On May 5th, 1993 three 8 year old boys were reported missing by their parents. An initial search that night didn’t find the boys, but the following day, a more thorough search of areas that the boys were known to play and hang out was carried out and the bodies of Stevie Branch, Chris Byers, and Michael Moore were discovered. With very little actual evidence, three teens were arrested and found guilty of the murders. They spent years in prison before being released, and are still fighting to this day to clear their names. The state of Arkansas refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing, and lets the true killer or killers walk free.
The Victims
This case can be divisive. Some people think that no matter what, the three who were put in prison were the ones who did it. Some people don’t see how police can convince or persuade someone to give a false confession. There is so much to this case, several documentaries and books. Largely, we’ve used The Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt and the documentary West of Memphis as sources. Both do an exceptional job in covering the many different angles in this case.
To get into this case though, we must first look at Stevie Branch, Chris Byers, and Michael Moore.
Steven (mostly called Stevie by friends and family) was born in November of 1984. He was in 2nd grade at Weaver Elementary. His teachers said that he was overall a great student and liked by all his classmates. His father, Steven, and mother, Pam, weren’t together anymore, and Stevie had a stepfather, Terry Hobbs. Terry was the biological father to Stevie’s younger sister, Amanda. Stevie was easily recognizable by everyone because he had striking blond hair and was always in a good mood. Everyone said that he had such a friendly demeanor and personality.
One of Stevie’s friends was Christopher (Chris) Byers. Chris was born in June of 1984 and he lived with his mom, Melissa, and his stepfather Mark Byers. Chris had an older half brother, Ryan. Chris was also a 2nd grader at Weaver Elementary along with Stevie. He had recently befriended Stevie and the third victim, Michael Moore. Chris had been experiencing what doctors described as “problems as a result of hyperactivity disorder.” He was on medication for this, but his doctors said that they were unable to determine why his hyperactivity and behavior wasn’t improving with the medication. Chris loved hanging out with his friends and riding bikes, typical 8 year old stuff.
Michael Moore is the third victim in the Robin Hood Hills murders. Mike was born in July of 1984 to Diane and Todd Moore. He had an older sister named Dawn. Mike was also a 2nd grader at Weaver Elementary with Stevie and Chris. Even at such a young age, people said that Mike was a born leader. He was active in the Cub Scouts in the West Memphis area, and loved playing with his friends. He loved to pretend to be a police officer when they were all playing together.
On May 5th, Stevie’s mom picked him up from school and they walked home with his younger sister, Amanda. Pam recalled that on that walk home, Stevie was more affectionate than normal, telling her multiple times that he loved her. That evening, Pam had to be at work at 5PM for the night shift at a local restaurant. Between 3 and 3:10 PM, after the family had arrived at home, there was a knock at the door. It was Michael Moore. He had raced over so the boys could ride their bikes together. The weather hadn’t been great the past few days, and they finally had a nice day. Stevie had just been given a new bike by his grandfather, and they wanted to get out and enjoy the good weather.
Initially, Pam said that Stevie couldn’t go since she had to leave for work in a bit, but the boys begged and pleaded. Pam finally agreed and told Stevie to be back home by 4:30 when his stepfather Terry would be there to take her to work. The boys took the “yes” and bounded out the door to set off on their bikes.
Around 3:30, there was another knock on the door. Standing there when Pam opened it was Chris Byers. Chris was looking for Stevie, but Pam told him that the other 2 boys had left not long ago. Chris stayed at the house until 4PM, he sat and watched an episode of Muppet Babies with Stevie’s younger sister. He left and eye witness accounts say that he was seen with the other two boys riding bikes around town. Then, around 5:30 PM, Mark Byers, Chris’ step dad, was out looking for him when he found Chris going down the middle of North 14th Street on his belly on his skateboard. Mark took Chris home and spanked him before telling him to clean up the family’s carport. Shortly after, Mark left while Chris was cleaning to pick up his other son, Ryan, from court. Ryan had been testifying in the court in a reckless driving case.
Melissa Byers said that the last time she saw Chris was around 5:45 PM. He was outside cleaning still, but had come in and out of the house a few times. Several sightings of the boys after then indicate that Chris met back up with Stevie and Michael. Around 7PM, Chris Wahl said that he saw 2 of the boys on their bikes, riding towards Robin Hood Hills. He had just gotten out of his night school classes, and it was beginning to get dark. Besides their killer, Chris seems to be the last one to see them alive. He was questioned about his involvement in the case and given a polygraph, which didn’t indicate any deception. Bryan Woody was the last known person to have seen Mike Moore, although it has been questioned since he was in a vehicle driving and he was pretty far from where he claimed to have seen him.
