WM3: Were they guilty as charged?

[Aractus]

The evidence against the three is circumstantial, yes. Aside from Jessie's five confessions - including the three post-trial confessions. If he was innocent why would he abandon maintaining his innocence the second he was sentenced?

There's always a lack of forensic evidence when bodies are dumped in water. Always. Except the possible Hobbs hair - although like I said I didn't even see any evidence that showed that the shoelace used to tie Christopher couldn't have been Stevie's shoelace, so it's really a wafer-thin piece of evidence. And furthermore as I already told you, Luminol was sprayed all over the ditch to establish that it was the crime scene. Luminol contaminates the crime scene and in 1993 prevented any blood or organic matter that was located from being DNA tested. Had the original investigators been more careful they may have been able to find additional forensic evidence that since became contaminated, lost, or never located in the first place.

The circumstantial evidence: 1; no believable alibis for any of the three, 2; FOUR children were seen entering the woods together at about 6:30-6:45 on 5 May 1993, 3; Echols had talked about sacrificing a baby in 1992 as testified to by his therapist and his girlfriend of the time; 4. Echols had committed acts of animal cruelty; 5. Echols was a violent young man, his family were afraid of him, and he had a mental health record showing he was homicidal and sociopathic, and Echols himself agreed with that diagnosis; 6. Instead of presenting their evidence in a new trial with the possibility of being found not guilty, the trio instead plead guilty to the charges in deal that they themselves (/their lawyers) had come up with.

Now on the point you have to ask yourself "since when does an innocent person plead guilty"? Well, it does happen let's be honest. But as I understand it they referenced a case in which an innocent man plead guilty at his original trial, and was subsequently proved innocent when the real guilty party had been found - he did this to avoid the death penalty. Yet in this case only Damien was facing the death penalty - so why would that case apply to the other two? Also, it happened in the original trial - in the original trials for the WM3 they all plead not guilty. So that part makes no sense either. Jason even went on record as saying that it wasn't justice any way you look at it - and he's right! Yet it his lawyers that came up with this unjust bastardisation of justice - not the State. The State wanted a retrial - but they agreed to the bizarre plea-deal offered. Damien claimed his health was failing and he couldn't have waited the last few months for the retrial. But he's said a lot of things, much of which has been untrue and outright lies - so how are we meant to take him at his word now? Jason certainly appeared sincere and he may very well have been - he may have been led to believe to Damien's health was as bad as Damien claimed.

7. The defence argued strongly that Jessie is very suggestible. In his original confession he claims to have given a pair of shoes to his friend Buddy Lucas the day after the murders (6 May 1993). Lucas confirmed this, and then went on to tell police that he did not think that it was like Jessie to commit such a crime but that Damien could have convinced him to do almost anything; see for yourself:



8. On October 24 1994 Jessie's cell-mate Michael Johnson wrote to prosecutor Brent Davis saying that Jessie had confessed to him. Unlike some of the witnesses in the original trials that came forward and gave false testimony that we now know about, there's nothing to suggest Johnson's account is false. In fact it's consistent with the three other post-trial confessions that we know about in 1994. So now we have Jessie confessing several times all through 1994 from the time he was sentenced instead of maintaining his innocence. Rumours suggest that he kept confessing to other counsellors and possibly other inmates after that time as well - but there's no evidence to establish that.

9. At the trial we now know that a number of witnesses lied on the stand. What we also know is that Damien lied on the stand, he lied before the trial, and he's lied dozens of times since the trial. Innocent people do not need to pathologically lie. He's been caught out on many of his lies, and has never tried to explain them. For instance he denied knowing Jessie Misskelley well, yet that fact is refuted by overwhelming evidence that shows the two were in fact good friends. He admitted to changing his alibi when cross-examined on the stand by the prosecution. He has lied about the eye-gouging incident claiming that he wasn't really trying to gouge-out the classmate's eyes; even though he admitted to it at the time. He denied being a troubled youth, despite his criminal and psychiatric records attesting otherwise. He made rape allegations in prison, retracted them, made them again, and changed the accounts; furthermore some of what he claimed could be proven to be impossible.

10. Damien claimed that the police were out to get him, that the prosecutors were out to get him, and even that his own lawyers were out to get him. Oh and also that the prison guards were out to get him as well. He claimed that his 500-page mental health record was invented, by Jason's lawyer in order to cast suspicion onto him. Yet as I mentioned before, the document wasn't submitted until AFTER the two of them had already been found guilty. This bizarre array of continued paranoia is consistent with someone with his mental health history, it is not consistent with someone who is (as he claimed in PL1) simply "targeted by the police".

The WM3 have now had 22 years to explain these discrepancies, but they never have. The alternate theories they've come up with have all turned out to be nothing more than smoke with no substance - aside from the post-mortem animal bites and scratches. The theory that Byers did it had no evidence, and Byers has a solid alibi. The theory that Hobbs did it has almost no evidence, and Hobbs has a reasonably robust alibi. The theory that the ditch was a secondary crime scene is refuted by the original investigation. The theory that there was a human bite mark was refuted by the original forensic examiner. The theory that a parent did the crime doesn't explain why the boys were stripped naked, hog-tied, and dumped in the water. Especially since the boys were still alive when they were stripped naked and hog-tied. So not only have they had 22 years to explain the discrepancies, but they've had 22 years to find a more believable suspect and as of yet have still failed to do so. The chief suspect they have has an alibi yet the WM3 have no alibis.