Spectral Evidence

Seven years ago I heard about the West Memphis Three for the first time through an unsolicited lecture from a very passionate supporter. The West Memphis Three (or Wm3 for short), for those who haven’t yet heard, is a group of three men who have spent the past fifteen years of their lives in prison for the brutal murder of three eight year-old boys. Damien Echols, 18 at the time of the murders, has spent this time on death row awaiting his execution while the other two, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, look down the barrel of a life sentence.

Some people suggest that the three teenagers got exactly what they deserved while many others, like the young man who brought the Wm3 to my attention, hold fast to the belief that they were persecuted and given the same justice as the innocent people burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials. I agree with the latter.

Like the paranoia suffered in Salem at the hands of a manufactured enemy, the people of West Memphis Arkansas reacted to the murders of Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore with the same mindless zeal. The outraged public demanded a sacrifice and the West Memphis police
eagerly awarded them with the three most outcast young-men they could find. Echols, Miskelley, and Baldwin. They listened to heavy metal music, liked to dress in black, and had the same insolent attitude from which most teenagers suffer when they live in an under-educated and impoverished area. In short, they stuck out because of their refusal to go with the flow of mainstream society.

Driven on the steam of ‘Satanic Panic’, the case against the Wm3 was as sturdy as a toilet-paper house in a rainstorm, but that did not deter the prosecution as they painted a picture of depravity and Satanism with the three young men as its centerpiece. They even went so far as to use an expert on Satanism (whose ‘expert’ credentials came from a dis-reputed online college) as their star witness. They claimed that one of the children, Christopher Byers, had been sexually mutilated (it was later proven that the mutilation had in fact occurred postmortem and was a result of wild animals).

The only ‘real’ evidence that the teenagers were involved in the murders came from the confession given by Jessie Miskelley. Seventeen year-old Miskelley, whose IQ could be equated with that of a second grader, claimed (after several hours of unrecorded interrogation without the presence of a parent or attorney) that he had been present during the murders and witnessed Echols and Baldwin sexually assaulting and murdering the boys. He claimed that his only involvement had been the restraint of Michael Moore when he tried to escape the scene.

Aside from the suspicious circumstances under which the confession was obtained, it was also rife with errors concerning the time-line of the murders as well as the acts performed upon the children. Miskelley claimed that the little boys had been murdered early in the day (while they had actually still been in school) but the murders occurred at night, so the interrogating officers simply coached him until he changed his story. Although he claimed he had witnessed Echols and Baldwin sodomizing the children, there was no evidence whatsoever that the boys had been sexually assaulted at all. Miskelley, who almost immediately recanted, was tried separately from Echols and Baldwin (with whom he merely shared a friendly acquaintance) and refused to testify against them.

Recently DNA evidence has been discovered that excludes all three of the convicted from the crime scene (which in all actuality was probably just a dump site) but does not exclude the stepfather of one of the victims. This, on top of many other new developments in the case have led the Wm3 to request that their cases be heard again. Judge David Burnett (the judge from the original cases) has refused their requests.

If you’d like to learn more about this shocking story and where the Wm3 will appeal next go to http://www.wm3.org. The site contains the most comprehensive information about the case including “evidence” archives and analysis.

I subscribe to the belief that as long as an innocent man is caged none of us is free. I hope you feel the same. Consider this your unsolicited lecture.