Okay, I went to the Craighead incident report and the individual progress note (thank you to KyleB for the links).
My mileage still varies greatly on this point re: occult motive for those murders, or Damien's history linking him directly to this crime. In the Craighead incident I don't see an occult-driven behavior, I see a disturbing outlash and loss of control, quite possibly from failure to keep the medication schedule (as he says) or maybe even not on the right meds to begin with. Finding the right diagnosis, meds and dosages takes time and there can be some error along the way, so I'm not criticizing the doctors, btw.
The individual progress note is interesting on many levels, imo. Damien maintains a distinction between Satanism and demonology. Whether or not someone else thinks that's splitting hairs, to Damien that was an important distinction and he wanted to remain clear on that. As for the spirit inhabiting his body and giving him power, and other stuff about rituals related to his demonology interest... that comes across as a fantasy-prone, adolescent reaction to the power issues that he admits to, and that imo are a result from the childhood trauma, mixed with his outcast status. I'm more concerned with the amount of dissociation and the "missing" childhood memories. That could be some major trauma - has he talked at all about childhood-related PTSD, then or now? Did he open up later about the abuse?
He doesn't remember how he learned to do the blood-drinking behavior, but he started around age 10. 10 is still an imaginative age (he sounds pretty imaginative overall) but I don't think that's of an age where someone can rightly be considered to adopt a belief system, like becoming a demon-worshipper or vampire (his description of the blood-drinking with a sexual partner or "ruling"? partner sounds more like he's included a bit of vampirism in his fantasy, which actually wouldn't surprise me if he did meet up with other teenagers interested in this stuff - that whole licking a cut and exchanging power hooey is something some teenagers dabble in, hell some adults believe in it).
My point being that whatever triggered him around age 10 or earlier, all this other fantasy about demons and spirits and power is an outgrowth of that, an emotional coping mechanism. Interest in demons and blood and power isn't what drives his behavior, his trauma and emotional imbalance drives that interest. If that makes sense.
The incident at Craighead is telling, to me. That attack on the bleeding kid wasn't part of a ritual, hell it didn't even follow his own criteria of a sexual partner or ruling partner for gaining power - it was a violent outburst. So my bottom line is that if these documents show anything to me about Damien as the possible killer, it would be as an act of spontaneous violence and rage, not an occult killing.
But of course then we have to ask, "Okay, Damien is capable of attacking someone. What evidence related to the actual murders points to him as the killer (along with the other two), as opposed to another person with violent issues?" Damien was surely not the only unbalanced person in West Memphis or environs. There has to be something to draw the connection between "Damien is ill" and "Damien committed these murders".
Interesting that Misskelley included the bit about Damien licking a bit of blood. Did Misskelley see this behavior before, I wonder, or did Damien talk about it?
In any case, as related to the topic of this thread, I don't see an occult motive. Many other people's mileage varies. I acknowledge that. Thank you again for providing those documents, they were enlightening. Also, i was trying to stuff a lot of thoughts into this post, so if something (or all of it!) isn't clear let me know and I will try to re-phrase. Thx.
