Abomination: Devil Worship and Deception in the West Memphis Three Murders

by Ramsey, William

  "The common defect of all mystical systems previous to that of the Aeon whose Law is Thelema is that there has been no place for Laughter" by Aleister Crowley

  Retweeted by Damien Echols 07/31

  "Lift yourselves up, my brothers & sisters of the earth! Put beneath your feet all fears, all qualms, all hesitancies!" by Aleister Crowley Retweeted by Damien Echols

  "The whole & sole object of all true Magical & Mystical training is to become free from every kind of limitation" by Aleister Crowley Retweeted by Damien Echols

  Spontaneous standing ovation for Damien Echols after West of Memphis was an incredibly special.

  Retweeted by Damien Echols

  On September 26th I'll be in L.A.,at a store called Book Soup for a talk and signing. 08/01

  People always ask me what I want to do in the future. Really,it comes down to this: writing books and teaching the tarot. 08/03

  I love the tarot. It's my passion. It kept me company when I was on death row. 08/03

  Today I took a trip to see a little old herbal witch, out in the middle of nowhere. She gave me herbs for strengthening my eye sight. 08/04

  Want to increase your health and intuition? Spread a blanket on the ground and bathe in the moonlight. Focus on feeling it saturate you. 08/26

  Just 5 more days until the full moon. The Blue Moon. You should be thinking about the wish you want to make that night. 08/26

  Don't waste your time on things with no magick in them. Life is far too short to waste on the mundane. 08/30

  We're approaching the moon's dark phase - the time the ancient Greeks said was ruled over by Hecate,Queen of Night. 09/11

  Hecate,ruler of the dark moon,also ruled the crossroads.09/11

  It's true - haters really are like crickets. They make a lot of noise when you can't see them....but as soon as you walk by,they get quiet. 09/11

  I'm already missing Salem. The quiet,the all pervasive magick,the peace,and my new home. 09/17

  Tonight is the full moon,folks. It's called the Blood Moon. The Blood Moon is the full moon closest to Halloween every October. 10/28

  Song of the day? Only one will do. "This is Halloween",by my dear friend Marilyn Manson. Today makes me miss him. 10/31

  The energy of the night is as rich as velvet. The stars like tiny chips of glass. The only thing better is the night before Christmas. 11/21

  The moon is beautiful tonight. It's looking down over Salem, reminding us that the pale blue magick of December is coming fast. 11/21

  Just 6 more days until December,my little chupacabras. 11/24

  The Archangel who rules over the sign of Sagittarius is Sachiel. 11/24

  Tonight is the full moon, my little Chupacabras. Step outside and howl just to see your breath in the air. 11/28

  Crowds gathered at a book signing to see Damien Echols

  18. CONCLUSION

  As this book goes to print, a documentary, West of Memphis, and an untitled feature length film are due to be released about the West Memphis Three. Jason Baldwin is married and living in Washington State, where he aspires to a career in law. Jessie Misskelley, Jr. returned to West Memphis and works, like his father, as an auto mechanic. Unlike the other two, Damien Echols seems to covet his celebrity. He continues to engage in lengthy public interviews and his autobiographical book Life After Death is generating considerable attention and sales.

  Concerning the public interviews involving the West Memphis Three, I cannot seem to find a journalist or host who has asked any of the released West Memphis Three a challenging question about the case. Actually, they seem to passively accept that the three were unjustly convicted. It is my understanding that all interviews are granted based on the use of pre-written questionnaires provided to the hosts. When asked who committed the crime, Terry Hobbs is provided as the focus of their inquiry.

  As I stated in the Introduction, I included a detailed recollection and timeline of the evidence gathered to counter these statements by Misskelley, Baldwin and Echols and commonly held, public presumption that the West Memphis Three received an unjust sentence from 12 jurors, who convicted and sentenced them. West Memphis festered with occult activity for years prior to the murders---an abundance of statements verifying this fact fill the pages of this book.

  The convicted had eighteen years to shape the evidence of the case for the public consumption. No one, and I mean no one, could have or did predict that this case would morph into the cause celebre’ case involving the attention and financial support of internationally recognized celebrities. This case also confirms issues about publicity and public relations in court cases. The external pressures outside of the Arkansas legal system clearly influenced the legal outcome in this case.

  The West Memphis case is similar to other Satanic murders. Dark elements from both suffuse the West Memphis murders: young, aimless, impressionable teens with an interest in dark subjects become associated with occult groups. Some of them take to blood letting, blood drinking and rituals. Participants exhibit increasing levels of violence, first towards their peer group, then animals, then, and finally, with human beings. The rise in interest in magic, vampires, werewolfs in the general culture will likely ensnare similar youths in the future.

  The West Memphis case is similar to the two cause celebre murders as well. Due to the publicity provided by the popular Paradise Lost films, Echols, Balwin and Misskelley received attention from media and the public that had no actual familiarity with the facts or evidence in the case. The vagueness of the films conclusions provided an opportunity (like Unterwager and Abbott) to deceive the intelligencia of an entire nation into thinking they were victims of the system, when in fact they vicitmized other people and abused the resources of the system.

