My Theory

[I Must Break You]

:banghead:
...if you think you need to explain to a 17 year old what a penis is then you obviously think that person may be slow.

Sometimes in the south we call everything below the waist "bottom." Southern euphemism. My granny said, "Be sure to warsh good, especially your bottom".

Of course the police would need to clarify which aspect of the bottom was involved.

People are using his way of speaking to support things without a true understanding of his culture.

Well I'm from the south growing up in Virginia and been all over the other other southern states and never once have I ever heard genitalia called "bottom". I'm pretty sure in every single place in the world "bottom" refers to butt. So JM saying the boy being cut on his "bottom" and the police changing that around to penis is ridiculous.

 

[AngelontheRiver]

I guess it's not 'southern' really. More Appalachian or hillbilly. And it's not a fact in this case, just a possibility. I doubt a lot of rural people have actually talked to you about their genitalia.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

I don't think that's what happened. If he was an inner city kid the same age, suspected of a drive-by, with similar circumstances, would you be outraged? If so, there's plenty sitting in prison that would love a similar campaign for freedom.

There was no attorney present when Jessie was interviewed. Period. He was underage. His father signed a form that permitted the interview. However, his father believed that he was being interviewed about Damien. That's what the original intention was. However, again IMO because of his mental disability, he ended up implicating himself in an effort to please the police and/or to get the reward money so he could buy his father a new truck.

As to the inner city kid analogy, if the inner city kid were railroaded with no evidence, as Jessie was, yes, I would be outraged.

 

[I Must Break You]

I guess it's not 'southern' really. More Appalachian or hillbilly. And it's not a fact in this case, just a possibility. I doubt a lot of rural people have actually talked to you about their genitalia.

Well allow me to retort. I actually lived most of my life in the Shenandoah Valley which is situated between the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Also a stones throw away from West Virginia, so I have grown up around more Appalachains and hillbillies than you can imagine, and growing up in this area I have heard every single slang about genitalia there could be here I'm sure. So yes, many many many rural people have made comments about their genitalia in my presence. Remember I'm male so was a boy growing up around other boys and boys tend to talk about their genitalia a lot.

 

[AngelontheRiver]

I am only saying, I grew up in West Virginia and we called everything down there "bottom." It's hardly an important point. I still think a lot of what he said was intended to confuse the police and minimize his own culpability.

These men are now free. However, they are not legally innocent and I do not believe they are actually innocent. I also realize it does not matter what I think.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

IMO, Jessie wasn't trying to confuse the police, Jessie was confused. The only reason that he said he was trying to confuse the police was to try to get them to believe him so that he could get the reward money.His father mentioned the reward, and I'm sure that the reward was the only reason Big Jessie gave permission for Little Jessie to be questioned.

I'm a Southerner, too, and "bottom" was just another word for "butt" when I was growing up. For the genitals, as kids we would usually say the "wee wee" or the "poo poo" even to indicate the actual body parts. As we got older, especially as old as Jessie, we would say "the privates" in polite company. Jessie's use of more juvenile expressions is just another indication, IMO, of his limited mental abilities. Also, what he said in the end implicated him in the murders; it didn't minimize his culpability.

As Stidham and Rosenweig have said, in many ways, his mentality is about that of a six to eight year old. This is evident in his reasoning process (not realizing that what he was saying was self-implicating) and his vocabulary (his "thang" and other [unusual for his age] expressions). If he was just trying to throw the police off, why would he implicate himself? Again, it's evidence of his mental disability which leads to his suggestibility and his false statements.

 

[AngelontheRiver]

Ok. He is dumb. I agree. However, he is not that dumb. Fact is, most of the hope to get Echols off of death row hinged on this claim that poor dumb Jessie was a dumb liar. The Alford plea has made the point moot. Echols acted like a fool all through his trial. Poor dumb Damien. I guess the only smart one was Baldwin. He kept his mouth shut.

 

[I Must Break You]

I am only saying, I grew up in West Virginia and we called everything down there "bottom." It's hardly an important point. I still think a lot of what he said was intended to confuse the police and minimize his own culpability.

These men are now free. However, they are not legally innocent and I do not believe they are actually innocent. I also realize it does not matter what I think.

I see your from West Virginia so we are practically neighbors, but I'm sorry I have spent quite a bit of time around West Virginians, and as you said it really has little bearing on anything, but I cannot for the life of me believe any man anywhere would ever call his penis his "bottom", I'm sorry that just makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[AngelontheRiver]

No. I think he said it to be nonspecific. The use of bottom is not to specifically replace the proper name for genitals. It is used to be nonspecific. Therefore polite. I am sure he was overwhelmed with shame about being involved with this. Have you never heard someone refer to his/her "privates" or "down there"? Same thing. He was the one with guilt. The only one.

 

[Cappuccino]

And did he also say the children were tied with brown rope because he was somehow embarrassed to say the word "shoelaces"? Or was he so overwhelmed with guilt that he deliberately tried to deceive the police?

 

[AngelontheRiver]

He later admitted he intentionally lied about the details. Did you not read the case documents?

 

[Cappuccino]

He later admitted he intentionally lied about the details. Did you not read the case documents?

No, he later tried to explain his previous inaccuracies by saying he "tried to throw em off." However, you don't seem to accept that explanation, else why would you paint him as having a conscience?

He was the one with guilt. The only one.

