West Memphis Three Revisited

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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby Project Willow » Sun Feb 24, 2013 8:43 pm

compared2what? wrote:I didn't mean they'd see you were saying something that wasn't there. I meant that they'd see that there wasn't evidence of the sexual assault described in Misskelley's confession, to which I'd just referred as the thing I was really disputing.


Thanks.

compared2what? wrote:And (in my opinion) none of any kind against anyone in particular. Even granting that Byers's injuries were inflicted by the killer, the physical evidence by itself isn't actually less compatible with their having been killed in anger by someone they knew as a punishment for something perceived as sexual misbehavior than it is with a sadistic-sex killing. Because there aren't really any signs of torture, never mind rape. They appear to have been attacked and knocked unconscious, then stripped, tied up and dumped in a creek. It's not even entirely clear that Byers didn't drown.


I don't agree with this assessment of the nature of the crime. The stripping, which is certainly one incident we can both agree actually occurred, denotes a sexual component.

compared2what? wrote:I don't think it was even a little insane for detectives to form the suspicions that they did or to investigate them. And since I haven't made that argument, I'm not sure why you're bringing it up.

I do have problems with the way they proceeded, though.


Poor choice of words on my part, insane as opposed to understandable. Understandable does not mean appropriate.

If I were to argue the coerced/false confession angle (to a wide, uninitiated audience), first of all, I wouldn't begin with falsehoods about the length of the interrogation as many supporters have done. I wouldn't omit the multiple confessions either. I'd start by highlighting the confession Miskelley gave to his attorney on February 8, 1994, I think is the date. This is the post conviction confession. That one contains the most obvious effort on Miskelley's behalf to conform his story to the prosecution's version, as long as you are looking at his confessions from that angle. Then I'd work my way through all the others highlighting exactly what was dangled in front of him to make him confess each time. With the first confession I'd cite the testimony of McGrease mentioning the reward and what Jessie said he would do with the money. I find that far more convincing than going on about gaps or missing time stamps in the taped interviews which require that people assume something happened rather than being able to go read directly from the record.

That's what I would do anyway.

And so far the most telling example I've seen of police misbehavior/stupidity is demonstrated by the Aaron Hutcheson interviews.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby Project Willow » Sun Feb 24, 2013 8:55 pm

Col. Quisp wrote:PW: Stop being drawn in to the endless nonsensical "arguments." As you pointed out, it is distracting you from your own research. There's no point trying to "win" against C2W, who often resorts to profanity when frustrated. You are wasting your time. This is a pattern I've noticed in other threads, and that is why I used the "ignore" button on this person.


I understand, and your choices are your own. I count C2W as a friend however, and I know well my own capacity for argumentativeness, and the passion that is usually behind it, so I will nod my head to my friend and her passion, even if what she's saying to me at the moment makes me want to tear my hair out. :eeyaa

Col. Quisp wrote:I doubt we willl ever know the truth in this case, unfortunately. But they took an Alford plea, right? Instead of having a new trial? What does that say to you?


I agree about getting to the truth. At this point I hold the view that reasonable, informed, and empathetic people can hold completely opposing views of the case, and legitimately so.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Sun Feb 24, 2013 10:46 pm

Project Willow wrote:
compared2what? wrote:
...

Willow, come on. Of course it's possible (and even common) for there to be no anal tears or lacerations in living children who are referred for medical examination for sexual abuse. I wasn't asking about that. Because it's not what we're discussing.

The issue is whether or not three eight-year-olds who have been anally raped in a violent assault and murdered shortly afterwards to have no anal tears or lacerations on post-mortem examination.

That's a significantly different question


NO, it isn't. Read the literature which includes these distinctions. There is no study anywhere that says 100% of child rape victims show tears and lacerations even if you're going to quote pedophile defender extraordinaire Ralph Underwager.


First of all, I've read the literature.

Second of all, a forensic medical examination and an autopsy are different procedures with different standards and methods performed by doctors with different training, background, equipment and expertise and (in short) enough other differences not to be interchangeable with one another for citation purposes even when the goal of each is to establish whether or not some form of sexual abuse occurred.

And that's for a number of significant reasons.

For example:

Neither the study you referenced or Peretti report finding anal fissures (or tears, whatever we're calling them. But the study would have classified them as non-specific anyway, whereas they would have been clear evidence for Peretti.

That's not for bad-agenda-based reasons in either case.*** For the study, it's because although it doesn't take much friction to cause minor tears in anal mucosal tissue, it's elastic enough and heals quickly enough for there to be no certain expectation that they'll be perceptible 24 to 48 hours later in an eight-year-old who's been sodomized. (And also because they might be present due to constipation, arguably.)

So even if every single child in that study who was among both the 28 percent who reported anal/penile contact/intercourse.and the ten percent who were seen within three days of the last molest was an eight-year-old who'd been sodomized, it wouldn't be clearly significant one way or the other if none/some were found.

But non-living tissue doesn't heal. And the rapes would have occurred at a point close enough in time to the murders that for the examinations of equivalent living eight-year-olds would have to have occured within three hours of the assault to be analogous,

And I'm not just saying that to make the instant point. It's potentially problematic to represent anal penetration as something eight-year-olds are so naturally able to accommodate that it doesn't take as much force and pressure to do as passing a difficult stool. That's not why minor tears are non-specific.

As you know, I should add. I wasn't saying it to you. I was just saying it.

Forensic evidence findings in prepubertal victims of sexual assault


Living children and studies of them just aren't and can't be the models against which post-mortem findings are measured. It's a different field of medico-legal practice. .

