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Damien W. Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. have been released from an Arkansas jail after spending 14 years in prison for the murders of three 8-year-old boys. The original trial was the subject of a really great documentary called Paradise Lost, which is very much worth watching.
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Those dudes are probably going straight to Tower Records to buy “Load.”
this is amazing news. those are great documentaries about awful injustice. congrats to them!
Now we just need the old guys from “Brother’s Keeper” to be freed from Being Totally Gross.
agreed, loved the paradise lost documentary (pronounced docu-men-terry) and am psyched they are free at last.
the step dad with the dentures who seemed like he was the guilty party, what ever became of that guy? is he still alive? any new evidence pointed in his direction or am I mis remembering the likelihood he was a suspect?
It’s been a few years, but I recall the documentary crew breaking the fourth wall to have a knife he owned checked out by forensic scientists to try and match him to the murders, but I believe the results of that ended up being inconclusive — that the blood could have been from him or his son. I think he was exonerated by other evidence such as hair and blood samples that were taken, and further questioning about his alibi.
The documentary ended up pointing the finger at him in much the same way that the town pointed the finger at the three kids… a spotlight based on prejudices, and the guy being genuinely pretty creepy.
that guy actually became a quite-vocal advocate for their innocence, to this day. he is even against this ruling because it pretty much keeps them the “guilty” party in the eyes of the state…so the actual murders will technically be “solved” and they won’t actually be able to bring a lawsuit against the state to get REAL justice.
basically this is just a massive loophole that relieves the state of any admittance of error, guilt or wrong-doing on behalf of the WM3, but bottom line, it is good that these people are not only off of death row, but free.
Dock-You-Men-Terry
Gabe they didn’t murder the 8 year old boys I thought, they were falsely accused, you make it sound like they were murderers and not just outsiders
Right – to be clear, if you haven’t seen this (amazing) documentary, they were accused and convicted of the murders, but the film pretty overwhelmingly demonstrates that the conviction had more to do with the prejudices of the community than actual evidence.
This is wonderful news, and I have to also give my recommendation to the documentary.
I haven’t seen the documentary – I saw 48 Hours Mystery and Dateline on this case (in case you’re wondering, the Dateline episode was a lot like the 48 Hours Mystery episode, except most of the narrative ended in a question?)
I agree – this IS wonderful news. The are free. Not the best case scenario, but hopefully they can still sue the state.
Speaking of rad dock-you-men-terries about wrongful convictions, have yall seen the Staircase series? It is rad as rad can get. Got some nasty bits of Nancy Grace chiming in with her vehement wrongness lynch mob abuse pile on of the accused. Rad stuff.
The Thin Blue Line is also rad, and I think the first one of these? Or just the first documentary with reenactments I think?
the Thin Blue line actually worked as EVIDENCE to free a wrongfully convicted man.
The Staircase is so great. It’s, what, 8 hours long? So you don’t feel like they have to simplify or dumb it down just to make time. Furthermore, although most of your time is spent with the accused party, you don’t really know if he’s guilty or not, and the filmmakers don’t particularly editorialize, in my opinion. (Although they make the prosecutors look like assholes.) I had my opinion about it, but you don’t really know.
There was a really great This American Life along these lines, too.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/282/DIY
Another one worth seeing is Dear Zachary, but be warned, I’ve never met anyone who watched this doc and didn’t cry. Another one worth watching (but also tearjerking) is Young @ Heart, which is about old people and I think we all know what old people do.
Yuck, sorry for the double ‘another one’. That’s annoying.
YES, on Dear Zachary. Just watch it. Don’t google it, don’t imdb it, just watch it with no extra info.
Dear Zachary is one of my favorite movies. I would gush here, but I don’t want to spoil anything for all the people who should just be watching it right now!!
So glad these guys are finally free. Entertainment Weekly has a clip of the upcoming Paradise Lost 3 documentary: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/08/19/west-memphis-three-deal/
While thinking about this case, it was strange for me to think that DNA testing wasn’t something that was readily available for most people 17 years ago. I look back at Mia Zapata who was raped and killed a year before these 3 boys and a saliva sample was found on her body and frozen and tested for DNA later and they found the guy that did it 10 years after the fact. Cheers to DNA testing. Maury knows what I’m talking about.
I’m super late to this party and am sure no one will read this, but somehow I missed the post, probably because I was at the Craighead County Courthouse that day see these innocent, wrongly convicted men released from prison! Jonesboro, AR, where the Echols/Baldwin trial took place, is my hometown (it’s ok, don’t cry; we can’t all be so lucky), and I was 13 when the murders happened, and I, like everyone that I knew, believed them guilty of the crime, based on media reports and the “Salem witchcraft” mentality rampant in this area. Then, like so many, I grew up and went to college, saw Paradise Lost and did more research, and have been absolutely convinced of their innocence ever since. I’m so happy that they have been freed! I only wish that an exoneration would have come along with it–the state of Arkansas has an absolutely corrupt judicial system, and it is a complete travesty that these men will be branded “child-killers” for the rest of their lives. Having said that, while it is not perfect justice, it is freedom, and I’m sure if I’d been on death row for 18 years, that would feel pretty damn good.