Posts tagged with 'serial killers'

Mind Purging

  • Posted on April 16, 2010 at 12:14 pm

I have been immersed in writing my second book and reading about murders, strange paranormal cases, and the history of Spiritualism.  Plus, I finally got the chance to see Avatar and have been spending too much time watching documentaries.  My brain is about to full capacity.  So, this post is just going to be a random overlook of what’s inside my head.

As I said, I finally put aside a block of time to watch the epic movie, Avatar.  Everyone kept telling me how cool and inspirational it was except for my nephew who told me that it overly political and racist.  He also told me that the action scenes in the jungle were pretty dope and that I needed to see it in 3D.  I didn’t have a chance to see it in all it’s three-dimensional glory but I did find it to be a bit heavy handed.  The polarity between the mean, bad, army people and the free-loving-hippie blue people was a bit over-the-top for my taste.  However, I do agree with my fourteen-year-old nephew, the action scenes were spectacular.  The beautiful lanscapes in the jungle reminded me of  being under water.  It’s the kind of terrain that you would expect to see under the sea.  Weirdly, the blue people kind of reminded me of fish. It was a bit surreal and dreamlike which I guess is sort of the point. It’s supposed to be a Utopian world where everything is holistically integrated and symbiotic.  However, I think – even with our global problems – you can reach that symbiotic sense of consciousness right here, right now.  It’s just a mindset.

At the library, I picked up a two-disc DVD set of Paradise Lost 1 & 2.  I vaguely remembered the case because I was in the same age range as the three boys who were convicted, but I was in my own little world at the time.  Now, watching the DVDs and looking back on the case of the West Memphis Three, it astounds me that they got convicted.  I mean it really pissed me off to the point that I decided to get my hands on every piece of information about the case.  So, I have been reading the background history of the boys. And next I am going to read the case transcripts and then the two books written on the case.  Paradise Lost 3 is supposed to come out this year with updates on the three boys (who are now in their thirties) and new evidence that has been brought to light.

For those of you who don’t know the case, in the 90s,  three eight-year-old kids were beaten, hog-tied, sexually mutilated and left for dead in a stretch of land called the Robin Hood Hills in West Memphis.  Three teenagers from the ages of 16-19 were arrested, tried and convicted for the murders.  They were thought to have killed the kids in Satanic ritual on the full moon.  This theory came about because two of the teenagers wore black, listened to heavy metal and practiced witchcraft.

Much of the first documentary is trial footage.  I can’t even describe to you how much of the trial was a joke.  I sat in awe as I watched the West Memphis justice system throw three teenagers in jail for LIFE without a shred of circumstantial evidence.  Granted, these kids weren’t saints.  Their past histories read much like a bad stereotype of troubled kids living in the South.  But there’s a distinction between being rebellious and angry and acting out at your parents and killing three innocent kids…

I think this story resonates with me so strongly is because I was one of those outcast kids in high school and beyond. I wore black and listened to death rock and goth music. People in the town I lived in thought I was a devil worshipper. I hated my family life and did all kinds of rebellious things out of anger and rebellion. Given the right circumstances, me or any one of my friends could have been those three teenages sitting in prison for the rest of their life.

This happened in my era.  The eldest teenager and alleged ring leader, Damien Echols, is my age.  Thankfully, nothing like that ever hapenned in the po-dunk little town I lived in.  Or who knows how my life could have been different? We don’t think those kinds of things can happen to us, but they Can and they Do.  People still get singled out for all sorts of stereotypes. In the 90s it was all about Satanism. Today, it’s all about Terrorists. It’s all really the same thing. People fear what they don’t know and they don’t take the time to research and be open to the possibilities.

Reading about the West Memphis Three scares me.  So, I’ve got to read more to understand the nature of fear and human nature.  Really all three films I saw are about human nature and our need for change.  Our fears. How we need to become more conscious of ourselves.  I hope that I can be as integrated with my world as the blue people in Avatar.  And I hope that I don’t let myself be colored by stereotypes and hype.  I hope those three murdered kids get some justice and the real killers are caught.

Or maybe I just need to watch more comedy.

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