______________

ON EDIT: On consideration, I'm not so sure that's entirely true for the the study in a way, though I don't intend any implications against the authors directly. I just mean that the standards for what is and isn't physical confirmation are more exclusionary than they necessarily have to be, due to there being too few resources devoted to the problem. If we lived in a world where children were guaranteed a thoughtful, thorough examination by doctors who knew and understood what they were looking at well enough to make appropriate etiological distinctions wrt what are presently classified as non-specific findings, the numbers would be higher for reasons that would be bad and not good news for Underwager. And one can see that reading literature such as this study here.

I'm not saying that confirmation should be required, or that if there isn't any it didn't happen, or anything remotely like that. I'm just ruing reality. The bar is too high for no good reason.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:10 am

Project Willow wrote:
compared2what? wrote:What is the confusion about here?


Because an intentional infliction of injury to the genitals IS A SEXUAL ASSAULT. By definition. Why are you intent on denying that?


I'm not denying it in this case, although to get self-defeatingly academic about it, I wouldn't personally make that assertion. There's no reason for all crimes of jealousy, revenge, rage or hatred that include intentional infliction of injury to the genitals to be classified as sexual assaults, imo.

I mean, would you call what Lorena Bobbitt did a sexual assault? I wouldn't.

Not that it matters. My primary point is that it's not and hasn't been established that they were intentionally inflicted. Or by whom. So it's ambiguous why.

I might try to illustrate that with an example, later.



compared2what? wrote:Neither did he find that they had been removed with a knife or bladed instrument. And neither did he characterize any of the cuts or lacerations as, for example, stab wounds.

I hope that was clear.


It's clear that you keep replacing "consistent with" with "neither, not and no", when referring to the record, over and over again. If I spend all my time refuting your distortions of the record I will never get anywhere in my own research.

The ME testified that some of the cuts appeared to have been caused by a knife or a piece of glass, and some of the cuts (on the head and other body parts) appear to have been caused by a blunt instrument such as a broom stick or a 2 by 4.

On Byers:
    Davis: And there were signs of physical trauma as far as abrasions and lacerations to the buttocks area and the area immediately surrounding the anus? Is that correct?

    Peretti: There's cutting wounds and abrasions, yes. And State's Exhibit 70C is a close-up of the genital mutilation. Here, we have multiple gouging type injuries where the skin has just been pulled out. The skin overlying the shaft of the penis was carved off. What you see here, the part--this red part that's in the photograph, that's the shaft of the penis after the skin has been removed and you can see above the scrotal sac and testes are all missing. The whole genital area is missing except for the internal aspects of the shaft of the penis and around this area you can see the multiple gouging type wounds, stab wounds and cutting wounds.


I overlooked that accidentally. But I was speaking of his autopsy reports anyway, since those are -- as he says in that phone call -- his entire, unvarnished professional opinion, free of the contextualizations that both direct and cross-examination might put on it.

And that does go both ways -- ie, he doesn't say what he did to Stidham on cross or what he said to Davis on direct, wrt sodomy in the reports. And I place a higher value on his expressing no opinion there than I do on his expressing either in the courtroom, wrt how reliably it represents what can or can't be said with accurate certainty.

Davis: Doctor, the gouge wounds and cutting wounds you referred to around the genital area, how did those, in your opinion, how would those wounds have been inflicted? What type of manner would those have been inflicted in?

Peretti: Well, it could be when you see these type of irregular cutting wounds, gouging wounds, not knowing the instrument, you can get these type of wounds from a knife, piece of glass, usually the knife or the object is being twisted and the victim is moving to get those irregular edges. State's Exhibit 69C is a photograph showing the legs, the area of genital mutilation and you can also see the binding injuries of the left wrist but also here, we can note in the um, on the thighs, on the top of the thighs and inner aspects of the thighs, we have multiple contusions or bruising inside the thighs and you can see that here.


I don't think it's in-bounds for you to suggest that I was paraphrasing the views he expressed in his testimony inaccurately or misleadingly out of bias there.

During the part of hist testimony that directly addresses the question of what caused those cuts, which I quoted here, he makes much more of an explicit point of being unable to say.

That he didn't feel an equal need to do so as emphatically when describing the mechanism whereby they could have been caused intentionally strikes me as more likely to be a function of narrative speech than it does anything else. Including "an expression of his secret true opinion" and "representative of a change of mind.".

compared2what? wrote:They don't all agree with each other about everything in their reports and affidavits, most of which can be found among the exhibits submitted with Echols's second amended Habeas petition.. But every single one of them found that most of the injuries on each child were post-mortem wounds caused by animal predation.

As a number of them point out, Peretti himself said that the genital injuries were post-mortem.. .


No, he didn't. He said he couldn't determine whether SOME OF THEM were or weren't. Please stop distorting the record.


Come on.

Are you really going to call that a distortion? As if you weren't also engaging in the same non-comprehensive representation of complex issues in good faith of a necessity, because they're complex?

Do you see me saying it's misleading of you not to have quoted every damn word Peretti said about knives, or that it's a distortion for you to quote only some of them? Or saying stuff like "I'd really appreciate it if you stopped telling me that in my view, Chris Byers's injuries aren't a part of this case when I haven't said anything of the kind"?

You're a very righteous woman. You can afford to wear it loosely.

    Davis Doctor, in these autopies, are you able to tell the difference between a wound that was inflicted before death and a wound that was inflicted after death?
    Peretti: Some of the injuries we're able to tell.


Not to get into it in detail, but he didn't (in fact) classify most of their injuries as pre-, peri- and post-mortem and, and there's no reason on earth why he shouldn't have been able to. It's his job. And confusion or ambiguity on such points is consequential.

Davis: Okay. And could you tell, in regard to any of these three children, whether wounds were--there were some wounds that were inflicted even after death?
Peretti: There, there--some wounds have the appearance of being inflicted perimortem, around the time of death and postmortem, after death.


