Satanic Panic in the South On the evening of May 5, 1993, three boys from West Memphis, Arkansas, were last seen riding their bikes together. In the early evening, Chris Byers' stepfather, John Mark Byers, reported that his stepson had not come home and he was becoming worried. The police were also notified of two other boys who had been with Chris and were considered missing, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch. The police and the parents of the missing children searched the neighborhood unsuccessfully until 3AM the next morning. The bodies of the three eight year old boys were discovered in a wooded area in Robin Hood Hills the next day at 1:30 PM. The boys had been hog-tied and severely beaten. Their naked bodies were located in …show more content…
Instead of outrage over the murders of the three young boys, the outrage poured out because of the convictions of these three teenagers. People from all around the world were outraged. A group of individuals from California formed a support group called Free the West Memphis Three (FWM3), to help spread the word about all of the inconsistencies with the case. "During the original trial, the defense was only allotted $1000 from the state to represent the teenagers." (PL2). The defense could not afford to have any type of forensic testing done. The FWM3 spoke out against this and got the attention of Brent Turvey, a forensic specialist, who decided to volunteer his time, and profile the case with the entire original crime scene documents, and autopsy reports and photos. Turvey's criminal profile revealed "many areas of physical evidence, which were either missed or misinterpreted by the medical examiner and coroner on this case" (.. /HTML/body_profile.html). If all this information would have been available when the investigation was initiated, then the outcome may have been very different. The most important piece of evidence Mr. Turvey noticed was bite marks all over the face of Stevie Branch. This opinion was confirmed by …show more content…
In preparation for the second appeal, HBO decide to make another documentary to update the situations surrounding the case. "Paradise Lost 2: Revelations" debuted this past March, right after the decision was made in the second appeal. Revelations showed all this new forensic evidence and the suspicions surrounding John Mark Byers. However, the decision would still be up to the original trial judge, Judge Burnett. Judge Burnett denied the appeal. He personally concluded that the "bite marks were not human origin" (wm3.org). This man has no training in any type of forensic science. Nevertheless,
I recently read a book called Monster by Walter Dean Myers, in which a sixteen year-old boy named Steve Harmon was arrested for being accused of shooting a drugstore owner, and watched a documentary titled Murder on a Sunday Morning about a fifteen year-old Brenton Butler being charged with murdering a woman at a motel. I found that the book and the documentary had many similarities and differences. I thought this because both cases are about a young African-American boy who is in custody for something that they did not do. Both police investigations didn't go thoroughly and just rushed through to arrest the boys immediately and are centered around a white defense attorney who tries to convince the jury that the male teen did not committed the crime by giving out evidence.
In his article, “The Nightmare of the West Memphis Three”, Rich explores how the people of Memphis drew horrific conclusions about people based on the lifestyle they chose to practice. The article highlights the trials and tribulations faced by the accused three young teenagers. Rich does this by citing the popular documentary series “Paradise Lost” which is an in depth analysis into the lives of the accused, the victims’ families and members of the community. This paper outlines how the belief system of that time superseded the inconclusive evidence, which ultimately led to an unfair trial. By “othering” and “marginalizing” those three teens, the society and police created a scenario that aligned with their belief system at the time. Lastly, this paper highlights the influence of the media and celebrity in changing the course for these boys.
To understand the connection you need to know something about the case. Three young boys were murdered on May 5, 1993 (Leveritt 5). They were stripped of their clothing, their hands were bound and they were forced underwater in the nearby creek where they stayed until they were found the next day. Little evidence was collected the day of their discovery, what was recovered was mislabeled and handled incorrectly. The boys were laying in the open elements for 3 hours before they saw any kind of medical examiner (Leveritt 23). Later, three teenagers (Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley) were tried with only an inaccurate confession (that was later recanted) and uninformed tips from concerned citizens (Robertson 2). They decided to enter Alford guilty pleas after repeat accusations and little other option (Robertson 3). They became known as the “West Memphis Three.”
There is no denying that the murder of Matthew Shepard was brutal and unnecessary. His murderer, Aaron McKinney, committed a heinous act and were punished to the full extent of the law. However, do we simply whisk away the murderers demonizing them as monsters while Shepard is left as an angel sh...
"The West Memphis Three Trial: Who was the real killer or killers?." The West Memphis Three
On March 4th, 1974, a nine year old boy was kidnapped and then raped in a baseball field. The nine year old boy said that the man who did it had to be 17-18 years of age. He said that the man had sideburns and had a name like Jim. His uncle thought that it could be a man named Jimmy Bain, who was 19 at the time and had sideburns, so photos were shown to the little boy and he picked out Jimmy Bain. The police questioned Bain at his home the next day. Bain stated that he had been at home watching television at the time of the attack, which was also verified by his sister. However, the police arrested him.
