Posted on 10/30/2007 11:28:03 AM PDT by Froufrou
New DNA evidence filed today offers fresh hope to three men who claim they were falsely convicted in the horrific 1993 West Memphis child murders and points a finger at a stepfather who sat through two sensational trials in a front row as a grieving parent.
Evidence filed today offers fresh hope to three men who claim they were falsely convicted.
Forensic scientists retained in a new defense bid to overturn the convictions also contend that state pathologists and prosecutors made grave errors in analyzing wounds on the bodies of three 8-year-old boys found nude and hogtied in a watery ditch.
The bodies bore hundreds of wounds including a reported castration — evidence of a ritualistic, satanic slaying, prosecutors suggested at trial.
Prosecutors’ assertions of a satanic motive was key to the convictions of then-teenagers Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, all widely rumored to have been involved in cult activities. The three, all now in their 30s, are in prison; Echols is on Death Row.
However, forensic reports offered by the defense attribute nearly all those injuries to predators — possibly dogs or raccoons — who fed on the bodies after death.
West Memphis Asst. Police Chief Mike Allen said this afternoon that he hasn’t received full details of the DNA testing, yet said he stands by the convictions.
“I personally think they do have the three right individuals in jail,’’ said Allen, who investigated the murders as a detective in 1993.
He said defense lawyers are trying to make a suspect out of Terry Hobbs, a stepfather of one of the victims, just as they had once pointed fingers at another parent, John Mark Byers.
“It’s just like Mark Byers, for 14 years they tried to make him a suspect,’’ Allen said, dismissing new defense claims that two hairs now link Hobbs to the crime scene.
DNA testing by the defense determined that Hobbs was among less than one percent of the population who couldn’t be excluded as the donor of a hair fragment found on one of the bodies and that a second hair found nearby likely came from one of Hobbs’ friends.
This subject comes up every so often. Who knows who really killed the boys. I have seen those Satan worship freaks up close and they scare me to death.
I don’t understand why anyone would do such a thing to a little boy, much less three of them.
Are you referring to the freaks that worship Satan, or the equally as freaky people who panic at the sight of a heavy metal t-shirt?
I have read about the case, and I tend to think that, at the vey least, the three did not get anything like a fair trial. The confessions of the very disturbed boy with the low iQ were obviously coached and coerced. One of the prosecution’s “expert” witnesses had a mail order degree!
I think the three kids, although undoubtedly disturbed, did not kill the children. The most circumstantial evidence points at the stepfather of one of the victims, John Byers, who, among other things, had his teeth removed shortly after a forensic dentist was sent into examine possible bitemarks one one of the bodies
Rob Halford did it!
I rented the videos from Netflix about this case. Very bizarre story, but the people involved were even more bizarre. The director and/or producer of the videos documented the entire thing and even participated in the trial. This stepfather gave him a knife that had blood on it that supposedly came from one of the victims. Very strange.
The creeps that run around in long black coats, coal black long hair. You get the picture!
That’s bizarre. I didn’t know about any video. That’s more than strange; it’s creepy.
I remember this case! I lived right across the river in Memphis TN at this time. I didn’t know about any videos, or this stuff about the case.
Awful awful awful.
Yeah, the documentaries are called Paradise Lost I and II. Here is a link to amazon for the first one. (they are on netflix by the way.)
The stepfather (now deceased) still gives me the creeps.
Thanks. And I thought Tx Chainsaw Massacre was the worst; wait, I’d better check snopes on that one...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.