The West Memphis Three Case Analysis

Given the nickname “Ford Heights Four” the wrongful conviction of Kenneth Adams, along with Verneal Jimmerson, Dennis Wiliams, and Willie Rainge, was for the shooting of a recently engaged couple and gang-raping the female. In 1978, the couple had been abducted from a gas station close to where the man worked. They were found later in Ford Heights, Chicago, Pinning these four men with accusations of committing a crime. The four men then became suspects for the crime due to a false tip the police had received. Later the four men were brought into be questioned, along with Adam’s girlfriend, Paula Gray. At the time of the crime she could not read or write.

      Fifteen hundred miles away, in Portland, Oregon Brandon Roses ten is found guilty of murdering his five-year-old sister because he claimed that she was annoying him. Later investigators found out that Brandon’s father had told him that killing his sister was “OK”, because he was too young to be put in jail. Another investigation is currently under way (Edmonds). In Austin, Texas, two young men Efrain Perez and Raul Villareal were both seventeen in June of 1993. As part of Villareal’s gang initiation, the boys spent the evening in an open field drinking and fighting among

The movie “The Central Park Five” was a documentary film. It is talking about five young men were involved in a rape case. One white woman was raped and left for dead in the central park in 1989. Police officers arrested five fifteen years old suspects. The government did not have enough evidence to judge these five black men and Latino Americans; however, because of the racial discrimination, the justices judged them as guilty and sentenced them to jail about 9 to 15 years. After few months, Matias Reyes confessed to the rape case and the lab test also showed that the sperm was matched. The five teenagers were released after the suspect confessed his crime. Directors of the movie, Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David Mcmahon, used

(117 book) Numerous celebrities sought the freedom of the “West Memphis Three” as they came to be called after their imprisonment (Robertson 1). These celebrities were putting their face out there by attaching it to a cause. This is advertisement for them.

In the video “The Confessions” presented by Frontline, a murder of a women that was committed by one man, quickly resulted into a false gang murder-rape scene committed by eight men. The victim, Michelle Bosko, was seen to be raped and killed in her apartment in Norfolk, Virginia. From the video, it has been proven that seven out of the eight men that confessed were innocent, but somehow they all received an unequal punishment. Because the innocent men admitted to a murder that they didn’t commit out of fear, they were all sentenced to some time in prison. The head detective, Glenn Ford, intimidated the men so much that they either were convinced that they were at the crime scene or they told him every detail that he wanted to hear.

When this Central park case was made public, the New York Police Department and District Attorney office’s main focus was to solve the case as quickly as possible. When the five teenagers were found “wilding” in the park the night of the women’s death, the police believed they had found the suspects. The police were so confident of the teenager’s guiltiness, the five boys were interrogated of their involvement in the crime. The police used their authority and persuasion to get the boys to confess and promise them that they would go home if they talked. Through strenuous and intense interrogation, the five boys confessed to the killing and rape of the young women on videotape. These confessions were given even though

In the article “Emmett Till” the story of 14- year old, Emmett Till’s unexpected murder is told. Emmett was a young boy from Chicago, who in August 1955 hopped onto a train with his uncle and cousin to visit their family in Money, Mississippi. On his third day in Mississippi, Till visited a local grocery store with a group of teenagers. Inside the store he bought bubblegum and was accused of either whistling at, flirting with, or touching the hand of the store’s clerk, Carolyn Bryant. The store’s clerk was a white woman who was married to the owner of the store, four days later her husband, Roy Bryant and his brother J.W. Milam kidnapped and murdered Emmett Till. A few days later, Till’s mutilated body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River and could only be recognized by his late father’s ring that was on his finger. The case was taken to court and the two men were not charged with any crimes. Till’s body was shipped to his mother in Chicago where she opted to have an open casket, and the story of what had happened brought outrage to the country.

Is it possible for a woman who is in the public eye to murder her husband, the father of their one year old daughter? Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love had a difficult relationship that resulted in a lot of rumors. Some people may wonder who is Kurt Cobain, he is a musician with conspiracy theory about how he died, although the police say he committed suicide some people think he was murdered, this paper talks about who he was, leading up to him being found, and how he was found.