A whirlwind of controversy arose in November 2002, when Judge Ted Poe, ruled that PBS’s Frontline could film jury deliberations in the trial of Cedric Harrison, 17, who faces the death penalty for allegedly killing a man during a car-jacking. In validating his ruling, Poe held that “cameras in courts keep the system honest” and are an important tool for civic education.1 Poe approved Frontline’s proposal, in which an unobtrusive ceiling camera would be used and no full-time cameraman would be necessary. Frontline had planned to edit the deliberations and broadcast them approximately one year following the verdict as part of a two-to-three hour documentary that would spotlight Harris County, whose juries have sentenced more people to death than juries in any other county in the U.S.2
However, despite being regarded as unnecessary rumors by a section of the American society and government, many media people and houses reported harrowing incidents of murder, rape, carjacking and assaults. There were also media reports about a significant number of urban legends who sprouted at the height of the commotion brought about by Hurricane Katrina – systematic children rapists and a 7-year-old’s throat being slit. However, media reports aside, these contentions remain just that. Nevertheless, although a significant count of th...
January 13, 1996, nine-year-old Amber Rene Hagerman was abducted while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas. That afternoon, Amber, and her brother were at their Grandparents house. Amber Hagerman, and her five-year-old brother, Ricky, pedaled their bicycles to an abandoned grocery store. This was a typical place for children to ride their bikes because it was an abandoned parking lot with lots of room to play and ride. Minutes later, Ricky turned to head back home, about a block away. Jim Kevil, a 78-year-old retiree, stood in his backyard not far...
Jesse Timmendequas’ convictions stemmed from a 1981 attack on a 5 year old girl, for which he served 9 months. That same year he was convicted for an attempted rape of a 7 year old girl, for which he was sentenced to ten years. After serving only six years, he was free to lure 7 year old Megan into his home where he brutally raped and strangling her with a belt as she bit and fought for life. He knocked her to the floor, hitting her several times in the head. He wrapped her head in plastic shopping bags to prevent her blood from staining the rugs. He then took a toy box and stuffed her inside. Megan’s body was found in a weeded area of a nearby park near a portable toilet.
In 1993, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, aged ten at the time, abused and murdered a two-year-old boy, James Bulger. There was media uproar about the case with the two boys being described as ‘evil’, ‘monsters’ and ‘freaks’ in the media (Franklin & Horwath 1998). There were many references to evil in the newspapers; with the telegraph stating that Thompson’s nickname was ‘Damien’ (from The Omen) and declaring that Venables birth date was Friday the 13th. The majority of society was united in the belief that these two boys were the epitome of evil and it was the media that nurtured this belief. ‘Newspaper reports were unequivocal in their denunciations of Thompson and Venables as inherently evil, prompted perhaps initially by Justice Morland’s description of the murder as an act of unparalleled ev...
... murder a tiger in the grave yard; The Kellers had murdered a man with a chainsaw. All of the children has also admitted that they had been abused by their very own parents. All of these accounts were clearly obscene and did not occur however, The Kellers were tried and imprisoned until 2012 when the Therapist denied that The Kellers actually did any of the things they were arrested for. The Therapist had to have a horrible time living with the fact that he jst ruined two people and their children’s life it’s time like these that the death penalty should be reinstated. After being released The Kellers have separated and are trying to live their lives as best as they can however, they will always remember how they were falsely accused and had to spend 21 years in prison. This has to be the worst case of Satanic Ritual Abuse to ever occur in the history of Satanism.
On August 20th, 1989 Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents inside their Beverly Hills home with fifteen shot gun blasts after years of alleged “sexual, psychological, and corporal abuse” (Berns 25). According to the author of “Murder as Therapy”, “The defense has done a marvelous job of assisting the brothers in playing up their victim roles” (Goldman 1). Because there was so much evidence piled up against the brothers, the defense team was forced to play to the jurors’ emotions if they wanted a chance at an acquittal. Prosecutor Pamela Bozanich was forced to concede that “Jose and Kitty obviously had terrific flaws-most people do in the course of reminding jurors that the case was about murder, not child abuse” (Adler 103). Bozanich “cast the details of abuse as cool, calculated lies” (Smolowe 48)...
Bischoff, L.A. & McCarty M. (2011). Dayton Daily News: Murder Then Rush to Judgement. Retrieved 2-27-12 from http://www.daytondailynews.com/dayton/content/localnews/daily/080606elkins1.html.
It was midnight when it all happened. Tom Peterson was sleeping in bed next to his wife after a tiring day at work, while his two little daughters slept in the next room. Suddenly he was violently awakened by the terrified screams of his wife only to get a glance of a huge man standing over him with a butcher's knife. Tom was stabbed thirteen times, one of his daughters was killed and his wife was severely injured. Now, the Peterson family has just exited the supreme court of justice in which the judge has condemned the murderer of their little girl to the death penalty, for as it turns out the Peterson family had not been the first victim of this murderer.