48 Hours and Paradise Lost; West Memphis Three

[kyleb]

radio carbon dating is still being fine tuned to this day

Sure, but the evidence regarding the radioactive decay of carbon-14 proves far beyond any reasonable doubt that young earth creationists are wildly mistaken to believe our planet is merely around 6000 years old. It's not my intent to bash anyone by stating such facts though, let alone the book they derived their misplace positions of faith from. I'm simply not one to mince words and consider respecting reality of far more importance than humoring people's graven images of it, to put it in biblical terms.

 

[NCSleuth]

Such omissions, distortions, and denials have a purpose, which they are used throughout the PL movies and WoM in regard to far more than just Echols history of violence prior to committing the murders. Again, that's why I refer back to Echols lies regarding where he lived at the time of the murders, because those who refuse to acknowledge the evidence which proves that simple and well documented fact beyond any reasonable doubt aren't rightly in any position to access the evidence which proves he committed the murders along with Baldwin and Misskelley. One might just as well attempt to explain the fossil record and radiocarbon dating to young earth creationists for all the good it could do.

Kyle I agree. For me its just like the ones that try to whitewash the mental health issues of DE. If you can't look at a kid with a 500 page mental health record and say he has serious mental health issues, how can you even look at any other evidence and be objective? If we can't get past that, how can we have a discussion about his guilt or innocence. DE has serious mental health issues, period! Now, lets discuss the evidence and see if he is guilty. If we can't get to that point I don't see how in the world we can even discuss his guilt or innocence.

Same with the fact he lies. Doesn't make him a murderer, but its a fact. He lied about where he lived. He lied about not knowing that neighborhood. We know he lived in WM at the time of the murders. We know he lived in that neighborhood when he was 5 or 6, probably played in those woods. We know he attended revival at a church right in the middle of the neighborhood within a year of the murders. We know he walked through those woods on the way to meet JB.

If we can't agree he lies, we can't move forward and discuss the case. How can we?

 

[reedus23]

OT,but have you seen this documentary? It totally is not what you say it is IMO.It paints a compelling picture about how the actions of this man not only victimized innocent children but how he tore his own family apart,how his sons and brother believed in him even though they were victims themselves and how he turned them against their mother.The documentary itself makes no judgment about his guilt or innocence ,it leaves it up to the viewer to use their own critical thinking and I don't think anyone who watches it would think that man is innocent in the end.Some of the charges were exagerated for sure IMO but guilty he was.

BBM - Why am I not surprised.

 

[kyleb]

If we can't agree he lies, we can't move forward and discuss the case. How can we?

Exactly. I came to this forum with about a week of heavy research into this case and leaning towards guilt for all three to varying extents but searching for a solid evidence based argument to the contrary. So I was hopping that by coming here I might learn of evidence I've overlooked which made the case for innocence, but my quest for further understanding was greeted with little but denial and disdain from those who've vested their faith in the notion that the three are innocent, and since then my focus has changed to sharing the evidence I've seen with those are interested in better understanding the facts of the case and gaining insight into the psychology of those who remain intent on doing otherwise.

 

[reedus23]

DE has serious mental health issues, period! Now, lets discuss the evidence and see if he is guilty.

If we can't agree he lies, we can't move forward and discuss the case. How can we?

RSBM - Ok, for sake of argument, DE has serious mental health issues and is a liar. Now that we've put that behind us, let's move on with talking about the evidence in the case. I agree with you NCSleuth, and now that it is conceded, I'm assuming it doesn't have to be revisited and we can, like you said, move forward with discussing the evidence and see if he (or someone else) is guilty.

 

[reedus23]

Exactly.

So you are in agreement as well kyle that if the points of DE being a liar and having serious mental issues is conceded, we can move forward with discussing the evidence and whether or not DE (or others) are, in fact, guilty? We can now focus on that evidence without having to repeatedly rehash the mental problems and lies?

 

[LordYAM]

:floorlaugh:Funny. I came here uncertain. I wanted clarity and I did indeed find evidence that made me lean towards innocence. Not only that, the denial and disdain from those who are invested in thinking they are guilty only helped make me more certain. Now, they could be guilty, but overall I got the opposite of Kyle. The Nons tend to lie, ignore evidence, make leaps in logic, and make personal attacks far more often

 

[kyleb]

the denial and disdain from those who are invested in thinking they are guilty only helped make me more certain.

Certainty is only rightly obtained by understanding the body of evidence itself, not from others' behaviors regarding it.

The Nons tend to lie, ignore evidence, make leaps in logic

Any notable and common examples along the lines of refusing to acknowledge the fact that [ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134624"]Echols lies about his mental heath history[/ame] and [ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9966168#post9966168"]where he lived at the time of the murders[/ame], as evidenced throughout the linked threads and elsewhere on this forum?

