West Memphis Three

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"West Memphis Three" is the collective nickname of three then-teenagers -- Damien Echols (formerly Michael Wayne Hutchison), Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. -- convicted in 1994 of the gruesome murder of three eight-year-old boys -- Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch -- in West Memphis, Arkansas, on May 5, 1993.

The case has been controversial since its beginning, with some people believing the defendants were carrying out some Satanic ritual killing (guilty) and others believing the defendants were themselves the victims of a modern "witch hunt" (innocent). Cable-television network HBO made two documentaries, starting with the police videotape of the bodies where they were found and including actual footage from the trials: Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills in 1996 [UPS 7-07729-11708-7 (VHS); ISBN 0-7670-8590-6 (DVD)] and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations in 1999 [ISBN 0-7670-3773-1 (VHS); ISBN 0-7670-8590-6 (DVD)], both directed and produced by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky.

Little Rock, Arkansas, investigative journalist Mara Leveritt wrote the definitive book on the subject so far, the 2002 Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three [ISBN 0-7434-1759-3 (hardback); ISBN 0-7434-1760-7 (paperback)]. Several heavy-metal musicians contributed to concerts and/or recordings to raise money for the three defendants, and Echols wrote a book: Almost Home [ISBN 0-5953-5701-6 (paperback)]. In about 2001, New York DNA lawyer Barry C. Scheck, of The Innocence Project legal clinic at Benjamin Cardozo Law School in New York, joined the team of lawyers trying to get post-conviction relief for Echols, the only one of the three sentenced to death instead of to life in prison. In February 2007 an Arkansas lawyer representing Echols announced that he had received the results of DNA tests those lawyers had purchased (no DNA tests were performed before the trials, and no direct, physical evidence against the defendants was ever introduced) and would be submitting that "significant" evidence to the state's prosecutors shortly.


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