There was no evidence collected and tested at the crime scene which could have proved who committed the murders. A lieutenant who contacted a juvenile officer in Memphis both agreed that the murders had to have been done by someone in a cult. The juvenile officer quickly knew of someone who was involved in a cult and said this juvenile could be capable of a crime like this. The accused, Damien Echols, was immediately interviewed and asked questions that the police believed no one but the killer would know the answers to. The answers that were given by Damien Echols were known answers throughout the community and this made Damien look guilty. Damien’s appearance was very strange and different and he was not considered “normal” in the communities beliefs. He was considered guilty by his Wiccan beliefs and his gothic appearance. Not only was Damien deemed guilty of this crime, but two other boys were also accused of these murders. There are many inconsistencies with the case. The police did not collect all evidence in the woods that could have been collected to possibly link the murders to someone. According to TruTV Crime Library, there was a boy who claimed he saw who committed the murders. He claimed he even saw men who spoke Spanish commit the murders. He later changed his story and said he saw one of the victim’s fathers killing the three boys. This same boy could not even identify two of the boys

On the late evening of June 12th, 1994, a fellow Brentwood neighbor went to investigate why a nearby dog was constantly howling when they discovered the grisly murder scene(Geis & Bienen, 2016). The victims, 35-year-old Nicole Brown Simpson and 25-year-old Ronald Goldman, were violently stabbed to death with a knife in the walkway of Nicole’s home(Geis & Bienen, 2016). Nicole Brown Simpson was the

On the night of April 19th, 1989 in New York City’s Central Park there were a number of assaults and attacks happening. Trisha went out for her routine jog through Central Park. She did not make it home and was found by a police officer in a wooded area beaten almost to death (Innocent Project, 2016). There were about 30 teenagers out that night causing chaos in Central Park. The police had picked up Raymond Santana and many others that night from the streets. Raymond Santana was one of the five young men who later would falsely confess to the assault and rape of Trisha Meilli (Innocence Project, 2016). According to the Innocence Project (2016), Santana also gave a videotaped confession along with four of the other suspects. The other young men were Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, and Korey Wise. All of these men, including Santana, were convicted of the attacks (Innocence Project, 2016). However, Santana was a juvenile at the time and was sentenced to five to ten years. Then, in 2002 Matias Reyes, confessed to the attack on the Central Park jogger and admitted that he was alone in the act. DNA from Reyes was cross matched with DNA from the rape kit and the hairs found on the victim (Innocence Project, 2016). The five young men’s convictions were then overturned. Santana spent five years in prison for a crime that he falsely confessed

JonBenét Ramsey was murdered in October of 1996. For the last fifteen years police have tried to solve the case, but have had little success. As such, the suspect remains at-large. Due to the high profile of the case it has received national attention. Many people kept track of findings through the news, social media, and with the publishing of books and film. Speculation about the case still remains a popular topic in various genres for the public and other interested parties. The way the case was handled by authorities, the high profile of the Ramsey family, and the lack of cooperation in the form of initial formal interviews by the Ramsey family, all contributed to the lack of progress and the unsuccessful solving of the case.

On October 16th in Mississippi a teenager was burned to death. The suspected person was a 29 year old man named Quinton Tellis. If persecuted he would be faced with life in prison. The verdict was a hung jury. The jury consisted of 6 African Americans and 6 white jurors. The jury had some confusion and after a retry with the poll of votes they couldn’t come up with verdict. The teenager's name was Jessica chambers. She died on December 6th due to the 3rd degree burns all over her body. During the trial eight persons on site testified that she said "Eric set me on fire". There was debates on what she meant to say. The way they found out is that they tracked Quinton's phone records. He had deleted all conversations with her but had been talking

Steven Avery, a family man, a victim of injustice and an accused murderer. One may have reasoned that his murder conviction was a crime of passion, due to the injustice Steven suffered from his 1985 false conviction of rape and assault, but that may have been before his story caught national attention. A documentary, “Making a Murderer”, directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, arose from his story’s infamy. With this documentary came numerous questions as to Avery’s possible innocence, but above all else answers that shed light on a possibly corrupt justice system that appears intent on framing Steven Avery for Teresa Halbach’s murder. “Making a Murderer” effectively portrays a message of the injustice of Steven Avery’s murder conviction and possible corruption within the Manitowoc’s justice system through the use of footage and accounts from people who were involved with his conviction.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and analyze the practices conducted by law enforcement during the investigation of the murder of Ashley Smith. The following pages will discuss the crime scene investigation, the evidence collection, the investigative steps following the initial crime scene investigation, the interviews of witnesses and suspects, and other strategies performed by the acting case investigators. Constitutional challenges have surfaced regarding specific pieces of critical evidence and a section of this paper will analyze the admissibility of this evidence. Lastly this case’s law enforcement processes will be contrasted with textbook processes in an effort to determine the validity of the case’s outcome.