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Murder Most Foul  by Larner 3 Review(s)
BranwynReviewed Chapter: Prologue on 11/20/2011
I commend you for writing the story you needed to write (which is bound to repel some readers). Chilling yet beautifully written. I have to admit that I was unaware of the real-world criminal case until this summer.

Author Reply: Oh, the story has repelled a few readers, mostly people who have been discussing the real-world case for years, it's proved. And the first chapter isn't an easy one to get through, I know. It wasn't easy to write, either.

But if we don't wish such stories as this to remain all too frequent, we need to examine ourselves to make certain we aren't making rushes to judgment in order to tidy up cases swiftly and neatly and in doing so making terrible mistakes.

I've followed the case since about 1999; one friend was a court reporter and was present at the initial trials. She was aware from the start that there was something rotten in West Memphis, Arkansas; now she wishes to see the real killer properly identified and prosecuted.

Thanks so, Branwyn.

harrowcatReviewed Chapter: Prologue on 8/4/2011
A really good start to this Larner and it promises to be a machine hugging story in it,s own right. If it causes more people to be aware of the case then so much the better! Avidly waiting for more.

BTW. I am nearly through rereading 'tenant' as far as it goes..........
Shadow is causing, mostly, happy mayhem. He would send you a woof but his voice hasn't broken yet.

Author Reply: Thanks so, Harrowcat. This one is almost done--am working on the final trial before Aragorn himself now, so there's but this chapter and the epilogue, I think, to finish, and then the Author's Notes to post. So it, at least, will be complete in a decent period of time. And, yes, I do so hope it will bring a good deal of attention to the real case. But I've been wanting to explore the dynamics of how this horrible miscarriage of justice could even begin to happen.

I intend to finish "Or Perchance" first as soon as I finish this one, and then work on "Tenant" and "Stirring Rings" once more. Hopefully I'll actually get all of them done eventually! And love to Shadow and your folks. Just lost my tortoiseshell kitty to a tumor, so am a bit shaken at the moment, and definitely in mourning.

FantasiaReviewed Chapter: Prologue on 8/3/2011
Larner, I confess that I knew nothing about the case. I just googled and what a complicated case. It seems sometime hard to believe that our justice system can be wrong sometimes. What is amazing to me is that you need the 12 juros to agree in the verdict for a criminal case and they all 12 went for guilty. Now I will follow the apparent new hiring in December.
Great start, I will follow this story avidly, it promises to be a classic.

Author Reply: Oh, yes, Fantasia--a very complicated case, and one that speaks to how easily prejudices and an atmosphere of lurid imagination can poison an entire region.

Actually, in the real case there were two trials, one for Jessie Miskelley and the other a joint trial for Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols, who was believed to be the ringleader. In the second trial the prosecutors brought in a good deal of questionable "evidence" that was not shown to have any relevance to the crime at all, and that appears to have been produced basically to impress the jury with its scariness more than anything else; and although the prosecutors had been told that, no, the children had not been sexually assaulted, they still not only intimated it had happened anyway, but the doctor who did the autopsies refused to refute them on the witness stand, although more recently he has definitely stated that of course it never happened and he insists he cannot imagine why anyone would dream that it had happened at all.

It will be interesting to see what comes of the hearings in December.

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