"Peri-mortem"? You're calling THAT a distortion?

Do you think it's more of one than -- oh, I don't know -- saying that Misskelley had knowledge of undisclosed details of the crime because he described a definitively living child getting his penis cut on while talking about a crime that included similar injuries to a dead or dying child? Without mentioning that it took three or four prompts for him even to get that wrong? While opining that he knew it because he witnessed it, there being no evidence to suggest otherwise?

Or less?

Or about the same?

compared2what? wrote:
Did Stevie Branch bruise and scrape his own penis before he was murdered?


His autopsy report doesn't mention any injuries to the genital/anal area apart from "superficial scratches." And it definitely doesn't mention bruising. But presumably his injuries were incurred before, during or after the murder.


I quoted what the ME testified to, in court! Yet here you're seeking ways to deny his testimony. So because the ME testified to the injury in court rather than writing it down in the brief summary of injuries in his report, then it didn't happen? Or you're contending that when the ME reviewed and explained his findings on the injuries in court, he lied?


Neither. I'm making a non-random, non-idiosyncratic-to-me distinction between the scientific objectivity of an autopsy report and a statement made by the same scientist while testifying in court in his capacity as a member of the team the state fields for the prosecution.

Because the testimony isn't usually a huge departure from what could reasonably be said on purely professional grounds. But it is intentionally couched, phrased and framed in terms that will act on the jury with maximum allowable impact.

In this case, he is erring, one way or the other. If there were bruises, he should have noted them on autopsy or amended it. And if there weren't, he shouldn't testify that there were. Odds favor the former somewhat. But either way, it was probably just an error and not a lie.

However, that trial had plenty enough of both for my comment to stand, imo.





compared2what? wrote:
I don't know about the experts -- including Peretti, in this case -- but contusions can be post-mortem injuries. And I don't think there is a "generally" about it. It's specific to the case.


It's RARE. There's little to no blood flow postmortem, so bruising and hemorrhaging, outside of areas of lividity which is pooling of the blood, is RARE.


Per the words that appear under the heading "Post-Mortem Bruising" in Forensic Pathology, Second Edition, by Dominick and Vincent Di Maio, which is a standard text...

Image

....meaning -- among other things -- that its authors receive royalties likely to lessen the need to lie in exchange for high fees from Damien Echols's defense:

It's not really correct or accurate to say that in general it's RARE. Or that it's COMMON. Because it's specific to circumstances that rarely occur. Or at least that's how I understand what they're saying.

But if you have a better authority or a greater understanding, I'll bow to it. I'm not an expert. And it's not a very major point.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:44 am

Project Willow wrote:[
You said repeatedly "He never hurt anyone,"


Unless I repeatedly said it once, no. Those quotes are a distortion.

even after I pointed out very clearly that he had indeed hurt someone, according the record. I gave up after that. I'm very used to you being precise in your word choices. I can't argue with denial.


If you're used to that precision, how did you fail to notice that I conceded he'd been in a fight in which he described trying to enucleate someone's eye, but that I was talking about the kind of violence and harm that's predictive of sadistic killing, which that was not, since it was a fight with his ex-'s new beau?

Also, as a user of words for their meanings yourself, how did you come to be so casual about it that you'd call this...

Shane: Alright, I was going to school and meant Deanna Holcomb and in turn Damien Echols. Because they were boyfriend, girlfriend at the time I began to hang around with them I spoke with Damien Echols on several occasions just like friends, then emotional things began to develope between me and Deanna Holcomb she broke up with Damien and soon went out with me which lead Damien to believe I had stolen Deanna from him. He threatened to kill Deanna threatened to kill several of my family members just not my uncle but several others. He threatened to kill me and then later came up behind me in the hallway while I was at my locker I knew he was back there so I just started to walk I didn't look at him or anything he jumped on me from behind draggin me down to the ground and clawing at my face with his fingernails. He uh, people was saying he was trying to rip my eyes out and my the scars is what it looked like, when I got up I turn around and I was going to fight but he was being held down by several of the people that were in the hallway witnessing it so I didn't have to.

Allen: Were the school officials notified of what happened?

Shane: Yes they were, one of the people that holding, one of the persons that was holding him down was my chemistry teacher, Mr. Foster and he took us both to the office, Damien was suspended for fighting and I wasn't because I didn't fight back even though I was going to but I didn't because they already had him down. He was suspended for fighting but I wasn't they just let me go back to class. You know cause they saw, Mr. Foster saw what happened and vouched me that I was attacked. It would have been self defense if I had fought. (inaudible)


...a violent fight in which someone got hurt, when even the hardly-likely-to-be-understating-it other party to the conflict doesn't report any exceptional*** violence or injury?


Deanna Holcomb and/or her parents and associates weren't, like, some little font of impartial omniscience in Marion, AK. from which nothing but undiluted truth ever flowed, btw. They had stories and motives of their own, the same as usual people do. Including those who gave statements to the cops or testified for the prosecution in terms unfavorable to Damien Echols.

I appreciate that you are very passionate about this case, but I've never seen you make these sorts of statements and distortions. It is truly maddening.


You're asserting that he had a history of hurting people because he allegedly tried to tear out someone's eye and that he was violent because he made death threats during an altercation between teenagers over a girl in which no blows were exchanged, And representing them definitively as seriously dangerous death threats rather than rash angry words. Without careful qualification and/or backing up what you say.

After apparently considering one side of the story for exactly long enough not to summarize it accurately. Or to make it clear that you're talking about a single, emotionally charged incident and not a characteristic pattern of behavior, no matter what your interpretation of it is.

