I am sorry,danielle (is that right?). I was posting that to beesy or thought I was. For some reason I messed it up.deandaniellws said:Goody....I have been reading the transcripts. The problem is....that the "facts" differ from one witness to another. I made this thread to talk about the books vs the testimonies. I am in no way an expert on this case. I have read many MANY things on the web about this case. I followed it when it was going on. The problem is....that everyone has a different "opinion" of the "facts". I am just trying to find a middle ground...and wanting to know which "account" to believe.:waitasec: If I say something wrong...for god's sake straighten me out. That is why I am here.
This is what I was replying to. http://www.justicefordarlie.net/transcripts.php
It's alot to wade through. What I do is if I need to know one particular thing, I just do a search for it.
I didn't think it was a good way to understand the evidence from the trial transcripts. Mostly because different witnesses say different things. Sometimes you do have to pick and choose which version seems more logical. The whole trial concept is based on what is reasonable to believe, not so much on who is telling the whole truth and who isn't. Sometimes the facts do get lost in the shuffle, but most of the time I think you can weigh which fact is more likely to have occurred based on your own life experiences. Like when Darlie told the jury that she forgot to tell Mercedes she was dreaming when she saw the man standing over her/fighting with her/stabbing her (whichever it was), and that is why Mercedes might assume that it was a real memory as opposed to a dream, I found it totally unreasonable to believe. Who tells someone about a dream and doesn't start it with "I had a dream last night...."? But some people do believe her....go figure. If one didn't read all the transcripts and just that testimony alone, they might not realize how many different stories people claimed she told about how she was attacked.
Personally, I think the books are good and I am glad they are out there because they do provide some information you can't find in the transcripts , but the authors do make mistakes. Sometimes big ones, like Barbara Davis' on the knife going all the way thru Devon's body and sticking in the floor. Anyway, that is something to consider. The authors do try to tell the truth, I think, but they aren't under oath. They also might be pushed a little by publishers to "sensationalize" a bit. But my experience with true crime is that no one EVER gets it all right, not even the appellate courts when they hand down an opinion. Somewhere in the mix there will be a fact, usually some background info, that has slipped into the paperwork in error and is never corrected. I guess it is because so many people are involved.