Three memphis west

Misskelley failed the test. It is often claimed by innocence advocates that Jessie Misskelley was not read his Miranda rights or did not understand his rights during this interview. This claim had been made so many times that it's become a kind of article of faith, despite the fact it's entirely untrue. The tapes and transcripts of the interview, aswell as two initialed forms, clearly reveal that Misskelley is actually read his rights on multiple occasions during the June 3rd interview.

Misskelley also fully understood what his rights were. He had had numerous prior encounters with law enforcement and had read and signed Miranda waivers on at least four occasions before.

The transcript also reveals that Misskelley was offered, and turned down the opportunity to have a lawyer during this interview.

Misskelley arrived at the police station at about 10pm. He confessed to the crime at pm. Only a few hours of this 4 and a half hours actually consisted of interviews. There never was a hour interrogation, it is an invention of the innocence campaign and Paradise Lost. False confessions are quite well understood in criminology. They happen under situations of intense stress and pressure and are almost immediately retracted when the suspect is released from the pressure of the interrogation.

Misskelley does not fit this pattern at all. After his June 3rd confession, he makes numerous other confessions. Eight days later Misskelley confesses again, in private to his own defence lawyers Dan Stidham and Greg Crow. In further prison interviews with Stidham in February , Misskelley confesses again, on one occasion with his hand on a bible.

After his conviction in February, Misskelley again admits he committed the crime to two police officers transporting him to prison. Then, in an extraordinary tape recorded conversation with his attorneys on February 17th , Misskelley stridently reaffirms his guilt as Stidham and Crow can be heard pleading with him not to.

He is then interviewed by the prosecution team where he gives a long and detailed account of how he, Baldwin and Echols murdered the boys. Paradise Lost and West of Memphis fail to mention the 17th February confession, or the many other confessions Misskelley made. They don't fit the narrative of a mentally inadequate man been coerced into confessing by vicious police bullying. No explanation has ever been given as to how a man who apparently is coerced into falsely confessing is also able to confidently and defiantly resist the coercion of his own lawyers not to confess.

Some evidence exists to suggest Misskelley confessed even before the police first talked to him. A friend of Jessie Misskelley named Buddy Lucas told police that on May 6th Misskelley told him he was present when the boys were murdered. Lucas stated that Misskelley broke down and cried whilst talking to him.

Numerous other witnesses, including Miskelley's father's girlfriend reported similar uncharacteristic crying fits from teenager in the days following the murders. Although less central to the case, there were also some accounts of confessions to the crimes from Echols and Baldwin. Two peripheral friends of the boys, William Winford and Ken Watkins both reported to police that they had heard Echols claim responsibility for the murders. A group of girls at a softball game also reported hearing Damien Echols brag about the crimes.

Echols denied making the statements at his trial, and innocence campaigners have long rubbished the girls testimony. However, in later years, Echols admitted he did brag about killing the boys at the softball game, but stated he probably said it as a 'joke'. It is often claimed that no physical evidence connects the West Memphis Three to the murder of the boys at Robin Hood Hills.

However, a knife found in the lake behind Jason Baldwin's trailer provided a solid, if not entirely undisputed, link between the teenager and the crimes. In November , while the suspects were awaiting trial, West Memphis police began a search for evidence relating to the crime and quickly focused in on a large area of water behind the trailer park where Jason Baldwin lived at the time of the murders.

This looked a likely place where possible murder weapons may have been disposed. Police divers found various items in the lake, including footwear and a jacket. Amongst the items was a large survival type knife with a serrated edge and a circular opening in the base of the handle that had one held a screw in compass.

Police believed the saw like serrated edge of the knife matched some of regularly spaced, incised wounds observed on the bodies of Chris Byers and Steven Branch. At the trial, prosecution lawyers famously attempted to demonstrate how this knife could have made the wounds by using it on a grapefruit.

The prosecution also called witnesses who claimed to have seen the knife in Jason Baldwin's trailer around the time of the murders. Deanna Holcomb, Damien Echols' ex-girlfriend, also told the court that she had previously seen Echols with a similar knife. The defense team and innocence advocates have tried to counter the knife evidence in various ways over the years. They have dismissed the knife like marks on the boys bodies as teeth marks or animal predation.

Paradise Lost 2 tries to argue some of the wounds were human bite marks and insinuates they were made by John Mark Byers, whose eccentric behaviour and recent dental surgery had caused rumours to spread in the local community that he may have been involved in the murders. More recently, two forensic dentists have re-examined autopsy photos of the wounds and dismissed the bite mark thesis.

Homer Campbell and Peter Loomis are both specialists in tool and bite mark identification who have given expert testimony in several court cases over the years. They both believe the wounds to the boys were produced by the so-called lake knife. I also sent the photos of the injuries and the knife to another for evaluation and he agrees", Campbell stated. Loomis measured the wounds to Steve Branch's forehead and found they corresponded exactly to the dimensions of the knife.

