking me these questions about me, thinking these things about me. There's no way to-- for them to undo what's been done.

If the Arkansas Supreme Court dismisses his conviction and orders a new trial for the three men, it would be extremely rare.

But so far, Echols has beaten the odds.

Consider that under normal circumstances, my interview would have never taken place. Echols was originally scheduled to be executed in 1994.

Instead he sits alone in his cell while possibly thousands follow his case. He has won the support of celebrities like Johnny Depp and Eddie Vedder. Echols is also married to a woman who left her job and life behind to fight for him in Arkansas.

Not bad for a "smart-ass" "white trash" convicted killer.

Mattingly: If the court does eventually decide that you are innocent, you know what that means?

Echols: What?

Mattingly: That the killer is still out there.

Echols: Oh. Exactly. Yeah.

Mattingly: What would you want for that killer?

Echols: That's a hard question. Because my first instinct would be that he have to suffer everything that I've had to suffer for the past almost 18 years now. But I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be that angry. I don't want to be that bitter.

Easier said than done. There are people who remain convinced of his guilt and want him to die. That will never change.

After our interview, there was one comment from Echols I couldn't forget.

"I miss the stars," he said. "You know, I haven't seen the stars in years and years and years. I miss the rain. I miss food. I miss all these things. But what it comes down to the most -- and this is the thing that will scar me the most and that I'll carry with me as a scar the longest -- the thing I miss the most is being treated like a human being."
http://arkansasmatters.com/news-fulltext?nxd_id=383707    (http://arkansasmatters.com/news-fulltext?nxd_id=383707)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 16, 2011, 11:39:49 PM
John Douglas doesn't get paid to be popular.

Good thing.

He riles police and unnerves communities -- among them West Memphis.

A national pioneer in criminal profiling, the former FBI supervisor says his only loyalty is to the truth.

For a quarter of a century, when police across the nation encountered hard-to-solve murders, he was the go-to guy. As the first full-time profiler at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., his mission was to get inside the minds of killers to determine who they were and why they took lives.

He has his own theory about the motive and type of person who killed three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis in 1993. Hint: He says it's not the West Memphis Three.

Douglas is the inspiration for the character Jack Crawford, the sage sleuth who teaches Clarice Starling and other new FBI profilers techniques to hunt serial killers in "Silence of the Lambs."
Documents

    * Court documents show the type of person a former FBI expert believes murdered three 8-year-old boys. It's not the West Memphis Three.

John Douglas was the first full-time profiler at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.

John Douglas was the first full-time profiler at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.
Members of the Charles Manson 'family' kept a vigil at the Los Angeles Hall of Justice during Manson's 1971 trial. Upon meeting Manson, John Douglas was surprised that he towered over the diminutive man whose powerful personality converted so many individuals to his 'family.' Manson, scrawny and just 5-foot-2, satisfied his need for control when interviewed by the 6-foot-2 Douglas, by sitting on top of his chair back.


Members of the Charles Manson "family" kept a vigil at the Los Angeles Hall of Justice during Manson's 1971 trial. Upon meeting Manson, John Douglas was surprised that he towered over the diminutive man whose powerful personality converted so many individuals to his "family." Manson, scrawny and just 5-foot-2, satisfied his need for control when interviewed by the 6-foot-2 Douglas, by sitting on top of his chair back.
John Douglas says he was the first to learn that Ted Bundy, a serial killer who confessed to more than 30 murders, engaged in necrophilia. Bundy was executed in 1989.

John Douglas says he was the first to learn that Ted Bundy, a serial killer who confessed to more than 30 murders, engaged in necrophilia. Bundy was executed in 1989.
John Douglas, whose profile for the murderer of as many as 30 young black residents of Atlanta in the 1980s bucked conventional wisdom, finally convinced police to stake out area lakes where they arrested Wayne B. Williams.

John Douglas, whose profile for the murderer of as many as 30 young black residents of Atlanta in the 1980s bucked conventional wisdom, finally convinced police to stake out area lakes where they arrested Wayne B. Williams.
John Douglas believes JonBenet Ramsey's family is not to blame in the death of the 6-year-old beauty queen and that the police have bungled the investigation to the point where the crime may never be solved.

John Douglas believes JonBenet Ramsey's family is not to blame in the death of the 6-year-old beauty queen and that the police have bungled the investigation to the point where the crime may never be solved.
John Douglas has made a career of getting inside the minds of the likes of Edward Gein (right), the Wisconsin farmer who inspired the book and movie 'Psycho.' Gein admitted slaying two women and dismembering their bodies, as well as robbing graves.

John Douglas has made a career of getting inside the minds of the likes of Edward Gein (right), the Wisconsin farmer who inspired the book and movie "Psycho." Gein admitted slaying two women and dismembering their bodies, as well as robbing graves.

He turned down a role in the movie, but in real life he's accepted as many invitations as possible to help track some of the nation's most menacing and elusive predators.

He developed the psychological profile that ultimately helped nab the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, though his fellow agents were initially skeptical of his unorthodox methods.

Douglas discovered that by analyzing crime scenes, reports and autopsy photos, he could decipher personality traits of the criminal and predict the type of victim the killer would be hunting next.

He also tries to get into the minds of the victims, including reliving their final moments.

He even works in his sleep, trying to dream about cases in hopes that some clue might pop up in his subconscious mind. He keeps a notepad by his bed in case he jolts awake with ideas.

That often leads to sleepless nights and horrifying nightmares. For Douglas, it's part of the job of hunting the most savage among us.

Douglas said other agents, trained to gather facts through traditional interviews, viewed his mind-probing techniques as "voodoo science" or "BS." When he was promoted to take over the operational side of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime's Behavioral Science Unit, he changed the name to the Investigative Support Unit, to remove the initials "BS."

Retired FBI agent Bob Campbell, a polygraph expert, said he was among those leery of profiling to get into the mind of a killer.

"The sociopath is really hard to get a grip on," said Campbell, who worked in New York and in the Southeast. "If you're depending on your instincts, they're probably going to beat you most of the time because they're reading you better than you're reading them."

"Investigation is really the only go-to standard that we have. I mean, facts are facts."

Campbell, an agent for 33 years, pointed to the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing case in Atlanta. Investigators labeled security guard Richard Jewell a suspect, based on his matching a criminal profile by an FBI agent other than Douglas.

"The profilers were saying: 'You got the guy,' " Campbell said of Jewell. "That's a good example of rushing to judgment."

Years later, Jewell was vindicated with the confession of Eric Robert Rudolph. But Jewell's reputation was damaged, while Rudolph had time to kill a police officer and injure six more victims.

Investigations consultant Vernon Geberth, a retired NYPD homicide commander, said he trains officers from all over the country to be skeptical of profiles.

"It's a tool, but there have been profiles that have been absolutely wrong," said Geberth, who spent 23 years with New York's police force.

"I'm a real murder cop," said Geberth, who oversaw thousands of homicide investigations in the Bronx. "When you're actually standing at a homicide scene, talking to victims' families and suspects, it's a helluva lot different than analyzing photos after the fact."

Douglas has heard it before. His techniques and conclusions, heralded by some, have long angered many prosecutors and his brethren in blue. His findings can shatter confidence in an arrest or conviction.

Atlanta police who were hunting a serial killer of children thought Douglas was way off base. And, Douglas said, his opinions on the JonBenet Ramsey murder case made him "the most hated man in America."

Still, he doesn't waver.

When defense attorneys for Arkansas death row inmate Damien Echols asked Douglas, now a private consultant, to analyze the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old West Memphis boys, he put them on notice. He would accept a consultation fee, but his opinion couldn't be bought. He would be blunt and unyielding -- even if he concluded that Echols and his co-defendants, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., are appropriately behind bars.

Ultimately, Douglas became convinced of the innocence of the so-called West Memphis Three, all teenagers when convicted in 1994.

"What I do know is that there are three teens who are now in their 30s sitting in prison who don't belong there," Douglas said during a recent interview. "It really disturbs me."

He said he has several reasons for believing a lone killer has gotten away with murder.

In 2007, he trekked through the crime scene, examined police and autopsy reports and crime scene photos, and interviewed several people, including relatives of all three victims.

He had dreaded approaching the parents. As he drove across the bridge from Memphis toward West Memphis, he remembers thinking: "They're going to kick me in the pants and kick me off the porch."

One victim's parent, John Mark Byers, restricted Douglas to the porch for hours before trusting him enough to allow him inside. Byers now admits he didn't want to believe the real killer was still at large.

Douglas went over all of the evidence and his findings, and now Byers, who once shouted for Echols to go to hell, is one of Echols' supporters.

Prosecutors still contend that Echols, then 18, Baldwin, then 16, and Misskelley, then 17, teamed to sexually abuse, beat and mutilate the boys, whom they didn't know, in a planned satanic ritual. The medical examiner has testified that Christopher Byers bled to death after being sexually mutilated, while Stevie Branch and Michael Moore drowned.

Defense attorneys have since consulted with five medical experts who say the boys were not sodomized or stabbed and, instead, animals had torn at their bodies after they were tossed into a muddy reservoir. They say all three boys were struck in the head, causing lethal skull fractures, and two of the victims drowned.

The victims were naked and their wrists were tied to their ankles with their shoe laces. Their clothes were hidden in the muddy water, wrapped at the end of large sticks -- something Douglas believes shows criminal sophistication, not teenage impulse.

Douglas believes a lone killer -- someone the boys knew -- attacked them in a fit of rage.

He believes the murders were unplanned. His theory is that the killer didn't feel respected by his boss, his co-workers, his wife or his children, and then the victims didn't respond to his orders -- unleashing a mounting and powerful rage.

"I think the anger was from the kids not following instructions," Douglas said.

The afternoon of the murders, Christopher was supposed to be at home picking up trash in the yard. Michael was due at home for supper at 6 p.m. Stevie was told he would be grounded if he wasn't home at 4:30 p.m. But all three were seen riding their bicycles as late as 6:30 p.m.

"This is not a sexually motivated crime," Douglas said. "This was more of a punishment, a degrading act to teach a lesson."

He believes it would have been easy for an adult, a figure of authority, to control three kids. Once they were made to strip, they would be reluctant to run.

And once they were tied up, there would be no escape.

He believes the killer used the butt of a gun or end of a closed knife to strike the boys in the head.

"Perhaps one of the kids was struck too hard and would go home and tell," he said. "Now you've gotten to the point of no return."

Douglas thinks the killer has a violent history and likely feels no remorse. According to Douglas, he is a skilled liar, who has justified the killings in his own mind and would pass a lie detector test with ease.

Douglas has a suspect in mind whom he believes merits further investigation.

"I feel certain" that it isn't Echols, he said. "That's the easy part. The hard part is getting the perpetrator, getting the evidence and convicting them."

Justice hasn't been satisfied yet in one of America's best-known unsolved cases, that of JonBenet Ramsey, killed in the basement of her Colorado home on Christmas, 1996.

Douglas' conclusions in the case have pitted him against local police and even a fellow former FBI criminal profiler.

Douglas said others were fixated on the 6-year-old child beauty queen's parents, John and the late Patsy Ramsey, citing the statistical probability that a child, especially a young child, is most likely to be killed by a family member, particularly a parent.

Attorneys for the victim's father flew Douglas to Boulder, Colo. He concluded that the culprit or culprits were likely seeking revenge on John Ramsey, a wealthy executive.

One of Douglas' most controversial findings was in Atlanta.

In the 1980s, young black children and teens were being snatched off streets and even from their homes and strangled, shot or beaten to death. Body after body piled up and Atlanta area police were stymied, sending the community into a panic. Theories began to surface that it was an act of racial hatred by the Ku Klux Klan.

Not so, according to Douglas.

Many local cops wanted the Brooklyn-born, big-city federal guy to leave town fast. Few wanted to hear what he had to say: that one of their own was to blame, a cunning but unsuccessful black man from the area, not a white stranger motivated by hatred.

"It was a case that so engulfed everyone in the community," said Paul Howard, Atlanta's top prosecutor.

"People, including law enforcement, said he didn't know what he was doing, that he was crazy," Howard, then a fledgling prosecutor, said of Douglas.

"He was really out on a limb when he released his findings."

Police eventually took Douglas' advice to stake out area bridges, anticipating the killer would start tossing bodies in water. That's how police nabbed Wayne Williams, an intelligent but unsuccessful local black man -- as Douglas had predicted.

The veteran prosecutor credits Douglas with helping to stop a serial killer whom he blames for at least 30 murders, though Williams was only prosecuted for two.

Williams, serving back-to-back life sentences, insists he is innocent and still has many followers.

That doesn't faze Douglas.

In one of his books, "The Cases That Haunt Us," he wrote: "A criminal investigator has only one responsibility.... It has only to do with the silent pledge made by the investigator to the victim ... that he or she will do everything within his or her power to uncover the truth of what happened and bring the offender to the gates of earthly justice."

So when Echols' attorneys recently lobbied the Arkansas Supreme Court for a new trial, they got a new ally. Douglas, who spent the majority of his career aiding police and prosecutors, joined the defense team.

Echols' lead attorney, Dennis Riordan, argued that he has new DNA evidence and witnesses -- and Douglas' 19-page analysis.

In a rare move Thursday, the high court ordered an evidentiary hearing, a mini-trial, for Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley. Douglas could be one of the witnesses.

Douglas retired in 1995 after 25 years with the FBI. He was the unit chief for the operational side of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, overseeing more than 40 agents, including a dozen profilers.

Annually, Douglas was supervising profiles in about 1,000 major crimes, including dozens of child murders.

By comparison, West Memphis police had investigated six homicides in 1992, the year before the boys died.

At Echols' new hearing, defense attorneys are hoping Douglas' extensive experience will be a trump card.

Beth Warren is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal. Contact her at 529-2383.

---------------------------------------------

Who is John Douglas?

As a pioneering FBI criminal profiler, John Douglas has overseen thousands of kidnappings, serial rapes, bombings and murders -- including the 1982 Tylenol poisoning deaths.

His profile helped nab Sedley Alley, executed in 2006 for the 1985 beating, rape and strangulation of Suzanne Marie Collins, a 19-year-old Marine lance corporal stationed at Millington.

He has interviewed Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Ed Gein, David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz and James Earl Ray.

He helped Scotland Yard track a London serial killer.

He will soon travel to Italy to assist attorneys who are fighting to free Amanda Knox, an American student convicted of helping to kill her roommate.

Douglas has written many books, including true crimes.

He also has served as a technical adviser for actress Jody Foster in the movie "Silence of the Lambs" and Stanley Tucci for "The Lovely Bones."

Producers are now working on a possible TV series based on his life.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/nov/07/profiler-convinced-innocence-west-memphis-three/   (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/nov/07/profiler-convinced-innocence-west-memphis-three/)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 16, 2011, 11:43:05 PM
In bid for new trial, West Memphis Three granted rare new hearing

    * By Beth Warren
    * Memphis Commercial Appeal
    * Posted November 4, 2010 at 9:10 a.m., updated November 4, 2010 at 11:22 p.m.

 http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/nov/04/west-memphis-three-granted-rare-hearing-arkansas-s/  (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/nov/04/west-memphis-three-granted-rare-hearing-arkansas-s/)

It took a small, dedicated army to get Arkansas death row inmate Damien Echols a rare second chance.

The Arkansas Supreme Court announced its decision Thursday to grant an evidentiary hearing, or mini-trial before a judge, to the infamous West Memphis Three of Echols and his friends, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr.

All three have been imprisoned for 17 years for the murders of three 8-year-old West Memphis boys.

"It's very unusual," Arkansas legal expert John Plegge, a retired Circuit Court judge from Pulaski County, said of the decision.

Echols' wife, Lorri Davis, watched the court's announcement live via Internet video streaming on her home computer in Little Rock.

"I'm pretty happy," she said. "We're excited."

She later issued a statement for Echols, saying: "It is the best news he has heard in his case in the 17 years he has been on death row."

John Mark Byers, adopted father of victim Christopher Byers, said he also was elated while watching the hearing online from his Millington home.

"It's a very positive move toward what I hope will be justice for three children ... that the guilty parties are found and punished," Byers said.

Byers once danced on mock graves for the three defendants, but now is convinced they're innocent based on new DNA evidence.

The high court ruled that Echols and his co-defendants will get to lobby a local Circuit Court judge for a new trial based on new DNA evidence on human hairs that don't belong to the defendants. They will appear before a new judge because the initial trial judge now is a state legislator.

"Now we have seven justices saying: 'This case needs to be looked at,'" Byers said. "I feel that today the scales of justice began tilting in the correct direction."

The defendants will also get the chance to test more DNA evidence, fibers and animal hairs, which they asked to test years ago.

In a surprise move, Chief Supreme Court Justice Jim Hannah wrote that the issue of jury bias also can be considered.

Legal observers predicted the high court would stay clear of the issue of jury misconduct because jury deliberations are considered secret.

"They don't typically go behind a jury verdict to determine why the jury got there," said Debra Reece, an adjunct law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Lloyd Warford, the jury foreman's family attorney, has filed an affidavit with the high court, alleging that the foreman talked at length about questionable jury conduct.

