June 18, 2006 at 10:28:04

A Perfect Storm Of Injustice

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A Perfect Storm Of Injustice

Attn: Gov. Mike Huckabee
P.O. Box 7406
Little Rock, AR 72217

Dear Governor Huckabee,

On May 5,1993, a perfect storm of horrifying injustice followed the even more horrifying murders of three eight-year-old buddies in West Memphis, Arkansas. Multiple elements of human incompetence, human prejudices, human hysteria, human arrogance and human complacency swirled together to create an unnatural disaster that continues to stain the consciences of those who have bothered to investigate the travesty.
Though all the boys had been stripped, bound, bludgeoned, tortured, murdered; only one had also been sexually mutilated . Following an incredibly inept....perhaps even a corrupt investigation by the West Memphis Police authorities in which obvious leads were ignored; the case seemed stymied until the focus--- albeit aided by a hysterical child's shifting tales and by the active efforts of the child's mother in her plans to entrap three area teenagers ...zeroed in on Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Miskelly. A review of the scant facts of the case suggests Damien's crimes were his adolescent rebellion, his changing his name from Michael to Damien and his grossly violated psychiatric history; 112 pound Jason who was 16 years old though looked barely pubescent committed the crime of being Damien's friend and Jessie who stood just over five feet tall had a history of intellectual/academic retardation very probably committed the grave crime of falsely confessing in an illegal police interrogation. With considerable additional help from police authorities, Jessie also falsely implicated Damien and Jason.
Today, 13 years later , Damien is on Arkansas' Death Row, while Jason and Jessie are serving life without parole. All three boys were convicted despite no tangible evidence related to gruesome, bloody murders...no blood at the scene, no ability to transport themselves to and from the scene, no weapons.... convictions supported only by grotesquely pro-prosecution sentiments of the presiding judge,community hysteria, proven police corruption, the obscenely biased testimony of pathetically unqualified "experts" and a legal review system in Arkansas that appears solely devoted to "covering ass"!
The facts surrounding the unusual circumstances adherring to the one and only murdered child who was also brutally and sexually mutilated in an obvious " act of rage " rather than a " satanic cult ritual " leads to a profoundly unexplored avenue of any search for truth. This ignored search is further fueled by the eerily mysterious death of the mutilated child's mother a few months after the tragic murder of her son.
Mr. Reverend Governor, this case now referred to the world over as the WM3 Travesty cries out for your active review and your demand for justice. Isn't it time for you to provide more than pious lip service to your Christian principles ?
Isn't it time for you to.. as is your delight in using sports metaphors..to " step up to the plate "?

Roy Murtishaw
Pine Bluff,AR

I'm a 65 year-old disabled/retired psychotherapist who is a proud activist liberal despite my having lived in Pine Bluff,Arkansas amidst extreme conservatives all my life. I was a single father to a now 38-year-old Califonia Energy Policy Analyst (more...)

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