The winding up of Jerry Driver

[Cherry]

I've always deduced this about Echols, I was once a curious teen as well. And I rebuked authority and laughed at it; as he did. As many of us did and do at times. Echols played a dangerous game; but it was almost as if he didn't care at all. And because of home life; maybe he didn't and was lost. A lot of teens are at that age.

I've always felt that they singled him out early on just as they did in the CA case of the DA/atty who had LE focus on a young neighborhood guy as the one who killed his wife. Pam Vitales murder. I don't believe the right killer is even in jail in that case.....it's similar to this case in some ways. Maybe the DA/ATTY used some of his info on this case to weave his own..I am not sure. All I know is this case made me think the same thing in Pam's case. IOW cuckoo for cocoa puffs, might have been telling the truth in this regards...I DK. He didn't do himself any favors he was young cocky and had no idea of the real world past his small town imo. It's no shocker to me that he moved to Salem Mass; he most likely feels persecuted. This is where the persecuted witches were hung and their warlock.
Echols will grow and finally realize there is no such thing. He will find more important things in life, one hopes. He should continue to write. I wish him well; but I honestly wish LE had the balls to charge in this case. Currently it seems they don't.

 

[kyleb]

AND I found this, on Greg Day's website:

The purported quote has been around far longer than that, as exemplified in this review of PL2 from 2000. Also, the May 7 Sudbury note transcription is of somewhat dubious origin itself, as while I generally take Callahan to be credible, that particular transcript lacks an image of an actual document to corroborate it and I've yet to find any such actual documentation elsewhere either.

But it's just fricken ANNOYING how much BS is bandied about, on all sides.

There certainly is a lot of BS flowing around about this case and it's hard not to get lost in it, as I did myself just a few posts ago when I repeated the notion that Leveritt was the origin of the "Echols finally killed someone" rumor. Anyway, back to what is actually evidenced and what you mentioned in your opening post, have you ever considered the possibility that Echols wasn't really trying to wind up Driver, but rather actually believed there was a real Necronomicon in West Memphis and other such nonsense? I mean this is Echols after all, the guy who at least around that time also believed all sorts of absurdities about gaining power from drinking blood, communicating with demons, rising from the dead, and who most obviously changed his name to Damien in reference to pop culture devil stories regardless of how much he likes to claim he did it to honor a Catholic saint.

 

[Ausgirl]

Thing is, it wasn't all about the WM3 from day one. There were other suspects, other leads, and the police were doing what they could to chase those down. I can see that.

Echols -was- a good suspect. He was well worth checking out. If I had been LE, I likely would have done so, the kid made a circus of himself and then complained about an audience. He was a nasty little sod.

But what bothers me is that he so rapidly, and on some pretty spindly sort of evidence (and a LOT of hearsay), became the --only- suspect (well, along with his pals, but you know what I mean). Which means other, extremely good suspects were all but dismissed. And I mean - dismissed. Crappy alibis were good enough, because they had the WM3 in sights, some of them were all up in this occult blah, and that's where it fell apart, IMO.

And LOL, no, kyle. Echols just was not that kind of stupid. Occult 101, day 1 - the Necronomicon is a fictional book, go read Lovecraft. (whom I adore, btw, I am a huge fan of him and the mythos). I also highly doubt he truly believed much of anything that came out of his own mouth back then.

 

[reedus23]

The purported quote has been around far longer than that, as exemplified in this review of PL2 from 2000. Also, the May 7 Sudbury note transcription is of somewhat dubious origin itself, as while I generally take Callahan to be credible, that particular transcript lacks an image of an actual document to corroborate it and I've yet to find any such actual documentation elsewhere either.


There certainly is a lot of BS flowing around about this case and it's hard not to get lost in it, as I did myself just a few posts ago when I repeated the notion that Leveritt was the origin of the "Echols finally killed someone" rumor. Anyway, back to what is actually evidenced and what you mentioned in your opening post, have you ever considered the possibility that Echols wasn't really trying to wind up Driver, but rather actually believed there was a real Necronomicon in West Memphis and other such nonsense? I mean this is Echols after all, the guy who at least around that time also believed all sorts of absurdities about gaining power from drinking blood, communicating with demons, rising from the dead, and who most obviously changed his name to Damien in reference to pop culture devil stories regardless of how much he likes to claim he did it to honor a Catholic saint.

