Why did the WM3 do it?

Please note that George Woods' testimony was in February, 2001. There is no indication in that document or anything else that I have seen or read that Damien is on those medications, or any others, at the present time. In fact, at the August 19, 2011, hearing, he swore that he was on no drugs at all. Although, if I had been on Death Row, in almost total isolation, for over 18 years, I would be incoherent. The fact that Damien is articulate and well-spoken speaks highly, IMO, of his ability to overcome adversity.
 
No, they found that knife in the water behind Jason Baldwins mobile home.

That knife was never forensically linked to the case or anyone connected to it. In fact, there is testimony in the Rule 37 abstracts (who said it escapes me, but it may have been Joseph Samuel Dwyer) that someone saw Jason's mom throw either that knife or one like it into the lake before the murders.

There is quite a bit of evidence including their own confessions and Echols mental health history that convicted the three who later plead guilty.

No one "confessed" except Jessie and his stories are so error-filled as to be laughable. Echols mental health history, although making him a person of interest, is not sufficient evidence to convict him of these murders and, in fact, was not part of the evidence used in his trial. It was introduced by the defense during the punishment phase in an attempt to mitigate the sentence. It didn't work, so I guess it doesn't really prove that Echols was as mentally ill as some people seem to believe.

As to pleading "guilty," we all know about that Alford Plea and that, with that bogus "guilty" plea, they retained the right to maintain their innocence. Additionally, what kind of justice system would release three vicious child killers on time served it they really believed them to be guilty? It was all political, and most people recognize the stench for what it was - political expediency and CYA on the part of the State of Arkansas.
 
I'm amazed I didn't follow this story when it happened. I wasn't that far away (StL in grad school). In any case, I came to this case about a year ago with an open mind & read everything & came to this conclusion:

Why did the W3M do it? :waitasec:

I couldn't come up with a plausible reason why 2 friends would coerce a "dumb kid" (nothing meant but just "that") who they didn't even hang with & out-of-the-blue "thrill kill" 3 little boys playing in the sewer (yeah, we did this as kids, too). Even if they were drinking or high, why would they do this? :waitasec:

We all did stupid things as teens: I was a goth & loved heavy metal, I read about the occult, and my parents thought I was possessed at one time & did pump me full of drugs for a while (80s). But I had loving parents that supported me through this (from what I gather, DE did not) and I am who I am today -- open-minded & non-judgmental (at least on the outside) to the extreme sometimes.

Motive is the reason why I believe the W3M didn't commit this crime. I believe the step-father is guilty of this crime, and I don't believe he did this by himself . . . IMHO only. (can you tell I am treading lightly?)

Again, the topic is Why did the W3M do it? To me nothing logically leads me to the W3M being guilty of this crime.

:innocent:
 
krimekat,

Which step father? Well, technically there's only one step father since Mark adopted Chris. But, for my anal retentive mind, do you mean TH?
 
Hobbs & his guitar playing buddy (he admitted to smoking meth -- that makes you do some crazy chit, now)
 
Please note that George Woods' testimony was in February, 2001. There is no indication in that document or anything else that I have seen or read that Damien is on those medications, or any others, at the present time. In fact, at the August 19, 2011, hearing, he swore that he was on no drugs at all. Although, if I had been on Death Row, in almost total isolation, for over 18 years, I would be incoherent. The fact that Damien is articulate and well-spoken speaks highly, IMO, of his ability to overcome adversity.
As a psych nurse with 3 decades of experience working with inpatient schizophrenics, I can clearly see Damien Echol's tardive dyskinesia symptoms and so can anyone else that watches his peculiar hand/finger movements in his recent interviews.

Pensfan
verified on Websleuths as a psychiatric mental health nurse
 
As a psych nurse with 3 decades of experience working with inpatient schizophrenics, I can clearly see Damien Echol's tardive dyskinesia symptoms and so can anyone else that watches his peculiar hand/finger movements in his recent interviews.

Pensfan
verified on Websleuths as a psychiatric mental health nurse

Thank you, Pensfan. I've seen Damien's blunt affect, don't believe he is or ever was bipolar I or II, mainly from watching him, and because when asked on the stand to describe his manic episodes, he was clueless about what constitutes mania.
IIRC he stated that when manic, he withdrew. I know very well that Manics don't withdraw; they engage. I am just curious why Echols would put his illness off to being Bipolar vs. schizophrenia. Perhaps he thought bipolar was the more socially acceptable of the two?

Jack Echols gave a good description of Damien's earlier years on Callahan.8k.com, and it seems to me Damien has been suffering with schizophrenic tendencies since childhood whether diagnosed back then or not, and yet, I can't imagine how he could come off death row without being a blithering idiot having had no medication in all those years to control his illness. This puzzles me to no end.

