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Real Crime Profile

#78: Damien Echols, the Occult and the Robin Hood Hills Case

Real Crime Profile

Real Crime Profile / Wondery

True Crime, Society & Culture, Exhibit C, Documentary

4.210.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2017

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of Real Crime Profile,Jim Clemente and Lisa Zambetti discuss details of the Robin Hood Hills case including the obsession with tying the occult and devil worship to the murders without any evidence and why Damien Echols became the focus of the investigation.

Health Warning: this podcast contains graphic material that maybe upsetting to listeners 


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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:07.0

According to the published report, Ms. Kelly told police he watched 18-year-old Damien Eccles and 16-year-old Jason Baldwin brutalized the children with a club and a knife.

0:19.0

The report says Ms. Kelly told police Eccles and Baldwin raped one of the boys and sexually mutilated another as part of a cult ritual.

0:29.0

Ms. Kelly is quoted as saying he did not take part in the rape immutilation, but that he helps subdue one victim who tried to escape.

0:39.0

It appears Satanic worship may have played a role in the murders. Since the very beginning of the investigation, people all around West Memphis have come forward with stories of Satanic cults.

0:52.0

Reverend Tommy Stacey's church is down the street from where the bodies were found. One year ago, Damien Eccles told the church's youth minister he had a pact with the devil and he was going to hell.

1:05.0

Hello and welcome to Real Crime Profile. This is Jim Clemente, retired FBI profiler, former New York City prosecutor and writer producer on CBS' Criminal Minds. And with me today is...

1:19.0

Lisa Zambetti, casting director of Criminal Minds, where Jim Clemente is my colleague and I have a real interesting Real to Crime and the minds that solve those crimes. So there's somebody missing from this table.

1:29.0

Well, yeah. Laura's back in the UK doing some great stuff with Paladin and we are going to sort of do a split episode.

1:40.0

Yeah, so I've recorded with Laura. We've talked about a lot of things about this case and lots of things that I want to talk to Jim about.

1:46.0

So we're going to cut the plates together and divert. Jim, we talked a lot about Jesse Miskele's confession in the last episode. I just want to pick it up just one more time with you because he confessed so many times.

2:00.0

It's a real pivot point for people who don't believe in false confessions that why would he after confessing to the police then continue to confess to his lawyer and then recant?

2:11.0

And then after his trial confess again and I mean his defense attorney would say that he's confessing again after the trial to try to get a lesser sentence and the prosecutors have gotten to him.

2:24.0

Well, yeah, there's a whole bunch of reasons but the point is in this case it wasn't multiple confessions. It was a false confession that was induced basically and then he had to stick to that because otherwise then he'd be called out as a liar.

2:40.0

And so what he's trying to do is be consistent at that point once the police get him to quote confess without actually drilling down and getting real accurate information.

2:52.0

I mean, remember there was eight times that he was re-asked what time they got together and out in the Robin Hood Hills.

2:59.0

Eight times before quote he got it right. Clearly those are indicators of a false confession, not a true confession.

3:08.0

And instead of drilling down and getting details from him that they didn't know they only got details from him that they already knew which is another indication that it's a false confession.

3:18.0

But then when he repeats it and incorrectly and it accurately over time it's again another indication of a false confession.

3:26.0

So to say that he confessed a number of times, no, what it was was he gets locked into a quote confession and then he tries to support that.

3:36.0

His inability to do so doesn't give you, doesn't give credibility to the confession. It actually undermines the credibility of confession.

3:48.0

So for a lot of people in this case, there are pivot points. There are just things that if you believe it was a satanic ritual, you will never believe that it's not and then you will believe that these boys are guilty because of their involvement with satanism or not.

...

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