Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

[Rudie Obias]

any thoughts?  opinions?

[SoNowThen]

Just read the Ebert reviews on his website. Really wanna see now.

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1996/09/092703.html

[Pwaybloe]

I've seen both of them, and I wasn't too impressed.  It's nothing more than a show on Court TV.  

The dad of one of the victim's was a nutcase.  He was the comic relief on the whole doc.

[Mesh]

The dad of one of the victim's was a nutcase.  He was the comic relief on the whole doc.

Dude, wasn't he the one the documentary sorta pointed at as a really, really likely suspect?  Weren't his prints, like, ON THE MURDER WEAPON, or something?  My memory of this is foggy....but.....

From Ebert's review:

One of these men is John Mark Byers, stepfather of one of the victims, who earlier has been seen in a video at the crime scene, re-creating the crimes in grisly detail while vowing vengeance. In the movie's single most astonishing development, Byers gives the filmmakers a knife. They turn it over to the state. Crime lab reports show traces of blood that apparently came from himself and his stepson. On the witness stand, he testifies that he beat his stepson with a belt at 5:30 p.m. on the day of his death. The welts from the belt buckle previously had been linked to the ritual killing.

Also, the confessions were retracted, weren't they?  That's why there's that whole movement to "Save Damien" or whatever....

Whoops, no.  It seems that experts have testified to the fact that the boy's confession was coerced by local authorities.  More, from a site in support of the convicted boys (www.wm3.org):

Almost five years after the murders, the first board certified medical examiner, forensic pathologist and forensic odontologist to ever examine the victims did so by looking at the autopsy photographs. They testified during Damien Echols' Rule 37 hearing that the bite marks were in fact of human origin, and after obtaining dental impressions from Jason, Jessie and Damien, concluded that the three young men who are currently serving prison sentences for this murder could not possibly be responsible for the bite marks seen in the victim photographs.

And still more on the stepfather of one of the victims:

More evidence that might have been useful came in the form of human blood found on a serrated knife. This knife had been given to documentary film makers as a gift, but when the film maker noticed what appeared to be blood in the mechanism of the folding blade, he gave it to West Memphis police. The blood was given a cursory test which only determined the blood type, and once this test was done, the blood was ruined for further testing. It was shown that the blood matched the blood type of one of the victims as well as the knife's original owner, but this information was ruled inconclusive by the court. The owner of the knife was John Mark Byers, the stepfather of victim Christopher Byers. Christopher is the victim whose blood type also matched the blood type found on the knife, and he was the one victim who was castrated and repeatedly stabbed and seemed to be focus of the attack. Why did they even bother to do that kind of blood test, when they knew that the results of the test would be inconclusive, and that the evidence would be ruined for further testing?

[MacGuffin]

West Memphis Three Head to the Big Screen

After being explored in the TV documentaries Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, the case of the West Memphis Three is once again being committed to celluloid, albeit in a fictional form. According to this morning's Variety, Dimension Films has acquired the rights to Mara Leveritt's Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, and is fast-tracking the movie into production.

"West Memphis Three" is the name that has been giving to the three men who were convicted of murdering three young boys in 1993, an event sometimes called the Robin Hood Hills Murders. The boys were the victims of sexual assault and were tortured in ways that suggested to investigators that they had been the victims of a Satanic ritual; the convicted men were involved in Goth culture and were allegedly "[fascinated] by the occult." Since their convictions, many questions have been asked about the guilt of the trio, and both Paradise Lost films and Leveritt's book offer evidence of their innocence.

Dimension's film is being written by The Exorcism of Emily Rose team Scott Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman, and Derrickson (who, by creepy coincidence, is also scheduled to write and direct the upcoming screen version of John Milton's Paradise Lost) is expected to direct.

[RegularKarate]

'West Memphis 3' to be freed

Jonesboro, Arkansas (CNN) -- Three men convicted in the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, were ordered released after entering new pleas following a court hearing, prosecutor Scott Ellington said Friday.

Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 18 years in prison with credit for time served, a prosecutor said. They were to be released on Friday.

