Murders: The Jessie Misskelley Trial

On May 5th 1993, the bodies of three 8year old boys, Michael Moore, Steve Branch and Christopher Byers were found murdered in an area known as Robin Hood Hills in West Memphis, Arkansas. The investigation to these murders had seen three teenage boys, Damien Echols, 18, Jason Baldwin, 16 and Jessie Misskelley, 17, charged, found guilty of these murders and released from jail under an Alford plea in 2011. Firstly, some of the key elements of the investigation will be discussed, such as Jessie Misskelley’s confession and the assertion that the children were killed as part of a satanic ritual (Stidham, Fitzgerald, & Baldwin, 2012). Following this, some flaws and errors that were found in Jessie Misskelley’s inaccurate confession and the defence’s

This confession was given on the 3rd June at 2.44pm in the presence of Chief Inspector Gary Gitchell and Detective Bryn Ridge of the West Memphis Police (Jessie Misskelley Investigative Report, 2001). The defence had expert witness, social psychologist, Dr Richard Ofshe, ready to attend the trial to explain why the police coercion made Jessie Misskelley’s confession involuntary though they were never allowed to take the stand to state their findings (Miskelley Trial - Hearing, 2001). Jessie Misskelley’s confession was classed as a ‘False Compliant Coerced Confession’ in the eyes of experts, this being due to the psychological pressure put on him and even a person with a normal IQ would begin to break down psychologically after four to six hours of interrogation (Stidham, Fitzgerald, & Baldwin, 2012). Jessie Misskelley Jr denied knowing anything about the murdered repeatedly but after being told about the $50,000 reward, that he didn’t pass the polygraph exam, using a tape recording of a child’s voice stating that only they knew what happened to scare him and by showing him pictures of the victims, it was only then that Mr Misskelley Jr lied and confessed to being there and knowing what happened (Stidham, Fitzgerald, & Baldwin,

Linder, 2013). The West Memphis Police department also had a video camera available to them but decided against using this to record the confession as the detectives that interrogated him did not want it to be seen that they were prompting Jessie Misskelley Jr to correct any misstatements about the facts of the case (Stidham, Fitzgerald, & Baldwin, 2012). It was also shown that Jessie Misskelley Jr confessed to them tying the boys up with rope when in actual fact they were tied up with their own shoelaces, and the time that he states Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and himself murdered the boys was incorrect but the police coerced him to change his stated time to the actual time they went missing (Berlinger & Sinofsky, Paradise Lose 2 Revelations,