You do realize.

______________

ON EDIT: I accidentally left that word out, because I couldn't decide how to characterize it. "Exceptional" isn't quite right. But as a generic indicator that one teenage boy tackling and scrapping with another briefly over a romantic matter is not on the same part of the violence spectrum as raping, torturing and murdering small children for kicks, no matter how much high melodrama they put into the purely rhetorical aspects of it, it's as good as any I can think of. So it will have to do.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:33 am

Additionally:

Project Willow wrote:
compared2what? wrote:
Is there any particular reason you find it likelier or more credible that they were knife marks than that they were signs of small animal predation?


All the other evidence and testimony about the use of a knife in the case.


How many pages of this thread did it take for "all" not to include Peretti's specific testimony about the likelihood of those wounds having been caused by a knife, which was highly qualified?

The lack of snapping turtles in that particular gulley when investigators were all over it, and sandbagged and drained it.


How non-distorted is it to cite that as representative while not mentioning or considering any evidence that they were there, which (as it happens) includes an affidavit saying so from Shawn Ryan Clark, who was thirteen years old at the time of the murders and lived nearby because he was Christopher Byers's stepbrother?

The short amount of time the bodies were in the water. The absurd idea that only the testicles and skin of the penis would be consumed, and only on one particular boy, the one who Misskelley identified as being so altered, for starters.


How necessary to meaning and bias-free was it to mention Misskelley there and in those terms, especially when that particular absurd idea doesn't appear anywhere in those reports, all of which discuss wounds, injuries and marks on all three children?

___________________

I respect your passion and commitment, too. I wouldn't want you to back down from any undertaking you thought was justified, useful or necessary. And I don't consider it out of the question that you're on to something.

But please lay off the ad-hominem unless you have a better reason to accuse me of distorting the facts than that since I see and understand them differently than you do, I naturally select and recapitulate them accordingly.

As one does.

Thanks.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby Col. Quisp » Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:25 pm

Willow said "agree about getting to the truth. At this point I hold the view that reasonable, informed, and empathetic people can hold completely opposing views of the case, and legitimately so."

That's what makes it so interesting. I think the premise would make a great theatre piece, sort of like Shanley's "Doubt," because of the viability of both views. (Not meaning to trivialize the incident by suggesting it be turned into theatre, but this is what makes for good theatre).
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:18 pm

Project Willow wrote:
compared2what? wrote:And (in my opinion) none of any kind against anyone in particular. Even granting that Byers's injuries were inflicted by the killer, the physical evidence by itself isn't actually less compatible with their having been killed in anger by someone they knew as a punishment for something perceived as sexual misbehavior than it is with a sadistic-sex killing. Because there aren't really any signs of torture, never mind rape. They appear to have been attacked and knocked unconscious, then stripped, tied up and dumped in a creek. It's not even entirely clear that Byers didn't drown.


I don't agree with this assessment of the nature of the crime. The stripping, which is certainly one incident we can both agree actually occurred, denotes a sexual component.


It does. And the binding denotes a sadistic component. And the genital mutilation is capable of an interpretation that denotes both. And the evidence that a sexual assault has occurred doesn't always include unambiguous signs of penetration and/or seminal fluid in every orifice. And there aren't always features at the scene that provide ways of identifying the perps. And weapons aren't always found or identified. And sadistic-sex killers of children with occult motives aren't always obliging enough to have gone around candidly showing/expressing a strong interest in torture and/or rape and/or sacrifice before acting on it. And signs of occult activity/motives aren't always present.

Be that as it may, when all those things are true, what you've got is the denotation of a sexually sadistic crime. and a suspect whose potential interest in committing one.is entirely dependent on something that's not in evidence. If you then devote all the resources and energy at your disposal to searching the vast gray area that lies between theoretical plausibility and absolute proof, looking for something in the way of direct confirmation that:

    * it was a sexually sadistic crime
    and/or
    ^ it was an occult crime
    and/or
    ^ your suspect is actually rather than potentially interested in sexual sadism or children or sacrifice or bondage or drowning or genital mutilation
    and/or
    * that location, those children, that date or some other specific element of the crime

without finding any, apart from a confession made by someone who's not a close confederate of the perp you like, which places him at the scene committing the kind of theoretically plausible crime you have in mind but not accurately describing a single confirmable detail of the one that was committed (or, ftm, consistently describing any for two consecutive sentences), here's the question:

What principle of justice for those children rather than for the plausibility of your theory (and/or the reality it represents) does it serve to state that the elements of the crime are in greater conformity with it than they are?

You may be right or wrong. But it's not your rightness or wrongness that are at stake. Or your reality. Or your integrity. All of those things belong to you or....You know. Are vested in you, irrespective of what kind of vile outrage a filthy killer of children indisputably did commit. Of which there are far too many kinds.
_________

An illustration of the possibility that the intentional infliction of injury to the genitals occurred in a context other than sexual assault will follow shortly.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:25 pm

Project Willow wrote:
compared2what? wrote:What is the confusion about here?


Because an intentional infliction of injury to the genitals IS A SEXUAL ASSAULT. By definition. Why are you intent on denying that?


