The Child Murders Of Robin Hood Hills
So, the other day in Criminal Profiling, we talked about the Child Murders of Robin Hood Hills case. We went through case information and witness testimony and were supposed to profile the offender(s) based on what we had been given. Well...soon a lot of us realized that there were a whole lot of holes in the case and things weren't adding up. Then our prof. put up the following website on the board:
http://www.wm3.org/splash.php
It's a website dedicated to supporting the West Memphis 3: 3 boys who were accused and convicted of these brutal murders without any supporting evidence. From what I gather from the information given (through lecture, the Paradise Lost documentaries, websites, etc.), it seems that after the murders occured, the town went on a modern day witch hunt. They narrowed in on Damien Echols (who wore black and listened to Metallica), his best friend Jason Baldwin, and an acquaintance Jessie Misskelley. Soon thereafter, Misskelley confessed to the crime and implicated Damien and Jason along with himself. But there's a catch. Not only was there no physical evidence linking the boys to the crime, Misskelley's story was also full of holes. And later it was found out that Misskelley had been interrogated for over 12 hours, of which only about 45 minutes were taped. To add to this, Misskelley was given an intelligence test and it turns out that he had an IQ of 72...an IQ score of 72 is literally almost in the range of mentally retarded.
Anyway, these boys went to trial and were convicted of the murders. Jason Baldwin is in prison for life, I believe Misskelley got life +40 and Damien Echols is on death row. They've all been in prison for somewhere around 15 years now.
When I heard this, it really pissed me off. I couldn't believe that these boys were sent to prison without any evidence whatsoever. I also found out that recently, DNA tests were done at the crime scene and no DNA from either Jason, Jessie, or Damien showed up. As far as I know, the only piece of DNA they found to match someone, matched a stepfather of one of the murdered boys (it was a strand of hair and wasn't on this guy's stepchild, but one of the other boys).
Anyway, moral of the story is, I have started a facebook group for the West Memphis 3 and hope to support them in any way I can until they are exonerated. Please join and invite your friends to join if you feel the same way I do. There are lots of resources out there to learn about the crime so you don't have to take my word for it.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?…
http://www.wm3.org/splash.php
It's a website dedicated to supporting the West Memphis 3: 3 boys who were accused and convicted of these brutal murders without any supporting evidence. From what I gather from the information given (through lecture, the Paradise Lost documentaries, websites, etc.), it seems that after the murders occured, the town went on a modern day witch hunt. They narrowed in on Damien Echols (who wore black and listened to Metallica), his best friend Jason Baldwin, and an acquaintance Jessie Misskelley. Soon thereafter, Misskelley confessed to the crime and implicated Damien and Jason along with himself. But there's a catch. Not only was there no physical evidence linking the boys to the crime, Misskelley's story was also full of holes. And later it was found out that Misskelley had been interrogated for over 12 hours, of which only about 45 minutes were taped. To add to this, Misskelley was given an intelligence test and it turns out that he had an IQ of 72...an IQ score of 72 is literally almost in the range of mentally retarded.
Anyway, these boys went to trial and were convicted of the murders. Jason Baldwin is in prison for life, I believe Misskelley got life +40 and Damien Echols is on death row. They've all been in prison for somewhere around 15 years now.
When I heard this, it really pissed me off. I couldn't believe that these boys were sent to prison without any evidence whatsoever. I also found out that recently, DNA tests were done at the crime scene and no DNA from either Jason, Jessie, or Damien showed up. As far as I know, the only piece of DNA they found to match someone, matched a stepfather of one of the murdered boys (it was a strand of hair and wasn't on this guy's stepchild, but one of the other boys).
Anyway, moral of the story is, I have started a facebook group for the West Memphis 3 and hope to support them in any way I can until they are exonerated. Please join and invite your friends to join if you feel the same way I do. There are lots of resources out there to learn about the crime so you don't have to take my word for it.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?…