Despite America's justice system's rule that any person must be "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" to be convicted of a crime, Jessie and Jason face life in prison for the tragic murder of three young boys with which there is no evidence to indicate they were involved. Damien has sat for the past 15 years in solitary confinement in a 9’ by 12’ solid-front cell, trying every day to free himself and his best friends. Aged just eighteen, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
So in one of the most powerful countries in the world, a triple-homicide is pinned on three teenage boys. You may be wondering what the evidence was against these three West Memphis adolescents. Well, there is limited evidence to suggest that any of the boys were in any way involved, but let me tell you the main points that sent them each to maximum security facilities.
After being interrogated for hours by police (off-tape and off-camera), seventeen-year-old Jessie Misskelley, who has an IQ of just 74 and suffers a mental disability was finally recorded confessing that he had witnessed Jason and Damien rape, murder and mutilate three 8-year-old boys in the Robin Hood Hills forest. He stated that this happened during the morning and that the three victims had been tied up with brown rope in the woods. Throughout the confession, police guided and corrected Jessie when his story did not match vital details in the evidence. For example, Jessie stated the entire time that it had happened in the morning, until police mentioned that evidence suggested the boys were killed at night. From then on, he used the term "night". Also, the boys were tied up with white shoelaces, not brown rope, and forensic investigation concluded that not only were none of the victims raped, as Jessie had stated, they were not even killed in the woods, but dumped there.
Besides this there is little evidence at all, except for the following facts about Damien Echols which were repeatedly stated and which he was questioned on during the trial.
Damien Echols had longish, dyed black hair and had reportedly been witnessed in the past wearing black nail polish. He wore mainly black clothing and was even seen wearing an all-black trenchcoat. His musical tastes were of a "questionable" manner; Damien owned many Metallica CDs and wore black band t-shirts. On top of all this, the 18-year-old enjoyed reading Steven King novels of the horror genre.
Sixteen-year-old Jason Baldwin owned clothing that had similar fibres to that of fibre found on one of the victim's clothing. However, there is no evidence to conclude that the fibres on the victim came from those garments as the fibres could have originated from any one of hundreds of thousands of garments available and owned in and around West Memphis.
This is the evidence that resulted in Damien receiving the death penalty and placing Jason and Jessie behind bars for the rest of their natural lives plus forty years without parole. The confession of a mentally handicapped 17-year-old, inadmissable fibre evidence and an undesirable taste in music.
Please visit the West Memphis Three support site at http://www.wm3.org/ and help to free these innocent young men before Damien joins the other three young boys as another tragedy.
Thank you.
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