Again, I am not. However, just for the sake of argument, here's a hypothetical illustration of why it might not be in the interests of justice to refuse to consider that by definition it's actually an intentional infliction of injury to the genitals:

Let's say the cops hadn't been too convinced of that:to think it was worth following up on John Mark Byers just because:

    * He had a history of domestic violence-related to disputes over children that included making death threats while involved in an actually physically violent altercation with his first wife while armed with (IIRC) a stun gun that was menacing enough in real time for police to be called;

    * He was an on-again/off-again drug abuser with a (largely non-violent) criminal record/history, along with a known propensity for telling some pretty floridly outrageous lies and/or taking some pretty floridly dubious actions in pursuit of self-interest;

    * He'd beaten one of the victims very shortly before the crimes;

    * His alibi wasn't quite in agreement with those of his witnesses to it;

    * His behavior prior to the crimes being discovered was perceptibly more dramatic than that of other parents;

    * He not only lived nearby and had easy access to the location where the bodies were found but had a pawnshop a stone's throw away from it by the Blue Beacon not long before the crimes and could reasonably be supposed to be familar with and comfortable negotiating the territory; and

    * Family members are supposed to be suspects until excluded in child homicides anyway.


In reality, the case that might be made against him based on incidents/information that happen to have been reported isn't strong enough to argue for his guilt, imo. So I'm not doing that. I'm just saying that there were grounds for directing more investigative effort in that direction than one interview that weren't ever more insane or less understandable than the only ones to be pursued.

And that was true even when it was thought to be as clearly a sex crime as it appeared before the equivocal forensics came back. Because who knows? Or can, if nobody inquires? Also, correct me if I'm wrong. But I was under the impression that the suspects in occult ritual crime weren't necessarily limited to the one kid who openly showed signs compatible with it who happened to be known to cops, due to the possibility of concealment.

So as far as I know, that wasn't ever a known and established barrier either. But never mind. I'm pursuing a different hypothetical point. Which is:

Do you really think it's so out of the question for a killer who was motivated by the kind of last straw that matches such a scenario to think of staging the crime scene to look like a sadistic sex-crime by strangers that it's worth refusing to acknowledge that there's not actually evidence of sexual assault, although there is the appearance of it and a reason for the surmise?

Or (not to focus unduly on Byers) Let's say there was a completely theoretical biological dad, with or without fabulist tendencies, who wanted to stop paying child support in order to attain a goal he was appropriately passionate about,-- being able to afford to marry a woman with expensive habits, or to pay his debts, or whatever? Do you think there's anything at that crime scene a generic, unknown person wouldn't be capable of thinking of or doing to throw investigators off, assuming he was capable of the murders?

Who really has enough intimate and detailed knowledge about anything tor anybody in the picture here to say that had police looked or asked, they mightn't have found someone with a book or newspaper clipping or overheard conversation about similar schemes lightly hidden somewhere who might then prove to be more solidly tied to the time, place and events than the accused?

On that score, I'm not arguing for or against any theory of the crime being plausible or implausible, per se. I'm arguing that the case for it having been a sexually motivated and sadistic crime is too partial to be a conclusive indication of sadistic or sexual intent. It's possible. It can't be ruled out. But that's not the appropriate standard.

_______________

I don't claim that the above theoretically plausible scenario (Byers; staging) is true. Or that it's more or less plausible than any other, wrt direct evidence. But considering that one of them was thoroughly investigated and went to trial without attaining substantially more heft in that regard, that's saying something.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Tue Feb 26, 2013 6:08 pm

In re: What's been called"the attempted eye-gouging incident":

    Physical Fighting Among Teenagers
    Physical fighting among teenagers is a serious problem in the United States.

    A 1999 national survey of high school students found that in the past year:

    More than 1 in 3 students had been in a physical fight;
    About 1 in 7 had been in a physical fight on school property; and
    About 1 in 9 of those who fought had been hurt badly enough to need medical treatment.

    Physical fights typically involve two or more teens who have chosen to use physical force to resolve a conflict or argument. Because physical fights are so common, many people dismiss them as a normal part of growing up. While it is true that teens (and teenage boys in particular) have always engaged in fistfights, today, many teens carry deadly weapons. In 1999, more than 1 in 4 male high school students said they had carried a weapon in the past month and about 1 in 11 reported carrying a gun. Fights that involve weapons, such as guns, knives, and clubs, are a major cause of serious injuries and death among teenagers.4 Fortunately, increasing numbers of teenagers are learning that while disagreements are inevitable, there are more effective ways to resolve conflicts and keep the peace.

    Facts on teen fighting
    Why do some teens fight?

    When junior and senior high students around the nation were asked to identify the causes of the most recent fights they had witnessed, most frequent responses were:

    Someone insulted someone else or treated them disrespectfully (54 percent).
    There was an ongoing feud or disagreement (44 percent).
    Someone was hit, pushed, shoved, or bumped (42 percent).
    Someone spread rumors or said things about someone else (40 percent).
    Someone could not control his or her anger (39 percent).
    Other people were watching or encouraging the fight (34 percent).
    Someone who likes to fight a lot was involved (26 percent).
    Someone didn't want to look like a loser (21 percent).
    There was an argument over a boyfriend or girlfriend (19 percent).
    Someone wanted to keep a reputation or get a name (17 percent).

    Some teens are much more likely to get into fights than others.

    Male teens are much more likely to fight than females.
    In a recent national survey, 44 percent of male high school students versus 27 percent of female students said they had been in a fight in the past year.
    Younger teens are much more likely to fight than older teens.
    In a recent national survey, over 40 percent of 9th graders said they had been in a fight in the past year, in contrast with only 30 percent of 12th graders.
    Teens who use alcohol and drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and anabolic steroids are much more likely to fight.
    In addition, fight participants who are drunk or high are much more likely to use weapons and cause serious injuries. One study found that when the participants were drunk or high, over 60 percent were seriously injured (with broken bones, loss of consciousness, knife or gunshot wound), and over half used weapons. In contrast, when alcohol and drugs were not involved, only 18 percent of the fights involved serious injuries or weapon use.
    Teens who carry weapons are more likely to be involved in physical fights.
    One study found that students who had carried weapons were more than twice as likely to get in fights. Another found that the students who had fought the most at school were almost 10 times more likely to have carried a gun to school in the past month than those students who didn't fight. Teens who carry weapons are also more likely to suffer serious injuries. When teens fight, those who carry handguns are three times more likely to require medical attention than those who do not carry weapons.