 

[LordYAM]

clinging to the whole "it was a knife wound" even though the only one who advocates it is an unqualified individual who failed to pass his certification twice while every other forensic expert has confirmed that they were probably animal marks, justthinkin trying to say the hair wasn't evidence because it wasn't recovered for two weeks even after the knife wasn't made evidence FOR SIX MONTHS


trying to say that Terry hobbs innocently transferred that hair even though the circumstances (it would have had to be pulled through the eyelet of the shoe and been retied several times for at least a day, since these are active kids playing, and hobbs claimed he never saw them that day) That the circumstances described in the "confession" are contradictory, that the prosecution tried to twist the witness statements claiming they saw domini and damian (are you honestly expecting me to believe they could recognize some kid they met a few times and knew for at best a few months and see mud on his clothing's at night when said clothing was black, but failed to identify their niece?).

Ignoring that the jury foreman BROKE THE LAW.

Ignoring that Terry hobbs is enough of a lunatic that he could have murdered those boys (I'm not 100% sure he's guilty but given how he made an *advertiser censored* out of himself when Natalie maine's lawyers actually asked direct questions, that he has previously beaten a previous spouse, may well have beaten pam hobbs, has no real alibi since David Jacoby retracted his statement, and overall has a history of being a violent psychopath)

Ignoring that in Jesses's bible confession the prosecution may well have offered him a deal behind his attorney's back, that if someone is sufficiently vulnerable emotionally, gullible, stupid, unaware of their rights or just plain desperate they can confess to things they didn't do even multiple times uif they think it will benefit them (that's why attorneys advise their clients to shut up. They often don't get the implications of what they are saying.) Ignoring that the prosecution relied mostly on he said she said testimony That since hobbs was stevie's stepfather he's hold have been investigated no ifs ands or buts (again stepfathers are more likely than random stranger so like byers he should have been looked at from the word go)

 

[kyleb]

clinging to the whole "it was a knife wound" even though the only one who advocates it is an unqualified individual who failed to pass his certification twice

My certainty regarding the knife wounds is based on examination of the evidence itself, not from what others have said regarding it, as discussed [ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226915"]in this thread[/ame].

while every other forensic expert has confirmed that they were probably animal marks

That's not true, as for example Dr. William Sturner testified "My opinion was that the injuries to him are not characteristic of animal predation." But again, certainty is only rightly obtained by understanding the body of evidence itself, not from others' opinions regarding it.

justthinkin trying to say the hair wasn't evidence because it wasn't recovered for two weeks even after the knife wasn't made evidence FOR SIX MONTHS

That's a leap in logic commonly characterized as comparing apples to oranges.

trying to say that Terry hobbs innocently transferred that hair

It's a leap in logic to insist the hair is Hobbs' to the exclusion of his mother, his brother, and millions of other people who share his mtDNA, and one has to ignore all the other hairs recovered from the laceses and elsewhere which aren't consistent with Hobbs' mtDNA or weren't tested to ascribe significance to the one which does.

Ignoring that the jury foreman BROKE THE LAW.

I don't ignore the evidence which suggests as much, but I've never seen it anywhere close to proven, and have always considered the whole matter of the convictions moot now that the three had gotten out of prison before I even became aware of this case.

Ignoring that Terry hobbs is enough of a lunatic that he could have murdered those boys

I've seen a lot of rumors suggesting as much like in [ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=225263"]this thread[/ame], but my requests for documentation to back the claims fall on deaf ears.

Ignoring that in Jesses's bible confession the prosecution may well have offered him a deal behind his attorney's back

May well have is not evidence, and Misskelley's Bible confession is hardly crucial to the body of evidence given his many prior confessions to his own lawyers and otherwise.

 

[Ausgirl]

Kyle I agree. For me its just like the ones that try to whitewash the mental health issues of DE. If you can't look at a kid with a 500 page mental health record and say he has serious mental health issues, how can you even look at any other evidence and be objective? If we can't get past that, how can we have a discussion about his guilt or innocence. DE has serious mental health issues, period! Now, lets discuss the evidence and see if he is guilty. If we can't get to that point I don't see how in the world we can even discuss his guilt or innocence.

Same with the fact he lies. Doesn't make him a murderer, but its a fact. He lied about where he lived. He lied about not knowing that neighborhood. We know he lived in WM at the time of the murders. We know he lived in that neighborhood when he was 5 or 6, probably played in those woods. We know he attended revival at a church right in the middle of the neighborhood within a year of the murders. We know he walked through those woods on the way to meet JB.

If we can't agree he lies, we can't move forward and discuss the case. How can we?

To be fair -- not ALL 500 pages contain information on his problems. I am sure there's many people with a history of mental health issues who have bigger files.. I am not sure how the number of pages means anything.

I do think those pages showing the violence and anger -are- something that ought not be minimised. While I do see some of those pages as being very possibly over-reactions to Echol's acting out, a good many are accurate in the concerns they hold about his behaviour, also.

But while we're all so keen to have people accept truths -- can we go so far as to ask that we all accept the fact that Misskelley was led by the nose through his interview with police? Where he starts off at 9am and is LED to 7pm, and not very subtly at all?