Defense attorneys used the affidavit to charge that the foreman, Jonesboro real estate developer Kent Arnold, manipulated his way onto the jury, improperly discussed the case before jury deliberations had begun and persuaded other jurors to convict on inadmissible evidence.

That evidence was the confession of Misskelley, who has been described as borderline mentally +++++++. Misskelley was interrogated for 12 hours and later recanted and refused to testify against Echols and Baldwin.

Reece, a former Arkansas Supreme Court law clerk, said the jury misconduct issue alone should be enough for a Circuit Court judge to grant a new trial.

"This jury foreman has revealed that Damien Echols was convicted on evidence never presented at trial," the professor said. "That's the troubling thing about all of this."

The justices made it clear that Echols and his friends don't have to prove their innocence. Prosecutors carry the burden of proving guilt.

"The question is whether a new jury would find Echols guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," Justice Ronald L. Sheffield wrote.

Defense attorneys Dennis Riordan and Donald Horgan issued a joint statement urging state prosecutors to stipulate to unresolved issues, such as the new DNA, and join them in asking a judge for a new trial without an evidentiary hearing.

The San Francisco-based defense attorneys wrote: "We look forward to entering into good faith discussions with the Arkansas authorities to achieve that end."

In his own statement, Atty. Gen. Dustin McDaniel said, in part: "My office intends to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to defend the jury verdicts in this case."

A date for the hearing has not yet been set.

During a recent interview from death row, Echols said he feels sure he would have already been executed if not for an HBO documentary about the case.

"Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" inspired a legion of supporters who have signed a petition for a new trial and have contributed money to help with legal expenses, including investigators who have discovered new evidence.

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, two documentary filmmakers from New York, headed to West Memphis in 1993 after hearing that three teens were charged with killing the three boys in a satanic ritual.

"We came down here thinking we were doing a story on rotten teenagers accused of devil-worshipping murders," Berlinger said.

But soon the filmmakers began to doubt the teens' guilt, he said.

"There were so many holes in this case."

--Beth Warren: 529-2383


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 16, 2011, 11:45:47 PM
The victims ::MonkeyAngel::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 17, 2011, 12:33:00 AM
New DNA evidence could link victim's stepfather to 1993 child murders

    * By Marc Perrusquia
    * Memphis Commercial Appeal
    * Posted October 30, 2007 at 12:01 a.m.

   http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/oct/30/another-twist-the-west-memphis-3-the-victims/   (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/oct/30/another-twist-the-west-memphis-3-the-victims/)
New DNA evidence filed Monday offers fresh hope to three men who claim they were wrongly convicted in the horrific 1993 West Memphis child murders and points an accusing finger at a stepfather who sat through two sensational trials as a grieving parent.

Evidence filed today offers fresh hope to three men who claim they were falsely convicted.

Defense lawyers say two hairs -- evidence that looms large in a case long devoid of physical evidence -- link the stepfather to the crime scene where the bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found nude and hogtied in a watery ditch.

Forensic scientists retained in a new defense bid to overturn the convictions also contend that state pathologists and prosecutors made grave errors in analyzing wounds on the murdered boys' bodies.

The bodies bore hundreds of wounds including a reported castration -- evidence of a ritualistic, satanic slaying, prosecutors asserted at trial.

The prosecution's theory of a satanic motive was key to the convictions of then-teenagers Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, all widely rumored to have been involved in cult activities. The three, all now in their 30s, are in prison; Echols on death row.

However, forensic reports offered by the defense attribute nearly all those injuries to predators -- possibly dogs or raccoons -- that fed on the bodies in the hours after the murders.

"I have never thought that they (the three defendants) were guilty,'' said Jo Lynn McCaughey, an aunt of one of the murdered boys, who attended a three-hour meeting Monday afternoon in Memphis where Echols' defense team revealed results of DNA testing to the victims' families.

"I've always said we didn't lose three boys that day, we lost six. We lost them to injustice.''

West Memphis Asst. Police Chief Mike Allen said he hasn't received full details of the DNA testing yet and that he stands by the convictions.

"I personally think they do have the three right individuals in jail,'' said Allen, who in 1993 was a young police detective who helped investigate the triple slaying.

He said defense lawyers are trying to make a suspect out of Terry Hobbs, a stepfather of one of the victims, just as they had once pointed fingers at another parent, John Mark Byers.

"It's just like Mark Byers; for 14 years they tried to make him a suspect,'' Allen said, dismissing new defense claims that two hairs now link Hobbs to the crime scene.

Defense lawyers say they can't prove Hobbs had any involvement in the murders, yet DNA testing by their experts determined that Hobbs was among less than 1 percent of the population who couldn't be excluded as the donor of a hair fragment found on one of the bodies. A second hair found nearby likely came from one of Hobbs' friends, testing found.

News of the first hair broke this summer, and Hobbs told reporters then that his hair could have landed on any of the boys through normal contact with them while they were alive.

However, news of the second hair -- reportedly from a friend who was playing guitar with Hobbs in the hours before the boys disappeared -- adds intrigue to an already explosive case.

"It's questionable that even that the (first) hair they found was that of Hobbs,'' Allen said, yet when asked of the second hair, he said, "I don't know if it would be explainable or not.''

Hobbs couldn't be reached Monday. A cell phone he carried earlier this year was disconnected.

Also sitting through the evidence meeting Monday was Byers, a stepfather who later adopted victim Christopher Byers. Maintaining the defendant's innocence, defense attorneys and filmmakers long pointed a finger at Byers after he gave a bloody knife to a film crew.

Now bald and sporting a goatee, the once-loquacious Byers brushed aside reporters' questions, saying, "At this moment, I have no comment.''

The new defense evidence is incorporated in a suit filed late Monday in federal court in Little Rock seeking the release of the defendants, known as the West Memphis Three. The move is backed by a growing network of supporters including some well-known and wealthy Hollywood actors like Jack Black and rock musician Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam.

The three, all indigent and represented by court-appointed counsel at trial, now have a defense with deep pockets and resources to attract big names in the forensic pathology and to conduct expensive DNA testing. Scientific testing in the case was authorized in a 2004 court order and has taken years to complete.

From the moment the bodies of West Memphis second-graders Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Steve Branch were pulled from a rainy-weather creek in a patch of woods along Interstate 40 on May 6, 1993, the case has stirred great fear and unending legal twists.

Jessie Misskelley (from left), Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin sit at the defense table in a Jonesboro, Ark., courtroom on Oct. 19, 1993.

Now there are several more.

The prosecutions hinged on a confession by Misskelley, a troubled youth with a low IQ, who told police how he watched as Echols and Baldwin brutalized the boys in an attack that included sexual assault, wounds inflicted with a knife and the castration of Byers.

Yet in a lengthy petition for writ of habeas corpus -- a federal maneuver that allows a convict to seek relief from unlawful detention -- Echols' lawyers argue that most of the wounds prosecutors attributed to ritualistic murder were inflicted by small animals after the boys died.

Assembling a team of leading forensic scientists -- including Dr. Michael Baden, the celebrated former chief medical examiner of New York City and noted pathologist Dr. Vincent DiMaio -- the defense experts concluded that most of the key wounds and many gouges, abrasions and scratches were afflicted postmortem.

"Animal predation rather than use of a knife also accounted for the severe genital injury to victim Christopher Byers,'' wrote Echols' California defense lawyers, Dennis P. Riordan and Donald M. Horgan. "In addition, the experts all concluded that none of the victims had exhibited injuries consistent with sexual abuse ...''

The reported castration of Christopher Byers has long puzzled students of the case. The unusual and ragged injury prompted state pathologist Dr. Frank J. Peretti to testify at trial that the procedure would have taken him hours to perform under pristine conditions in a lab.

Defense experts commented that the removal was done in a manner similar to industrial accidents known as "degloving.''

The defense team contends in its filing that the "new forensic evidence exposes most of the testimony introduced against Echols as perjured, fraudulent, or of no probative value.''

The lawyers take the prosecution to task on several fronts, including the use of state witness, Dale Griffis, a self-described expert in occult killings. Griffis testified the killings had the "trappings of occultism,'' noting they occured near the time of a full moon and citing the castration and numerous injuries as evidence of ritualistic "overkill.''

"That the testimony of an utter charlatan like Griffis was offered to the jury as a basis for executing a human being is one of the most appalling aspects of this deeply disturbing case,'' the lawyers wrote.

John Fogleman, a prosecutor on the case and now a Circuit Court judge, declined comment Monday. His partner on the case, Brent Davis, couldn't be reached.

The two hairs linked to Hobbs with help from DNA laboratories in Virginia and California also may help tip the balance of the case, defense lawyers wrote. "That is an exculpatory fact of great importance," defense attorneys wrote.

In a case light on physical evidence, the hairs loom large, particularly given the confession by Misskelley and lack of physical evidence linking the defendants to the crime scene, the lawyers said.

"Certainly had the victims been forcibly sodomized by Echols and Baldwin, as claimed by Jessie Misskelley, it is inconceivable that those assaults could have been accomplished without leaving any genetic material," they wrote.

--Marc Perrusquia: 529-2545

© 2007 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 17, 2011, 01:25:52 AM
More interesting reading here:

http://www.wm3.org/  (http://www.wm3.org/)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 17, 2011, 03:26:20 AM
In case anyone is wondering why I brought this forward, I thought I would explain. Well, first off it was aired recently on CNN about the new DNA testing being done and a possible new trial. Secondly, if you saw the HBO special regarding this case (Paradise Lost) starring one of the step Dads, you probably thought (like I did) that the stepdad (John Mark Byers) had something to do with what happened to these 3 children. He was definitely odd and even went as far as to give a knife to the HBO staff with blood on it, which later tested to be human blood. Then lastly, NOW recent DNA testing on hairs found within the binding of one of the children implicates.....(this is getting confusing) ANOTHER Step Dad (Terry Hobbs) as well as "Terry Hobbs" friend "David Jacoby" Terry and David were supposedly together that afternoon/evening. Police also never completed an interview with "Terry Hobbs". He was not home when LE went to interview Mrs Hobbs. They never returned to interview him. Things are supposed to start happening in this case in mid February of this year. This should be interesting. This case has always disturbed me on so many levels. I just hope we can find answers soon with out a shadow of a doubt so that the memory of these children can be the focus and not who committed the crime.
 ::MonkeyAngel::May you rest in peace little Angels ::MonkeyAngel::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: Sister on February 17, 2011, 06:55:17 AM
In case anyone is wondering why I brought this forward, I thought I would explain. Well, first off it was aired recently on CNN about the new DNA testing being done and a possible new trial. Secondly, if you saw the HBO special regarding this case (Paradise Lost) starring one of the step Dads, you probably thought (like I did) that the stepdad (John Mark Byers) had something to do with what happened to these 3 children. He was definitely odd and even went as far as to give a knife to the HBO staff with blood on it, which later tested to be human blood. Then lastly, NOW recent DNA testing on hairs found within the binding of one of the children implicates.....(this is getting confusing) ANOTHER Step Dad (Terry Hobbs) as well as "Terry Hobbs" friend "David Jacoby" Terry and David were supposedly together that afternoon/evening. Police also never completed an interview with "Terry Hobbs". He was not home when LE went to interview Mrs Hobbs. They never returned to interview him. Things are supposed to start happening in this case in mid February of this year. This should be interesting. This case has always disturbed me on so many levels. I just hope we can find answers soon with out a shadow of a doubt so that the memory of these children can be the focus and not who committed the crime.
 ::MonkeyAngel::May you rest in peace little Angels ::MonkeyAngel::
Cartfly, this new evidence assuredly calls into question so many things.  Along with the juror mentioned in one of the articles, a new trial seems fair.  Thank you for the updates.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on March 30, 2011, 10:47:41 PM
March 28, 2011

WM3 Victim’s Mother Prepares for New Hearing

http://wm3org.typepad.com/blog/2011/03/wm3-victims-mother-prepares-for-new-hearing.html  (http://wm3org.typepad.com/blog/2011/03/wm3-victims-mother-prepares-for-new-hearing.html)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: klaasend on August 15, 2011, 05:55:12 PM
NEW BLINK POST:

http://blinkoncrime.com/2011/08/15/the-west-memphis-three-series-part-i-set-free-or-where-they-should-be/

The West Memphis Three Series Part I: Set Free Or Where They Should Be?


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 16, 2011, 01:31:49 AM
NEW BLINK POST:

http://blinkoncrime.com/2011/08/15/the-west-memphis-three-series-part-i-set-free-or-where-they-should-be/

The West Memphis Three Series Part I: Set Free Or Where They Should Be?

Wow, just wow.....Thanks Klaas for the heads up on Blinks article.

I was just thinking about this case yesterday. I think I will need to read Blinks article a couple of more times just to digest all of this. I am looking forward to reading the next installments. I am still on the fence about all of this. I remember the hysteria when this all happened and still get sick inside thinking about what these children went through. I hope all of our doubts of guilt or innocence can finally be put to rest sometime soon.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 16, 2011, 01:41:19 PM
There are three segments of this interview regarding a new review of evidence to be presented to a Judge in December 2011. Also a side note another HBO film is going to be released in November of 2011.

http://youtu.be/0FWAJb7Xu_Q  (http://youtu.be/0FWAJb7Xu_Q)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 18, 2011, 06:21:28 PM
I just picked up this news from a poster over at blinks on her article about the West Memphis 3. Here is a media release:

Deal could lead to release of West Memphis Three

    By Marc Perrusquia
    Posted August 18, 2011 at 4:37 p.m.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/18/plea-deal-release-west-memphis-three/  (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/18/plea-deal-release-west-memphis-three/)

 ::snipping2::
Prosecutors and defense attorneys are working out a deal that could result in the release of the West Memphis Three murder defendants as early as Friday, according to legal sources and relatives of victims.

"It's a high probability," said Jackie Byers, 44, wife of John Mark Byers, whose son was one of three 8-year-old boys found nude and hog-tied in 1993 in a watery ditch in West Memphis. "We've been asked not to say anything until after tomorrow."

A source close to the case said the pending deal involves the immediate release of defendants Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley in return for pleas to lesser charges. All three were convicted of capital murder in 1994. Echols was sentenced to death, while Baldwin and Misskelley are serving life terms
 ::snipping2::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 18, 2011, 06:37:13 PM
(http://media.commercialappeal.com/media/img/photos/2007/10/29/wm3-dead_t607.jpg)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 18, 2011, 06:50:09 PM
Video of Stevie Branch's Father (Today)

http://&nbsp;<embed type='application/x-shockwave-flash' salign='l' flashvars='&amp;titleAvailable=true&amp;playerAvailable=true&amp;searchAvailable=false&amp;shareFlag=N&amp;singleURL=http://wreg.vidcms.trb.com/alfresco/service/edge/content/b05313b1-d7e1-4c5b-8776-fe8bf072cdd6&amp;propName=wreg.com&amp;hostURL=http://www.wreg.com&amp;swfPath=http://wreg.vid.trb.com/player/&amp;omAccount=triblocaltvglobal&amp;omnitureServer=wreg.com' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' menu='true' name='PaperVideoTest' bgcolor='#ffffff' devicefont='false' wmode='transparent' scale='showall' loop='true' play='true' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer' quality='high' src='http://wreg.vid.trb.com/player/PaperVideoTest.swf' align='middle' height='450' width='300'></embed>

I messed that one up....direct link here:

http://www.wreg.com/videobeta/b05313b1-d7e1-4c5b-8776-fe8bf072cdd6/News/RAW-Steven-Branch-Father-of-Victim-Stevie-Branch  (http://www.wreg.com/videobeta/b05313b1-d7e1-4c5b-8776-fe8bf072cdd6/News/RAW-Steven-Branch-Father-of-Victim-Stevie-Branch)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 18, 2011, 06:56:15 PM
  http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-west-memphis-3-freed,0,5347577.story (http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-west-memphis-3-freed,0,5347577.story)

 ::snipping2::
Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin
West Memphis 3: Two, Including Echols, Will Be Released Friday

Updated: 12 minutes ago George Brown

5:26 p.m. CDT, August 18, 2011


::snipping2::Multiple sources, including the father of one of the victims, have confirmed this will be announced at a special hearing Friday.

Steve Branch, father of WM3 victim Stevie Branch: "There's supposed to be a gag order on this but they're not going to gag me. They can put me in jail if they want to. I'll go to jail to stand up for my son's rights."

That hearing is scheduled to be held in Jonesboro, AR. ::snipping2::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 18, 2011, 07:00:23 PM
Victim's family: Members of West Memphis 3 to be released
Posted: Aug 18, 2011 10:45 AM CDT Updated: Aug 18, 2011 4:00 PM CDT


 ::snipping2::
JONESBORO, AR -

(WMC-TV) - The father of one of the boys brutally killed in West Memphis in 1993 told Action News 5 that two of the men convicted will be released during a hearing Friday.

Thursday afternoon, Action News 5 learned that all three men convicted in the infamous murder left a Super Max prison with all their belongings.  The men were placed in the custody of Craighead County officers ahead of Friday's hearing in a Jonesboro courtroom.