BBM - Why am I not surprised? :banghead:

 

[kyleb]

But what bothers me is that he so rapidly, and on some pretty spindly sort of evidence (and a LOT of hearsay), became the --only- suspect (well, along with his pals, but you know what I mean).

Do you mean Misskelley's confession nearly a month after the murders, or what evidence on what date are you suggesting resulted in Echols and people he associated with becoming the only suspects?

Occult 101, day 1 - the Necronomicon is a fictional book, go read Lovecraft.

You're around two and a half decades late in recommending I read Lovecraft, I've never imagined the Necomnomicon is anything more that fiction. However, I don't consider notions of gaining power from drinking blood, communicating with demons, and rising from the dead any less fictional, do you?

 

[reedus23]

But what bothers me is that he so rapidly, and on some pretty spindly sort of evidence (and a LOT of hearsay), became the --only- suspect (well, along with his pals, but you know what I mean). Which means other, extremely good suspects were all but dismissed. And I mean - dismissed. Crappy alibis were good enough, because they had the WM3 in sights, some of them were all up in this occult blah, and that's where it fell apart, IMO.

There were certainly a lot of tips taken and names brought to LE's attention. What was done to follow up with them is the question. What is amazing is that there was like 1 or 2 days where LE was able to clear an incredible amount of names with little to no work being done from the time they were provided with the name to the time they cleared that person. It became such a pattern that a name was provided, there were no further notes and then miraculously they cleared all these people all on the same day. They must have been really busy on that day running down all those alibis. Not sure how they got any sleep that day.

 

[Ausgirl]

reedus, I feel I must apologise for stating things without links to back 'em up right now - I'm off my gourd on meds, and I have a brower virus to boot, and hunting around the net for them is just not my idea of a good time presently.

That said -- there was a truck driver.. can't recall his name... in California, overheard at a truck stop after the arrests, talking lurid details of the crime and how he was at the truck wash that day (IIRC) -- this was overheard by some other customers who were alarmed enough to call it in.

Turns out the guy was local to the crime, the cops followed the lead but dropped it pretty quick - they had the 3 in custody then and so no other possibilities got much of a look-in.

So it seems the cops -were- actually noting other suspects, even after the arrest. But their investigations, that said, were pretty abysmal. Like JKM, and his wife's word that he was home being good enough. They HAD to have known, if they did their work, that this is the woman he beat the living snot out of just the year before..

There were a lot of good leads like that, treated the same way. I'm very interested in checking out these other suspects twenty years later. I likely will, once I'm feeling a bit better.

 

[primitivefuture]

reedus, I feel I must apologise for stating things without links to back 'em up right now - I'm off my gourd on meds, and I have a brower virus to boot, and hunting around the net for them is just not my idea of a good time presently.

That said -- there was a truck driver.. can't recall his name... in California, overheard at a truck stop after the arrests, talking lurid details of the crime and how he was at the truck wash that day (IIRC) -- this was overheard by some other customers who were alarmed enough to call it in.

Turns out the guy was local to the crime, the cops followed the lead but dropped it pretty quick - they had the 3 in custody then and so no other possibilities got much of a look-in.

So it seems the cops -were- actually noting other suspects, even after the arrest. But their investigations, that said, were pretty abysmal. Like JKM, and his wife's word that he was home being good enough. They HAD to have known, if they did their work, that this is the woman he beat the living snot out of just the year before..

There were a lot of good leads like that, treated the same way. I'm very interested in checking out these other suspects twenty years later. I likely will, once I'm feeling a bit better.

I was just reading about this man again the other day, and now I'm blanking on his name. So annoyed with myself.

