Ted Bundy is the most notorious killer to have been convicted of murder using forensic odontology (dentistry). After murdering almost 30 women (maybe even closer to 40), he still hadn't been connected to all of his crimes. Even after multiple arrests & jail escapes, he was still killing. One of his last massacres was a sorority house attack in Florida. The only evidence linking Bundy to that crime was bite marks. Without the bite mark evidence, he may not have been convicted of the two murders, both of which resulted in death sentences. Soon after, he was tried for another murder (believed to be his last) where he was largely convicted on the basis of fiber evidence.
This short history of forensic science is a quick lesson needeed before reading another far more troubling story. There's not much that could be more troubling than a sociopathic serial killer murdering lots of innocent women, but some miscarriages of American justice are equally chilling. In 1993, three 8 year old boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. Soon afterward, 3 teenage boys (one of them mentally retarded), were convicted of the crimes. Two received life sentences, the other's on death row. There was no forensic evidence linking any of the teens to the crime; In fact, fibers, bite marks & other scientific findings generally exclude the suspects. It seems as though the jury was influenced by sensationalized media coverage of the horrific crimes, as well as unprofessional investigative tactics & a foolhardy judge who made light of scientific data & evidence.
We should all be familiar with the cause to Free the West Memphis 3 because it's definitely the kind of situation that could happen to any innocent person. There was no path to the murder scene in the woods so evidence was compromised by inexperienced investigators & lookie-loos trampling the crime scene, with some of them openly smoking cigarettes & stomping out the butts near the bodies. One of the interlopers at the scene was a local juvie officer who -- from a partial view of the bodies & crime -- surmised that the crimes were the result of a satanic cult. He quickly went on to name members of this imaginary cult & police were off on a witch hunt with a very direct target. That seems like a really unfair statement, right? But the investigating officers & multiple eyewitnesses acknowledge that a nearby fast food joint called 911 to report a blood-soaked stranger who had locked himself in the bathroom around the same time the bodies were discovered. One would think police would dispatch an officer from the nearby scene of a triple homicide to investigate such a call but they didn't. Hours later, an officer showed up but never even entered, just went through the drive-thru to ascertain that the blood-soaked stranger had in fact fled. Blood samples taken from the bathroom were either degraded or lost but weren't usable for the defense.
These boys were convited as teens & have spent their entire adult lives in prison. Maybe this story has always haunted me because we're the same age; While I was getting ready for prom & going to college orientation, these boys we being railroaded by a system not even resembling justice. The men all steadfastly maintain their innocence & have a lot of evidence on their side. Among other things, bite marks on the victims bodies conclusively exclude all three men from being the biter but the trial judge, who didn't know what forensic odontology was, made jokes about the science. Incidentally, bite marks on murdered children are often a hallmark when a parent commits homicide, but none of the parents were ever thoroughly investigated, even though hair evidence linked one victims father to the crime & a bloody knife linked the father of another victim.
The entire investigation centered around the suspects named by the juvie officer even with no physical evidence & only a paranoid motive of satanic ritual killing (and despite a lack of evidence that the boys were Satanists). After hours of questioing a minor with no parents or legal counsel, the mentally reatrded boy gave a confession with all the wrong details including time of day, weapons used, cause of death & many other aspects. Less than an hour of the confession was recorded. He retracted it almost immediately & has never changed his story since. The conviction rests on the confession & on circumstantial evidence, as there was no physical evidence linking any of the 3 men on trial to the crime. If anything, the physical evidence was enough for reasonable doubt or even outright exoneration. Such as it is, this Arkansas brand of justice showed a jury "evidence" of devious minds capable of murdering three children for thrills.
That "evidence" included Metallica t-shirts, black clothes & books the defendents owned or borrowed from the local library (books by Stephen King, Anne Rice & books on Wicca). The prosecution went so far as to fly in a supposed expert on the occult who turned out to be a run-of-the-mill loony with some phony mail-order degree (he has since been completely discredited & the "school" shut down by the government). Most or all of the appeals in this case have been heard -- and subsequently denied -- by the judge who presided over the original trials. Even with an army of international support crusading for the case to be reopened, the men sit in prison while the rest of us are left to wonder if the real killer or killers are still taking lives. Despite the efforts of many advocacy groups & lots of high-profile supporters (including former Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, who has supposedly commented on this as being a disturbing case, I'm tracking down the quote), the most recent attempts to gain a re-trial were refused by a circuit court judge in January 2010.
Despite years of protests, petitions & demonstrations, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee always ignored the contradictions of the case & refused to get involved. Astonishingly, Huckabee is well-known for granting clemency to the undeserving which made him relatively unpopular with prosecutors & some law enforcement agencies. The instances of commuted sentences, pardons & early release of violent offenders are alledgedly in the thousands, including at least a dozen murderers. Huckabee was notoriously stoic, refusing to explain his reasoning for these seemingly irrational decisions, which are rumored to be based on personal ties, political influence & claims of having found religion in prison. Among others, he released one convicted rapist/murder who raped & murdered again within a year, as well as commuting a 35 year sentence in under ten years for a notoriously violent man who later murdered 4 police officers in Tacoma.
An HBO documentary crew went to film some of the trial for a piece on kids who kill but soon became convinced that the teens were probably innocent but at the very least sorely deserving of a second trial. The end product was the documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills followed by a sequel (both from respected filmmakers Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky). The case is far too nuanced & complex for me to paint a full picture but it's certainly a story we should all know. Visit the WM3 website to read the details for yourself. There's also a great book about the case called Devil’s Knot by Mara Levitt . Be prepared to be shocked through & through if you choose to watch the documentaries, both of which pack a powerful punch. Take the time, because it's the kind of thing that could happen to anyone. I don't know a single person who hasn't read King or Rice, who doesn't own a black concert t-shirt, who doesn't listen to bands that may be found objectionable by some authorities in a small town in the Bible Belt. Countless lives are ruined, people are suffering interminably & nobody is even trying to find the real killer or killers who got away with murder -- and could be killing others to this day.
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