New witness !!! Has this been discussed?

[ArianeEmory]

Thanks for the clarification. I went back to the wiki article out of curiosity and checked the citation on that reference, but it's referencing one of the documentaries. (I understand there are tons and tons of documents (and documentaries) relating to this case and I've barely skimmed.)

 

[Cappuccino]

Maybe telling the truth didn't work out so well for him when he was with the detectives, so he learned what the law wanted to hear. In the way a scared child learns to say the "right" thing, even if it's a lie.

That gap in time with the detectives really bothers me. (And didn't he get details wrong in that confession?) If only the police had done a proper job from the get-go. Starting with the crime scene. Never mind the court circus.

I do believe there was more than one person involved. Beating, tying and killing three boys all at once... you'd need more than two hands for all that.

ETA: I just saw your link to the confessions comparison - thanks! I'll read it.

I disagree that you would need more than one person to have committed this crime. This might sound counter intuitive, but its not that difficult for one person to subdue three victims simultaneously, even adult victims let alone 8 year olds. The BTK killer, the Yosemite Park Killer, the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders, the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling, the murders and kidnappings of the Groene family, and many many other crimes have been committed by one perpetrator against multiple victims. Mostly its achieved by pointing a gun at them, but in the kidnapping of Dylan and Shasta Groene and the murder of their family, the perp was only armed with a hammer.

 

[Cappuccino]

That does work, until you read all his other confessions .. even after conviction

And Christopher Ochoa was still confessing in prison 8 years after he was convicted. Didn't change the fact that the DNA from the rape victim matched a known serial rapist who confessed to committing the crime alone. Post conviction confessions have generally less credibility than pre-conviction ones. Whether true or false, they are always a bid to gain favour - either a lighter sentence in return for testimony, or to impress a parole board.

 

[Mrs G Norris]

And Christopher Ochoa was still confessing in prison 8 years after he was convicted. Didn't change the fact that the DNA from the rape victim matched a known serial rapist who confessed to committing the crime alone. Post conviction confessions have generally less credibility than pre-conviction ones. Whether true or false, they are always a bid to gain favour - either a lighter sentence in return for testimony, or to impress a parole board.

So is that why you think Jessie confessed on the way to prison .. to curry favour with the prison system, the police, or the parole board?

 

[Cappuccino]

So is that why you think Jessie confessed on the way to prison .. to curry favour with the prison system, the police, or the parole board?

Not to curry favour with anybody, far more concrete than that. To get a lighter sentence in return for testifying against the other two. He'd just been told he was to spend the rest of his life in prison, people far older and wiser than Jessie have offered to perjure themselves to avoid that fate.

 

[Mrs G Norris]

Not to curry favour with anybody, far more concrete than that. To get a lighter sentence in return for testifying against the other two. He'd just been told he was to spend the rest of his life in prison, people far older and wiser than Jessie have offered to perjure themselves to avoid that fate.

.. and yet he has the IQ of a simpleton who was too 'dim' to be questioned in the first place ..

 

[Cappuccino]

.. and yet he has the IQ of a simpleton who was too 'dim' to be questioned in the first place ..

He has an IQ of 72, and he was 17 years old. For both those reasons he should never have been questioned without a lawyer present.

What does his IQ have to do with the point I made above anyway? Its not like he needed to work out for himself that he could trade testimony for a shorter sentence, Dan Stidham and Greg Crowe had already told him.

 

[Mrs G Norris]

He has an IQ of 72, and he was 17 years old. For both those reasons he should never have been questioned without a lawyer present.

What does his IQ have to do with the point I made above anyway? Its not like he needed to work out for himself that he could trade testimony for a shorter sentence, Dan Stidham and Greg Crowe had already told him.

We then rode down to the Department of Corrections on Tuesday. Mr. Stidham rode with me. Mr. Fogleman and Mr. Gitchell met us at Brinkley, and we went to Pine Bluff. At that time, Mr. Stidham talked with him for approximately ten or fifteen minutes, at which point he came out of the room, grabbed a Bible. went back in and — this is my personal observation — but approximately 30 to 45 minutes later Mr. Stidham exited. He was very upset, unnerved, just kept mumbling things — “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I don’t know what to do now.”

And after thirty minutes of conversation, it became apparent at that point that his client had indicated that he was involved in the murders and had in fact witnessed and played a part in the murders.

