| PARAGOULD – Methamphetamine use across the country
creates haunting images of the addiction’s toll on
the human body and soul. Greene County District Court Judge
Dan Stidham recently visited Nebraska’s Wesleyan University
where he gave a presentation to forensic graduate students,
faculty and law enforcement officials on topics such as police
interrogation techniques, the phenomenon of false confessions
and criminal profiling. Stidham had been contacted by graduate
student Nicole Wall regarding his involvement in a 1993 West
Memphis murder case, which the student’s class had
chosen for a project.
The case involved the murder of three 8-year old boys. Stidham
represented one of the defendants in the trial.
A
conversation with investigator Richard Doetker led to an
invitation
to tour the Lincoln Nebraska
Police Department,
which Stidham gladly accepted. He said while touring the
police department, the topic turned to meth and the problems
it has created, both in Nebraska and Arkansas. As he toured
the facility, Stidham noticed a “haunting” photograph
of a young girl, which “graphically depicted” some
of the side effects of the use of methamphetamine. The picture,
and others, were of an anonymous girl, local to Lincoln and
probably in her early 20’s taken over a three year
period, which showed her deterioration from the drug’s
use. Officers from the Lincoln Police Department noted that
the girl had never been arrested for actually possessing
meth, but officers had received information she was heavily
involved with the drug. The once attractive young girl was
now a mere shell of her former self, appearing years older
than she actually was, with blotched skin, dramatically thinning
hair and sunken lifeless eyes.
Stidham
was so taken by the picture that he brought it back to
Greene County with the hopes of using
it as an example,
for students and adults alike, of the dangers of getting
involved with meth use. He said, you can’t shake the
image from your head.” Stidham said he hopes viewing
the “before and after” photographs will to dissuade
people, especially young people from getting involved with
the “horrible” substance and warn them of the “very
real” dangers of methamphetamine and the destruction
it brings on people and their families.
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