When Stevie didn’t return home by 4:30 as he was told, Pam told her husband to just take her to work. Terry dropped her off and went back home. He arrived back later that night a little after 9 to pick Pam back up. He went in to use the phone, and Pam went out to the car, where only Amanda was waiting. She asked Amanda where Stevie was, and Amada said they couldn’t find him. They raced back home and Pam changed clothes, and they left to start searching for him. The boys were reported missing, and search parties were formed, but nothing was found during the night.
The next day people started searching again. Steve Jones, a former Crittenden County Juvenile Officer, was one of the people searching. He was out driving and looking for the boys on their bikes. As he drove near Robin Hood Hills, he thought that it was worth a shot to get out and walk around there. That area was kind of a known area where kids would go and play, running around, just being kids. He walked around for a bit and came up to a drainage ditch and saw a black tennis shoe floating. He immediately called in to dispatch and had an officer meet him. He showed officer Mike Allen the area, and Mike went to get the shoe out. It was around 1:45 PM on May 6th. As Mike was trying to get the shoe out, he fell in the water. He looked at Steve Jones and said that he felt like his leg was caught on something, maybe a log, and he fell backwards. After he fell, his leg dislodged what it was stuck on. It was one of the three boys’ bodies.
They immediately closed off the area and began searching. They found the bodies of Stevie and Chris near each other, submerged in the water of the drainage ditch. A little further north, also submerged was the body of Mike Moore. All three boys had been hogtied in a peculiar way; their right wrists were tied behind their backs to their right ankle with shoe laces, the same for the left wrist and ankle. Throughout the creek, police found the boy’s clothes; all three were nude. Some of the clothes had been twisted around sticks and shoved down into the creek in an effort to hide it; two pairs of the boys under wear were never recovered.
The boys had cuts, lacerations, and scratches on their bodies. Mike seemed to have sustained the least amount of injuries, while Chris suffered the most. It appeared as if he had been castrated, a claim that would be called into question down the road during trials and appeals. It was also thought that the boys were sexually assaulted, but it was the initial thought that Chris had been castrated that led investigators to eventually suspect that this crime was perpetrated by members of a Satanic cult.
Satanic Panic
Starting in the 1980s and continuing to this day, Satanic panic is a moral panic throughout the US and the world consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). While the WM3 / Robin Hood Hills case is one of the most well known cases related to Satanic panic, the case that thrust it into American consciousness was the McMartin Preschool trial. Essentially, a preschool worker in Manhattan Beach, CA was accused of molesting a student. An investigation was opened and bizarre claims began to arise from the children and parents surrounding SRA.
They claimed that they saw witches fly at the school and they flew on hot air balloons. They also said that they were taken into underground tunnels. When one victim was asked to look at a photo lineup and identify a man who molested them, the child chose a picture of Chuck Norris as their abuser. The parents of the children said that satanic orgies were taking place at car washes and air ports, and children were flushed down toilets through tunnels below the school to be abused. The mother who brought the allegations forward initially also claimed that the man who molested her son could fly.
Investigators took it all seriously, and investigated everything. They performed excavations of the school property, and while they found older buildings that had been torn down, there was zero evidence of hidden tunnels under the school. The damage was done though, the eyes of the nation were on the trials set to take place against the preschool owner and worker, with the NY times saying that the case “attracted national attention when the authorities speculated that hundreds of children might have been molested and subjected to satanic rituals.”
They were both acquitted, and the mother who initially brought on the allegations was found to have been suffering from mental health issues before the accusations arose. This information was withheld from the defense for over three years, and one prosecutor left the case in protest because of it. But, in the media, the sensationalized headlines sold newspapers and ratings on TV went through the roof. Satanic Cult crimes became an almost weekly topic on shows across the country.
Back in West Memphis, Arkansas, former airline pilot turned juvenile probation officer Jerry Driver was already doing what he could to lead the investigation towards a local teen he suspected was a member of a satanic cult. Jerry had long been watching Damien Echols and his group of friends. He knew that Damien was involved in local satanic rituals. How did he know that? Damien wore all black… and he listened to Metallica. One time he saw him walking with some friends holding a staff.. *the staff was just a stick he had found while out walking through the woods*. That’s it, that’s what it took to get Damien on his radar.
In May of 1992, Damien was 17 years old and dating a 15 year old. They were planning on running away together. One night, they broke into an abandoned trailer, but the police showed up. They tried to hide in a closet, but the officers found them, partially dressed. Damien was charged with burglary and sexual misconduct. He was later convicted of breaking and entering and second degree sexual misconduct. While in custody, Damien was sent to a mental facility for suicidal threats and statements. He was released in late June of 1992 and moved to Oregon with his family. He was there for a few months and had a job, but again, made suicidal threats and had a brief stay in another mental health facility. Once he was released, he returned to Arkansas.
Back in Arkansas, Driver was watching Damien like a hawk. Driver claimed that he talked to Damien’s parents and they said Damien threatened to kill them. Damien had also reached out to the girl he was with when he was arrested. Driver said that violated his parole terms and coupled with the threats he supposedly made to his parents, was able to send him back to a juvenile detention center where Damien served his time and was released.
