Justice Junction - Judicial Injustice The West Memphis Three

Many people came forward to say negative things about all three. Taken at face value, all the statements seem coerced, at best and others totally idiotic in their convictions. Young girls claiming Damian licked someone’s blood off his finger when Jason was in a fight. The kids saying they heard Damian was a devil worshipper. Because of his interest in poetry, Wicca and heavy metal music he was called names like faggot and baby killer. Damian himself made several public statements that didn’t help. I believe he did not understand the seriousness of the joking comments he made about his reputation in the future about being the boogey man in West Memphis. He deadpanned a crack about parents telling their kids he was the West Memphis boogey man. The story was, he was hiding somewhere if they didn’t behave that he would come and get them in the night. In one of the two documentaries made about the case, Damian tells the story himself, and in the second, he explains he was being sarcastic and people shouldn’t take that seriously. Unfortunately, it was too late. The community had branded the boys guilty and resting on Jessie Jr.’s confession, they were going to be prosecuted for murder. It is very interesting to note that though this was a long day of him telling stories and the police leading him into a confession, only 20 minutes of this all day interrogation were taped by the police, namely Chief Inspector Gary Gitchell. He announced the arrests and blared that there had been a confession. All three suspects were incarcerated and the community should fear not. All was safe in West Memphis again.
Unfortunately, the West Memphis police had the wrong people in jail. Because Damien knew he wasn’t responsible for any of it, he believed he would be exonerated. The whole episode was nothing but an annoyance to him, and he thought that without forensic proof, he and the other two boys would be exonerated and he would go free. He knew what was happening, but he knew he was innocent so it simply did not matter; his attitude and reflection were judged as cold and unfeeling. In court, when the confession was played, the public had no idea that Jessie’s interrogation lasted 12 hours but only 20 minutes were recorded. What was said during the part that wasn’t taped? One has to wonder what Inspector Gitchell was asking Jessie. I believe that he was coercing Jessie Jr. into a false confession. When first asked when the crimes took place, Jessie told the police the crime had occurred around noon. Immediately the police knew that was wrong, because all three boys had been in school that day at noon. While searching the scene of the crime, there was a belated test with the chemical Luminol. Luminol is used to detect blood spatter at the scene of a crime. In the dark, the luminol glows where there has been blood, even when it has been cleaned up, luminol attaches to the most miniscule of blood spots. The tests were inconclusive, and the documentation was sloppy. The interview with Jessie Jr. was the best evidence they had and were going to go to court with that confession as their main proof that the three boys, now being known as the West Memphis Three were to go on trial for murder. Jessie was confused and knew that he had given the police false information but thought that because he said it, true or not, it was over and done. He and the other two would be convicted and he knew it in his bones.

The Convictions

This site was last updated on: Sunday, July 4, 2004 11:01 PM