Craighead County Circuit Judge David Laser's office on Thursday said that Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin will be in court Friday in Jonesboro. Laser's office refused to release any more details about the hearing. A gag order issued by Laser in April prohibits attorneys from talking to reporters. ::snipping2::

http://www.wmctv.com/story/15290668/judge-sets-unexpected-hearing-for-west-memphis-3  (http://www.wmctv.com/story/15290668/judge-sets-unexpected-hearing-for-west-memphis-3)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 18, 2011, 07:16:45 PM
    Video
    Photo

    Hearing Set for 'West Memphis Three'
    FULL INTERVIEW: Damien Echols

Big Decision Expected in West Memphis Three Case

Updated: Thursday, 18 Aug 2011, 5:15 PM CDT
Published : Thursday, 18 Aug 2011, 5:06 PM CDT

 http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/big-decision-expected-in-west-memphis-three-case-mfo-20110818 (http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/big-decision-expected-in-west-memphis-three-case-mfo-20110818)
   ::snipping2::
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - An 18 year saga which began with the brutal slayings of three West Memphis 8-years olds could be headed toward a surprise ending. A special Friday morning hearing in Jonesboro will bring together families of the victims and the three convicted murderers, known as the West Memphis Three, for what could be an explosive resolution of the infamous case.
 ::snipping2::
September 2010 may have marked the beginning of a major turning point in the iconic 18-year old triple murder case of the West Memphis Three for the deaths of Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch and Michael Moore. Arkansas Supreme Court judges surprisingly ordered an evidentiary hearing to determine if new DNA evidence and testimony might warrant new trials for convicted murderers Damien Wayne Echols, Charles Jason Baldwin and Jessie Lloyd Misskelly.
 ::snipping2::
The turn of events gained momentum this summer. In June, even before the contents of testing became available, the Arkansas Attorney General's office declared they would not fight DNA results. In July, testing indicated DNA at the murder scene did not match Echols or the other two defendants. A human hair that was discovered on one of the victim's blue jeans was not linked the trio nor was a small amount of human DNA found on a victim's shoe, indicating instead the DNA evidence belonged to two unidentified men.

 ::snipping2::

So who is trying to cover their own a**? ::MonkeyCool::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: KittyMom on August 19, 2011, 09:57:26 AM
(http://media.commercialappeal.com/media/img/photos/2007/10/29/wm3-dead_t607.jpg)

No justice for these little guys.  Such a shame.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: klaasend on August 19, 2011, 10:28:28 AM
Live coverage link:

http://www.wmctv.com/category/196691/action-news-5-live-video-coverage



Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 11:12:51 AM
Thanks for the live link Klaas ::MonkeyAngel::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 11:26:36 AM
Wow! Byers is outright saying outside the court house. "Terry Wayne Hobbs is guilty" and "put himself in those woods all night long"


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 11:32:57 AM
link to documents and case history:

 http://callahan.8k.com/ (http://callahan.8k.com/)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 11:52:45 AM
public court hearing to begin at 11 AM today


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 12:52:26 PM
Michael, Chris and Steve my thoughts with you only~~ ::MonkeyAngel::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 12:54:10 PM
press conference now


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 01:01:10 PM
West Memphis 3 being processed now to be released immediately.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 01:06:31 PM
IMO, the state is only covering their own azz....period No real justice for these children


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 01:08:43 PM
IMO, the state is only covering their own azz....period No real justice for these children


Scott Ellington: today means they've "terminated prolonged litigation...removed question of the WM3 of filing lawsuit against the state for many millions of dollars"


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: Gypsy DD on August 19, 2011, 01:08:48 PM
West Memphis 3 being processed now to be released immediately.

So all three are free to go?  No trial in Dec for the DNA etc?

So one of the parents thinks Hobbs is guilty?  Where does that leave us..will the State prosecute anyone now..or is this just case closed?

And why do I see celebrity status for the 3 let go today?  Media interviews..huge paychecks...and where does that leave our three little victims..back in that ditch with no justice.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: trimmonthelake on August 19, 2011, 01:17:25 PM
West Memphis 3 being processed now to be released immediately.

So all three are free to go?  No trial in Dec for the DNA etc?

So one of the parents thinks Hobbs is guilty?  Where does that leave us..will the State prosecute anyone now..or is this just case closed?

And why do I see celebrity status for the 3 let go today?  Media interviews..huge paychecks...and where does that leave our three little victims..back in that ditch with no justice.

The way I understand it,the case is closed,and the DA does not have any reason to believe anyone else committed the crime.
No justice.  ::MonkeyNoNo::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 01:18:53 PM
(http://media.commercialappeal.com/media/img/photos/2007/10/29/wm3-dead_t607.jpg)

No justice for these little guys.  Such a shame.
BUMP


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: canadianmonkey on August 19, 2011, 01:43:17 PM
West Memphis 3 being processed now to be released immediately.

So all three are free to go?  No trial in Dec for the DNA etc?

So one of the parents thinks Hobbs is guilty?  Where does that leave us..will the State prosecute anyone now..or is this just case closed?

And why do I see celebrity status for the 3 let go today?  Media interviews..huge paychecks...and where does that leave our three little victims..back in that ditch with no justice.

The way I understand it,the case is closed,and the DA does not have any reason to believe anyone else committed the crime.
No justice.  ::MonkeyNoNo::

I think they definately should be looking into who killed these children.  Damian did say they can continue to clear their names now, just from outside the prison during the press conference.  Lets hope public pressure will continue.  Public pressure got the WM3 released, public pressure can insist someone looks for the killer of the children.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 01:43:29 PM
West Memphis 3 being processed now to be released immediately.

So all three are free to go?  No trial in Dec for the DNA etc?

So one of the parents thinks Hobbs is guilty?  Where does that leave us..will the State prosecute anyone now..or is this just case closed?

And why do I see celebrity status for the 3 let go today?  Media interviews..huge paychecks...and where does that leave our three little victims..back in that ditch with no justice.
So many questions and still no justice for these babies. My heart is so heavy. I pray someone pursues the truth. I am on the fence, not a supporter of the WM3 or a non-supporter. We just don't know the real truth.....
RIP sweet Angels  ::MonkeyAngel:: ::MonkeyAngel:: ::MonkeyAngel::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 01:45:05 PM
West Memphis 3 being processed now to be released immediately.

So all three are free to go?  No trial in Dec for the DNA etc?

So one of the parents thinks Hobbs is guilty?  Where does that leave us..will the State prosecute anyone now..or is this just case closed?

And why do I see celebrity status for the 3 let go today?  Media interviews..huge paychecks...and where does that leave our three little victims..back in that ditch with no justice.

The way I understand it,the case is closed,and the DA does not have any reason to believe anyone else committed the crime.
No justice.  ::MonkeyNoNo::

I think they definately should be looking into who killed these children.  Damian did say they can continue to clear their names now, just from outside the prison during the press conference.  Lets hope public pressure will continue.  Public pressure got the WM3 released, public pressure can insist someone looks for the killer of the children.
so eloquently said.....will we ever find justice for these babies. ::MonkeyAngel::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 01:47:55 PM
Alford plea (also called Kennedy plea [1], Alford guilty plea[2][3][4] and Alford doctrine[5][6][7]) in the law of the United States is a guilty plea in criminal court,[8][9][10] where the defendant does not admit the act and asserts innocence.[11][12][13] Under the Alford plea, the defendant admits that sufficient evidence exists with which the prosecution could likely convince a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.[5][14][15][16][17]

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: Gypsy DD on August 19, 2011, 07:01:40 PM
Alford plea (also called Kennedy plea [1], Alford guilty plea[2][3][4] and Alford doctrine[5][6][7]) in the law of the United States is a guilty plea in criminal court,[8][9][10] where the defendant does not admit the act and asserts innocence.[11][12][13] Under the Alford plea, the defendant admits that sufficient evidence exists with which the prosecution could likely convince a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.[5][14][15][16][17]

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea)

And that says it all..basically..they get to plead innocent..but admit the State has the goods on them....I have never doubted they did this..the one boy ran away once the mutilation insued...

This is the story of our society today...if you get enough press behind you then you become whatever it is you want.  The Memphis three wanted to get out..throw enough money and celebrity with publicists and they are now free.

Casey Anthony instead of a negligent, slutty, murdering mother mother becomes a celeb paid for ics by TMZ..and her parents have been reaping the rewards all along.

These West Memphis Three and their families are on the brink of the next media darlings and tv movie fodder...and the what does that say folks about our society..we are scraping the bottom of the barrell now..and have been for some time.. When do we demand that justice prevail..and the unjust do not get media coverage and rich off of their crimes?


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 19, 2011, 09:00:14 PM
CNN is going to have something on tonight at 11PM Eastern/10 PM Central

(CNN presents: Presumed Guilty Murder in West Memphis)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on August 23, 2011, 09:45:36 PM
Dana and Diane Diamond discussing the West Memphis three case. 


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on August 23, 2011, 09:46:19 PM
She says they're out now and she doesn't think they'll ever go back, and she feels the state wouldn't let them go unless the state had the evidence to back it up.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on August 23, 2011, 09:48:28 PM
Up next on Dana's show to discuss the Memphis West Memphis Three case with Pat Brown.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on August 23, 2011, 10:40:12 PM
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-20095425-10391698.html?tag=re1.channel
"West Memphis Three" movie on the way
August 22, 2011

(http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/08/22/AP11081909768_620x350.jpg)
August 22, 2011 11:26 AM
Damien Echols, left, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., center, and Jason Baldwin at the Craighead County Court House in Jonesboro, Ark., Friday, Aug. 19, 2011.
(Credit: AP)

(CBS) The so-called West Memphis Three - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley - had barely been out of prison Friday when news came that a movie about their 18-year ordeal is in pre-production.
As it happens, the movie had already been in the works. Deadline reports director Atom Egoyan ("The Sweet Hereafter") is set to start production in the spring with a script by Scott Derrickson and Paul Boardman (who wrote "The Exorcism of Emily Rose"). The script is based on Mara Leveritt's 2003 book "Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three." Leveritt's book follows the trials of Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley.

According to Deadline, the screenwriters first began working on the project in 2006. Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were convicted in 1994 of killing 8-year-olds Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
 ::snipping2::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 30, 2011, 12:00:05 AM
A must read:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/28/hollywood-directed-defense-of-three/?partner=RSS  (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/28/hollywood-directed-defense-of-three/?partner=RSS)

 ::snipping2::
Hollywood directed defense, challenged old case against 'West Memphis Three'
Celebrities' deep pockets funded new probe in 1993 slayings of three boys

    By Marc Perrusquia
    Posted August 28, 2011 at midnight, updated August 28, 2011 at 1:08 p.m.

Hollywood director Peter Jackson announced last week he secretly bankrolled much of the investigation -- one insider says defense costs might reach $10 million through direct expenditures and in-kind contributions -- attacking the state's case from virtually every angle. They challenged forensic findings and witness statements, uncovered new witnesses and even pointed a finger at a new suspect.

Emerging details show just how deep the cash-rich defense was willing to dig to prove its contention that Echols, 36, Baldwin, 34, and Misskelley, 36 -- all teenagers from impoverished families when arrested in 1993 -- were wrongly convicted for the grisly murders of three 8-year-old West Memphis boys.

 ::snipping2::
In 1993, this corner-lot house was Christopher's home. He lived here with his mother, now deceased, and John Mark Byers, the stepfather who adopted him.

Six years ago, the West Memphis Three defense team quietly took possession of the house, renting it for three months from its current out-of-state owner in a bid to resolve old suspicions about Byers and to test a recent tip about a small pool house in the back yard.
 ::snipping2::
"... The rumors and accusations that have flown ever since that day (of the murders) have torn lives and families apart," Hobbs, now divorced from Stevie's mother, Pam, said in a written statement last week. "I am one of those who continue to pay that cost."

Reached at a North Memphis lumber yard where he works as a salesman, Hobbs, 53, declined comment.

"It's time to let this go," he said.
 ::snipping2::

Much more at the link



Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 30, 2011, 12:12:58 AM
(http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff400/smonkjustice/West%20Memphis%20Child%20Murders%201993/320543_269723059706741_269722906373423_1108960_1988706_n.jpg)

Edit to fix img. (Had double tags) MB


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 30, 2011, 12:15:38 AM
 http://s1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff400/smonkjustice/West%20Memphis%20Child%20Murders%201993/?action=view&current=320543_269723059706741_269722906373423_1108960_1988706_n.jpg (http://s1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff400/smonkjustice/West%20Memphis%20Child%20Murders%201993/?action=view&current=320543_269723059706741_269722906373423_1108960_1988706_n.jpg)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 30, 2011, 01:44:11 AM
Damien Echols father, Joe Hutchison:
 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002759662150&sk=friends&v=friends (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002759662150&sk=friends&v=friends)

I believe this to be one of Damien's sisters:

https://www.facebook.com/constance.hogue2  (https://www.facebook.com/constance.hogue2)

Damien's old girlfriend, Domini that had a baby for Damien:

 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000675036859&sk=wall (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000675036859&sk=wall)

Damien's son:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002495025184  (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002495025184)

Jason Baldwin's mother:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002237306048  (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002237306048)

Chris Hutchings:

 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1493022368&sk=info (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1493022368&sk=info)

Jesse Misskelley: (notice his new status, NOW he is engaged to the "girlfriend" from Paradise Lost documentary) ::MonkeyShocked::
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002831955764&sk=wall  (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002831955764&sk=wall)

Susie Brewer (Misskelley's girlfriend from 18 yrs ago):
 https://www.facebook.com/brewerboggan (https://www.facebook.com/brewerboggan)

Jason Baldwin:

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Baldwin/145944238773717?sk=wall&filter=2 (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Baldwin/145944238773717?sk=wall&filter=2)

I'll look for more when time allows.



Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MOMDET on August 30, 2011, 12:24:52 PM
Yikes, I realize alot of people believe these men are innocent, and I really cannot make a conclusion based on the information I have read and seen, as I believe most of it is biases in one way or another, however, I still got a chill when I seen Jesse's pic on his girlfriend's facebook with her two young boys.   I pray for their sake, Hollywood is correct and he poses no threat to young innocent children.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on August 30, 2011, 08:59:00 PM
Yikes, I realize alot of people believe these men are innocent, and I really cannot make a conclusion based on the information I have read and seen, as I believe most of it is biases in one way or another, however, I still got a chill when I seen Jesse's pic on his girlfriend's facebook with her two young boys.   I pray for their sake, Hollywood is correct and he poses no threat to young innocent children.
I completely agree MOMDET. I do not know who is "really" responsible for the deaths of these 3 precious boys. I have flip flopped all over the place in my opinion lately. Callahans site seems to have the best information (original court records etc) that is not slanted one way or the other. Blink is also working on another segment regarding the case that should be very insightful to what really went on back then. I am hoping some one can provide a "smoking gun" so these children can finally have justice and peace.

As far as Misskellye's girlfriend, there is no way I would expose my children to this man either. As long as there was any doubt of innocence, I would steer clear of him.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: klaasend on September 06, 2011, 03:37:48 PM
DON'T MISS THE DANA PRETZER SHOW TONIGHT!

(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6182/6121493838_34bc6ab6aa_o.jpg)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on September 29, 2011, 02:55:35 PM
CNN to have interview with the MEMPHIS 3 tonight 8 central, 9 PM Eastern, I will post transcripts if it becomes available


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on September 29, 2011, 03:04:37 PM
CNN to have interview with the MEMPHIS 3 tonight 8 central, 9 PM Eastern, I will post transcripts if it becomes available

Thank you cartfly. ::bee::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on September 30, 2011, 10:34:21 PM
 Transcripts from the CNN broadcast interview with two of the Memphis 3, Misskelley declined to be on the show::MonkeyNoNo:


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1109/29/pmt.01.html  (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1109/29/pmt.01.html)
PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT

West Memphis Three Freed After 18 Years

Aired September 29, 2011 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PIERS MORGAN, HOST: Tonight, justice on trial. The case that shocked a nation. Three little boys murdered and dumped in a creek. And the three teenagers accused of horrendous crimes.

Whispers of devil worship, of sexual abuse. Then the verdicts. And the West Memphis Three disappeared behind bars.

Tonight, the extraordinary 18-year effort to free them.

JASON BALDWIN, WEST MEMPHIS THREE: We told nothing but the truth that we're innocent and they sent us to prison for the rest of our lives.

MORGAN: And the questions that remain. Did the killer or killers go free? And was the truth a victim, too?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're 100 percent innocent. We needed someone to hate to survive because our child was dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If these animals are released, you just as well give the key to everybody that's on death row right now.

MORGAN: The West Memphis Three in their own words.

DAMIEN ECHOLS, WEST MEMPHIS THREE: It does something to you when you see something like that. It cracks you inside.

MORGAN: This is PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT.

Good evening.

The case of the West Memphis Three began in May 1993 when the naked bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found in a ditch in West Memphis, Arkansas. The boys, Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers, had been hog-tired with their own shoelaces. Three local teenagers were charged with the crime and allegations of satanic rituals.

Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley were convicted of those murders. Echols was sentenced to death. Baldwin and Misskelley to life behind bars. But questions remain about their guilt and about the case. And as the years past, the West Memphis Three got the attention of celebrity supporters like Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. And last month, after nearly two decades behind bars, Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley walked free in a controversial legal maneuver. More on that in a moment but joining me now, Damien Echols and his wife Lorri Davis.

Welcome to you both.

LORRI DAVIS, DAMIEN ECHOL'S WIFE: Thank you.