Mr. Stidham then went back into the room, at which time he did not allow us, nor did we request or insist on having contact with his client. He went back inside and talked for another hour and came back and to paraphrase indicated that his client’s story matched with the facts much better and there were a few things we needed to do to be able to corroborate his statement.

At that point we got in our vehicles, and one of the things to corroborate his client’s statement was to determine if there was an Evan Williams whiskey bottle under an overpass in West Memphis.

To quote Mr. Stidham, I believe at that time, “If we can find a bottle like he says, then that will convince me that it happened.” At 9:30 or 10:00 at night we drive — ten o’clock in the evening — we proceed, the four of us, to roam underneath the overpasses of West Memphis and lo and behold find a broken bottle in the location indicated by his client.

We then take the bottle to a local liquor store where we proceeded to spend the better part of an hour matching the bottle with certain items, and lo and behold it matches with the brand name bottle Mr. Stidham had indicated that we should be looking for in the first place.

At that point Mr. Stidham says that wasn’t good enough to convince him.

It doesn't sound like Mr Stidham was too happy about this particular confession, and denied the corroborating evidence as important once found, even though he had said it would convince him before finding it.

http://wm3truth.com/jessie-misskelleys-confession-to-dan-stidham-february-8-1994/

 

[Compassionate Reader]

The bottom line, IMO, about Jessie's "multiple confessions" is this: I don't care how many times a lie is told, it doesn't make it the truth. When one considers, rationally, Jessie's mental disability, it is easy to see (if one is familiar with the mentally challenged) just how easy it was to manipulate his statement and morph it into what the prosecution wanted to hear.

As was pointed out above, Jessie is not the only innocent person who has made multiple statements of guilt that are simply not true. They disagree with the forensic evidence of the crime for one thing. They also disagree with statements (under oath) from other people. Jessie's statements simply are not supported by the facts of the case. So, his statements must be false.

Finally, I recently watched Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robinhood Hills again. I noticed, during the Misskelley trial, Dan Stidham, during cross examination of Mike Allen, asked, "Are you aware of the fact that Mr. Misskelly has a mental handicap?" Since this concept has long been a bone of contention between those who believe the three to be guilty and those who do not, I find it interesting that the prosecution didn't object to this question or contest it in any way. Although Allen went on later to state, referring to Jessie, "if he is mentally handicapped," IMO, the fact that the prosecutors did not object to Stidham's question is a tacit admission of the condition. So, how much veracity can be placed on the testimony of a "mentally handicapped" teenager, no matter how many times he makes a false statement?

 

[Cappuccino]

It doesn't sound like Mr Stidham was too happy about this particular confession, and denied the corroborating evidence as important once found even though he had said it would convince him before finding it.

That's much later in the day, that all happened in February 1994. Dan Stidham and Greg Crowe went into the case back in June 93, under the assumption that their client was guilty, (they'd read the confession on the front page of the Commercial Appeal just like everyone else), and that their role was to negotiate a plea deal in return for Jessie's testimony. It was several months in before they realised they were dealing with a false confession.

During those months do you really think they didn't tell their client what they were planning to negotiate on his behalf?

 

[Pensfan]

.. and yet he has the IQ of a simpleton who was too 'dim' to be questioned in the first place ..

Oh, come on, Mrs. G! Jessie has variable intelligence!

On some days, Jessie was a Mensa International member and contemplated sophisticated plans to outsmart the 'system'. On other days, Jessie was a *advertiser censored* habilis capuchin with the brain the size of a walnut.

Is Damien still taking his antipsychotic medicines? I hope so because he only lives 370 miles from me.

Pensfan
verified psychiatric mental health nurse

 

[Mrs G Norris]

Oh, come on, Mrs. G! Jessie has variable intelligence!

On some days, Jessie was a Mensa International member and contemplated sophisticated plans to outsmart the 'system'. On other days, Jessie was a *advertiser censored* habilis capuchin with the brain the size of a walnut.

Is Damien still taking his antipsychotic medicines? I hope so because he only lives 370 miles from me.

Pensfan
verified psychiatric mental health nurse

I'm not sure, but look .. he has a little shop http://www.damienechols.com/store/

 

[reedus23]

Oh, come on, Mrs. G! Jessie has variable intelligence!

