Murders: The Jessie Misskelley Trial

In 1836, the gruesome death of a prostitute encaptivated the public eye and began a newspaper frenzy that centered on a morbid fixation of the life and death of Helen Jewett. Patricia Cline Cohen's The Murder of Helen Jewett pieces together the facts of Helen's life and death in an attempt to describe gender inequality in America by giving a meticulous account of life in the 1830s. (Insert small biography) Around three in the morning on Sunday, April 10, 1836 Rosina Townsend, the madam of the brothel, was spurred from her bed at the south end of Thomas St by a man knocking on the front door.

In September 1983, an 11 year old female by the name of Sabrina Buie was found dead in a soybean field in Robeson County. She was beaten very bad, She was also raped and suffocated. As days passed , police got noticed that two teenagers could be a prime suspect for the crime. Their names were Henry Lee McCollum age 19, and Leon Brown, who are 15. They also were step brothers.

15 year old Hannah Spellmen was announced dead on August 14 1909 in Bridgeport. After 5 months of investigating the trial was closed because the only clue that was left was her drawing book but all the pages were blank. Hannah was known for her dark grey eyes. 87 years later it was warm spring and 15 year old Emily Martin found herself in her mom 's room looking for shoes to match her dark grey eyes only to find a musty box. Reports, newspapers, articles all about a girl who disappeared and under all that was a drawing book.

Imagine, suddenly being put on trial and locked away for 18 years and 78 days for a crime you did not commit. This is exactly what happened to Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin when they were convicted for the murder of three young boys: Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Steve Branch. When the bodies of the boys were discovered immense pressure was put on the police and they needed to act quickly. The teens were the obvious and safest choice as they were seen by the community as weird and mischievous. Not to mention there were many rumors saying the group was involved in a satanic cult which supposedly led to the three young boys’ demise.

Marie Delphine LaLaurie tortured innocent slaves due to her family’s murders during the slave uprising of 1811. After her family’s deaths all three of her husband’s mysteriously died or disappeared. Her first husband, Don Ramon De Lopez y Angullo was a high ranking Spanish officer and died on March 26, 1804 mysteriously during a falling out with the king of Spain. Her second husband Jean Blanque was a prominent banker, merchant, lawyer, legislator, and well-known slave trader. They were married for two years before he died unexpectedly reasons as to why are unknown (A Portrait of Cruelty).

At the young age of fourteen years old, Steven Truscott was wrongfully accused for the murder of his classmate, Lynne Harper. The evening of her death occurred on June 9, 1959. Steven was seen giving Lynne a ride home on his bicycle that evening. Lynne’s father reported her missing that night and she was found dead in a nearby wooded area, two days later. Lynne had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

The people accused in the West Memphis Three case were Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin. These boys didn’t have a sufficient amount of evidence to be charged guilty. A few reasons they were considered guilty is because, Jessie Misskelley did confess several times witnessing these children being killed. Jesse Misskelley also had mentioned he has partaken in satanic worships.

Robert Latimer was convicted for murdering his 12 year old daughter, Tracy Latimer. Tracy had cerebral palsy that lead to severe mental and physical disabilities causing seizures. She was constantly experiencing severe pain and had five or six seizures a day. On October 24, 1993, Tracy died in the care of her father, while the rest of her family had gone to church. Her father informed the RCMP that she died in her sleep.

Brendan C Lindsay author of Murder State writes about the early stage of California the violence that occurred, genocide of native people in the time era of 1846 to 1873. There are two claims that Lindsay makes in the book about the violence towards the native people and the genocide created by democracy of the Euro Americans. He demonstrates these two arguments by first the Euro Americans coming into the native people’s territory and taking it away from them and also the democracy that killed all the innocent native Indians. In Lindsay’s book Murder state there are three sections to the book “Imaging Genocide”, “Perpetuating Genocide” and “Supporting Genocide”.

One of the main pieces of evidence that prosecutors used against the West Memphis Three relied on the confession given by Jessie Misskelley. This so-called “confession” consisted of a story that placed both Echols and Baldwin at the scene of the crime, included information directly fed to Misskelley, and above all, contained major discrepancies within the story Misskelley provided versus the events that actually took place. During the first recorded confession, Misskelley incorrectly identified the time of the murder more than once, claiming that the “events took place about 9:00 a.m. on May 5” and later “chang[ing] that time to 12:00 noon,” which was still incorrect(). He also mentioned that “[the three boys] had skipped school that day,” when, in fact, they had attended class and were accounted for, along with misidentifying the item used to tie up the boys, claiming the item was rope when it was actually shoelaces that were used(). Misskelley also implied that the victims were raped, though no evidence supported his indication.

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome back to CTV News at 9:00 PM. I am Lisa LaFlamme. Tonight we are looking at the trial that is causing interest all over the country. The trial for the murder of Candy Kane. Mine Mean is the accused and he is presumed to be the killer of Kane.

Within The Crucible, it is evident that people are coerced to lie. This involves both kids and adults, and they mainly do this because of Abigail. During the trials, if you were accused nothing could save you. If you denied it, you would be hung. If you admitted it, you would be hung.

Kalissa Rogers The Trial of all Trials:The O.J. Simpson Murder Case The case of the century, the one that everyone made sure to keep up on through the many months it was on; “People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson.” This case is one that nobody will forget. There were many months of blood, sweat, and tears put in by both sides for the final verdict, O.J. Simpson had been found not guilty. It all started on June 12, 1994 at around ten P.M. when Nicole Brown- Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered(Linder).

In an attempt to influence the jury, the prosecution and defense of the Lizzie Borden trial utilized female stereotypes in intricate ways. Understandably, the defense applied the public labels for women to convince the jury that Lizzie Borden could not possibly commit murder, let alone kill her own father and stepmother. The defense’s main goal became proving that Lizzie Borden’s actions and attitudes fit the stereotypical description of a Victorian Era woman. Throughout the trial, the defense provided seemingly indirect remarks regarding Lizzie Borden’s feminine nature to intentionally develop the idea of her innocence in the minds of jury members (Carlson). The defense often referred to Lizzie as “’a little girl’”

In Oceanside, both indicated deception when it came to involvement of the murders. Morgan later confessed being involved. The West Memphis failed to follow this lead as well. Nevertheless, the police fixated on Damien Echols because of his supposed involvement with cult activity. Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was interrogated for 12 hours with no parent and only a small part of this interrogation was filmed.