People who feel guilt about a crime do not intentionally lie about the details when giving a confession.

 

[AngelontheRiver]

Emotions are complicated things. I think he was remorseful. He did not want to get in trouble. How do you know people that are remorseful do not lie about details. I have heard it is common that criminals will admit to a murder but lie about any sexual assault aspects. Why did he say he was reaffirming his confession because "he wanted something done about it"? He would never have done this thing on his own. The other two drug him into it. He was torn, I think, between guilt and not wanting to be in trouble and shame about it.

I realize we will never agree. I have studied this case intensely and I feel certain these three are indeed guilty.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

Emotions are complicated things. I think he was remorseful. He did not want to get in trouble. How do you know people that are remorseful do not lie about details. I have heard it is common that criminals will admit to a murder but lie about any sexual assault aspects. Why did he say he was reaffirming his confession because "he wanted something done about it"? He would never have done this thing on his own. The other two drug him into it. He was torn, I think, between guilt and not wanting to be in trouble and shame about it.

I realize we will never agree. I have studied this case intensely and I feel certain these three are indeed guilty.

I, too, have studied this case intensely and I feel equally certain that these three men are indeed innocent.

My take on the "he wanted something done about it" is that he wanted to get out of prison because he was innocent. His insistence on sticking to his original story was simply a result of his mental disability. He didn't understand that his "story" implicated him as a murderer.

 

[Cappuccino]

Emotions are complicated things.

What does that mean?

I think he was remorseful.

I know you think that, I just cannot square that with your conviction that he lied to the police. Remorseful people do not lie to the police, they just give an honest confession.

He did not want to get in trouble.

That does not square with his contact with the police two weeks previous to his arrest about how to collect a reward, and nor does it square with his post conviction statements.

How do you know people that are remorseful do not lie about details.

There are people who feel guilty enough to hold their hands up and say what they did. There are people who don't feel any remorse and lie and deny all. Please explain why a remorseful person would make a confession and lie about the details?

I have heard it is common that criminals will admit to a murder but lie about any sexual assault aspects

There were no sexual assault aspects to this crime, everybody knows that. Even the original autopsies showed that, and were testified to by both the prosecution and the defense.

Why did he say he was reaffirming his confession because "he wanted something done about it"?

He said that on Feb 17th 1994, just after he had been sentenced to life without parole. He retracted it and refused to testify against the other two on Feb 22nd 1994. The only significant thing which happened in between those two dates is Judge Burnett refused to guarantee Jessie a deal in return for his testimony. Draw your own conclusions.

He would never have done this thing on his own. The other two drug him into it. He was torn, I think, between guilt and not wanting to be in trouble and shame about it.

Is that right?

Jessie tells the world that the boys were tied with brown rope at nine in the morning, that one was cut on the bottom, that one ran towards the pipe bridge and he was brought back, that all three were sexually assaulted. They were choked with sticks, and beaten with fists, and this all happened before noon on the same day they were in school till 3 pm.

Anybody who had the slightest clue about false confessions would be voting not guilty at this point.

I suppose any DA can find a few useful persons to propagate their point of view. :crazy:

 

[Cappuccino]

I have studied this case intensely and I feel certain these three are indeed guilty.

Great. Please tell me, what do you feel is the most compelling piece of evidence which convinced you of their guilt?

 

[AngelontheRiver]

If Misskelley is so stupid, why would you expect his actions to be logical?You can't have it both ways.

So you are positing that a person is either remorseful and tells the whole truth or is not and tells all lies?

He explained himself why he made the inaccurate statements. Read all of his confessions.

Not all sexual assaults leave physical damage.

What he wanted done was for the other two to go to jail also. They were the ones that actually murdered the boys.

 

[Roxye]

If Misskelley is so stupid, why would you expect his actions to be logical?You can't have it both ways.

No one has ever expect his statements to be logical. Simply because they never were.

Not only were they not logical.... They weren't FACTUAL!

 

[Compassionate Reader]

No one has ever expect his statements to be logical. Simply because they never were.

Not only were they not logical.... They weren't FACTUAL!

And that is why they should be discounted. Yes, Jessie is not of high intelligence. This fact led to the convoluted statements that he made to LE - all of them. Not one of his statements hangs together with the evidence, especially as interpreted by the defense's pathologists. So, no matter how many times Jessie told his "story," it didn't become true through repetition. Since it is a false story, it is not proof of anything in this case.

 

[Cappuccino]

If Misskelley is so stupid, why would you expect his actions to be logical?You can't have it both ways.

So you are positing that a person is either remorseful and tells the whole truth or is not and tells all lies?

He explained himself why he made the inaccurate statements. Read all of his confessions.

I've read them all many times, and none of them describe the crime or the crime scene accurately. That's not just a sign of someone being illogical or unintelligent, its a sign that he doesn't know what he's talking about because he was never there. And that also applies to his last statement where he says previous inaccuracies were "to throw em off," which makes an obvious lie out of the excuse.

Not all sexual assaults leave physical damage.

So you think Jessie said the boys were tied with brown rope, Michael ran in the wrong direction, the crime happened at the wrong time, etc, because he was trying to cover up his involvement in a sexual assault?

That makes no sense to begin with, and even less when you remember that Jessie says in the same statement that the boys were sodomised.

What he wanted done was for the other two to go to jail also. They were the ones that actually murdered the boys.

Then why didn't he testify against them?