What makes you think they're guilty? And it's not just "Hollywood Types" that believe they were innocent - it's thousands of people and legal scholars.
When I saw the first documentary I thought Damien might be guilty. A lot of stuff didn't come out in the first doc about him like he spent time in mental institution, shared homicidal thoughts freely with doctors and claimed he was a vampire.
But from day one I felt that Jason and the other kid were completely railroaded. It's chilling how they put Jason away for life for no other reason than guilt by association. All based on a forced confession from a borderline retarded teenager.
When I first saw the documentary I thought they were innocent too. I got really interested in it and I started searching the web for more information. I found a few websites dedicated to insisting they were guilty, and what I found out is that those documentaries are really misleading. These websites have every single piece of evidence that there is to be had on the case, including pictures and audio, from the crime scene and the court proceedings. It has all the testimonies and all that kind of stuff. All the stuff that was left out by those documentaries.
Here are a few links you can check out.
wm3truth.com
callahan.8k.com
www.westmemphisthreeguilty.com/Table_of_Contents.html
After taking in as much as I could from all that, I did a complete 180 on how I felt about it. And for the life of me I cant figure out why so many people think they are innocent and why these Hollywood people insisted on getting them out. Their supporters are just completely misinformed and out of their freaking minds.
The confession you speak of wasnt forced like people would have you believe. And the guy isnt retarded. Ill post a video of him and you can judge for yourself. The confession wasnt just once either. It happened on 5 different occasions, and the details the kid gives in his confession are just too much like what really happened for it not to be authentic. Nobody gives that kind of confession if they didnt commit the crime. The entire transcript and audio is available to hear and read. It wasnt forced and it wasnt made up.
To what you said about Damien spending time in a mental institution and claiming he was a vampire is all true, and it gets a lot sicker and demented than that. Ill let you read some of that on your own if you want or I can post some of it later. Not enough time right now to get into all of it. We can get into it later, but just to get the ball rolling you should check out some of the stuff on those websites
I brought this up because that sick documentary came on again and I went searching for new stuff and found some good youtube videos showing who Damien Echols
is, and some of the lies he has been caught telling. These video arent major proof of guilt, but its enough to make you shake your head. It probably best to know all the characters and facts of the case before you watch, because they are kind of subtle. But Ill post them now and let you watch anyways. To me, Damien Echols is a sick and twisted, manipulating freak.
This is a 3 part small video series not too long. Here is part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGWa4KomcuA&feature=youtube_gdata_player