  There are a number of simple questions that point to West Memphis Three culpability: How many times did each of the three confess? To how many witnesses? Why did Jason Baldwin not appeal his sentence for ten years? Why did Echols attempt suicide in 1994? Didn’t Damien Echols say to investigators before he lawyered up: “Let me talk to my mom and I’ll tell you everything?”

  Most importantly, how did Damien Echols know two days after the murders that the the children had urine in their stomachs? This fact was known to police investigators only after medical examiner Dr. Frank Peretti discovered its existence in the stomachs of the murdered boys after the autopsy results on May 16th. In my opinion, the only way Echols knew that the children were urinated on was that he was at the scene of the crime. He alleges that probation officer Jones told him that urine was in the children’s stomachs---this is an obvious lie, as Jones could not have known, and could not have been at the scene of the crime.

  Satanism is a set of ideas and practices that should be considered an ideology; individuals who ascribe to Satanism behave consistently based on the knowledge they accrue from the study of the dark arts. If the information in this book provides any insight at all into the case, my solemn hope is to prove at least that the central figure, Michael Wayne Hutcheson, aka Damien Echols, was, is and continues to be, a committed occultist.

  While Echols is smart enough to avoid referencing specific names in recent interviews, he refuses to distance himself from the allegations and testimony that led to his suspected involvement, arrest and imprisonmment. Echols continues to engage in discussions about magick and has referenced renowned occultists such as Crowley, Gardner, Buckland and LaVey. The prosecution found evidence that indicated Damien Echols knew of and studied the satanic teachings of the Great Beast 666, Aliester Crowley. Echols even emulated Crowley’s bogus public statement that he was actually a “white magician.” He wrote defiantly against God, that God was trying to kill him, and that even death couldn’t stop him. Unrepentant, after his death sentence he wrote:

  The [abominations] have already begun to be spit forth on the earth. I have seen some of them. I will become one soon. I will be the king of freaks. I see a perfect explosion, God’s ammunition dump going up in the flames of righ
teousness, Satan storming heaven, his artillery captain a fiercely grinning fool with red flayed cheeks, Damien by name, never to be Michael Hutchison again.281

  While in jail, he read books by devout occultists, and even attempted the Abramelin working to contact his Holy Guardian Angel (HGA). Crowley openly stated his HGA was Lucifer.

  And what does Echols do upon release? He gets heavily tattooed with every occult, black magic insignia imaginable, including four magical circles on his body with the Theban alphabet used in Wicca. He also associated with transhumanist occultist Genesis P. Orridge and satanic musician Marilyn Manson, among others---an obvious willingness to communicate with other practitioners of the black magic. Continued interest by Echols in witchcraft and Satanism after his release further informs the accusations and evidence of occult involvement prior to his arrest in June of 1993.

  It is remarkable how easy it seems Echols got others to believe what he wanted them to believe. His ability to obtain the assistance of so many adherents is one of the astonishing mysteries of the West Memphis case. The topical nature of the information in the Paradise Lost “documentaries” is part of the problem. I also suspect the basis for his achievement is rooted in two of the fundamental principles of occultists as described by Eliphas Levi: the primacy of their own will and the use of deception, even at the expense of others.

  Echols is older, wiser, better read now, having digested most, if not all, of the foremost occult works of past centuries. I recently heard that he wants to spend his days teaching other people about what he learned in jail. The leopard has not changed his spots.

  It proves that professional journalists who have written vile puff pieces about Damien Echols for People, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, GQ and elsewhere have failed to engage in even minimal research, considering that the evidence in this case overwhelmingly shows that Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols committed the crime. I cannot imagine a situation that should necessitate a heightened inquiry and investigation of national media and journalists---three eight year olds were horrifically murdered. As the truth of the crime becomes known, one question will be asked of this case: how can so many get it so wrong?

  The astonishing acquiescence of the national media is hard to believe. The total failure to complete even the simplest inquiry into this murder case will endure as vicious indictment of the entirety of United States television and print journalism. A venal celebrity culture, overflowing with easily bamboozled observers hypnotized by flash-bulb media presentations and choking on topical lies pervades current American culture. American culture which sadly now influences the entire world. The public cannot or will not grasp the unimaginable reality: that a vicious, narcissistic occultist of the vilest stripe, an unrepentant child killer, travels to and fro across the United States, lying to a credulous public about the murder of three children.

  The national media’s continued support for Satanists convicted twice for the murder of three innocent children playing in a vacant lot is the kind of utter moral failure known to Old Testament societies prior to the just affliction of God’s judgments. My sincere hope is that the American people read the evidence in this case and realize that the release of the three murderers, Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols is a mistake and a blatant injustice. Due to the seemingly willful distortion and lies about the actual evidentiary record, three convicted killers now walk free in America, capable of the brutal torture and murder of three eight year olds. You have been warned.

  William Ramsey

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  Timeline

  May 5th, 1993

  Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore reported missing in the evening of the 5th in West Memphis, Arkansas.

  May 6, 1993

  The bodies of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore, all 8 years old, are found in Robin Hood Hills in West Memphis, Arkansas.

  June 3, 1993

  Jessie Lloyd Misskelley, Jr., 17, is brought in for questioning by the West Memphis Police Department. During questioning, he makes two statements which implicates himself, Damien Wayne Echols, 18, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16. All three are arrested.