Transcript
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In 1993, West Memphis, Arkansas was a quiet town, where the biggest worry was whether
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the kids would make it home for dinner on time.
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That piece shattered when the bodies of three eight-year-old boys were found in a wooded
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area called Robin Hood Hills.
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This wasn't a random act of violence, it was calculated, deliberate, and horrific.
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The investigation did not waste time.
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All roads seemed to lead to Damian Eccles, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Muskelli, a trio
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who stood out for all the wrong reasons in a town caught up in the grip of Satanic panic.
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Evidence mounted, fibers tying them to the crime scene, witness accounts of Damian bragging,
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and Jesse's confession that laid it all bare.
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Tonight we're diving into the case that ripped a community apart and left no room for
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doubt.
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Were these three teenagers dangerous killers hiding behind a facade of teenage rebellion,
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or did the town's fear create monsters out of misfits?
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We'll take a closer look.
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But before we get into that story, if you like your true crime brief and bingeable, you
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found the right podcast.
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I give you at least two episodes per week, so hit the follow button now, and welcome
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to 10 Minute Murder.
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In 1993, Westman Fissarkin saw was the kind of place where people left their doors unlocked,
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and the kids rode their bikes until the street light came on.
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That piece shattered when the bodies of three eight-year-old boys, Stevie Branch, Christopher
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Buyers, and Michael Moore, were discovered in a wooded area called Robin Hood Hills.
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Their deaths weren't just horrific.
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They were staged in a way that left no question about the perpetrator's intent.
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This wasn't random violence.
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It was calculated and methodical.
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The investigation did not meander.
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It zeroed in quickly on Damian Eccles, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Miss Kelly.
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Three local teens who stood out like flashing red warning signs.
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Damian with his penchant for black clothing, dark poetry, and all things occult, was a
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walking stereotype of trouble during the height of Satanic panic.
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Jason Baldwin, his loyal friend, followed his lead, while Jesse Miss Kelly, a teenager
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with low IQ, often tagged along.
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Together, they were the perfect suspects in a crime that wreaked of premeditation and
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ritual.
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This wasn't a case of the police grabbing its straws.
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The evidence began to stack up.
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Fibers that connected them to the crime scene witnessed testimonies about Damian bragging
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and most damning of all.
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Jesse's confession.
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Short, Jesse's story wasn't airtight, but his detailed account of how the boys were
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lured and killed painted a picture that was hard to ignore.
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These weren't just three kids with bad reputations.
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They were dangerous individuals who had committed an act so monstrous that it shook an entire
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town to its core.
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For the prosecution, this wasn't just a case.
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It was a mandate.
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These boys weren't misunderstood teens rebelling against authority.
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They were calculated killers who needed to be held accountable.
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The jury agreed, as did the community.
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To the victim's families, justice wasn't just served.
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It was necessary.
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The West Memphis 3 had stolen the lives of Stevie, Christopher, and Michael, and in doing
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so, they'd forfeited their own.
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As the years went on, a handful of critics tried to pick apart the case.
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They suggested that the three were scapegoats.
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Victims of a town blinded by fear.
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But for many who followed the trial, the facts remained clear.
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This wasn't about hysteria or rush judgment.
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This was about holding the guilty accountable.
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Justice doesn't always look clean, but in this case, it looked right.
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On May 6, 1993, Mark the Day West Memphis Arkansas lost its innocence.
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Three second grade boys, Stevie, Christopher, and Michael, had been reported missing the
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evening before.
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They'd gone out on their bikes after school, like any other day, and vanished.
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The search ended the next day in Robin Hood Hills, a wooded area that would forever be
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associated with one of the most gruesome crime scenes in the town's history.
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What searchers found was beyond horrific.
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The boys' bodies were submerged in a drainage ditch, stripped of their clothing and bound
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with their own shoelaces.
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Christopher had endured wounds so severe that investigators immediately suspected ritualistic
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mutilation.
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This wasn't just a crime.
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It was a calculated act of depravity.
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For a small town already swept up in the satanic panic, it felt like the ultimate nightmare brought
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to life.
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This wasn't the kind of case that left room for ambiguity.
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The staging of the scene, the binding, the violence, was purposeful.
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It spoke of the control and intent, the kind of cruelty that couldn't be dismissed as
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random.
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The whispers of satanic rituals weren't just fueled by cultural hysteria.
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They were born from the crime scene itself.
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For the families of Stevie, Christopher, and Michael, grief wasn't even the half of it,
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losing a child as every parent's worst fear, but to lose them like this in a way that
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felt almost otherworldly in its cruelty, pushed that fear into unspeakable territory.
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The community rallied, offering prayers, casseroles, and plenty of theories about who could
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have done something so heinous.
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Underneath it all, a cold, truth lingered.
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If such evil could happen here, nowhere was safe.
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The need for justice burned through West Memphis like a fever.
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Fueled by fear and heartbreak, the investigation quickly honed on three suspects.
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Damien Eccles, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Miss Kelly.
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They didn't just fit the profile, they were the profile.
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In a town desperate for answers, the wheels of justice were already turning, and for many,
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it wasn't about whether they were guilty.
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It was about making sure this evil never struck again.
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The investigation into the murders of the three young boys gained momentum quickly, and
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all roads pointed to Damien Eccles.
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Damien wasn't just the odd kid in West Memphis.
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He was a walking checklist of everything parents and police feared.
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He wore black, loved, dark poetry, and he had an open fascination with the occult.
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In a town still caught up in the grip of Satanic panic, as I mentioned, Damien's entire persona
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might as well have come with a neon sign flashing guilty.
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To law enforcement, he wasn't just a teenager who stood out.
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He was exactly the kind of person capable of orchestrating something as calculated and brutal
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as a ritualistic killing.