MORGAN: An extraordinary saga. No other way to put this. Ending in the most bizarre circumstances, and we'll come to those a little later. Where eventually you all admit guilt and yet you walk free, which is a bizarre twist in this tale, a weird anomaly in the legal system, and will make no sense to anybody, probably least of all you.

Damien, let me start with you. I mean you've lost 20 years of your life for a crime you've always said you didn't commit.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: What has it been like for you? You in particular, you were sentenced to death, you had to live with that every day that you were incarcerated. You spent most of your time in isolation, I think. Tell me about the experience.

ECHOLS: Well, I spent actually the past 10 years in absolute solitary confinement. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week I was alone with the exception of the time that I would spend with Lorri. We were allowed to see each other once a week for three hours.

MORGAN: She was the only person you saw?

ECHOLS: Pretty much. Every once in a while maybe her family would come, you know, maybe once a year or something like that, but for the most part she was the only person I saw.

MORGAN: And what did you have with your solitary confinement? Did you have a television?

ECHOLS: There was a television, no cable anything like that. You just get the basic television channels. Your shower is right there in the cell with you. There's a drain in the floor. It's solid concrete walls and a solid steel door. There's a little slide in the door that they open up to pass food through or to give you mail, things like that. But for the most part, you're completely and absolutely sealed off from everybody.

MORGAN: What was the bed like?

ECHOLS: It's a concrete slab along the back of the wall. It's about 2 1/2 feet up off the floor. And they give you a mat like kindergartners take naps on to put on top of that, and that's your bed.

MORGAN: A computer? ECHOLS: No. I had never -- you know when I got locked up there was no such thing as the Internet. So I had never seen the Internet, I'd never used a cell phone.

MORGAN: Were you aware of news other than through the television -- I presume that you could catch up on news. But were you aware of world events? Were you following them?

ECHOLS: Just what I would see on, like, the major network television stations.

MORGAN: How often were you allowed to exercise?

ECHOLS: As often as you do it yourself in your cell. You know there were no exercise periods, you know there was no gym equipment, nothing like that. It's just whatever you could devise on your own.

MORGAN: When did you see daylight?

ECHOLS: Never. I hadn't seen daylight in almost a decade. I hadn't been exposed to sunlight.

MORGAN: In 10 years?

ECHOLS: For almost 10 years, yes.

MORGAN: What are you thinking throughout this period? I mean, this is -- for an innocent man, as many believe that you are and you've always protested this -- what are you thinking when you're stuck in there?

ECHOLS: The only thing -- the only thing you can do and maintain your sanity is to not think about the case and not think about what's happening to you. You have to sort of immerse yourself into a routine and never deviate from that routine. You know work out your own exercise regiment, work out a meditation regimen, start some sort of practice, sort of the artwork, writing, whatever it is. You have to create your own world in there or you'll go insane from that stuff.

MORGAN: Well, I don't know how you keep your sanity.

ECHOLS: You don't have a choice. You know it's not like you can get up one day and say, you know, I quit, I'm tired of this, I'm going to home. You just do whatever it takes to keep putting one foot in front of the other and get through the next day.

MORGAN: What effect did it have on your health?

ECHOLS: My health -- there's almost no medical care, no dental care, and things like that in prison so my health was deteriorating very rapidly. I've lost a great deal of my eyesight. Whenever you're in a confined space, you never get a chance to see anything far away and so you eventually lose the ability to.

So I started losing my ability to see anything further than a few inches away from me. And I was extremely light-sensitive due to the fact of not having seeing sunlight --

MORGAN: Yes, but that first moment you came out, what was it like to have daylight again?

ECHOLS: It was like having a spotlight turned right in your face. It was extremely bright. I couldn't wait for the nightfall, you know, just to see the sun go down because I had never seen that, not in almost 20 years. You know I'd never gotten to see a sunset.

And it was just one of those things that I had been waiting on for so long, you know, sunsets, to see the leaves change colors, to feel autumn come in. This is going to be my first years. One of the things I'm really excited this year. This is going to be, my first real Christmas, my first real Thanksgiving. It will be our first anniversary that we spent together outside in 20 years, 18 1/2.

MORGAN: What are the things that you've had to learn again about real life? The simple things.

ECHOLS: Well, there's -- there are things that most people would expect you to have to learn, you know, like I said, I had never even seen the Internet so I'm having to learn how to use a cell phone, how to use a computer. But there are also things, for example, I hadn't walked in 18 1/2 years without chains on my feet. So I'm not -- I wasn't used to that when I first got out, so I was literally having to learn to walk again.

And the first few days I would almost keep falling over myself because I was used to walking, you know, with short strides with chains on my feet. I had to learn to use a fork again. You know I hadn't eaten with a fork in 18 1/2 years.

MORGAN: Why?

ECHOLS: They don't give you forks in there.

MORGAN: How do you eat?

ECHOLS: With your hands.

MORGAN: I mean, there'll be people watching who will say, had you been the person responsible for the death of three young boys in this horrific manner, they don't care how badly you're treated in prison. The problem comes if you're completely innocent and you're being treated in these barbaric circumstances.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: I mean, for someone like you to be enduring such an intolerable lifestyle believing absolutely you're innocent, again, I'm -- I come back to the question of sanity. It must have been incredibly hard.

Let me take you back to what happened. May 5th, 1993, the bodies of these three 8-year-old boys are found. It's a small town. Everybody knows each other or knows someone who knows someone. ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: So it becomes the biggest (INAUDIBLE) of its time for the town. It becomes a national story, it becomes something that grips people, and it's so horrifying that the desire by people to catch the perpetrators is intense.

When is the first time that you hear you are going to be in trouble with this?

ECHOLS: Almost immediately, and it wasn't just because of this. It was -- you know I had been harassed a great deal. It really was a really small town, and I stuck out due to the way I looked, the music I listened to, things like that. So I had been harassed for quite a while before these murders ever been took place.

MORGAN: Were you a troublemaker? Or were you just a bit different?

ECHOLS: The most trouble I had ever gotten into was like running away from home as a teenager, something like that. It was just --

MORGAN: Ever broken the law?

ECHOLS: No.

MORGAN: You were into, like, heavy metal?

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: And then you don't like reading Stephen King books, I mean --

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Was thrown at you is kind of allegations but you know, there's nothing wrong with Stephen King, and nothing wrong with liking Ozzy Osbourne or whoever it was.

ECHOLS: Well, in 1993 I hadn't even heard this word but now it's pretty common. People say that what I was, was Goth. And you didn't have something like that in small towns back then. It really drew a lot of notice from, you know, a small town crowd. And it made me stand out and it sort of what made me a target.

MORGAN: So what happened?

ECHOLS: Just immediately, as soon as it happened, people said a murder this horrific couldn't have just happened. You know, what would have been the reason for it? Obviously they weren't robbed. They're 8-year-old children. We found out later they hadn't been sexually molested in any way. They tried to say that in the very beginning but we found out they hadn't been.

So what other reason could someone possibly have for murdering these children? The only thing I could come up with was that it was a satanic ritual. To them that made sense.

MORGAN: When was the moment you realized you were going to be pulled in by the police?

ECHOLS: They showed up at my door the day after the bodies were found. I mean, it was almost immediate that they started coming to me.

MORGAN: And how did that make you feel?

ECHOLS: There's no words to even describe it. You know most people don't have anything in their frame of reference that they could compare something like that to. Then to know that these people are coming to you because they actually believe that you are capable of murdering three children, it does something to you psychologically that you will never, ever get over.

MORGAN: Tell me about the relationship with you and the two other men who were accused with you. I've been saying men, you were boys at the time, 16, 17.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: Tell me about Jessie, because he and his testimony to police very early on were the catalyst for what happened to you.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: What we've heard subsequently is that he has a very low IQ, 72, he is mentally +++++++.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: He's not somebody who really should have been given -- giving lengthy evidence without a lot of legal help.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: What happened?

ECHOLS: Well, whenever they called him in for questioning, like you said, he was mentally +++++++. He had been in like special education classes in school, things like that. They said he had -- mentally he functioned at the level of something like a 5 to 8-year- old child. They called him in and started questioning him and basically with the mentality he had, what happened was he agreed to anything that they said. They would say, did you do this? He would say yes.

MORGAN: And very little of this -- of this testimony was ever kept on tape, well, certainly on tape that was found.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Just fragments of this interview, which in itself is suspicious and strange and weird. ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: He gives this evidence. He says, yes, I saw you and he saw Jason, and I saw them kill these boys and they raped these boys, horrific stuff he came out with.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: And as a result of that, you guys are now in very serious trouble.

ECHOLS: Yes. I don't think he -- you know with the mentality he had and his IQ level, I don't think he could really even comprehend the level of trouble that he was in or that he had dragged us into with him.

MORGAN: How well did you know him?

ECHOLS: Not very well. Jason Baldwin I knew a great deal better. He was my best friend, you know, since we were teenagers. Jessie Misskelley was someone we would see around somewhere, you know, maybe had a pool hall shooting pool, something like that, but he wasn't, you know, as close to us as we knew each other.

MORGAN: Why did you think he was doing this?

ECHOLS: It's hard to say. I think part of it was just prompting by the police. Part of it may have been he thought he was going to get something out of it. It's hard to say.

MORGAN: When is the worst moment for you?

ECHOLS: It's hard to say. I almost want to say there were no worst moments. It just kept getting worse and worse and worse. You know every single moment was worse than the last one. It doesn't ever stop. You know, you think the moment you're arrested, that's the worst moment.

You think the moment you were in the trial, that's the worst moment. You think the moment you're convicted, that's the worst moment. You think the moment you're sentenced to death, that's the worst moment. Your first execution date rolls around, that's the worst moment.

It just gets worse and worse and worse. It's a horror story. It's like a train that doesn't stop. It just keeps picking up speed and getting worse and worse and worse.

MORGAN: Very few people can understand anything that you've been through. One of them is going to join us after this break. And he's one of the other members of the Memphis Three.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We the jury finds Damien Echols guilty of capital murder in the death of Stevie Branch. We the jury find Damien Echols guilty of capital murder in the death of Chris Byers. We the jury find Damien Echols guilty of capital murder in the death of Michael Moore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: All the Memphis Three were convicted of murder. Damien Echols, the alleged ringleader, were sentenced to death. Damien Echols and his wife Lorri Davis are here with me now. We've been joined by Jason Baldwin, another member of the West Memphis Three.

Welcome, Jason. I mean let's just cut to the quick here. What was the evidence against you, other than the word of Jessie, who we already established had a mental age of somewhere between a 5 and 8- year-olds?

BALDWIN: The evidence against us was our personal preferences in music. I remember at one point during the trial they lifted up our record. Boys' record and I think John Fogelman said this was found in Damien's girlfriend's mother's house.

MORGAN: He was the prosecutor.

BALDWIN: Right.

MORGAN: As if somehow that implied that you were capable of killing young boys.

BALDWIN: Right.

MORGAN: There's no DNA evidence against you?

BALDWIN: Well, at the time they had evidence and stuff but since it didn't match us it wasn't brought up and then --

MORGAN: But nothing tangibly linking any of you to the deaths of these boys.

BALDWIN: Right.

MORGAN: Has ever emerged. Was there anything else other than music you listened to, books you read, clothes you wore or haircuts?

BALDWIN: That was it.

MORGAN: How do you feel? I mean you've listened to Damien out there. I'm assuming you didn't have much contact in the years that you were both incarcerated.

BALDWIN: No. When we first got locked up, we would write letters through his sister, Damien, but I got called up to the warden's office and told I wasn't permitted to do that. So I was no longer permitted. So only then the only type of contact we could have, like, through mutual friends, call a friend. And I'd be like, hey, how is Damien doing? Have you talked to Damien? And you know kind of pass on words of encouragement like that.

MORGAN: Presumably, in prison you are pariahs, right? People --

BALDWIN: Yes. In the first few years, like when I first got there, people were literally waiting for us to get there. You know, and they stay up alike, you know. Just to do us harm.

MORGAN: And they would attack you?

BALDWIN: Oh, yes.

MORGAN: How often?

BALDWIN: The first few years, a lot.

MORGAN: Like what?

BALDWIN: I mean I've got shattered skull, broken collarbone, teeth knocked out, multiple scars on my face and stuff from it. But as the years progressed and people got to know me and as the documentaries came out and stuff, you know, the curses turned into prayers. You know the fistfights turned into hugs.

MORGAN: But for the early period, this must just be -- this is a nightmare. I mean were you going through the same thing?

ECHOLS: Yes, absolutely.

MORGAN: It's just unthinkable to me that you're going through this.

Then the mood begins to change. And that's when I want to bring you in here, Lorri, because a campaign begins. There are rumblings of discontent about this case. People are beginning to think, this doesn't add up, there isn't the evidence, and HBO did big a documentary. You watched this documentary.

A lot of famous people now have been able to get behind this and giving it (INAUDIBLE) of publicity. When you watched it, it was very powerful and led you -- led the viewer to an obvious clear-cut conclusion that you could not have been responsible for the deaths of these boys.

You start writing to Damien. You write about -- what are you thinking when these letters arrive?

ECHOLS: I think I fell in love with Lorri pretty much from the very first letter.

MORGAN: Why?

ECHOLS: Because I can -- I just knew this was someone unlike anyone I had ever known in my life. She just stood out. There was something completely and absolutely different about her. She was out of my frame of reference. You know it was something -- she was something completely magical and alien to me at the time, and it was one of those kinds of love that just hurts because it's so much.

MORGAN: I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment because -- and this won't surprise you. When you read about women who write to convicted killers and so on, there is a kind of freaky element to a lot of those relationships. It's unhealthy, it's weird.

This is different because you did it after watching a documentary where, as I say, you couldn't conclude from that that you were the killers. So really you're in your head writing to an innocent man, as you see it.

DAVIS: Right.

MORGAN: That is the distinction. But you must have still had family, friends, and people around you, presumably, as this relationship developed, thinking, what are you doing?

DAVIS: Well, fortunately, for most of my life I've been a pretty grounded, responsible person so I mean I think if I had been a little more erratic in my life, then maybe -- but it was astounding because my close friends stuck by me.

MORGAN: You fell in love. You started meeting each other. You were allowed to see him. And you get married.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: There's still the prospect of you facing an execution. How -- you know, how do you deal with that psychologically?

DAVIS: I never entertained the thought of it. I just never did the whole time.

ECHOLS: That's what I was going to say. Yes.

DAVIS: Yes.

ECHOLS: It's almost like you refuse to accept it. I heard a guy one time talking about racecar drivers and whenever they're training, racecar drivers they tell them never look at the wall. Because if you look at it you're going to drive into it, you're going to move towards what you focus on.

So therefore, we wouldn't focus on that because we didn't want to move towards it. We focused all of our attention, all of our energy, and all of our work towards getting out, towards proving our innocence.

MORGAN: The campaign that you then joined aggressively and began to be more and more vocal and public about it.

I want to take another break and when we come back, I want to get into when you were found guilty and also when you admitted guilt to get your freedom, which is, as I said at the start of the show, a bizarre some will say ridiculous way, for this to end. But it got you here. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I did not want to take the deal from the get-go. However, they're trying to kill Damien, and sometimes you just got to fight to save somebody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: An emotional moment from the news conference right after Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley Jr. were freed last month. To get there, they had to plead guilty while insisting they are innocent.

I should point out we asked Jessie Misskelley to join us tonight but he declined.

This is a fascinating development. It's called the Alfred Plea. It's a very rare part of American law. And in the end you were able to proclaim your innocence while pleading guilty.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: I don't get it. So Jason, explain to me what this actually means.

BALDWIN: Well, the Alfred Plea was the only opportunity that we was given to plead our innocence and get out with -- the way it was set up was the state didn't want to admit that they had, you know, convicted three innocent people to prison and to death so what they put together was an opportunity to -- for them to be able to claim that, hey, we got the right guys, but the evidence doesn't, you know, prove that they're guilty.

If they go to trial again, they'll win. But we're giving them an opportunity to get out now to save taxpayers some money and they can still maintain their innocence and state still maintains the point that they're guilty and all parties --

MORGAN: I mean you did an extraordinary thing for your friend because you could have done a deal and got out. But if you didn't take this deal, he would have been facing the death penalty still, right?

BALDWIN: Well, on both deals, like they came to me with plea agreements, like, when I first got arrested. And I told my attorneys not to ever bring these plea agreements to me. But by law they -- you know they have to. First time they were like -- you know this is when I was 16.

They wanted me to testify against Damien. I'm like, that's impossible. I can't testify against him. I'd have to testify for him. It was -- my attorneys like, no, that's not what they want you to do. They want you to say that he did the crime and then they'll let you out, give you five years or whatever. I told them, well, I can't do that. I wouldn't care if they'd just let me out right now. So jump ahead 18 years to now, this deal, it's to save an innocent life. It's to save Damien from death row. It's a sure thing, you know, and it gets him home now and it gets him out of, you know, death row where he's, you know, suffering not being at home with Lorri and everything so --

MORGAN: How many execution dates did you face?

ECHOLS: I only ever had one. My original execution date was May 5th, 1994.

MORGAN: And in the build-up to that, did you genuinely think that you were going to get killed?

