West Memphis Three

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

The case has been controversial since its beginning, with some believing that the defendants were carrying out some Satanic ritual killing (guilty) and others that the defendants were themselves the victims of a modern "witch hunt" (innocent). The cable-television network HBO made two documentaries, starting with the police videotape of the bodies where they were found and including footage from the trials: Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills in 1996 and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations in 1999, 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. Several heavy metal musicians contributed to concerts and/or recordings to raise money for the three defendants, and Echols wrote a book: Almost Home: My Life Story Vol. 1. New York DNA lawyer Barry Scheck, of the Innocence Project legal clinic at Benjamin Cardozo Law School in New York, joined (in about 2001) 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. On May 24, 2007, the Imagine Piano Peace Project visited the Crittenden County courthouse in Marion, Arkansas, in memory of the victims of the West Memphis killings.

In February 2007 a lawyer representing Echols announced that he had received the results of DNA tests those lawyers had arranged (DNA analyses were not 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. Prosecutor Brent Davis, defense lawyer Dennis Riordan, the state's pathologist who performed the autopsies on the victims, and several independent forensic experts hired by the defense spent about two hours on May 17, 2007, at the Arkansas State Police Crime Laboratory in Little Rock reviewing the DNA and other forensic evidence in the case. While some media commentators posit that the evidence not available previously may result in a new trial for the three men convicted of the crime, others (joined by the mother of one of the victims) say that the new evidence will lead to an additional perpetrator, making the group the "West Memphis Four."

Although the parties to the May 2007 review of the forensic evidence did not disclose any particulars of their discussions, saying they had agreed not to do so, in keeping with its practice of publicizing the details of criminal investigations and encouraging citizens' input to the on-going process, in July 2007 the West Memphis Police Department told news reporters that it was following up on new DNA evidence that a hair from one victim's stepfather was caught in a knot binding one of the bodies. That stepfather is the ex-husband of the victim's mother who had been saying publicly, since being told about the DNA results, that there was a fourth perpetrator still at large, and the West Memphis police said they had re-interviewed both of those former spouses at some length.

On October 29, 2007, attorneys for Echols filed a lengthy document (posted on the WM3 webpage -- see external link below), in federal court in Little Rock, Arkansas, seeking a writ of habeas corpus and setting forth the new evidence and legal reasons why (they said) that federal court should overturn the state-court convictions of Echols and, by logical implication, Baldwin and Misskelley. That new evidence included results of DNA analyses, affidavits from jurors at the 1994 trial of Echols and Baldwin (swearing to legal irregularities that undercut the validity of the convictions), affidavits from persons who were not called as witnesses at the trial but would have testified that Echols was elsewhere at the time of the crime, and the detailed reports of experts -- including Drs. Michael Baden (forensic pathologist), Vincent Di Maio (forensic pathologist), Janice Ophoven (pediatric pathologist), Richard Souviron (forensic odontologist), Werner Spitz (forensic pathologist), and Robert Wood (forensic dentist) -- concluding that the victims died from blunt-force trauma and drowning, and their bodies were mutilated by animals after they were in the ditch where they were found.

On November 21, 2007, the federal judge presiding over Echols's petition for habeas corpus (Docket No. 5:04-CV-00391WRW in the Eastern District of Arkansas) ruled he would hold that petition in abeyance until Echols has exhausted the remedies available to him in Arkansas's state courts. Meanwhile, the information in the federal petition attracted the attention of the national media to the case: On November 7, 2007, it was one of the subjects on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° tv program. On December 19, 2007, Natalie Maines, one of the Dixie Chicks, led a demonstration that delivered hundreds of letters and postcards supporting the "WM3" to the governor's office in Little Rock, and Echols was interviewed on CNN's Larry King Live for the entire hour. The case was the cover story in the January 21, 2008, issue of People (magazine).

Asserting that funds collected by WM3.org in the names of all three men had been spent mainly for legal efforts to benefit Echols alone, in January 2008 a faction of WM3 supporters formed the non-profit WM3 Innocence Project, Inc., to raise defense funds. In response, Echols and Baldwin issued statements refusing to accept money from the new group (although they had never before rejected donations from any source), lawyers representing all three issued a joint statement insisting their efforts had benefited all three men, and the Innocence Project sent the new group a "cease and desist" letter demanding that the new corporation not call itself "Innocence Project." In an unrelated development in January 2008, the owner of the land where the victims' bodies were found announced plans to develop part of that tract.

In the state-court proceedings challenging the convictions, the judge ruled on April 14, 2008, that all motions were to be filed by May 30, and all responses to them by July 15, and set the hearing on them for September 8 to October 3. All the attorneys objected that was not enough time, but the judge (who had presided over the trials in 1994) told them he was going to get this case over with then "once and for all." He also issued a gag order against all the lawyers' talking about the case with the news media in the meantime.

Various media reported in June 2008 that in a "behind-the-scenes extra" feature on the DVD for his movie "Semi-Pro," actor Will Ferrell was wearing a "Free the West Memphis Three" T-shirt.