    Teens who fight often put themselves at risk in other ways.

    Over half of the teens who fight also participate in behaviors that can put them or those around them at risk for harm. Such behaviors include using illegal drugs, binge drinking, carrying weapons, and having unsafe sex.

More at link here.

There are no stats specifically addressing how many boys who get into fights scratch their opponent's face with their fingernails, then get sent to the principal's office for it. And there are also none addressing how many teenage boys whose girlfriends left them for a friend go around making dramatic macho threats about it that they don't act on and/or describing whatever childish scuffle actually occurred in exaggerated terms in order to salve their wounded egos.

But I think that's less because any of those things is rare than that none is a very big deal.

As a purely speculative matter, I'd say the reason there are no stats on how many boys who aren't habitually physically violent but have been involved in one school fight go on to commit gruesome murders is that there's no correlation between the two.

But as a factual matter, I'd say that since none is known to exist, that Brent Davis even took that statement is not understandable to me as anything other than an indication that he couldn't find any less pathetic examples of his suspect's homicidal violence and propensity for harming innocent others than that he'd once scratched the face of the friend his girl left him for.

It's not like they had so little violent juvenile crime in Craighead County in the '90s that he wouldn't have known what it looked like. And there's something to be said for examining such things in context. For example, when you look at this...

    A case file dated 6/1/92 reports that Echols “admits to having been suspended 7x this past semester for inciting fights at school, starting small fires, cussing. States in one fight he almost gouged out the victim’s eyes.” (29) A similar report dated 6/2/92 states:

    He has been suspended X7 due to negative behaviors in the classroom. Information does suggest that Damien has set fire to his academic classroom on two occasions, that he has also been truant, engaged in physical confrontations while on school grounds and has, often times, threatened to put “hexes” on school instructors. (236)

...... relative to this...

    Craighead County Teen Accused of Stabbing Dog, Setting House on Fire
    By: KARK 4 News
    Updated: July 19, 2012

    A 16-year-old boy accused of stabbing a dog and setting a relative's house on fire last week is being held by juvenile authorities in Jonesboro.

    The Craighead County Sheriff's Office says it happened outside Lake City.

    The boy faces charges of arson, falsifying a police report and felony aggravated cruelty to animals.

    The dog survived the attack.

    Craighead County officials say it's believed the teen tossed a piece of concrete through a bedroom window and then poured lighter fluid on an outside wall of the home and set it on fire. The fire went out by itself before doing any serious damage.

...it does put the issue of what constitutes seriously violent behavior by a teenager in some perspective.

(IOW, stuff like the alleged attack on the dog would definitely qualify. The issue there is more what prevented anyone from reporting it at the time and/or the police from confirming it later and/or the people reporting it from showing any signs that they were afraid of the kid in question or felt threatened by him.)
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby The Consul » Tue Feb 26, 2013 6:30 pm

Stabbing a dog is beyond the pale. If Nichols really is a psychopath and he actually was guilty one can only expect at this point he will end up killing someone in a parking lot rage if he doesn't become head of Time Warner first.

It is almost too disturbing to even think of. Does it mean Eddie Vedder and Johnny Depp sold their souls to the devil? I will therefore (ala Peter O'Toole in the Ruling Class) put it in my galvanized pressure cooker and vrroooom vrrroom it away and listen instead to this piece of eerie beauty.

" Morals is the butter for those who have no bread."
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby Project Willow » Wed Feb 27, 2013 4:50 am

compared2what? wrote:Living children and studies of them just aren't and can't be the models against which post-mortem findings are measured. It's a different field of medico-legal practice. .


Practitioners undertaking forensic autopsy in this age-group should be familiar with the range of genital findings found in non-abused living children and adolescents, the genital findings described in association with sexual assault and accidental trauma to the genital area in the living child and the medical conditions that may be misinterpreted as signs of sexual abuse.


That's to cover both false positives and false negatives, because of the special qualities of the tissues involved.

Perhaps if the ME had performed a colposcopy he might have found what you wanted, but I'm not going to argue over this anymore. The literature clearly states that tears and lacerations are not required proof of anal rape, and again, I don't need the literature to tell me that.

compared2what? wrote:I'm not denying it in this case, although to get self-defeatingly academic about it, I wouldn't personally make that assertion. There's no reason for all crimes of jealousy, revenge, rage or hatred that include intentional infliction of injury to the genitals to be classified as sexual assaults, imo.

I mean, would you call what Lorena Bobbitt did a sexual assault? I wouldn't.


I most certainly would, but I'm not an academic or an attorney, and apparently not sufficiently concerned with accuracy. I tend to categorize any unwanted touching of the genitals that involves injury as a sexual assault. Add it to the pile of things I've gotten wrong for 30 years.

compared2what? wrote:You're a very righteous woman. You can afford to wear it loosely.


I have room in my pocket book to do without your patented "flattery".

compared2what? wrote:
Image

It's not really correct or accurate to say that in general it's RARE. Or that it's COMMON. Because it's specific to circumstances that rarely occur.


That made me laugh.

compared2what? wrote:
Project Willow wrote:
You said repeatedly "He never hurt anyone,"


Unless I repeatedly said it once, no. Those quotes are a distortion.


There's my damn inaccuracy again, it was "anybody", not "anyone".