ECHOLS: I thought there was a good possibility, just because -- you know, we were convicted of something we didn't do with no evidence. If that was possible, then the execution was possible.

MORGAN: How many people were on Death Row with you?

ECHOLS: It varies. On average, I would say about 40. In the time I was there, I saw between 25 and 30 executions.

MORGAN: There is a big debate at the moment about executions following the Troy Davis execution last week. I mean, when you hear this debate, how many -- I've read statistics; 17 people who were on death row had their sentences commuted because of DNA evidence. Another 112 had their sentences commuted for other reasons.

So there you have 140 people who would have been executed wrongly. You could have been one of those people.

ECHOLS: And I knew I could have been one of those people, because it happens all the time. You know, people think this case was something out of the ordinary, and it wasn't. Innocent people get caught up in these situations all the time. You still have innocent people there in Arkansas on death row right now. It happens all the time.

MORGAN: What did your families think? How did they react to this? Did any of them turn against you? Any of them believe you may be guilty?

ECHOLS: None of mine.

MORGAN: None of yours?

BALDWIN: Well, the thing about that is I was with my family at the time the murders occurred.

MORGAN: Which is a key thing in the study of the evidence. It was all based on Jessie's testimony to the police, most of which has never been made public, because they didn't have the tapes or didn't want to release them at the time.

And he said, first of all, it all happened in the morning, then it happened in the afternoon.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: Then finally, he washed up at a time that suited the timing of the deaths. I mean, this is scandalous, isn't it? Jason, why do you think Jessie was doing this?

BALDWIN: Well --

MORGAN: Because if he hadn't, I don't think any of you would have gone to prison, would you?

BALDWIN: The closest thing I can come to explain that in my mind is like the schoolyard bully who gets the kid to cry uncle under duress. The bully knows he's not the other kid's uncle and the kid knows the bully is not his uncle. But he puts him under so much pressure and pain that he's like, OK, uncle, let me loose.

MORGAN: Do you hate Jessie? Do you blame him?

BALDWIN: Not at all.

ECHOLS: He's mentally handicapped. It's not his fault.

MORGAN: He's a victim as well, you think?

ECHOLS: Exactly. He didn't choose to be born that way.

MORGAN: Some members of the boys' families supported you. Others, to this day, continue to say you were the people responsible for the deaths of their children. How do you deal with that psychologically?

ECHOLS: You just have to keep moving forward. I mean, if you do focus on that and if you do dwell on that sort of thing all the time, you're going to lose your mind. You're going to go crazy. And there's nothing you can do.

MORGAN: You know, you look at these pictures of these boys, the sweet eight-year-old sons. I've got three sons. They've all been eight years old at some stage.

BALDWIN: That's how old my youngest brother was when it happened.

MORGAN: Was it, yes?

BALDWIN: We were terrified for his safety, you know, when we first heard of the murders. Like on May 6th when with the bodies were found, we were like -- my mom was freaking out. She was like, oh, my God, there's somebody out here killing kids. Keep Terry at home. Watch him. Make sure nothing happens to him until they find out who done this.

MORGAN: Does a part of you understand why some of their family felt they had closure with your convictions? ECHOLS: Absolutely.

MORGAN: And they just can't deal with the fact that it may not be what they had been told it was?

ECHOLS: Absolutely, I can understand it.

BALDWIN: There's a quote that always comes to my mind when I think about this. It did throughout the entire thing. "Forgive them father for they know not what they do." It's what Jesus said when he was put on the cross. That's what I think of when I encounter this stuff.

MORGAN: Let's take another break. When we come back, I want to ask you who you think may have been responsible for the deaths of these boys.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If these animals are released, you just going to give the key to everybody that's on death row right now to open up their cells and walk out here with all the rest of us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm still standing and fighting for justice, because they're innocent! They did not kill my son!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Two very different reactions from fathers of two of the murdered boys. The West Memphis Three spent nearly a decade behind bars for the crime before being freed last month. Bath with me now is Damien Echols, his wife, Laurie Davis, and Jason Baldwin.

How do you feel when a lot of famous people begin to rally to your cause? I mean, we should explain. The music we've been using to play in and out of these breaks is a special thing for you. Explain what that is.

ECHOLS: It's a song on a Pearl Jam album that was -- Eddie Vedder had taken the lyrics from it from a piece of poetry I had written when I was much younger and put it to music. And it was, you know, just an incredible experience, even hearing the finished product and seeing what it sounds like. It's just an absolutely amazing thing, and something that means a great deal to me.

MORGAN: To have the support of somebody like him.

ECHOLS: In a way, it was almost like we didn't think of it a lot of time as support from someone famous, because these were people that -- they weren't just like celebrities who came in and threw money at the case. These were people who were involved on a very ground floor level.

MORGAN: Peter Jackson got involved. Johnny Depp got involved. These are high, high profile, very famous people. And they definitely made a difference to the atmosphere around your case.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: This guy here sitting next to you, you know, he -- you come across to me -- I've never met to you before in my life. But you come across to me as somebody grounded, intelligent, eloquent, not the things you would associate with the portrayal of you in your court case of this Devil worshipping, Satanic, occult obsessed, you know, weirdo, dangerous maniac who could be capable of murdering three young children.

You knew him very well. You were his best friend at the time. Put yourself aside for one moment. When you saw him described as this evil ring leader of mass murder, what were you thinking?

BALDWIN: I knew everybody just had it wrong. They didn't know him. Like in high school, his mom fixed him lunches to carry to school in paper bags, you know. Even then with the high school kids, they joked. They'd be like, what you got in the bag, Damien, a cat? He'd be like, meow, yeah.

But it would be peanut butter and jelly and an apple or soda or something, you know. So it was a joke to the kids this, you know, look and everything, his personal dress and Goth look and stuff. So to children, it's fun, you know. But when the adults got in and the police and everything, and they twisted that and gave it a sinister thing. Yes, and it was just totally unrealistic.

MORGAN: Did either of you ever have suicidal thoughts?

BALDWIN: No.

ECHOLS: I think I probably did when I was young teenage angst, you know, stuff you go through as a kid, just because I was such a misfit in the community where I lived. But it never was anything --

MORGAN: But not after you were put in prison?

ECHOLS: Oh, yeah.

MORGAN: Did you ever try to take your own life?

ECHOLS: Yeah, I did.

MORGAN: How?

ECHOLS: I took an overdose of basically sleeping pills, anti- depressants, just because it was -- like you said a while ago, there's no light at the end of the tunnel. It seems like there's no hope. And the pressure was so great that for a moment, I lost all hope. I thought, I may spend God knows how long here going through this. And I did. I took an overdose of pills to try to end my life.

MORGAN: Let's take a short break. I want to come back and ask you how you've managed to rebuild your lives, both of you, and with Lorri's help. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ECHOLS: We can still bring up new evidence. We can still continue the investigations we've been doing. We can still try to clear our names. The only difference is now we can do it from the outside, instead of having to sit in prison and do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Damien Echols at the news conference on his first day of freedom after nearly two decades behind bars. That moment when you walk free, how did that feel?

ECHOLS: It's hard to describe. You know, like I said earlier, most people don't have anything like that in their frame of reference. But it was like having a huge weight taken off your chest. For the first time in almost 20 years, I could actually breathe. You know, I didn't feel like I was being crushed to death.

And there were times in prison when we were going through that that it literally felt like being crushed to death. You feel like there's weight on you and you can't take another step. And for the first time, it felt like that had been completely lifted, taken off.

MORGAN: Lorri, were you surprised at the strength of Damien through this?

DAVIS: Oh, yes.

MORGAN: I mean, many lesser people, in terms of strength of character, would have crumbled under this. Yet I see somebody who -- to me, you've come out and you've survived. That's how I see you, someone that hasn't been destroyed by this, damaged beyond any imagination but not destroyed. Would you agree with that?

DAVIS: Oh, absolutely. But he's worked very hard for that. I mean, there were times when it got really hard for me on the outside, just the stress and trying to get through and thinking there was no -- you know, it was just hard, everything, in the middle of it. And Damien would get me through. So, you know, the strength of that.

But I saw how hard he worked, how long he meditated, how disciplined he was with his mind, his education, his just -- he's such a disciplined person, which is one of the reasons why I found him -- I mean, there's just so many layers to him.

MORGAN: You had a son by a previous relationship.

ECHOLS: Right. He's 18 years old now. The same age I was whenever I got locked up.

MORGAN: Literally he just arrived.

ECHOLS: He was born while the trial was taking place. The very first time I held him was during the trial.

MORGAN: Did you see him at all during the time you were inside?

ECHOLS: Not very often of course. But yes, he would come to the prison. We tried to keep him as far from the situation as possible.

MORGAN: Now he's 18. He's a young man. I've got an 18-year-old son. How does he deal with what's happened to his father?

ECHOLS: I don't know. I you think it's going to take more time than we've had so far to get into things like that. Because who knows what sort of resentments he has or anything else for missing his entire childhood.

MORGAN: He's another victim.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: So many victims here.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Whole families crushed on every way you look at this. Do you think death penalty, state executions, should they be abandoned? Many people think they should be now. There are too many miscarriages of justice, too many innocent people being put on death row.

ECHOLS: I don't think we have any idea how many innocent people have died yet.

MORGAN: Would you stop the death penalty? Did you believe in it before this?

ECHOLS: I didn't give it much thought.

MORGAN: You did?

BALDWIN: I would stop it.

MORGAN: I didn't give it much thought before this. You know, it was something that I never really thought about in depth. But the media -- a lot of the media and prosecutors and things like this portray this image to society like all of these people on death row are like Hannibal Lecter. They're these evil geniuses. They are not.

You are talking about people who are mentally +++++++, who are schizophrenic, who are brain damaged, just horrendously damaged people that --

MORGAN: Or completely innocent. I mean, this is my issue with it. You know, I come from a country where we don't have the death penalty. Every poll of the public says 90 percent would bring it back tomorrow. They would all bring back hanging. Because they do that in the belief that 100 percent of the people who would be accused are 100 percent guilty. ECHOLS: Yeah.

MORGAN: And that is just not the case.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Let's take another break and come back and ask you about how you can clear your names completely here, what you think you can do to get proper closure.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I don't worship the Devil or anything like that. I worship God, you know, like everybody. Every normal person in this -- around here knows. .

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: That was a young Jason Baldwin during the trial, from the HBO documentary series "Paradise Lost." James Baldwin and Damien Echols and his wife, Lorri Davis, are back with me now. Just a kid only there. You have lost a lot of your lives, the pair of you?

What has been the hardest thing about your reentry into normal life? Can you sleep? Can you get employment? What are the practical realities of your life now?

BALDWIN: I am -- I sleep very well. I'm currently employed for a construction company, just get me on my feet. I think the most difficult thing is learning to drive. I'm working with that. I have read the DMV and took the online practice test, aced it. Now I'm just trying to get down to --

MORGAN: Had your first beer yet?

BALDWIN: Oh, yeah.

MORGAN: Quite a few I should say, right?

BALDWIN: I think, at one point, I went to a coffee shop and they were like what kind of coffee do you want. And I'm like kind? Coffee, right? Americana, espresso and --

(CROSS TALK)

MORGAN: Before you went in, it was like, I will have a coffee. Now it's you got to have a Ventura iced latte whatever it is yeah. It's not progress, trust me.

BALDWIN: No.

MORGAN: What's it been like for you, Damien?

ECHOLS: I think one of the most remarkable moments that let me know that it was really finally over is we had friend who took us to see like an improv comedy routine. And we are sitting in a room full of people watching the show. And we are on the very front row and there's a bunch of people behind us.

And I realized I don't have to worry about anybody behind me stabbing me or hitting me in the back of the head. They are all watching the show. That's over.

MORGAN: And that was the fear you lived with for ten years?

ECHOLS: Every day.

MORGAN: An awful thing to have to live with. Have you managed to get work?

ECHOLS: Not yet.

MORGAN: Why is that?

ECHOLS: Um, I think it's just the things that I'm interested in, you know? I really started getting into the realm of art whenever I was in prison. And that's what I would like to continue doing, continue writing, continue doing visual artwork. And I just haven't been out long enough to pull things together to get that going.

MORGAN: You've only been out, what, six weeks?

ECHOLS: A month -- a month and a week.

MORGAN: Extraordinary month it must have been for you. Can you quite believe that you're out? I mean, you were facing a death sentence, that was it.

ECHOLS: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes it seems like it's just happened. Other times it seems like the whole prison experience was years ago already. It's hard to describe. It's been extremely surreal.

MORGAN: Do you have any way of clearing your names for good? Is there anything you can do proactively to clear your names? Because there will still be people out there who will have seen the circumstances of your release saying, well, hang on. They are pleading guilty but maintaining their innocence. What's going on here?

It is confusing for people and therefore must be frustrating for you, that that was the only way you could finally get released. Is there a mechanism for closure for you.

ECHOLS: We can be eventually pardoned maybe. We are still continuing with the investigation.

MORGAN: Who decides that, the governor?

ECHOLS: The governor. Yes.

MORGAN: Governor of Arkansas?

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Is there a petition to him at the moment?

ECHOLS: I don't think it's been put together yet, but everybody's been talking about it. There have been a lot of people really getting behind the movement. The same people who, you know, were responsible for, you know, exposing this case to the public and making sure we got free are now also starting up a movement for us to be pardoned.

MORGAN: Is the case still open or was it closed?

ECHOLS: To the prosecutors, it's closed. To us, it's opened.

MORGAN: Should it be reopened?

ECHOLS: Of course.

MORGAN: A pardon would be great. It should come to you, given the -- all the evidence in this case. But actually getting somebody put on trial with real evidence, that should have happened from the start, and leading to a proper, safe conviction, that is when you are going to get proper closure. That's when everybody -- right?

DAVIS: In that sense, that's what we have been working on all these years with the legal team and people who have helped us. We're going to continue that, because that is the most important thing, is to bring new evidence to the case, to discover new evidence, everything we can do. Because we want to -- we want to discover who did this.

That's the most important thing.

BALDWIN: We definitely want that process to be free of coerced confessions, free of pressured, perjured testimony.

MORGAN: You have been remarkably candid and brave to do this kind of interview. I think that Damien, Jason -- Damien, in particular, given that you were facing execution -- I mean, this is one of the greatest pieces of testimony against the death penalty being continued in this country.

I just think you look at cases like this, Troy Davis and others, and you think this is just archaic. This cannot be allowed to continue.

But I thank you for your time. I wish you good luck with your rehabilitation into normal life. And go make some music. Have some fun.

ECHOLS: Thank you.

MORGAN: Take care.

BALDWIN: You, too.

MORGAN: Nice to se you.

DAVIS: Thank you so much.

MORGAN: Damien, Lorri and Jason. What an extraordinary story. "Paradise Lost One" and "Paradise Lost Two" are HBO documentary films by Joe Bellinger and Bruce Stonofsky (ph). The latest installment, "Paradise Lost Three" will debut in January on HBO. That is all for us tonight. "AC 360" starts now.



Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on November 07, 2011, 01:18:55 AM
West Memphis Three Film Premieres in Memphis

Daniel hight

10:58 p.m. CST, November 6, 2011

FAST FACTS:

    The third film profiling the story of the West Memphis Three premiered in Memphis.
    The screening was sold out.
    Jason Baldwin, one of the West Memphis Three, hopes the film will spark a movement to find the real killers.

 ::snipping2::
 
(Memphis 11-06-11) - People showed up to see the latest documentary profiling the story of the West Memphis Three. They left the theatre with their own opinions.

“People who like evidence, I think would totally see that they're innocent, but i don't know how you could think otherwise,” said Leslie Ponds who went to the screening with her husband, Kevin. He added, “I thought it was outstanding. I thought it was a great follow up to the first two.”

Kevin Ponds said he followed the story of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin since the murders. He said the film Paradise Lost: Purgatory is personal.

“I was the odd kid at school and I could have easily been Damien Echols,” said Ponds. “I wore black clothes, listened to metal music and somebody could have easily could have pointed the finger at me, had something like that happened.”
Sign Up For ALERTS From Us

Jason Baldwin was at the Playhouse on the Square for the premiere. Afterwards he answered questions from producers and the audience. He said the film was hard for him to sit through.

“You see your family and your friends going through a very hard and difficult time,” said Baldwin, “so it’s difficult to watch.”
 ::snipping2::

He hopes the final film in the trilogy will spark another movement, one to find the real killers.

“After having experienced this I want to know who murdered those boys,” said Baldwin. “I want them to be found and brought to justice for my family and also for their families.”

The documentary debuts in January on HBO.

  ::snipping2::

 http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-west-memphis-three-film-premieres-in-memphis-20111106,0,5715426.story (http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-west-memphis-three-film-premieres-in-memphis-20111106,0,5715426.story)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: KittyMom on November 07, 2011, 08:31:41 AM
Glorifying killers.  What has this world come to?


