(no subject)
Oct. 8th, 2004 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingA crucial witness says her testimony in the West Memphis Three case wasn't true, but a product of police pressure to get results in the death of three children.
On May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys - Michael Moore, Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers - were savagely murdered in a wooded area near Interstate 40 in West Memphis. One of the boys was sexually mutilated.
After a month passed with no promising leads, police turned to three local teen-aged boys - Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley - and charged them with the murders. To establish a motive, the police and prosecutor said the three were devil worshippers and had killed the three younger boys as part of an occult ceremony.
From an advocacy site devoted to freeing the three boys:
"Shortly after three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, local newspapers stated the killers had been caught. The police assured the public that the three teenagers in custody were definitely responsible for these horrible crimes. Evidence?
The same police officers coerced an error-filled "confession" from Jessie Misskelley Jr., who is mentally handicapped. They subjected him to 12 hours of questioning without counsel or parental consent, audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes. Jessie recanted it that evening, but it was too late -- Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were all arrested on June 3, 1993, and convicted of murder in early 1994.
Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon, motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus 40.
For over 11 years, The West Memphis Three have been imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit. Echols waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a rush to judgment. "
On May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys - Michael Moore, Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers - were savagely murdered in a wooded area near Interstate 40 in West Memphis. One of the boys was sexually mutilated.
After a month passed with no promising leads, police turned to three local teen-aged boys - Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley - and charged them with the murders. To establish a motive, the police and prosecutor said the three were devil worshippers and had killed the three younger boys as part of an occult ceremony.
From an advocacy site devoted to freeing the three boys:
"Shortly after three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, local newspapers stated the killers had been caught. The police assured the public that the three teenagers in custody were definitely responsible for these horrible crimes. Evidence?
The same police officers coerced an error-filled "confession" from Jessie Misskelley Jr., who is mentally handicapped. They subjected him to 12 hours of questioning without counsel or parental consent, audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes. Jessie recanted it that evening, but it was too late -- Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were all arrested on June 3, 1993, and convicted of murder in early 1994.
Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon, motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus 40.
For over 11 years, The West Memphis Three have been imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit. Echols waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a rush to judgment. "
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 09:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 10:14 pm (UTC)You really don't want to have to deal with the police anywhere in that part of the country.
The fact of the matter is that for all intents and purposes, there is no such thing as occult crime. We have the Satanic panic of the early 80s for causing people to think that things like Satanic ritual abuse and human sacrifice are not only committed, but commonplace.
There's a really good series of articles about the occult, law enforcement, and how the two interact here. It's not an unbiased source, as the URL makes obvious, but the author is a Pagan and a police detective with the Vancouver PD in Canada and thus has relevant experience on both sides of the line. In particular, he has a lot of criticism for self-styled "experts" on the occult who tend to feed police departments a lot of bullshit.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 10:18 pm (UTC)Michael Stackpole tears it apart more thoroughly than I ever cared to, though.
http://www.rpg.net/sites/252/quellen/stackpole/pulling_report.html (http://www.rpg.net/sites/252/quellen/stackpole/pulling_report.html)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 10:28 pm (UTC)It's not that there aren't a bunch of kooks out there. Isaac Bonewits, who's kind of an odd duck himself (and the only person to ever receive a degree in thaumaturgy from UC Berkeley, I believe), once came up with a useful evaluation tool for determining if a group or organization was coercive or otherwise dangerous.
But man, these people who see devils everywhere are proof if anything is that as reasonable as our society might be, individual humans are irrational bastards.