1. http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=491496#p491496 "Dude, he never hurt anybody"
2. http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=491496#p491496 "HE NEVER HURT ANYBODY"
3. http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=491544#p491544 "Because he didn't." (hurt anybody)

compared2what? wrote:If you're used to that precision, how did you fail to notice that I conceded he'd been in a fight in which he described trying to enucleate someone's eye, but that I was talking about the kind of violence and harm that's predictive of sadistic killing, which that was not, since it was a fight with his ex-'s new beau?


However you want to interpret his history or relabel that one incident, it wasn't a fair summation, especially to make in all caps in a public discussion where folks aren't going to read every proceeding line.

compared2what? wrote:Also, as a user of words for their meanings yourself, how did you come to be so casual about it that you'd call this...
..a violent fight in which someone got hurt, when even the hardly-likely-to-be-understating-it other party to the conflict doesn't report any exceptional*** violence or injury?


I'm just not into minimizing or using euphemisms, I guess. I'm not ready to completely extract the concept of "violence" from a physical assault that left a scar.

You're asserting that he had a history of hurting people because he allegedly tried to tear out someone's eye and that he was violent because he made death threats during an altercation between teenagers over a girl in which no blows were exchanged, And representing them definitively as seriously dangerous death threats rather than rash angry words. Without careful qualification and/or backing up what you say.

After apparently considering one side of the story for exactly long enough not to summarize it accurately. Or to make it clear that you're talking about a single, emotionally charged incident and not a characteristic pattern of behavior, no matter what your interpretation of it is.


No, I'm not asserting that. You're making the requirement that he exhibit a very specific pattern of violent behavior before being capable of this crime. I don't agree with that requirement. I based my opinion about his capacity to carry it out on his psychological records in the exhibit 500 records, which include features that I said back at the beginning of this thread overlap with those contained in Gilligan's profiles of violent men, like his stated to desire to control people through fear and violence, among others. I've also been acquainted with a number of complicated human beings who were capable of extreme sadism but whose public behavior belied little of that capacity. I haven't posted at length about it.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Wed Feb 27, 2013 5:00 am

The Consul wrote:Stabbing a dog is beyond the pale. If Nichols really is a psychopath and he actukally was guilty one can only expect at this point he will end up killing someone in a parking lot rage if he doesn't become head of Time Warner first.


The main reason to think he didn't attack a dog is:

They could have introduced it during the trial. Because when he testified, Burnett gave the prosecution permission to ask him about unrelated instances of violence on cross. Plus he testified on direct about the dog skull his stepfather gave him.

But although they did bring up the fight with Shane D, they never mention his having disemboweled a dog after stomping it to death. And that's a deal-closer from a juror's POV. It would make me wonder, even now. If true, there's just no way to view that incident except as a sign of extreme cruelty, violence and psychopathic disregard for life. It's indefensible. And they supposedly had an eyewitness, plus corroboration.

So. Its non-appearance in the courtroom during a trial that wasn't too much of a foregone conclusion for them to ask about some pretty tenuous stuff suggests that it wasn't just uncertain whether it happened but capable of disproof.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby compared2what? » Wed Feb 27, 2013 5:42 am

Project Willow wrote:
compared2what? wrote:Living children and studies of them just aren't and can't be the models against which post-mortem findings are measured. It's a different field of medico-legal practice. .


Practitioners undertaking forensic autopsy in this age-group should be familiar with the range of genital findings found in non-abused living children and adolescents, the genital findings described in association with sexual assault and accidental trauma to the genital area in the living child and the medical conditions that may be misinterpreted as signs of sexual abuse.


Yes, they should. But it's still a separate field. People who practice one do not practice the other. They can be aware of what goes on in another specialty in order to apply it appropriately in their own without using the identical standard.

That's to cover both false positives and false negatives, because of the special qualities of the tissues involved.

Perhaps if the ME had performed a colposcopy he might have found what you wanted, but I'm not going to argue over this anymore. The literature clearly states that tears and lacerations are not required proof of anal rape, and again, I don't need the literature to tell me that.


I don't either. But that literature is not about a case like the one we're discussing, and the conditions of the examination and the child are also not applicable. It's a significantly different endeavor.

Also: I don't want him to have found anything. Or not to have found anything. I am merely noting what he did and didn't find, as well as the significance he did and didn't assign to it himself, wrt sodomy having occurred. And without the prosecutor telling him what was in some unnamed literature that wasn't subjected to cross-examination.

Plus, I don't know that he didn't perform a colposcopy. Actually.

compared2what? wrote:I'm not denying it in this case, although to get self-defeatingly academic about it, I wouldn't personally make that assertion. There's no reason for all crimes of jealousy, revenge, rage or hatred that include intentional infliction of injury to the genitals to be classified as sexual assaults, imo.

I mean, would you call what Lorena Bobbitt did a sexual assault? I wouldn't.


I most certainly would, but I'm not an academic or an attorney, and apparently not sufficiently concerned with accuracy. I tend to categorize any unwanted touching of the genitals that involves injury as a sexual assault. Add it to the pile of things I've gotten wrong for 30 years.


That was not a hostile quesiton on my part. I'm not saying you're wrong.

compared2what? wrote:You're a very righteous woman. You can afford to wear it loosely.


I have room in my pocket book to do without your patented "flattery".


Well, fine. Be mad. But I meant it.

compared2what? wrote:
Image

It's not really correct or accurate to say that in general it's RARE. Or that it's COMMON. Because it's specific to circumstances that rarely occur.


That made me laugh.


It is my pleasure to amuse you. But I meant that, too.

compared2what? wrote:
Project Willow wrote:
You said repeatedly "He never hurt anyone,"


Unless I repeatedly said it once, no. Those quotes are a distortion.


There's my damn inaccuracy again, it was "anybody", not "anyone".