On some days, Jessie was a Mensa International member and contemplated sophisticated plans to outsmart the 'system'. On other days, Jessie was a *advertiser censored* habilis capuchin with the brain the size of a walnut.

Is Damien still taking his antipsychotic medicines? I hope so because he only lives 370 miles from me.

Pensfan
verified psychiatric mental health nurse

I take it you don't believe LE manipulated Jessie into giving the statement that he gave? Do you believe there are any circumstances in which a person would give a false confession? Not trying to be smart, just curious.

Personally, I have my suspicions about what happened when the Judge wouldn't issue an arrest warrant. Just drinking beers with friends who are in LE, I've heard too many stories of how cameras magically get turned off and a suspect ends up being lifted 6 inches off the ground by his neck and beaten so as not to leave marks. It might not have been quite that bad for Jessie, but I have little doubt in my mind it wasn't a "Hey buddy, want another coke? Oh by the way, can we ask a few more questions?"

 

[reedus23]

I'm not sure, but look .. he has a little shop http://www.damienechols.com/store/

I know nothing about what he does for a living, but do I take it he should be unemployed and homeless instead?

 

[ceecee30]

I know nothing about what he does for a living, but do I take it he should be unemployed and homeless instead?

I had a look at the link and he does reiki, which is a spiritually guided massage, he's also offering courses for people to learn

 

[reedus23]

It doesn't sound like Mr Stidham was too happy about this particular confession, and denied the corroborating evidence as important once found, even though he had said it would convince him before finding it.

I think what you are missing is that a lawyer would be irate with the simple fact that someone was talking to his/her client in the first place...period. They should not have been talking to Jessie at all and they did. I know I would have been going through the roof if I found out LE talked to my client, knowing that he was already represented. I don't care what was discussed or talked about. The communication in and of itself would have pushed me over the edge.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

I think what you are missing is that a lawyer would be irate with the simple fact that someone was talking to his/her client in the first place...period. They should not have been talking to Jessie at all and they did. I know I would have been going through the roof if I found out LE talked to my client, knowing that he was already represented. I don't care what was discussed or talked about. The communication in and of itself would have pushed me over the edge.

And, when you also consider the fact that Jessie is of limited mental ability, IMO, it makes the pressure placed upon him by the prosecutors and their "sock puppets" (the police and correctional officers in prison) even more heinous. As an attorney, I think I, too, would be livid. Just another indication, IMO, of the gross injustice in this case.

 

[Deleted member 96356]

I disagree that you would need more than one person to have committed this crime. This might sound counter intuitive, but its not that difficult for one person to subdue three victims simultaneously, even adult victims let alone 8 year olds. The BTK killer, the Yosemite Park Killer, the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders, the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling, the murders and kidnappings of the Groene family, and many many other crimes have been committed by one perpetrator against multiple victims. Mostly its achieved by pointing a gun at them, but in the kidnapping of Dylan and Shasta Groene and the murder of their family, the perp was only armed with a hammer.

That's a good point. It's very hard for me to imagine getting three boys tied up, especially when they're not in a confined space and could therefore make a run. BUT as you say, perps have been known to do it. Just hard to wrap one's mind around... (still not sure why one person would use different knotting techniques, but what's logical about any of this?)

 

[Cappuccino]

That's a good point. It's very hard for me to imagine getting three boys tied up, especially when they're not in a confined space and could therefore make a run. BUT as you say, perps have been known to do it. Just hard to wrap one's mind around... (still not sure why one person would use different knotting techniques, but what's logical about any of this?)

I can think of a scenario, but its a horrific one and pure speculation so take it with a pinch of salt and don't have nightmares - a single perp could have pointed a gun at them and forced them to tie each other.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

That's a good point. It's very hard for me to imagine getting three boys tied up, especially when they're not in a confined space and could therefore make a run. BUT as you say, perps have been known to do it. Just hard to wrap one's mind around... (still not sure why one person would use different knotting techniques, but what's logical about any of this?)

I'd like to briefly address the portion I put in bold. There were not "different knotting techniques" used. The prosecution attempted to place that idea in the minds of the jury, but the truth is that the only "knot" used was a half-hitch. Sometimes it was repeated several times. Once it was repeated twice starting with alternating hands, making a square knot. IMO, "different knotting techniques" would have to be something much more intricate than a series of half-hitches.