I was under the impression with schizophrenia showing up that early in life, the prognosis was not good at all, and am therefore quite surprised Echols is doing as good as he is. But it also bothers me in a way since I know very well, a psychopath will pretend to be many things if it suits his purpose. What do you think are the odds Echols is a schizophrenic psychopath (Is that even possible?)or just a plain psychopath?

Can you point me to a video where I can view his tardive dyskinesia for myself? I have not noticed Echols having the hand movements you spoke of.

If there's anything else about Echols that you notice that relates to schizophrenia or other illness, please do point it out.
thanks again,
jt
 
For reference- if you start a thread about a topic and members want to challenge the answers that come about on that topic- they can.
No one point of view is afforded a single thread in which only that point of view is allowed.

All threads are going to lead to basically the same road- are they guilty or innocent?There is just no way around it. It will be debated from now until eternity.
 
I find it interesting that someone who is a mental health professional can watch a video and diagnose Damien as having tardive dyskinesia symptoms and the diagnosis is accepted, but people won't accept the interpretation of certified forensic pathologists, seven of them IIRC, who said that the wounds to the boys were caused by postmortem animal predation. It just seems like a double standard to me.

From what I read about the condition, it doesn't seem to be something that would cause a sufferer to commit a triple homicide. It seems to be akin to Tourette's Syndrome in that it causes involuntary movements, tardive dyskinesia limiting those movements to the hands and/or face. I fail to see the significance of this condition, if Damien does suffer from it (which I doubt). IMO, it is irrelevant.
 
No, they found that knife in the water behind Jason Baldwins mobile home.

There is quite a bit of evidence including their own confessions and Echols mental health history that convicted the three who later plead guilty.

You know perfectly well it was a public lake and not some place private to Baldwin. And there was no way to connect that knife to the crime.

All this focus on Echols' juvenile psych records doesn't begin to explain how he got two other boys to collaborate and how he managed to commit three murders without leaving a single trace of himself.
 
As a psych nurse with 3 decades of experience working with inpatient schizophrenics, I can clearly see Damien Echol's tardive dyskinesia symptoms and so can anyone else that watches his peculiar hand/finger movements in his recent interviews.

If Echols has that condition now, I think he always did have it - by always, I mean from the time PL1 was filmed, at least. He's always done that thing with pursing up his mouth, I've never really noticed any hand movements though, now or then.
 
As a psych nurse with 3 decades of experience working with inpatient schizophrenics, I can clearly see Damien Echol's tardive dyskinesia symptoms and so can anyone else that watches his peculiar hand/finger movements in his recent interviews.

Pensfan
verified on Websleuths as a psychiatric mental health nurse

Echols claims that he had to 'learn to walk again' because of being shackled. Could this be another symptom of his medication?

I did notice his finger rolling when he interviews. He's always seated so I never got to see the 'shuffle', but that's what he claims.

And now he also wears blue tinted sunglasses indoors, which I think is very weird.
 
Echols claims that he had to 'learn to walk again' because of being shackled. Could this be another symptom of his medication?

I did notice his finger rolling when he interviews. He's always seated so I never got to see the 'shuffle', but that's what he claims.

And now he also wears blue tinted sunglasses indoors, which I think is very weird.

The sunglasses are to shield his eyes which have become sensitive to sunlight due to the years when he never had sunlight. I believe the "shuffling" is gone now and he's walking normally. Personally, I think that the finger rolling is just a nervous tick that will eventually disappear when he no longer is thrust before the cameras so often.
 
Many medications cause photosensitivity and wearing tinted glasses or sunglasses make facing the sunlight a lot more comfortable. His wearing the blue shades and some of his involuntary actions do indicate that he may take psychiatric medications that cause the side effects he exhibits.

Echols may be taking some type of medication since he was diagnosed many times in the past as being depressed, bi-polar and/or schizophrenic. Those mental illnesses do not just "go away" and a person with a mental illness cannot "heal themselves" and it is a tragic fallacy to believe that they can do so because there are times when the illness is gone, for a while, but the medication is the reason for the calm and without it, serious mental illness will come back.

If Mr. Echols needs to take psychiatric medication, then it is best that he continues to do so. It isn't something his supporters should be upset about, they shouldn't wish to see him suffer, I don't understand that way of thinking at all.
 
There is quite a bit of evidence including their own confessions and Echols mental health history that convicted the three who later plead guilty.
A confession that Pulitzer prize winning social psycologist, Richard Ofshe proved that it was cohersed and a false confession.

As for Echols him having a mental health issue doesn't prove a thing. The only evidence against Jason were items seized from his room. Concert t-shirts and posters. Damien’s notebook which included Metallica lyrics as well as his reading list was used against him. So they were picked on because of what they read, listen to and wore.

Explain how there could be zero dna evidence from the three convicted men was found at the crime scene or on the victims. If it’s so easy for Terry Hobbs’ hair to have been transferred to Michael Moore’s body, please explain how the three convicted men were able to completely remove all traces of themselves from the crime scene and the victim’s bodies.