1. http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=491496#p491496 "Dude, he never hurt anybody"
2. http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=491496#p491496 "HE NEVER HURT ANYBODY"
3. http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=491544#p491544 "Because he didn't." (hurt anybody)


:oops: My mistake.

compared2what? wrote:If you're used to that precision, how did you fail to notice that I conceded he'd been in a fight in which he described trying to enucleate someone's eye, but that I was talking about the kind of violence and harm that's predictive of sadistic killing, which that was not, since it was a fight with his ex-'s new beau?


However you want to interpret his history or relabel that one incident, it wasn't a fair summation, especially to make in all caps in a public discussion where folks aren't going to read every proceeding line.

compared2what? wrote:Also, as a user of words for their meanings yourself, how did you come to be so casual about it that you'd call this...
..a violent fight in which someone got hurt, when even the hardly-likely-to-be-understating-it other party to the conflict doesn't report any exceptional*** violence or injury?


I'm just not into minimizing or using euphemisms, I guess. I'm not ready to completely extract the concept of "violence" from a physical assault that left a scar.


He's clearly not describing an injury that was serious enough literally to leave scars and means "scratches" when he uses that word.

A physical assault that injures someone is a crime that is dealt with by the police and generates medical records.

Something that can be shut down by the chemistry teacher is a fight.

Same goes for those fires. If they had been serious enough to even damage property, never mind people, there would be more than a note about them. Insurance records. Police reports. Etc. If those things aren't there, he was burning pieces of paper.

You're asserting that he had a history of hurting people because he allegedly tried to tear out someone's eye and that he was violent because he made death threats during an altercation between teenagers over a girl in which no blows were exchanged, And representing them definitively as seriously dangerous death threats rather than rash angry words. Without careful qualification and/or backing up what you say.

After apparently considering one side of the story for exactly long enough not to summarize it accurately. Or to make it clear that you're talking about a single, emotionally charged incident and not a characteristic pattern of behavior, no matter what your interpretation of it is.


No, I'm not asserting that. You're making the requirement that he exhibit a very specific pattern of violent behavior before being capable of this crime. I don't agree with that requirement. I based my opinion about his capacity to carry it out on his psychological records in the exhibit 500 records, which include features that I said back at the beginning of this thread overlap with those contained in Gilligan's profiles of violent men, like his stated to desire to control people through fear and violence, among others. I've also been acquainted with a number of complicated human beings who were capable of extreme sadism but whose public behavior belied little of that capacity. I haven't posted at length about it.


I'm also aware of people who were capable of horrible acts and gave no sign of it. But I don't count that possibility as evidence that someone who's not showing signs of being capable of murder committed one. Because that would apply to everybody else not showing those signs in the same way, equally.

In this case, to every other boy who'd been in a fight at school. And to every other person in the vicinity who had psychiatric records of approximately the same volume and kind. Which, at a minimum, would be dozens and dozens of people in each instance. Because there's not a single aspect of his psychiatric diagnoses or item in his profile that has a high correlation with murderous acts of violence. Or that's predictive of them.

And also because the odds are very high that most people with a bipolar diagnosis and a hospitalization or two for it in their pasts have said and done some quite extreme, angy, morbid and/or volatile things, which were noted in their records.

There's not a hint of correlation between anything psychiatric patients say or do and/or any form of mental illness and a propensity for violent crime, per se..So unless there's an indication of it elsewhere, such as -- let's say -- violence more extreme than getting in a fight at school for a personal reason on a one-time basis, it's not one.

That doesn't exactly become less true just because you really, really want to use it as evidence that someone committed a murder because there's nothing better available to you.

I don't hold you repsonsible for it. But I find this....

FACT - DAMIEN ECHOLS WAS MENTALLY ILL AT THE TIME OF THE MURDERS:
. .

...from the westmemphisthreefacts site offensive. Very.

Millions of people were mentally ill at the time of those murders, using the same standard they're applying to him. And are at the time of every murder everywhere. So what? If there's not evidence that the person's homicidaly violent, my understanding it that they're presumed not to be. No matter what they read. Or say. Or non-homicidally do. Proof is required, in some form. Walking near the crime scene while mentally ill is not enough.
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Re: West Memphis Three Revisited

Postby Project Willow » Wed Feb 27, 2013 6:52 am

compared2what? wrote:I don't either. But that literature is not about a case like the one we're discussing, and the conditions of the examination and the child are also not applicable. It's a significantly different endeavor.


No it isn't, and the literature is applicable specifically because dead people can't testify that they were raped.


compared2what? wrote:He's clearly not describing an injury that was serious enough literally to leave scars and means "scratches" when he uses that word.

A physical assault that injures someone is a crime that is dealt with by the police and generates medical records.

Something that can be shut down by the chemistry teacher is a fight.


This is nutty, this minimizing term "fight", and he said scar. There's no separate classification for "boys will be boys". That was an assault whether it was adjudicated or not. I went through a hearing once where a woman claimed she'd been bruised by spit.

compared2what? wrote:Because there's not a single aspect of his psychiatric diagnoses or item in his profile that has a high correlation with murderous acts of violence. Or that's predictive of them.


Disagree. Lack of remorse for one. Gilligan isn't exactly mainstream, his findings aren't widely circulated, or could be reflected in statistical studies. And the question for me remains capacity.

compared2what? wrote:I don't hold you repsonsible for it. But I find this....

FACT - DAMIEN ECHOLS WAS MENTALLY ILL AT THE TIME OF THE MURDERS:
. .

...from the westmemphisthreefacts site offensive. Very.


No one need tell me about rates of violence among the mentally ill, which are commonly perceived to be but are no higher on average than the general population. They should have just stated that Echols himself wrote "homicidal" on his application for Social Security benefits.
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