I'm sure many remember 'Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills' (HBO) and the follow up documentaries. Peter Jackson also made a documentary about the case but I haven't seen it. For those unfamiliar, three teenagers who were misfits got convicted of murdering 3 young boys who had been out riding their bikes when they disappeared. They were later found hog-tied and naked in a stream with genital mutilation (years later proven to be caused by turtles). There is a TON to this story and I suggest that folks read up on it, but it was a "Satanic Panic" case with what I always felt was paper thin flimsy evidence. We can all discuss more details if anyone is interested, but essentially Damien Echols and his attorneys were relentless against the West Memphis PD in getting them to release evidence they kept insisting was destoyed or lost. Echol's attorney finally won a Court order and served it on the PD, and surprise! It's all there. Intact. All of it. More DNA testing here we come. There are still people out there who think one of them or all of them are guilty, but why would Echol's push so hard for this if that was the case? He wouldn't. https://www.mystateline.com/news/west-memphis-3-case-lawyer-says-crucial-evidence-has-been-found/ https://www.memphisflyer.com/west-m...s-some-say-on-new-west-memphis-three-evidence
Something else: Jessie Misskelly is low IQ. He was the easy one to break and the police more or less force-fed him what to say and had him implicate the others thinking he could go home. He got life, Jason Baldwin got life, Echols got sentenced to death.
There are so many people in prison due to malfeasance by the authorities. We probably should have a rule that any felony conviction that results in jail time has to be reviewed by a public ombudsman with all the evidence at their disposal. It only became illegal in 2020 to lie to juvenile suspects while questioning them. The malfeasance by the authorities is the main reason I think the death penalty should be abolished again.
^You should hit the second link. The Police Chief resigned. Coincidence? Who is to say, although he hasn't been on the job that long. Echols has defiantly maintained his innocence all these years. All they were guilty of IMO was being oddballs. It was a witchunt for sure. That Alford Plea was some pretty brilliant legal manouevering, but none of them are really satisfied. Let's see what the evidence says. I'm curious to know if any further DNA will find who really did it. There was talk years ago that it could've been one of the kid's stepfather or something but he's dead now and it was so long ago I don't recall at the moment what happened with that. Also wanted to add that Misskelley immediately recanted but the entire town was out for blood and tag, they were it.To top it off, some of the confession wasn't recorded. It was this crazy, nutty, devil worship theory and that the kids were sacrificed.
I watched the old and new documentaries on this. Police steamrolled those kids, especially Misskelly. It's been years since I watched it... But if I remember correctly the judge on the initial case allowed some real shady shit to occur, like someone being accredited as an expert of some sort but in reality was far from it.
Alledgedly Miskelley confessed several times unprompted to his attorneys during the appeals process. Not really sure why that information would be available to the general public since it's attorney-client privilege.
I admit some of those documentaries are skewed, much like the Netflix 'Making a Murderer'. If you read deeply into the case some of it of is very compelling that there's something there, but that comes with caveats that I'll get in to another time. If the Prosecution went with thrill killings they would have had a far better chance of not sounding like idiots yet probably still managed to have won the case based on not a hell of a lot. EDIT: Autocorrect