It is not fair, IMO, to be asking other posters here on one side of the debate to accept basic facts, and not the other side too.

I see this happen a lot. What would be awesome is if obvious (like REALLY obvious - factual things, that can be clearly seen as factual..) things could be accepted as obvious, by everybody.

Thats when we can 'move forward', whatever that means.

 

[NCSleuth]

"But while we're all so keen to have people accept truths -- can we go so far as to ask that we all accept the fact that Misskelley was led by the nose through his interview with police? Where he starts off at 9am and is LED to 7pm, and not very subtly at all?"

No, I cannot accept that. It is not the facts. Interview started at 10:00 am and was over at 5:05, with numerous non-interview times during those 7 hours. Total interview time was between 4-4.5 hours. He was actually arrested at 2:44 after about 2 hours of interview and 1 hour of polygraph.

Now, if you want to rephrase the question and ask about the recorded interview, it is very suspect. They should have let him tell the story, instead they constantly stopped him and/or directed him into a certain direction. IMO it was a terrible interview with serious issues.

My problem is if it is a false confession I don't understand all the other confessions. Why did he continue to confess after that day?

Also, can we all agree PL1 flat out lied when it flashed on the screen "Misskelley, whose I.Q. is 72, was questioned for over 12 hours without legal representation or access to his family" ?

I think we can all agree they should have recorded all the interviews. I also think just about anyone that actually listens to the interview will have problems with it. But why did he continue to confess?

 

[kyleb]

Ausgirl's "he starts off at 9am and is LED to 7pm" isn't a reference to the timeline of the interview itself, but rather the times Misskelley gave durring the interview, though it's also an innacrurate characterization of the latter, as I explained [ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10007361&postcount=16"]here[/ame].

Oh, and as for police recording everything: idealiy, yes. Realisticly, police work on limited budgets, particularly in podunk towns like West Memphis, while recording everyone they talked to would've cost a small fortune in tape back in 1993. Misskelley wasn't even a suspect when he confessed and hence the police had no reason to record him over any of many other people they didn't record. It was only at the point Misskelley confessed and was arrested that his words became of notable importance, and that's when the recording started.

 

[Ausgirl]

"But while we're all so keen to have people accept truths -- can we go so far as to ask that we all accept the fact that Misskelley was led by the nose through his interview with police? Where he starts off at 9am and is LED to 7pm, and not very subtly at all?"

No, I cannot accept that. It is not the facts. Interview started at 10:00 am and was over at 5:05, with numerous non-interview times during those 7 hours. Total interview time was between 4-4.5 hours. He was actually arrested at 2:44 after about 2 hours of interview and 1 hour of polygraph.

No... I meant the way the way he was led into changing the time forward from morning to evening.

As to why he -kept- confessing? Well. I do not truly know, like any of us I have to guess. But after reading a crap-ton of info on coerced and false confession, I can say he is not the only person to have made multiple false confessions. It happens. Especially when the subject is young and has a low IQ, two documented risk factors.

The LE officers involved pretty much crapped on every recommended interview procedure, and .. yeah. I think I have said that bit already.

And if they had not, and/or if Jessie had stuck to ONE story, with ONE set of details, consistently, throughout ALL the various confessions (I am not here counting - or considering- the tale told by Levitation Boy, for obvious reasons) then I would probably be saying something completely different here.

But I'm not. Because he didn't.

 

[Mrs G Norris]

Jessie's story evolution has more to do with him gradually admitting more culpability than anything. In the first story he merely 'saw' he eventually admits his involvement. Personally I think he was more involved than he has admitted so far.

 

[Ausgirl]

He also says, repeatedly, that the boys were anally raped.

Were they?

 

[kyleb]

And if they had not, and/or if Jessie had stuck to ONE story, with ONE set of details, consistently, throughout ALL the various confessions

People who've been traumatized by their experiences are likely to have inconsistencies in their recollection of them, particularly half-wits like Misskelley. That said, Misskelley did remain consistent in many regards throughout his many confessions, identifying Baldwin as the person reasonable for the mutilation of Christopher Byers being perhaps the most notable example.

I am not here counting - or considering- the tale told by Levitation Boy, for obvious reasons

Sure it's obvious, when intent on excluding evidence to remain on the fence even the most specious of excuses will do.

 

[kyleb]

He also says, repeatedly, that the boys were anally raped.

Were they?

Perhaps, as it can be accomplished without leaving conclusive evidence of such. Or perhaps it only looked like there was penetration involved from Misskelley's angle. Regardless, what Misskelley recounted in that regard goes a long way to explaining the nudity and the binding.

 

[Ausgirl]

Sure it's obvious, when intent on excluding evidence to remain on the fence even the most specious of excuses will do.

Are you actually -incapable- of rebutting a point without also insulting the poster who made it?

 

[kyleb]

No, it's just that I don't care to waste time mincing words in refutation of one fallacious argument after another, be it the notion that Buddy Lucas's belief that he was levitated invalidates everything else he said or otherwise.