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He definitely had the knowledge of how to do so.
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Two more names followed.
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Jason Baldwin, Damien's close friend, and Jesse Miss Kelly, a teenager with a low IQ who
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often tagged along with the pair.
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The three weren't just misfits.
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They were atrio bound by shared interests that painted a dark picture of their intentions.
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They quickly became the focus of a case that, for investigators, seemed to be writing
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itself.
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The first major breakthrough came when Jesse Miss Kelly confessed during an interrogation.
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Critics may question the tactics used, but Jesse's detailed account of how he, Damien
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and Jason, lured the boys to Robin Hood Hills and murdered them, was as graphic as it was
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damning.
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Sure, some of the finer details didn't perfectly align with the evidence, but the overall story
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was consistent with what investigators believed happened.
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For police, this was the smoking gun they needed.
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Then there were the witnesses.
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The people who claimed Damien had openly bragged about the murders.
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While some of these accounts were shaky, they painted a clear picture of a teenager who
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wasn't just capable of the crime, but reveling in it.
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The forensic evidence added another layer.
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Fibers found that the crime scene reportedly matched items from Damien and Jason's homes.
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While not bulletproof, the evidence was enough to solidify the case.
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Damien's own behavior didn't help his situation.
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During the investigation, he was described as calm, detached, and even amused.
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For law enforcement, this wasn't just the teenager with a bad attitude.
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It was the behavior of a killer who felt untouchable.
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To the police, Damien wasn't just a suspect.
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He was the embodiment of everything they believed had darkened their town.
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By the time the case was ready for trial, investigators felt confident.
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They had a confession, eyewitness testimonies, and forensic evidence.
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With the police and prosecutors, this was more than just solving a crime.
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It was about sending a message.
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The murders of three young boys weren't going unanswered, and the West Memphis 3 weren't
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getting away with it.
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The trial of the West Memphis 3 wasn't just a courtroom drama.
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It was a reckoning.
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At its heart was Jason Miskelli's confession, the backbone of the state's case.
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Jesse described in chilling detail how he, Damien, and Jason, lured Stevie, Christopher,
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and Michael into the woods and ended their lives.
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The inconsistencies were written off as the kind of gaps you'd expect from a nervous teen
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recounting a horrific crime, not enough to outweigh the grim truth of what he revealed.
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The prosecution bolstered their case with witness testimonies.
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Several people claimed Damien had bragged about the murders, calling them a thrill.
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Was Damien the kind of person who might embellish a story to shock someone?
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Sure.
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Was he also the kind of person who might act on his darkest impulses?
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Absolutely.
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Then there was Damien himself, who practically acted like the prosecution's star witness
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against himself.
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His courtroom demeanor was described as smug and detached, like he was a bored observer.
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It wasn't hard for the jury to connect the dots.
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That wasn't an innocent teenager being railroaded by circumstance.
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It was someone who felt untouchable, a chilling reflection of the crime itself.
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When the verdicts came down, they felt as inevitable as they were justified.
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Damien Eccles was sentenced to death, Jason Baldwin, to life without parole, and Jesse
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Miss Kelly, to life plus forty years.
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The courtroom didn't erupt into cheers, but there was a palpable sense of relief.
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For the victim's families, this was the justice they'd been waiting for, the closure they
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desperately needed.
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The Westman-Fist 3 weren't just convicted criminals.
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They were living proof of what happens when darkness takes root in a small town.
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Some argued that the satanic panic of the time played too big a role in the investigation.
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But let's not get distracted by that.
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The evidence, however unpolished, painted a clear picture.
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Jesse's confession, Damien's behavior, and the fibers tying them to the crime scene were
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enough to convict.
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For a time, the case felt closed.
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The families of the victims had justice, and the people of Westman-Fist could sleep a
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little easier, knowing the killers weren't walking free.
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Critics may argue over the details, but at its core, the trial wasn't about nuance.
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It was about writing a terrible wrong.
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Decades later, some still questioned the guilt of the Westman-Fist 3, but those questions
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often ignore the weight of the evidence and the brutal reality of the crime.
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This wasn't just a story of three outcast teenagers.
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It was the story of three young boys whose lives were cut short in the most horrifying
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way imaginable.
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And for the people of Westman-Fist, that's what mattered most.
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That's 10 Minute Murder for today.
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Brief and bingeable true crime.
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I'm Joe, I'm the host, and thank you for taking the time to listen.
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And allow me a moment to explain what I'm doing here with this Westman-Fist 3 case.
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I do not know whether they're guilty or innocent.
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Don't have a clue.
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I've followed this story since I was a literal child.
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I know the information inside and out.
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I do not know whether they are innocent or guilty, and many of you listening to me right
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now, you don't know either.
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I know that they're out right now.
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They're not in jail for murder.
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They are technically murderers.
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They're out on an offered plea.
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And by the way, if you don't know what an offered plea is, I'm going to release a future
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episode detailing the offered plea and where it came from, where the case that it all started
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from.
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I'll do that in a future episode.
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But they are out on an offered plea.
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They are technically guilty of murder.
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But are they murderers?
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We don't know.
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So the way I decided to do this, since I don't know.
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And you may or may not agree with this, but I decided to do two different episodes, one
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of which you just heard where I lean toward guilty.
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The other one, you can listen to it as well if you'd like to.
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It leans toward innocent.
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So that's the way I decided to do this.
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It was a case that I didn't feel like I could just continue to ignore.
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So this is the way I've decided to do it.
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And I really appreciate you listening to it.
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You can go to my website 10minuteMurder.com, catch up with everything that's happening
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with the podcast and send me an email, joe@10minuteMurder.com.
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And that's going to do it.
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That's your episode for today.
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Thank you so much for listening to 10 Minute Murder.
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[Music]