If you truly believe that they are guilty of these crimes and that they murdered three young boys in the woods, in the dark, without leaving any DNA evidence from themselves but also leaving DNA from Hobbs and Jacoby intact.
 
The sunglasses are to shield his eyes which have become sensitive to sunlight due to the years when he never had sunlight. I believe the "shuffling" is gone now and he's walking normally. Personally, I think that the finger rolling is just a nervous tick that will eventually disappear when he no longer is thrust before the cameras so often.

It only took Damien Echol's rods in his retina 1-5 minutes to adjust to the sunlight once released from prison. He was not kept in a pitch black dungeon.

Damien Echols has not been thrusted in front of cameras. Damien Echols voluntarily steps in front of cameras.

Tardive dyskinesia symptoms are side effects of antipsychotic medications. They have been studied for HALF A CENTURY. They are not nervous ticks which will resolve with the discontinuance of cameras.

See example of a severe pill-rolling tremor here:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaIN2zRQn8w"]Tremor - YouTube[/ame]

See Damien Echols pill-rolling with his right hand’s index finger and thumb at 14 seconds, 54 seconds, 106 seconds, 145 seconds. Notice the peculiar positioning of his right hand during all of the interview. Like many other psychiatric patients that feel self-conscious about their tardive dyskinesia pill-rolling tremor, Damien positions his right hand when at rest in a peculiar position in an attempt to prevent his TD tremor from being occurring (keeps thumb and forefinger apart) and being extremely obvious.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBVXEARyqw"]Damien Echols on conditions in jail - YouTube[/ame]




See Damien Echols pill-rolling tardive dyskinesia symptom again here at 2:12 while his right hand is at rest on the table. Notice the peculiar positioning of his right hand during most of the interview and all of his other interviews. Damien positions his right hand in such a peculiar position when it is at rest in an attempt to prevent his pill-rolling tremor from occurring. He must keeping his thumb and index finger apart while his hand is at rest or his fingers will pill roll. TD tremors do not always manifest equally bilaterally, but may appear more significantly on one side than the opposite side. I can’t see Damien’s left hand in the videos so it is unknown if his left hand is also pill rolling.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qygs2bOyov8&feature=relmfu"]Jason Baldwin on celebrity support behind the West Memphis 3 - YouTube[/ame]


Pensfan
verified psychiatric mental health nurse
 
A confession that Pulitzer prize winning social psycologist, Richard Ofshe proved that it was cohersed and a false confession.

As for Echols him having a mental health issue doesn't prove a thing. The only evidence against Jason were items seized from his room. Concert t-shirts and posters. Damien’s notebook which included Metallica lyrics as well as his reading list was used against him. So they were picked on because of what they read, listen to and wore.

Explain how there could be zero dna evidence from the three convicted men was found at the crime scene or on the victims. If it’s so easy for Terry Hobbs’ hair to have been transferred to Michael Moore’s body, please explain how the three convicted men were able to completely remove all traces of themselves from the crime scene and the victim’s bodies.

If you truly believe that they are guilty of these crimes and that they murdered three young boys in the woods, in the dark, without leaving any DNA evidence from themselves but also leaving DNA from Hobbs and Jacoby intact.

BBM.

This is what I've never seen anybody explain. Whenever you raise it you get either...

a) Ditchwater washed all the DNA away

b) The Hobbs' hair was secondary transfer

How can people not see that those two explanations contradict each other? If the ditchwater washed the DNA away, it should have washed the Hobbs' hair away too. It should also have washed away all the stray hairs belonging to the three victims, but plenty of those were found.
 
OMG! I must have tardive dyskinesia! My finger twitches like the one in the top video from time to time.:crazy:

I'm sure that it's a real illness. However, I doubt that it can be accurately diagnosed by watching a few videos of someone. Isn't it possible that over 18 years on Death Row might have made him a bit nervous this soon after his release? Couldn't that nervousness be exhibited through these gestures?

Also, people always point to his "finger to the mouth" gesture like it means that he's lying. However, the truth of the matter is that he was ashamed of his teeth. It is an attempt to cover up his teeth - not lies.

I have seen videos of Damien while still in prison that I don't think exhibited any of the "pill rolling" that is discussed. He seemed more at ease in those videos because he was in familiar surroundings. Look at the last interview with Bruce and Joe.

However, he is becoming more comfortable now. In some of the recent Q & A sessions following a PL3 screening I don't remember any unusual hand movements. In short, I think that too much is being made of some of his mannerisms.

Oh, I believe someone somewhere mentioned that Damien never smiled. I said that I would find a picture of him smiling and post it. Here ya go:

http://www.zap2it.com/news/pictures...his-3-20110818,0,5284354.photogallery?index=1
 

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