The three entered what is known as an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to maintain innocence while simultaneously acknowledging that the state has evidence to convict, Ellington said.

Critics of the case against the men argued that no direct evidence tied the three to the murders and that a knife recovered from a lake near the home of one of the men could not have caused the boys' wounds. More recent DNA testing also demonstrated no links, according the mens' supporters.

While Ellington said the pleas entered Friday validate the decision of jurors who sent the men to prison, it also spares Arkansas the possibility of a retrial that would have been difficult to prosecute after so many years. The trio was likely to win the right to new trials later this year.

"This is an appropriate resolution to this case at this time," Ellington told reporters. "Only time will tell as to whether this was a right decision on my part."

Echols said in a news conference after his release Friday that he will continue to work to clear his name.

Baldwin said he initially opposed the deal worked out between the men's attorneys and prosecutors. "This was not justice," he said.

The case drew national attention, with actor Johnny Depp and singers Eddie Vedder and Natalie Maines trying to rally support for the men's release. Vedder and Maines were at the courthouse on Friday, according to CNN affiliate WMC-TV.

John Mark Byers, whose son Christopher Byers was one of the three victims, said he believes the three men are innocent. He said releasing them without exonerating them of the crime is an outrage.

"They're innocent. They did not kill my son," Byers said before the hearing.

The father of another of the victims, Steven Branch, also blasted the decision, but for another reason.

"I don't know what kind of deal they worked up," Steve Branch told CNN affiliate WMC-TV before the hearing. "Now you can get some movie stars and a little bit of money behind you and you can walk free for killing somebody."

Echols was sentenced to death and Misskelley and Baldwin were given life sentences in the May 1993 slayings of Steven, Christopher and fellow second-grader Michael Moore. The boys' bodies were mutilated and left in a ditch, hogtied with their own shoelaces.

Prosecutors argued that the men convicted, teenagers at the time, were driven by satanic ritual and that Echols had been the ringleader.

DNA later failed to link the men to the crime, and the state Supreme Court ruled in November that all three could present new evidence to the trial court in an effort to clear them. A decision is pending on whether the three should receive a new trial. Friday's action could negate the need for that.

The DNA tests were conducted between December 2005 and September 2007, according to the Arkansas Supreme Court.

The material included hair from a ligature used to bind Moore and a hair recovered from a tree stump near where the bodies were found, court documents said.

The hair found in the ligature was consistent with Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs, while the hair found on the tree stump was consistent with the DNA of a friend of Hobbs, according to the documents.

Police have never considered Hobbs a suspect, and he maintains that he had nothing to do with the murders.

Never thought I would see the day. 

[Stefen]

It's pretty incredible.

[Pwaybloe]

I know.  How can they let Satanists out scot-free?  Unbelievable.

[Reel]

"They're innocent. They did not kill my son, I did." John Mark Byers said before the hearing

If only fellow Arkansan Karl Childers could get ahold of that Byers, I wonder what he would do...  

[Pubrick]

ok i might have to rewatch the original doco but since when did john mark byers start supporting these innocent dudes?

i can't believe i agree with reelist about anything, he's actually making be doubt my baseless suspicions that the dude is guilty.. i mean, if reelist thinks it... 

i remember that he was one of the ppl who were most vehement in their hate to the three innocent dudes.

[Reel]

you should see both documentaries, and you might start to agree with me. The latest news I've heard about the case was this:

" In 2007, after Dixie Chicks Natalie Maines posted a blog entry claiming that DNA consistent with Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the three victims, was found at the crime scene. Hobb's sued for defamation, protesting his innocence. During his deposition, he stated that he never saw the children on the day they were murdered. But three eyewitnesses came forward, claiming he was with the victims shortly before they disappeared. "- Rolling Stone

[JG]

They were already making a third when this stuff happened, so I'm sure the new one will cover the changes in opinion.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

[Stefen]

Reminder this premiers tonight on HBO.

[Reel]

*crickets*


Book Cover design by Shepard Fairey



Release set for September 18th


Damien's on Twitter! Be kind
https://twitter.com/#!/damienechols