Edited to add: Jesse Leo Davidson. He told the women in the truck stop restaurant that he had served time for homicide. He then told them details about the crime and said that he had been sitting at a nearby truck stop when the bodies of the three boys were found, watching all the police activity.

 

[Ausgirl]

:tyou:

Cheers, PF! I was so annoyed at myself, lol. I actually called my cat by the wrong name this morning and wondered why everyone, including the cat, was looking at me funny. Such is my brain right now. :facepalm:

Yeah, that guy! But there were others, several others too, that should have been microscoped and weren't. What I want to do is see what they've all been up to, the last 20 years..

Bringing it back to topic -- it's interesting how 14 or so years after the crime, Jones is backpeddling away from Driver and his weirdness, and real hard too. It's a pretty powerful statement he made (mind you, he is on the bottom rungs of my suspect ladder himself, lol) and to me, pretty much is an admission that he knew what they were doing was very wrong..

I would LOVE to know if there was any other kids of the time who felt Driver was behaving inappropriately. It bothers me. That guy bothers me. I wish the kids he saw would come forward to talk about him. I can kind of understand why they wouldn't, though, even if he wasn't a pedo. Bygones, and all.

 

[reedus23]

reedus, I feel I must apologise for stating things without links to back 'em up right now - I'm off my gourd on meds, and I have a brower virus to boot, and hunting around the net for them is just not my idea of a good time presently.

That said -- there was a truck driver.. can't recall his name... in California, overheard at a truck stop after the arrests, talking lurid details of the crime and how he was at the truck wash that day (IIRC) -- this was overheard by some other customers who were alarmed enough to call it in.

Turns out the guy was local to the crime, the cops followed the lead but dropped it pretty quick - they had the 3 in custody then and so no other possibilities got much of a look-in.

So it seems the cops -were- actually noting other suspects, even after the arrest. But their investigations, that said, were pretty abysmal. Like JKM, and his wife's word that he was home being good enough. They HAD to have known, if they did their work, that this is the woman he beat the living snot out of just the year before..

There were a lot of good leads like that, treated the same way. I'm very interested in checking out these other suspects twenty years later. I likely will, once I'm feeling a bit better.

They absolutely noted a ton of people. I agree 100%. The investigation with regard to a good number (not all) of them amounted to a simple report weeks later simply stating they are no longer a suspect. Funny you bring up the truck driver. I remember thinking when I first read through the reports that LE in other states did a more thorough job of investigating their leads than wmpd did with theirs. Whether the truck driver, the guy that dropped the papers or the ones in California.

 

[Fiji3]

Whatever, honestly I doubt very much that Domini was smart enough to wind him up. Damien talked to ANYONE who would listen about the occult and seems like he is still very much into it.
The thing is.....almost Every Single Thing about this whole case...you can pick it apart and interpret it EITHER WAY. same goes for Damian's SSD application.
Some people see :"Homicidal, suicidal, sociopath...he said so himself!"
I see :" lazy know it all who wants to scam the system"
But yea If Damien was Not Guilty of killing these poor kids.....then his own shenanigans of playing the bad guy,taunting police,being a smartass...all that cost him 18 years of his life....weather he was serious or winding people up....

 

[Fiji3]

Yep, Damien was all about being the 'baddest' at the time, if that meant stomping a dog to death, setting fire to a classroom, attempting to scratch the eyes out of a love interest .. or any amount of other bad acts he was up for it. Showing off by claiming to be 'satanic' was just one of the list of things he did. Oh and of course, naming himself 'Damien' too .. but when it all came biting him back on the butt after his arrest, and since he chose to deny it all and say he was buddhist (read peaceful monk type person) amongst other things, until his release of course when he reverted to type.

Yea hahaaaa...totally true..he was all innocent looking and next thing...back to the occult.
If he really did not kill the boys, then his own shenanigans cost him 18 years. Who writes "homicidal " on a SSD application? Lol
Ah well....hope the 2 welfare checks were worth it....cause what would happen if...2 months later someone gets killed....oh yea..wasn't there a guy who claims to be homicidal?