I'm just wondering, to the people who think they are guilty- what evidence do you believe proves their guilt? Purely out of curiosity.
Both sides have compelling reasons, I think, for feeling one way or another. A new poster posted his site in favor of their guilt. It is worth a read, no matter which way you think:
http://wm3truth.com/the-west-memphis-three-were-guilty/psychological-profile-of-damien-echols/
Did anyone else notice that it appears someone google bombed only positive things about The Memphis Three?
Here is where to find some not-so-positive court docs (again) on DE's mental health.
http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/img/exh500.html
I was diagnosed, after one hour, by a psychiatrist, as having severe mental problems and told that I would end up with clinical depression, suicidal ideation, if I didn't use hardcore meds for the rest of my life.
It has been 15 years. I am a successful attorney, successful in my personal relationships and live a peaceful, balanced life. I never took the medication.
In my line of work, I have read hundreds of psych evals. Several that completely contradict one another, when assessing the very same person. They are subjective - psych analyses.
Echols was diagnosed with depression at first, I think some suicidal ideation - never violence. His teenaged diagnoses remind me of many troubled teens I have known. He was crying for help to get away from his screwed up family.
One young person stated that he completely destroyed a large Great Dane, clubbing it, stomping it to make it's eyeballs pop out and yanking out its intestines, etc. I find that very hard to believe. For all the reasons he was institutionalized over the years, he was not for this. How do you hide such a monstrous crime? My guess is that a lot of people came up with things Damien did after the fact, to prove how "crazy" he was.
The later, very serious diagnoses, including disassociation and psychosis, were made by an expert trying to get him off.
Damien has been on death row for 18 years without treatment. There is no way he was as troubled as the expert stated, and simply recovered with no treatment, isolated 23 hours a day. Many people understand that such isolation merely acts to make people with fragile minds or mental illnesses much, much worse. There is nothing to suggest that happened with Damien. Instead, he seemed very together, coherent, sincere, and logical at the press conference. Not a disassociated person who hears voices, cannot concentrate, and has psychotic impulse control.
I believe these guys were railroaded by small-minded people in a town that felt suspicious of non-conformity and prejudiced against certain types (like poor, troubled kids). I think a lot of the witness statements were reflective of that mentality. Reminded me of the Tonya Craft case.
Nevertheless, I am not going to say that those who are convinced of these guys' guilt are ignorant, or not doing their research, etc., because many of them have and they feel they have valid reasons for their opinion as to the WMIII's guilt. I see too much that troubles me about the prosecution and conviction of these three, they see too much that troubles them about their release.
But our conversations can only act to illuminate and further uncover the truth, one way or the other. It has been interesting reading this thread, that's for sure.