The lacerations measure The circular butt of the Baldwin knife, measuring The extraordinary way the size of the wounds precisely match the dimensions of the knife is striking. Whilst speculation, if this knife had made the injuries to Branch's forehead whilst the compass section was still intact, then the metal pin at the centre of the compass would also match exactly the clear x-shaped mark at the centre of the wound. The knife is problematic for innocence advocates.

It provides a solid forensic link between Jason Baldwin and the fatal wounds to Steven Branch. But like so much in the crime, this evidence is still far from conclusive and remains heavily disputed. But if a knife almost exactly matching the size and nature of the wounds was found in the water behind Jason Baldwin's trailer entirely by coincidence, and it is unrelated to either the men or the crime, then yet again the West Memphis Three have been extraordinarily unlucky.

At the trial, the prosecution presented several pieces of forensic evidence linking the suspects to the crime. The innocence campaign and the Paradise Lost films have rightly pointed out how weak much of this evidence is.

The truth is, with the possible exception of the lake knife as discussed, no physical evidence firmly links either the West Memphis Three or any other suspect to the crimes. Attorneys often bemoan the expectation modern juries have for DNA and forensic evidence in murder trials. This expectation has become known as the CSI Effect, fostered by the widespread use of often exaggerated crime scene forensics in films and television shows.

In reality, even today in an era of extremely sophisticated DNA techniques, very few criminal cases revolve around forensic evidence. The lack of DNA evidence at the murder site in Robin Hood Hills is sometimes cited as an argument for the boys innocence, but the truth is the absence of such evidence is much as would be expected, especially so because the boys were killed outdoors.

Not only was the crime scene heavily contaminated by searchers and investigators, but the killers also dumped the bodies in water which washed off any forensic evidence that may have been present. What evidence there was was inadequate as a serious argument for the men's guilt. Fibre evidence presented by the prosecution was too vague and could have matched almost anyone, not just the suspects. Some of the other evidence used by the prosecution was tendentious at best. Blue candle wax found on one of the victims clothing was only similar to wax found in Echols' bedroom, and could have matched any number of other people who had candles in their home.

DNA evidence found on Echols' necklace was consistent with that of Steven Branch, but also millions of other people. Whilst the frequent claim that Jessie Misskelley was coerced into confessing is not supported by the evidence, much of what he says is undermined by its inaccuracy.

A large amount of Misskelley's confession does not match the known details of the crime and Paradise Lost and the innocence campaign have done a good job in highlighting the manifest inconsistencies in his statements.

Whilst he does get some important details correct, there are enough major discrepancies to make it hard to reconcile them with Misskelley actually been present during the murders. Several times in his confessions he states that the victims were tied up with brown rope. This is untrue, they were tied up with their own shoelaces. If Misskelley was present could he really have gotten such a basic detail wrong?

The rope statement does sound like someone trying to imagine or guess how the crime was committed rather than having real first-hand knowledge. Misskelley almost certainly heard the many rumours about the crimes that were circulating in the area and this may also have coloured his statements. Numerous similar factual discrepancies have been highlighted by innocence campaigners and are prominently featured in the Paradise Lost films. Misskelley tells police they skipped school that day and killed the boys around noon.

They were actually killed in the late evening. He states that he witnessed Baldwin and Echols rape the boys, but the autopsies showed that this did not occur. There are some possible explanations for the inconsistencies in Misskelley's statements.

By his own admission he was very drunk during the attacks, and the liquor bottle he says he threw under a bridge was later found by the police. He also admits to only been peripherally involved in the murders themselves. It's at least plausible that a combination of intoxication and distance from the acts of murder themselves account for his inaccuracies.

We must also bear in mind that Misskelley, even if he was involved, was also a witness to a crime. Even genuine eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable and often give details that prove to be entirely untrue.

This is not evidence they did not witness the crime, just that the human memory is faulty and that when people are involved in shocking, chaotic and confusing events their recollections of them are often massively out of kilter with what actually happened.

The case of the West Memphis Three is a miasma of claim and counter claim. The murders are still fiercely debated online, largely curated by those who passionately believe in the innocence of the convicted men.

The discussion is often bad-tempered with little ground given on either side. At the time of the West Memphis Three trial, Griffis claimed to have given seminars to 38, police officers all over the globe. During the trials of Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols, Griffis drew tenuous links between circumstantial evidence, such as the killings taking place near the date of the pagan festival of Beltane.

Griffis also found the devil in nearly every number associated with the crime. That there were three victims was a link to the biblical number of the beast. That the slain boys were each 8 years-old was important because eight was a "witch's number. According to Griffis, black hair, black T-shirts, and black jeans were signs that a kid was in league with the devil.

Although Griffis' testimony was dramatic, it showed only a tenuous grasp of occult knowledge — much of it, including a reference to a cult called "Crytos," was simply made up. Defense attorneys also pointed out that Griffis' doctorate was obtained through a notorious diploma mill and had been awarded with Griffis having never attended a single class.