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 13, 2012, 12:18:33 AM
HBO is now airing the latest Paradise Lost: Purgatory
 I am just catching it at the end but will wait for it to play again.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on January 18, 2012, 12:08:38 PM
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/153191-paradise-lost-3-purgatory-the-west-memphis-three-go-free/
'Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory': The West Memphis Three Go Free
By Cynthia Fuchs
January 12, 2012

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Director: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
Cast: Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley, John Mark Byers, Lorri Davis-Echols, Don Horgan, Dennis Riordin
(HBO Documentary Films; HBO: 12 Jan 2012; 2011)

Videos at Link


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 20, 2012, 07:29:05 PM
WM3 defense team gives prosecutor new evidence

7:06 PM, Jan 20, 2012
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/article/191496/2/WM3-defense-team-gives-prosecutor-new-evidence  (http://www.todaysthv.com/news/article/191496/2/WM3-defense-team-gives-prosecutor-new-evidence)

 ::snipping2::
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - Defense attorneys for the men accused of murdering three boys in West Memphis in 1993 say they have new evidence that will exonerate Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley.
 ::snipping2::
ccording to the defense's press release, the new witnesses came forward after seeing a recording of the CBS News 48 Hours special on the West Memphis Three.  Click the THVideo player to see more on the 48 Hours special.

Today's THV spoke with the Prosecuting Attorney's Office and they are expecting the information to be delivered soon so they can review it. Second Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington is in court today, so we're waiting to hear back from them about what the next steps will be.
 ::snipping2::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 21, 2012, 03:07:26 AM
New sworn statements implicate Terry Hobbs in West Memphis Three case

    By Beth Warren
    Posted January 20, 2012 at 11:51 a.m., updated January 20, 2012 at 10:49 p.m.


http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/jan/20/new-sworn-statements-implicate-hobbs-west-memphis/?partner=popular  (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/jan/20/new-sworn-statements-implicate-hobbs-west-memphis/?partner=popular)
 ::snipping2::
The defense team, led by attorney Stephen Braga, announced Friday they have found three new witnesses who point to Terry Hobbs as the real killer of three West Memphis boys. The witnesses, who Braga insists passed polygraph tests, claim Hobbs' nephew, Michael Hobbs Jr., told them "my Uncle Terry murdered those three little boys."

Terry Hobbs, stepfather of victim Stevie Branch, did not return calls Friday. He has denied having anything to do with the boys' murders, and police have never considered him a suspect.

Braga hopes that will change. His office sent the witnesses' sworn statements to prosecuting attorney Scott Ellington to urge him to reopen the investigation into the 1993 slayings of Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers, who were stripped, bound and beaten before being thrown into a muddy reservoir.

For now, Braga is not releasing the identities of the witnesses, or their affidavits, to reporters.

He has released excerpts, which include one witness's account that: "One day Michael picked us up in his truck. He was very quiet and upset. Michael then said to us, 'You are not going to believe what my dad told me today. My Uncle Terry murdered the three little boys.'"

The witness claimed that Terry Hobbs' nephew was told the revelation was "the Hobbs family secret," according to a news release issued Friday -- the same day the latest film on the case, "West of Memphis," produced by Peter Jackson, made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.
 ::snipping2::
Contacted Friday, Terry Hobbs' brother, Michael Hobbs Sr., laughed upon hearing the allegations, calling them "made up stuff."

He said his son and the three friends had a falling out and this is their way to get even. Braga's team acknowledged that Hobbs Jr. had given information to police against two of the three witnesses.
 ::snipping2::
Two hairs from the crime scene were identified in 2007, after DNA advancements since the initial trial.

An independent lab paid by the defense concluded that a hair found in a shoelace used to bind Michael Moore's wrists to his ankles is consistent with Terry Hobbs' DNA. The other hair is consistent with the DNA of David Jacoby, whom Hobbs visited about an hour before the boys' disappearance.

Echols' attorneys said Hobbs could have picked up one of Jacoby's hairs when he sat with him and played guitars inside Jacoby's home. That hair was found on a tree stump near where one of the boy's bodies was found. Hobbs has said the victims could have picked the hair up from his house since they often played there.
 ::snipping2::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 21, 2012, 03:19:16 AM
Terry Hobbs daughter, Amanda Hobbs facebook page. She talks about her Mother (Stevie's Mother) going to the Sundance film festival and about herself being in the new film. She has a picture of Terry Hobbs in her photo album.

https://www.facebook.com/mandababie11?sk=wall  (https://www.facebook.com/mandababie11?sk=wall)

Also Mike Hobbs Sr FB page (Terry's brother who's own son Michael Jr is mentioned in the article above):
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=694442654  (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=694442654)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 21, 2012, 03:48:50 AM
I get the feeling that Pam Hobbs and someone who I think is Pam's sister (Sheila Muse) believe now that the WM3 are innocent. Sheila on her FB page also talks of going to Sundance but she has post further down her wall telling Damien on his FB "can't wait to meet you" and says Merry Christmas to Damien and Jason. Her wall and Amanda's are very interesting to say the least...... ::MonkeyCool::

 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000695975095&sk=wall (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000695975095&sk=wall)

Quote
Sheila Hicks Davidson Muse posted to Damien Echols
Merry Christmas Damien and Lorri. Cant wait to meet you in January in California at the preview of West of Memphis...take care!
Like · · December 25, 2011 at 6:40pm

Quote
Sheila Hicks Davidson Museposted toJason Baldwin
Merry Christmas Jason. Cant wait to meet you in California in January at the preview of West of Memphis....take care!!!
Like · · December 25, 2011 at 6:33pm ·


Quote
Sheila Hicks Davidson Muse
Reese Witherspoon has signed on to play the role of my sister Pam in the movie Devils Knot based on the book by Mara Leveritt. I think this is pretty awesome. She is an amazing actress and I have always been a fan of hers. Good job to the casting director!
Share · December 16, 2011 at 5:54pm via mobile ·

Sheila Hicks Davidson Muse
They are set to start filiming 2012. Pam is humbled, excited, shocked...we are all in awe!!! It has even been on the local news. Pams character being cast first mustt mean its going to be a big role. Im with Aunt Charlotte....WOW!! There will definetly be premieres. Pam is going to CA soon. Cant wait to see everyone rock the red carpet.....
December 17, 2011 at 10:45am
 ::MonkeyShocked::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: cartfly on January 21, 2012, 04:29:42 AM
Trailer of one of the films coming out. This is the one that premiered at Sundance:

http://www.cityoffilms.com/reel-news/trailer-for-peter-jackson-produced-west-of-memphis/  (http://www.cityoffilms.com/reel-news/trailer-for-peter-jackson-produced-west-of-memphis/)


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on February 28, 2012, 06:48:18 PM
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2012/0228/West-Memphis-Three-100-000-reward-offered-to-clear-their-names
West Memphis Three: $100,000 reward offered to clear their names
The West Memphis Three, convicted of killing three Cub Scouts, were released last year but not exonerated. A new $100,000 reward aims to clear their names.

By Suzi Parker, Correspondent
February 28, 2012

Little Rock, Ark.

Activists hope a $100,000 reward, offered by an anonymous donor on Tuesday, leads to an arrest and conviction in the West Memphis Three case.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on February 28, 2012, 06:50:02 PM
http://arkansasnews.com/2012/02/28/reward-offered-in-wm3-case/
Reward offered in WM3 case
February 28, 2012

LITTLE ROCK — A tip line sponsored by the defense team of the West Memphis Three and the group Arkansas Take Action is offering a $100,000 reward for new information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for killing three boys in 1993.

Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were convicted in the May 5, 1993 deaths of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. Echols was sentenced to death. However, the three were released from prison after time served last August after pleading guilty under an agreed-to legal maneuver known as an Alford plea. The three maintained their innocence while pleading guilty.

“There are people in Arkansas who have information about who killed these three little boys and we encourage them to come forward now,” said Little Rock lawyer Patrick Benca. “We want to bring those responsible to justice. We are not looking for theories, but for real information that can put the true criminal(s) behind bars.”

The $100,000 was put up by an anonymous donor, according to a news release issued today.

The tip line has been in existence for a number of years but the reward is something new, a spokesman said. The voice on the line is that of retired NYPD homicide detective J.L. Peter. It tells callers they do not have to leave a name or number. A spokesman said the message would be changed to allow callers to provide contact information.
 ::snipping2::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: KittyMom on June 05, 2012, 02:11:47 PM
http://blogs.ajc.com/the-buzz/2012/06/05/reese-witherspoon-colin-firth-movie-about-west-memphis-three-to-film-in-georgia/?cxntlid=thbz_hm

Reese Witherspoon-Colin Firth movie about “West Memphis Three” to film in Georgia

I wonder if the 3 guilty parties are being paid for this?


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: KittyMom on June 15, 2012, 10:02:35 PM
http://blogs.ajc.com/the-buzz/2012/06/11/reese-witherspoon-colin-firth-movie-needs-old-cars/

Reese Witherspoon-Colin Firth movie needs old cars
10:05 am June 11, 2012
Quote
It’s a good bet the film also will need extras with clothing reminiscent of that era too, so you may want to fish that Member’s Only jacket from the back of your closet.


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on August 19, 2012, 07:09:24 PM
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PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT

West Memphis Three Freed After 18 Years

Aired August 18, 2012 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PIERS MORGAN, HOST: Tonight, justice on trial. The case that shocked a nation. Three little boys murdered and dumped in a creek. And the three teenagers accused of horrendous crimes.

Whispers of devil worship, of sexual abuse. Then the verdicts. And the West Memphis Three disappeared behind bars.

Tonight, the extraordinary 18-year effort to free them.

JASON BALDWIN, WEST MEMPHIS THREE: We told nothing but the truth that we're innocent and they sent us to prison for the rest of our lives.

MORGAN: And the questions that remain. Did the killer or killers go free? And was the truth a victim, too?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're 100 percent innocent. We needed someone to hate to survive because our child was dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If these animals are released, you just as well give the key to everybody that's on death row right now.

MORGAN: The West Memphis Three in their own words.

DAMIEN ECHOLS, WEST MEMPHIS THREE: It does something to you when you see something like that. It cracks you inside.

MORGAN: This is PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT.

Good evening.

The case of the West Memphis Three began in May 1993 when the naked bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found in a ditch in West Memphis, Arkansas. The boys, Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers, had been hog-tired with their own shoelaces. Three local teenagers were charged with the crime and allegations of satanic rituals.

Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley were convicted of those murders. Echols was sentenced to death. Baldwin and Misskelley to life behind bars. But questions remain about their guilt and about the case. And as the years past, the West Memphis Three got the attention of celebrity supporters like Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks.

And last month, after nearly two decades behind bars, Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley walked free in a controversial legal maneuver. More on that in a moment but joining me now, Damien Echols and his wife Lorri Davis.

Welcome to you both.

LORRI DAVIS, DAMIEN ECHOL'S WIFE: Thank you.

MORGAN: An extraordinary saga. No other way to put this. Ending in the most bizarre circumstances, and we'll come to those a little later. Where eventually you all admit guilt and yet you walk free, which is a bizarre twist in this tale, a weird anomaly in the legal system, and will make no sense to anybody, probably least of all you.

Damien, let me start with you. I mean you've lost 20 years of your life for a crime you've always said you didn't commit.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: What has it been like for you? You in particular, you were sentenced to death, you had to live with that every day that you were incarcerated. You spent most of your time in isolation, I think. Tell me about the experience.

ECHOLS: Well, I spent actually the past 10 years in absolute solitary confinement. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week I was alone with the exception of the time that I would spend with Lorri. We were allowed to see each other once a week for three hours.

MORGAN: She was the only person you saw?

ECHOLS: Pretty much. Every once in a while maybe her family would come, you know, maybe once a year or something like that, but for the most part she was the only person I saw.

MORGAN: And what did you have with your solitary confinement? Did you have a television?

ECHOLS: There was a television, no cable anything like that. You just get the basic television channels. Your shower is right there in the cell with you. There's a drain in the floor. It's solid concrete walls and a solid steel door. There's a little slide in the door that they open up to pass food through or to give you mail, things like that. But for the most part, you're completely and absolutely sealed off from everybody.

MORGAN: What was the bed like?

ECHOLS: It's a concrete slab along the back of the wall. It's about 2 1/2 feet up off the floor. And they give you a mat like kindergartners take naps on to put on top of that, and that's your bed.

MORGAN: A computer?

ECHOLS: No. I had never -- you know when I got locked up there was no such thing as the Internet. So I had never seen the Internet, I'd never used a cell phone. MORGAN: Were you aware of news other than through the television -- I presume that you could catch up on news. But were you aware of world events? Were you following them?

ECHOLS: Just what I would see on, like, the major network television stations.

MORGAN: How often were you allowed to exercise?

ECHOLS: As often as you do it yourself in your cell. You know there were no exercise periods, you know there was no gym equipment, nothing like that. It's just whatever you could devise on your own.

MORGAN: When did you see daylight?

ECHOLS: Never. I hadn't seen daylight in almost a decade. I hadn't been exposed to sunlight.

MORGAN: In 10 years?

ECHOLS: For almost 10 years, yes.

MORGAN: What are you thinking throughout this period? I mean, this is -- for an innocent man, as many believe that you are and you've always protested this -- what are you thinking when you're stuck in there?

ECHOLS: The only thing -- the only thing you can do and maintain your sanity is to not think about the case and not think about what's happening to you. You have to sort of immerse yourself into a routine and never deviate from that routine. You know work out your own exercise regiment, work out a meditation regimen, start some sort of practice, sort of the artwork, writing, whatever it is. You have to create your own world in there or you'll go insane from that stuff.

MORGAN: Well, I don't know how you keep your sanity.

ECHOLS: You don't have a choice. You know it's not like you can get up one day and say, you know, I quit, I'm tired of this, I'm going to home. You just do whatever it takes to keep putting one foot in front of the other and get through the next day.

MORGAN: What effect did it have on your health?

ECHOLS: My health -- there's almost no medical care, no dental care, and things like that in prison so my health was deteriorating very rapidly. I've lost a great deal of my eyesight. Whenever you're in a confined space, you never get a chance to see anything far away and so you eventually lose the ability to.

So I started losing my ability to see anything further than a few inches away from me. And I was extremely light-sensitive due to the fact of not having seeing sunlight --

MORGAN: Yes, but that first moment you came out, what was it like to have daylight again? ECHOLS: It was like having a spotlight turned right in your face. It was extremely bright. I couldn't wait for the nightfall, you know, just to see the sun go down because I had never seen that, not in almost 20 years. You know I'd never gotten to see a sunset.

And it was just one of those things that I had been waiting on for so long, you know, sunsets, to see the leaves change colors, to feel autumn come in. This is going to be my first years. One of the things I'm really excited this year. This is going to be, my first real Christmas, my first real Thanksgiving. It will be our first anniversary that we spent together outside in 20 years, 18 1/2.

MORGAN: What are the things that you've had to learn again about real life? The simple things.

ECHOLS: Well, there's -- there are things that most people would expect you to have to learn, you know, like I said, I had never even seen the Internet so I'm having to learn how to use a cell phone, how to use a computer. But there are also things, for example, I hadn't walked in 18 1/2 years without chains on my feet. So I'm not -- I wasn't used to that when I first got out, so I was literally having to learn to walk again.

And the first few days I would almost keep falling over myself because I was used to walking, you know, with short strides with chains on my feet. I had to learn to use a fork again. You know I hadn't eaten with a fork in 18 1/2 years.

MORGAN: Why?

ECHOLS: They don't give you forks in there.

MORGAN: How do you eat?

ECHOLS: With your hands.

MORGAN: I mean, there'll be people watching who will say, had you been the person responsible for the death of three young boys in this horrific manner, they don't care how badly you're treated in prison. The problem comes if you're completely innocent and you're being treated in these barbaric circumstances.

Let me take you back to what happened. May 5th, 1993, the bodies of these three 8-year-old boys are found. It's a small town. Everybody knows each other or knows someone who knows someone.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: So it becomes the biggest (INAUDIBLE) of its time for the town. It becomes a national story, it becomes something that grips people, and it's so horrifying that the desire by people to catch the perpetrators is intense.

When is the first time that you hear you are going to be in trouble with this?

ECHOLS: Almost immediately, and it wasn't just because of this. It was -- you know I had been harassed a great deal. It really was a really small town, and I stuck out due to the way I looked, the music I listened to, things like that. So I had been harassed for quite a while before these murders ever been took place.

MORGAN: Were you a troublemaker? Or were you just a bit different?

ECHOLS: The most trouble I had ever gotten into was like running away from home as a teenager, something like that. It was just --

MORGAN: Ever broken the law?

ECHOLS: No.

MORGAN: You were into, like, heavy metal?

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: And then you don't like reading Stephen King books, I mean --

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Was thrown at you is kind of allegations but you know, there's nothing wrong with Stephen King, and nothing wrong with liking Ozzy Osbourne or whoever it was.

ECHOLS: Well, in 1993 I hadn't even heard this word but now it's pretty common. People say that what I was, was Goth. And you didn't have something like that in small towns back then. It really drew a lot of notice from, you know, a small town crowd. And it made me stand out and it sort of what made me a target.

MORGAN: So what happened?

ECHOLS: Just immediately, as soon as it happened, people said a murder this horrific couldn't have just happened. You know, what would have been the reason for it? Obviously they weren't robbed. They're 8-year-old children. We found out later they hadn't been sexually molested in any way. They tried to say that in the very beginning but we found out they hadn't been.