Yet, Judge David Burnett accepted Griffis as an expert. Produced and directed by filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the film and its two sequels, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory , gave audiences a unique and detailed look into the case, the accused, and the families of victims. The first film gave rise to a movement devoted to reopening the investigation in hopes of exonerating, and ultimately freeing, Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols, and Jessie Misskelley.

As the movement to free the West Memphis Three gained traction, a number of celebrities joined the cause, bringing the case under more scrutiny. As detailed by The Hollywood Reporter in , Jackson and Walsh helped fund key investigations for the West Memphis Three's defense during the last seven years of their incarceration.

In , Jackson and Damien Echols produced a fourth documentary about the case. Titled West of Memphis , the film, directed by Amy J. Berg, presents an overview of the West Memphis Three's 18 years in prison, the revelation of new evidence, and explores the possibility of an alternate suspect. Over the course of the initial investigation, a number of alternate suspects and scenarios came to light that were largely ignored or otherwise dismissed by authorities.

Among them was a disoriented, muddy, and bleeding African-American man who stumbled into a West Memphis Bojangles restaurant men's room less than a mile from the crime scene. Although blood scrapings were taken, the West Memphis police lost the evidence. The pair abruptly fled to Oceanside, Calif.

At the request of West Memphis authorities, the two were picked up and questioned by Oceanside police. Polygraph tests revealed deception in the answers of both men in regard to the crimes. After hours of questioning, a frustrated Morgan blurted out that he had been hospitalized for drug and alcohol abuse and might have committed the murders.

Blood and urine samples from both men were collected and sent to the West Memphis Police Department. No explanation has yet been given as to why such a seemingly important lead was dropped. As reported by the Arkansas Times , examination of the shoe laces used to bind Michael Moore contained hair "not inconsistent" with that of Stevie Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs.

She has since expressed her belief that her ex-husband was involved in the murders, citing the discovery of her son's favorite pocket knife in Terry Hobbs' belongings. Inconsistencies in Terry Hobbs' alibi, as well as revelations about subsequent violent acts, have also led many to believe that he may be the actual killer. One of the prosecution's key pieces of evidence linking Jason Baldwin to the crime — a survival knife with a serrated edge recovered from a lake behind his home — has also come under scrutiny.

The knife was thrown into the lake by Baldwin's mother a year before the murders. With their request for a new trial rejected , time was running out for the West Memphis Three. However, in , a series of rapidly unfolding developments turned the tide for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. In November, Judge David Burnett, who had presided over the trial, was elected to the state senate.

Under order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, there were to be new evidentiary hearings in the case. On Aug. In a last ditch effort, they entered an Alford Plea , a complex and seldom used legal maneuver that would see them plead guilty while still asserting their innocence.

Also part of the plea was the provision that the three could not sue the state. After 18 years in prison , the West Memphis Three were finally free, but not exonerated.

Over two decades after the murders, what really happened to Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore on the evening of May 5, , remains a mystery. Although the Alford Plea set the West Memphis Three free, they are, at least in the eyes of the law, guilty, and therefore, the state of Arkansas is under no obligation to continue investigating the crimes at this time.

Echols is an author and mystic living New York with his wife, architect Lorri Davis. Baldwin is the co-founder of the legal advocacy organization Proclaim Justice. Misskelley returned to life in West Memphis.

Baldwin was the only one who had remained in school, while the others had dropped out. They dressed in black and there were rumors that they were Satanists and belonged to a cult. The three did not have squeaky clean records either — Misskelley had gotten into several fights as a result of his temper, while the other two had been caught vandalizing and shoplifting. Though there were witnesses who had seen others in the area of the murders around the time Moore, Byers, and Branch died, the police were still focused on the three teenagers instead.

There were some flaws in the investigation as well— Misskelley, who had a very low IQ, was interrogated without his parents, even though he was a minor at the time. He would later say he didn't understand the extent of the accusations and that his confession was coerced.

He also noted that he was scared of the police. Echols also was accused of deception on a polygraph test when asked whether he was a killer. The police determined the three were capable of committing murder. After failing to identify any other suspects, the three teenagers were arrested in June of , and they soon got their nickname: the West Memphis Three.

In , the West Memphis Three all went on trial, with Misskelley being tried on his own because of his confession. Misskelley was found guilty, and he was sentenced to life plus 40 years in prison. The media attention paid to the case helped the West Memphis Three in their attempts to get justice.

Testing of DNA evidence in the years following the murders helped show that Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley were likely not the perpetrators. None of their profiles matched the outside DNA found on the boys' bodies. A key witness in the case had also recanted her testimony, which placed the teenagers around the scene of the crime. A hunting knife that had a mixture of Byers' blood and that of his adoptive father was also turned in following the filming of the documentary, Paradise Lost.