So what other reason could someone possibly have for murdering these children? The only thing I could come up with was that it was a satanic ritual. To them that made sense.

MORGAN: When was the moment you realized you were going to be pulled in by the police?

ECHOLS: They showed up at my door the day after the bodies were found. I mean, it was almost immediate that they started coming to me.

MORGAN: And how did that make you feel?

ECHOLS: There's no words to even describe it. You know most people don't have anything in their frame of reference that they could compare something like that to. Then to know that these people are coming to you because they actually believe that you are capable of murdering three children, it does something to you psychologically that you will never, ever get over.

MORGAN: Tell me about the relationship with you and the two other men who were accused with you. I've been saying men, you were boys at the time, 16, 17.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: Tell me about Jessie, because he and his testimony to police very early on were the catalyst for what happened to you.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: What we've heard subsequently is that he has a very low IQ, 72, he is mentally +++++++.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: He's not somebody who really should have been given -- giving lengthy evidence without a lot of legal help.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: What happened?

ECHOLS: Well, whenever they called him in for questioning, like you said, he was mentally +++++++. He had been in like special education classes in school, things like that. They said he had -- mentally he functioned at the level of something like a 5 to 8-year-old child. They called him in and started questioning him and basically with the mentality he had, what happened was he agreed to anything that they said. They would say, did you do this? He would say yes.

MORGAN: And very little of this -- of this testimony was ever kept on tape, well, certainly on tape that was found.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Just fragments of this interview, which in itself is suspicious and strange and weird.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: He gives this evidence. He says, yes, I saw you and he saw Jason, and I saw them kill these boys and they raped these boys, horrific stuff he came out with.

ECHOLS: Right. MORGAN: And as a result of that, you guys are now in very serious trouble.

ECHOLS: Yes. I don't think he -- you know with the mentality he had and his IQ level, I don't think he could really even comprehend the level of trouble that he was in or that he had dragged us into with him.

MORGAN: How well did you know him?

ECHOLS: Not very well. Jason Baldwin I knew a great deal better. He was my best friend, you know, since we were teenagers. Jessie Misskelley was someone we would see around somewhere, you know, maybe had a pool hall shooting pool, something like that, but he wasn't, you know, as close to us as we knew each other.

MORGAN: Why did you think he was doing this?

ECHOLS: It's hard to say. I think part of it was just prompting by the police. Part of it may have been he thought he was going to get something out of it. It's hard to say.

MORGAN: When is the worst moment for you?

ECHOLS: It's hard to say. I almost want to say there were no worst moments. It just kept getting worse and worse and worse. You know every single moment was worse than the last one. It doesn't ever stop. You know, you think the moment you're arrested, that's the worst moment.

You think the moment you were in the trial, that's the worst moment. You think the moment you're convicted, that's the worst moment. You think the moment you're sentenced to death, that's the worst moment. Your first execution date rolls around, that's the worst moment.

It just gets worse and worse and worse. It's a horror story. It's like a train that doesn't stop. It just keeps picking up speed and getting worse and worse and worse.

MORGAN: Very few people can understand anything that you've been through. One of them is going to join us after this break. And he's one of the other members of the Memphis Three.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We the jury finds Damien Echols guilty of capital murder in the death of Stevie Branch. We the jury find Damien Echols guilty of capital murder in the death of Chris Byers. We the jury find Damien Echols guilty of capital murder in the death of Michael Moore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: All the Memphis Three were convicted of murder. Damien Echols, the alleged ringleader, were sentenced to death. Damien Echols and his wife Lorri Davis are here with me now. We've been joined by Jason Baldwin, another member of the West Memphis Three.

Welcome, Jason. I mean let's just cut to the quick here. What was the evidence against you, other than the word of Jessie, who we already established had a mental age of somewhere between a 5 and 8- year-olds?

BALDWIN: The evidence against us was our personal preferences in music. I remember at one point during the trial they lifted up our record. Boys' record and I think John Fogelman said this was found in Damien's girlfriend's mother's house.

MORGAN: He was the prosecutor.

BALDWIN: Right.

MORGAN: As if somehow that implied that you were capable of killing young boys.

BALDWIN: Right.

MORGAN: There's no DNA evidence against you?

BALDWIN: Well, at the time they had evidence and stuff but since it didn't match us it wasn't brought up and then --

MORGAN: But nothing tangibly linking any of you to the deaths of these boys.

BALDWIN: Right.

MORGAN: Has ever emerged. Was there anything else other than music you listened to, books you read, clothes you wore or haircuts?

BALDWIN: That was it.

MORGAN: How do you feel? I mean you've listened to Damien out there. I'm assuming you didn't have much contact in the years that you were both incarcerated.

BALDWIN: No. When we first got locked up, we would write letters through his sister, Damien, but I got called up to the warden's office and told I wasn't permitted to do that. So I was no longer permitted. So only then the only type of contact we could have, like, through mutual friends, call a friend. And I'd be like, hey, how is Damien doing? Have you talked to Damien? And you know kind of pass on words of encouragement like that.

MORGAN: Presumably, in prison you are pariahs, right? People --

BALDWIN: Yes. In the first few years, like when I first got there, people were literally waiting for us to get there. You know, and they stay up alike, you know. Just to do us harm.

MORGAN: And they would attack you? BALDWIN: Oh, yes.

MORGAN: How often?

BALDWIN: The first few years, a lot.

MORGAN: Like what?

BALDWIN: I mean I've got shattered skull, broken collarbone, teeth knocked out, multiple scars on my face and stuff from it. But as the years progressed and people got to know me and as the documentaries came out and stuff, you know, the curses turned into prayers. You know the fistfights turned into hugs.

MORGAN: But for the early period, this must just be -- this is a nightmare. I mean were you going through the same thing?

ECHOLS: Yes, absolutely.

MORGAN: It's just unthinkable to me that you're going through this.

Then the mood begins to change. And that's when I want to bring you in here, Lorri, because a campaign begins. There are rumblings of discontent about this case. People are beginning to think, this doesn't add up, there isn't the evidence, and HBO did big a documentary. You watched this documentary.

A lot of famous people now have been able to get behind this and giving it (INAUDIBLE) of publicity. When you watched it, it was very powerful and led you -- led the viewer to an obvious clear-cut conclusion that you could not have been responsible for the deaths of these boys.

You start writing to Damien. You write about -- what are you thinking when these letters arrive?

ECHOLS: I think I fell in love with Lorri pretty much from the very first letter.

MORGAN: Why?

ECHOLS: Because I can -- I just knew this was someone unlike anyone I had ever known in my life. She just stood out. There was something completely and absolutely different about her. She was out of my frame of reference. You know it was something -- she was something completely magical and alien to me at the time, and it was one of those kinds of love that just hurts because it's so much.

MORGAN: I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment because -- and this won't surprise you. When you read about women who write to convicted killers and so on, there is a kind of freaky element to a lot of those relationships. It's unhealthy, it's weird.

This is different because you did it after watching a documentary where, as I say, you couldn't conclude from that that you were the killers. So really you're in your head writing to an innocent man, as you see it.

DAVIS: Right.

MORGAN: That is the distinction. But you must have still had family, friends, and people around you, presumably, as this relationship developed, thinking, what are you doing?

DAVIS: Well, fortunately, for most of my life I've been a pretty grounded, responsible person so I mean I think if I had been a little more erratic in my life, then maybe -- but it was astounding because my close friends stuck by me.

MORGAN: You fell in love. You started meeting each other. You were allowed to see him. And you get married.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: There's still the prospect of you facing an execution. How -- you know, how do you deal with that psychologically?

DAVIS: I never entertained the thought of it. I just never did the whole time.

ECHOLS: That's what I was going to say. Yes.

DAVIS: Yes.

ECHOLS: It's almost like you refuse to accept it. I heard a guy one time talking about racecar drivers and whenever they're training, racecar drivers they tell them never look at the wall. Because if you look at it you're going to drive into it, you're going to move towards what you focus on.

So therefore, we wouldn't focus on that because we didn't want to move towards it. We focused all of our attention, all of our energy, and all of our work towards getting out, towards proving our innocence.

MORGAN: The campaign that you then joined aggressively and began to be more and more vocal and public about it.

I want to take another break and when we come back, I want to get into when you were found guilty and also when you admitted guilt to get your freedom, which is, as I said at the start of the show, a bizarre some will say ridiculous way, for this to end. But it got you here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I did not want to take the deal from the get-go. However, they're trying to kill Damien, and sometimes you just got to fight to save somebody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: An emotional moment from the news conference right after Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley Jr. were freed last month. To get there, they had to plead guilty while insisting they are innocent.

I should point out we asked Jessie Misskelley to join us tonight but he declined.

This is a fascinating development. It's called the Alfred Plea. It's a very rare part of American law. And in the end you were able to proclaim your innocence while pleading guilty.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: I don't get it. So Jason, explain to me what this actually means.

BALDWIN: Well, the Alfred Plea was the only opportunity that we was given to plead our innocence and get out with -- the way it was set up was the state didn't want to admit that they had, you know, convicted three innocent people to prison and to death so what they put together was an opportunity to -- for them to be able to claim that, hey, we got the right guys, but the evidence doesn't, you know, prove that they're guilty.

If they go to trial again, they'll win. But we're giving them an opportunity to get out now to save taxpayers some money and they can still maintain their innocence and state still maintains the point that they're guilty and all parties --

MORGAN: I mean you did an extraordinary thing for your friend because you could have done a deal and got out. But if you didn't take this deal, he would have been facing the death penalty still, right?

BALDWIN: Well, on both deals, like they came to me with plea agreements, like, when I first got arrested. And I told my attorneys not to ever bring these plea agreements to me. But by law they -- you know they have to. First time they were like -- you know this is when I was 16.

They wanted me to testify against Damien. I'm like, that's impossible. I can't testify against him. I'd have to testify for him. It was -- my attorneys like, no, that's not what they want you to do. They want you to say that he did the crime and then they'll let you out, give you five years or whatever.

I told them, well, I can't do that. I wouldn't care if they'd just let me out right now. So jump ahead 18 years to now, this deal, it's to save an innocent life. It's to save Damien from death row. It's a sure thing, you know, and it gets him home now and it gets him out of, you know, death row where he's, you know, suffering not being at home with Lorri and everything so --

MORGAN: How many execution dates did you face?

ECHOLS: I only ever had one. My original execution date was May 5th, 1994.

MORGAN: And in the build-up to that, did you genuinely think that you were going to get killed?

ECHOLS: I thought there was a good possibility, just because -- you know, we were convicted of something we didn't do with no evidence. If that was possible, then the execution was possible.

MORGAN: How many people were on Death Row with you?

ECHOLS: It varies. On average, I would say about 40. In the time I was there, I saw between 25 and 30 executions.

MORGAN: There is a big debate at the moment about executions following the Troy Davis execution last week. I mean, when you hear this debate, how many -- I've read statistics; 17 people who were on death row had their sentences commuted because of DNA evidence. Another 112 had their sentences commuted for other reasons.

So there you have 140 people who would have been executed wrongly. You could have been one of those people.

ECHOLS: And I knew I could have been one of those people, because it happens all the time. You know, people think this case was something out of the ordinary, and it wasn't. Innocent people get caught up in these situations all the time. You still have innocent people there in Arkansas on death row right now. It happens all the time.

MORGAN: What did your families think? How did they react to this? Did any of them turn against you? Any of them believe you may be guilty?

ECHOLS: None of mine.

MORGAN: None of yours?

BALDWIN: Well, the thing about that is I was with my family at the time the murders occurred.

MORGAN: Which is a key thing in the study of the evidence. It was all based on Jessie's testimony to the police, most of which has never been made public, because they didn't have the tapes or didn't want to release them at the time.

And he said, first of all, it all happened in the morning, then it happened in the afternoon.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: Then finally, he washed up at a time that suited the timing of the deaths. I mean, this is scandalous, isn't it? Jason, why do you think Jessie was doing this?

BALDWIN: Well --

MORGAN: Because if he hadn't, I don't think any of you would have gone to prison, would you?

BALDWIN: The closest thing I can come to explain that in my mind is like the schoolyard bully who gets the kid to cry uncle under duress. The bully knows he's not the other kid's uncle and the kid knows the bully is not his uncle. But he puts him under so much pressure and pain that he's like, OK, uncle, let me loose.

MORGAN: Do you hate Jessie? Do you blame him?

BALDWIN: Not at all.

ECHOLS: He's mentally handicapped. It's not his fault.

MORGAN: He's a victim as well, you think?

ECHOLS: Exactly. He didn't choose to be born that way.

MORGAN: Some members of the boys' families supported you. Others, to this day, continue to say you were the people responsible for the deaths of their children. How do you deal with that psychologically?

ECHOLS: You just have to keep moving forward. I mean, if you do focus on that and if you do dwell on that sort of thing all the time, you're going to lose your mind. You're going to go crazy. And there's nothing you can do.

MORGAN: You know, you look at these pictures of these boys, the sweet eight-year-old sons. I've got three sons. They've all been eight years old at some stage.

BALDWIN: That's how old my youngest brother was when it happened.

MORGAN: Was it, yes?

BALDWIN: We were terrified for his safety, you know, when we first heard of the murders. Like on May 6th when with the bodies were found, we were like -- my mom was freaking out. She was like, oh, my God, there's somebody out here killing kids. Keep Terry at home. Watch him. Make sure nothing happens to him until they find out who done this.

MORGAN: Does a part of you understand why some of their family felt they had closure with your convictions?

ECHOLS: Absolutely.

MORGAN: And they just can't deal with the fact that it may not be what they had been told it was?

ECHOLS: Absolutely, I can understand it.

BALDWIN: There's a quote that always comes to my mind when I think about this. It did throughout the entire thing. "Forgive them father for they know not what they do." It's what Jesus said when he was put on the cross. That's what I think of when I encounter this stuff.

MORGAN: Let's take another break. When we come back, I want to ask you who you think may have been responsible for the deaths of these boys. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If these animals are released, you just going to give the key to everybody that's on death row right now to open up their cells and walk out here with all the rest of us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm still standing and fighting for justice, because they're innocent! They did not kill my son!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Two very different reactions from fathers of two of the murdered boys. The West Memphis Three spent nearly a decade behind bars for the crime before being freed last month. Bath with me now is Damien Echols, his wife, Laurie Davis, and Jason Baldwin.

How do you feel when a lot of famous people begin to rally to your cause? I mean, we should explain. The music we've been using to play in and out of these breaks is a special thing for you. Explain what that is.

ECHOLS: It's a song on a Pearl Jam album that was -- Eddie Vedder had taken the lyrics from it from a piece of poetry I had written when I was much younger and put it to music. And it was, you know, just an incredible experience, even hearing the finished product and seeing what it sounds like. It's just an absolutely amazing thing, and something that means a great deal to me.

MORGAN: To have the support of somebody like him.

ECHOLS: In a way, it was almost like we didn't think of it a lot of time as support from someone famous, because these were people that -- they weren't just like celebrities who came in and threw money at the case. These were people who were involved on a very ground floor level.

MORGAN: Peter Jackson got involved. Johnny Depp got involved. These are high, high profile, very famous people. And they definitely made a difference to the atmosphere around your case.

ECHOLS: Right.

MORGAN: This guy here sitting next to you, you know, he -- you come across to me -- I've never met to you before in my life. But you come across to me as somebody grounded, intelligent, eloquent, not the things you would associate with the portrayal of you in your court case of this Devil worshipping, Satanic, occult obsessed, you know, weirdo, dangerous maniac who could be capable of murdering three young children.

You knew him very well. You were his best friend at the time. Put yourself aside for one moment. When you saw him described as this evil ring leader of mass murder, what were you thinking? BALDWIN: I knew everybody just had it wrong. They didn't know him. Like in high school, his mom fixed him lunches to carry to school in paper bags, you know. Even then with the high school kids, they joked. They'd be like, what you got in the bag, Damien, a cat? He'd be like, meow, yeah.

But it would be peanut butter and jelly and an apple or soda or something, you know. So it was a joke to the kids this, you know, look and everything, his personal dress and Goth look and stuff. So to children, it's fun, you know. But when the adults got in and the police and everything, and they twisted that and gave it a sinister thing. Yes, and it was just totally unrealistic.

MORGAN: Did either of you ever have suicidal thoughts?

BALDWIN: No.

ECHOLS: I think I probably did when I was young teenage angst, you know, stuff you go through as a kid, just because I was such a misfit in the community where I lived. But it never was anything --

MORGAN: But not after you were put in prison?

ECHOLS: Oh, yeah.

MORGAN: Did you ever try to take your own life?

ECHOLS: Yeah, I did.

MORGAN: How?

ECHOLS: I took an overdose of basically sleeping pills, anti- depressants, just because it was -- like you said a while ago, there's no light at the end of the tunnel. It seems like there's no hope. And the pressure was so great that for a moment, I lost all hope. I thought, I may spend God knows how long here going through this. And I did. I took an overdose of pills to try to end my life.

MORGAN: Let's take a short break. I want to come back and ask you how you've managed to rebuild your lives, both of you, and with Lorri's help.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ECHOLS: We can still bring up new evidence. We can still continue the investigations we've been doing. We can still try to clear our names. The only difference is now we can do it from the outside, instead of having to sit in prison and do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Damien Echols at the news conference on his first day of freedom after nearly two decades behind bars. That moment when you walk free, how did that feel? ECHOLS: It's hard to describe. You know, like I said earlier, most people don't have anything like that in their frame of reference. But it was like having a huge weight taken off your chest. For the first time in almost 20 years, I could actually breathe. You know, I didn't feel like I was being crushed to death.

And there were times in prison when we were going through that that it literally felt like being crushed to death. You feel like there's weight on you and you can't take another step. And for the first time, it felt like that had been completely lifted, taken off.

MORGAN: Lorri, were you surprised at the strength of Damien through this?

DAVIS: Oh, yes.

MORGAN: I mean, many lesser people, in terms of strength of character, would have crumbled under this. Yet I see somebody who -- to me, you've come out and you've survived. That's how I see you, someone that hasn't been destroyed by this, damaged beyond any imagination but not destroyed. Would you agree with that?

DAVIS: Oh, absolutely. But he's worked very hard for that. I mean, there were times when it got really hard for me on the outside, just the stress and trying to get through and thinking there was no -- you know, it was just hard, everything, in the middle of it. And Damien would get me through. So, you know, the strength of that.

But I saw how hard he worked, how long he meditated, how disciplined he was with his mind, his education, his just -- he's such a disciplined person, which is one of the reasons why I found him -- I mean, there's just so many layers to him.

MORGAN: You had a son by a previous relationship.

ECHOLS: Right. He's 18 years old now. The same age I was whenever I got locked up.

MORGAN: Literally he just arrived.

ECHOLS: He was born while the trial was taking place. The very first time I held him was during the trial.

MORGAN: Did you see him at all during the time you were inside?

ECHOLS: Not very often of course. But yes, he would come to the prison. We tried to keep him as far from the situation as possible.

MORGAN: Now he's 18. He's a young man. I've got an 18-year-old son. How does he deal with what's happened to his father?

ECHOLS: I don't know. I you think it's going to take more time than we've had so far to get into things like that. Because who knows what sort of resentments he has or anything else for missing his entire childhood.

MORGAN: He's another victim.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: So many victims here.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Whole families crushed on every way you look at this. Do you think death penalty, state executions, should they be abandoned? Many people think they should be now. There are too many miscarriages of justice, too many innocent people being put on death row.

ECHOLS: I don't think we have any idea how many innocent people have died yet.

MORGAN: Would you stop the death penalty? Did you believe in it before this?

ECHOLS: I didn't give it much thought.

MORGAN: You did?

BALDWIN: I would stop it.

MORGAN: I didn't give it much thought before this. You know, it was something that I never really thought about in depth. But the media -- a lot of the media and prosecutors and things like this portray this image to society like all of these people on death row are like Hannibal Lecter. They're these evil geniuses. They are not.

You are talking about people who are mentally +++++++, who are schizophrenic, who are brain damaged, just horrendously damaged people that --

MORGAN: Or completely innocent. I mean, this is my issue with it. You know, I come from a country where we don't have the death penalty. Every poll of the public says 90 percent would bring it back tomorrow. They would all bring back hanging. Because they do that in the belief that 100 percent of the people who would be accused are 100 percent guilty.

ECHOLS: Yeah.

MORGAN: And that is just not the case.

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Let's take another break and come back and ask you about how you can clear your names completely here, what you think you can do to get proper closure.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I don't worship the Devil or anything like that. I worship God, you know, like everybody. Every normal person in this -- around here knows. .

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: That was a young Jason Baldwin during the trial, from the HBO documentary series "Paradise Lost." James Baldwin and Damien Echols and his wife, Lorri Davis, are back with me now. Just a kid only there. You have lost a lot of your lives, the pair of you?

What has been the hardest thing about your reentry into normal life? Can you sleep? Can you get employment? What are the practical realities of your life now?

BALDWIN: I am -- I sleep very well. I'm currently employed for a construction company, just get me on my feet. I think the most difficult thing is learning to drive. I'm working with that. I have read the DMV and took the online practice test, aced it. Now I'm just trying to get down to --

MORGAN: Had your first beer yet?

BALDWIN: Oh, yeah.

MORGAN: Quite a few I should say, right?

BALDWIN: I think, at one point, I went to a coffee shop and they were like what kind of coffee do you want. And I'm like kind? Coffee, right? Americana, espresso and --

(CROSS TALK)

MORGAN: Before you went in, it was like, I will have a coffee. Now it's you got to have a Ventura iced latte whatever it is yeah. It's not progress, trust me.

BALDWIN: No.

MORGAN: What's it been like for you, Damien?

ECHOLS: I think one of the most remarkable moments that let me know that it was really finally over is we had friend who took us to see like an improv comedy routine. And we are sitting in a room full of people watching the show. And we are on the very front row and there's a bunch of people behind us.

And I realized I don't have to worry about anybody behind me stabbing me or hitting me in the back of the head. They are all watching the show. That's over.

MORGAN: And that was the fear you lived with for ten years?

ECHOLS: Every day.

MORGAN: An awful thing to have to live with. Have you managed to get work?

ECHOLS: Not yet. MORGAN: Why is that?

ECHOLS: Um, I think it's just the things that I'm interested in, you know? I really started getting into the realm of art whenever I was in prison. And that's what I would like to continue doing, continue writing, continue doing visual artwork. And I just haven't been out long enough to pull things together to get that going.

MORGAN: You've only been out, what, six weeks?

ECHOLS: A month -- a month and a week.

MORGAN: Extraordinary month it must have been for you. Can you quite believe that you're out? I mean, you were facing a death sentence, that was it.

ECHOLS: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes it seems like it's just happened. Other times it seems like the whole prison experience was years ago already. It's hard to describe. It's been extremely surreal.

MORGAN: Do you have any way of clearing your names for good? Is there anything you can do proactively to clear your names? Because there will still be people out there who will have seen the circumstances of your release saying, well, hang on. They are pleading guilty but maintaining their innocence. What's going on here?

It is confusing for people and therefore must be frustrating for you, that that was the only way you could finally get released. Is there a mechanism for closure for you.

ECHOLS: We can be eventually pardoned maybe. We are still continuing with the investigation.

MORGAN: Who decides that, the governor?

ECHOLS: The governor. Yes.

MORGAN: Governor of Arkansas?

ECHOLS: Exactly.

MORGAN: Is there a petition to him at the moment?

ECHOLS: I don't think it's been put together yet, but everybody's been talking about it. There have been a lot of people really getting behind the movement. The same people who, you know, were responsible for, you know, exposing this case to the public and making sure we got free are now also starting up a movement for us to be pardoned.

MORGAN: Is the case still open or was it closed?

ECHOLS: To the prosecutors, it's closed. To us, it's opened.

MORGAN: Should it be reopened? ECHOLS: Of course.

MORGAN: A pardon would be great. It should come to you, given the -- all the evidence in this case. But actually getting somebody put on trial with real evidence, that should have happened from the start, and leading to a proper, safe conviction, that is when you are going to get proper closure. That's when everybody -- right?

DAVIS: In that sense, that's what we have been working on all these years with the legal team and people who have helped us. We're going to continue that, because that is the most important thing, is to bring new evidence to the case, to discover new evidence, everything we can do. Because we want to -- we want to discover who did this.

That's the most important thing.

BALDWIN: We definitely want that process to be free of coerced confessions, free of pressured, perjured testimony.

MORGAN: You have been remarkably candid and brave to do this kind of interview. I think that Damien, Jason -- Damien, in particular, given that you were facing execution -- I mean, this is one of the greatest pieces of testimony against the death penalty being continued in this country.

I just think you look at cases like this, Troy Davis and others, and you think this is just archaic. This cannot be allowed to continue.

But I thank you for your time. I wish you good luck with your rehabilitation into normal life. And go make some music. Have some fun.

ECHOLS: Thank you.

MORGAN: Take care.

BALDWIN: You, too.

MORGAN: Nice to se you.

DAVIS: Thank you so much.

MORGAN: Damien, Lorri and Jason. What an extraordinary story. "Paradise Lost One" and "Paradise Lost Two" are HBO documentary films by Joe Bellinger and Bruce Stonofsky (ph). The latest installment, "Paradise Lost Three" will debut in January on HBO. That is all for us tonight. "AC 360" starts now.



Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on August 19, 2012, 07:46:29 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/us/west-memphis-three-a-year-out-of-prison-navigate-new-paths.html?pagewanted=all
West Memphis Three, a Year Out of Prison, Navigate New Paths
August 17, 2012


(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/08/18/us/WESTMEMPHIS/WESTMEMPHIS-popup.jpg)
West Memphis Journal
From left, Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, the West Memphis Three, after their 1993 arrests in the murder of three boys.



(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/08/18/us/JP-WESTMEMPHIS-1/JP-WESTMEMPHIS-1-articleLarge.jpg)
Evan Agostini/Associated Press
Jessie Misskelley, left, Damien Echols, center, and Jason Baldwin in October in New York.

 ::snipping2::
 The men known as the West Memphis Three thought they would die in prison, linked forever as the torturers and killers of three young boys. They have been free for a year now, living as little more than acquaintances in a world flooded with possibilities.

Yet they are still linked, not only by a series of coming books and movies but by a legion of fervent supporters who hold them as a symbol of a flawed legal system.
More...



Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on September 09, 2012, 04:39:57 PM
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10832962
Johnny Depp gets West of Memphis tattoo
September 10, 2012

 ::snipping2::
 Echols said whenever he and Depp get together, they often end up in a tattoo parlour.

Depp said it's about "celebrating the moment."
 ::snipping2::

 Depp, along with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, musician Henry Rollins, and filmmaker Peter Jackson, who produced West of Memphis, helped pay the legal fees to free the three men.

The 37-year old Echols always wears sunglasses, a product of not seeing much daylight after spending so many years in a prison cell. Echols said Depp's support wasn't limited to Echols' time in prison.

"He's been with us every single step of the way. Since we've gotten out, he's become like a brother to me. And that's one of the things we always do just as part of that bond is whenever you get tattoos like that, it's something you carry with you through the rest of your life and it's really meaningful."


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: KittyMom on September 09, 2012, 08:35:14 PM
I wonder how Johnnie would feel about leaving his kids alone with his 'brother'?


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MOMDET on September 13, 2012, 01:11:39 PM
I agree, I know that they are presummed innocent and from what I can see these boys should have never been convicted.  However, everyone seems to gloss over some of Damien's behaviours during trial and interviews he gave before his wife cleaned him up and made him a cause.  Those interviews are chilling and disturbing even if he was innocent and young, there is no way I want him around my kids!   ::MonkeyEek::


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on September 16, 2012, 01:29:25 PM
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57513794/west-memphis-3-life-after-death/
West Memphis 3: Life after death
September 16, 2012

Link to gallery with 22 photos in article





Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on October 01, 2012, 09:03:32 AM
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/dead-man-talking-20120924-26fr2.html
Dead man talking
September 29, 2012

He was sentenced to death for the murder of three boys, held in inhumane conditions for 18 years, then set free. Nikki Barrowclough meets Damien Echols, a man who still finds it possible to believe in magic.

(http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2012/09/28/3672784/GW_Sep29_damienechols_1LW-20120924115849306113-620x349.jpg)
In the spotlight … Damien Echols at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Photo: Getty Images


(http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2012/09/28/3672792/GW_Sep29_damienechols_2LW-20120924115826354752-620x349.jpg)
Lives lost … the murdered children (from left), Chris Byers, Michael Moore and Steve Branch.




(http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2012/09/28/3672812/GW_Sep29_damienechols_3LW-20120924120106481023-620x349.jpg)
Arrested development … (from left) Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley at their arrest in 1993


Lengthy article, with more photos at link.




Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on October 03, 2012, 06:57:05 PM
http://deadspin.com/5948646
Damien Echols Of The West Memphis Three Is Here To Answer Your Questions
October 3, 2012



Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on January 05, 2013, 09:30:41 PM
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/article/238627/2/Jason-Baldwin-back-in-Arkansas-to-discuss-WM3-case
Jason Baldwin back in Arkansas to discuss WM3 case
December 13, 2012

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - One of the West Memphis 3 back was back in Arkansas for the first time since being released from prison last year.

Jason Baldwin was in North Little Rock for a viewing and discussion on an HBO documentary on this case.

THV 11 News had a chance to speak with Baldwin before the event started and hear what he had to say about being back in Arkansas since his release back in August of 2011.
 ::snipping2::
As for the case, Baldwin said his lawyers and supporters continue the push to exonerate the West Memphis 3 but progress is slow.

"We're just trying to find out who committed the crime, and it's hard, and it's a long road," Baldwin said.

Baldwin said more recently the work to exonerate him has challenged the fiber analysis in the original case. He said that some of the fibers in the evidence against the West Memphis 3 were fibers you could find in practically any home in America.

As for folks coming out to Wednesday's program, those THV 11 talked to said they were excited to see Jason Baldwin in person and came to show their support.
 ::snipping2::
Video at Link


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on January 05, 2013, 09:32:49 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/damien-echols-west-of-memphis-2012-12?op=1
This Story Of 3 Innocent Teens Jailed For Murder Reveals The Flaws In The US Justice System
December 24, 2012

The "West Memphis 3" case has gripped the country since the early '90s. That's when three teens were arrested for the sexual assault and murder of three 8-year-old boys in Arkansas.
The teenagers always maintained their innocence and after nearly 20 years behind bars — and the help of some Hollywood heavyweights like Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson — Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelly, and Jason Baldwin walked out of prison free men in August 2011.
But the case is far from over. Defense attorneys for the West Memphis 3 have all claimed Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Stevie Branch, one of the murdered boys, should be looked at as a suspect in the case.
Attorneys for Echols said in January Hobbs' nephew told friends "my uncle Terry murdered those three little boys," Fox 16 reported at the time.
Hobbs has fought the allegations, calling them "more of a publicity stunt" than anything else. In truth nobody really knows who killed the boys.
I was recently lucky enough to attend a screening of West of Memphis, the latest documentary about the case, produced by Jackson and Fran Walsh and directed by Amy Berg.
More...

Photos at Link


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on January 05, 2013, 09:34:46 PM
Another review:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/west-of-memphis,90199/
West Of Memphis
December 24, 2012



Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on January 05, 2013, 09:36:30 PM
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=98183
Exclusive Interview: West of Memphis Producers Peter Jackson and Damien Echols
December 21, 2012

 ::snipping2::
Unlike the previous docs, Berg was able to get former jurors, witnesses and even the judge and prosecutor on record about the problems surrounding the original case, many of them now debunking their own testimonials. The film also had the direct involvement of Echols himself, who co-produces the movie along with his wife Lorri Davis.

The results are West of Memphis, one of the most comprehensive films about the last few years in the struggle by the West Memphis 3 and their defense team, leading up to their release from prison on an Alford Plea in August 2011. The plea was an unsatisfying compromise made by the defendants to get released from jail, but taking away their rights to sue the county or the state for wrongful imprisonment. In other words, they're physically free but they haven't been exonerated from the crimes and still have to abide by terms set by the court.

We previously spoke with West of Memphis director Amy Berg at Sundance where we also had a chance to meet Echols and his wife Lorri.
More...


Title: Re: West Memphis 3, West Memphis, AR Case
Post by: MuffyBee on January 05, 2013, 09:39:01 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/west-memphis-3-and-the-alford-plea-2012-12
A Little-Known Legal Maneuver Let 3 Men Convicted Of Murder Get Out Of Jail While Still Admitting Guilt
December 22, 2012

Three teens were convicted in the early 90s of the sexual assault and murder of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Ark.
However, the teenagers always maintained their innocence and after nearly 20 years behind bars — and the help of some Hollywood heavyweights like Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson — Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelly, and Jason Baldwin walked out of prison free men in August 2011.
But their eventual path to freedom was full of tricky legal maneuvers, the biggest of which was an agreement with prosecutors that required them to plead guilty while still maintaining their innocence.
An Alford Plea essentially lets defendants maintain their innocence — they say they didn't do it but admit the state has enough evidence to prove their guilt — while still technically pleading guilty.
After the Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously decided to grant the West Memphis 3 a new trial, the trio invoked an Alford Plea because it could help them avoid a risky new trial.
 ::snipping2::
Despite the fact the plea got them out of the jail, it didn't exonerate them. In the eyes of the law, the trio pleaded guilty to murdering Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore and will always carry the record to prove it.
But the case is far from over.
Now that the three are free men once again, their team has set about finding out who actually murdered the three 8-year-old boys.
West of Memphis, the latest documentary about the case, suggests Branch's stepfather Terry Hobbs should be investigated for the crime.
Attorneys for Echols said in January Hobbs' nephew told friends "my uncle Terry murdered those three little boys," Fox 16 reported at the time.
Hobbs has fought the allegations, calling them "more of a publicity stunt" than anything else.
But earlier this fall, prosecutor Scott Ellington agreed to look into the trio's allegations against Hobbs, according to the Free West Memphis 3 blog.
And it appears he has every right to do so. According to Benca, the West Memphis 3's Alford Pleas don't prohibit prosecutors from pursuing, and possibly convicting, additional suspects.
"It's no different than a prosecutor pursuing other leads when someone is found guilty," Benca said. If new evidence develops, he said, there's "an obligation to make things right."