When anything happened in town, Damien was Jerry Driver’s first stop. When a girl was murdered 100 miles away with absolutely no connection to West Memphis, Damien was questioned. When a piece of equipment went missing from a train that never stopped in and barely slowed down near West Memphis, Damien was questioned. The day after the bodies were discovered, Damien was questioned by Driver. At that point, Driver questioning Damien had become more like a game to Damien than anything. He was a typical teenage boy, and he would say shit just to rile Driver up, example: Damien told Driver a year before the murders that a cult would be forming in the area. Driver also claimed that he was told that Damien liked to drink blood. While being questioned about the murders though he professed his innocence the entire time.
Word began to leak out that the boys had been sexually assaulted and rumors spread about the involvement of a cult. The media grabbed ahold of that information and reported it as fact. This case was all over the news across the country and the world. But the police were stuck, since they had nothing other than Driver telling them that Damien was responsible. They began to talk to Damien’s friends to see if they could get any new info. And again, Damien wasn’t doing anything to stop the rumors. Compared to his surroundings in Arkansas, Damien stood out like a sore thumb. He was never going to be homecoming king or captain of the football team, but this new found “celebrity” brought attention he didn’t usually get. When friends would ask him if he did it, he would neither confirm or deny it. He just played coy.
The police asked Damien for blood and hair samples, which he voluntarily gave, because in his mind, he was innocent, what could they do with that stuff anyway.
Vicky Hutcheson & A False Confession
Vicky Hutcheson had only lived in West Memphis a short time at the time of the murders. Her son Aaron was a playmate of Stevie, Mike, & Chris. Vicky previously lived in Northwest Arkansas and basically fled to West Memphis because she had outstanding warrants for her arrest for writing bad checks. She left her employer in Fayetteville, a lawyer, with the impression that she had a brain tumor and was terminally ill.
On the day the bodies were discovered, Vicky was at the police department to take a polygraph test because some money had come up missing from the register where she worked. She took Aaron with her, and the polygraph tech, Don Bray, struck up a conversation with Aaron, and Aaron told him that he knew where the missing boys were, at “The playhouse.” Bray called the West Memphis PD to tell them what Aaron had said, and he was told that the bodies had been found near where Aaron had indicated. Aaron would later tell police that he witnessed the murders supposedly seeing men in the woods all dressed up and speaking Spanish (Devil Worshipers.) Even after arrests were made, Aaron was only able to identify Jessie Misskelly and couldn’t pick Damien or Jason out of a photo lineup. The only reason he could pick out Jessie was because Jessie occasionally babysat for Vicky.
The police talked to Vicky and told her that they could make a deal and get all her legal troubles to go away if she agreed to wear a wire and help them catch Damien. There was also a reward of $30,000 being offered to anyone who had information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators. And while we haven’t mentioned it yet, West Memphis was a POOR area at the time, $30k was life changing to everyone there. Vicky had been heard several times saying that she wanted that reward money.
The plan they came up with was that Vicky would wear a wire and get Damien to come to her house and admit he killed the three boys. Vicky reached out to Jessie and asked him to introduce her to Damien. Here’s the thing though, Jessie and Damien weren’t really even friends. They knew each other but they didn’t hang out. In fact, Jessie had said several times that Damien scared him. But Jessie was the person who always wanted to help, so he agreed to introduce Vicky and Damien. Vicky got Damien to come to her house while she was wearing the wire, but he didn’t say anything incriminating. The police said that the audio from the tapes was completely distorted and you can’t hear anything on them, but Vicky said that she listened to the tapes at the police station and that you can hear everything just fine.
Next, Vicky claimed that 2 weeks after the murders that she, Damien, and Jessie went to an “esbat” and Damien drove them there. That along with a statement from William Jones who claimed that he heard a drunk Damien say he raped and killed they boys was enough for the authorities to make a move. They brought Jessie Misskelley in for questioning.
When Jessie was 4 years old, his mother abandoned his family, leaving his father to raise him and his brother. Jessie’s brother was severely mentally handicapped and was eventually institutionalized. Jessie himself was diagnosed with a mental handicap and at the time had a measured IQ of 72, with doctors recommending family counseling and that Jessie be placed in special education classes. Neither of these took place. Mentally, doctors said that Jessie was operating at a 5 to 8 year old’s range.
On June 3rd, acting on the tip from Vicky about the esbat, police picked up Jessie for questioning at 9:30 AM. The officer told Jessie’s dad that they wanted to talk to Jessie about Damien and if he helped out, they would get the $30k reward money. They questioned Jessie without reading him any Miranda rights, even though according to Arkansas law his father was supposed to waive his Miranda rights in writing before he could be questioned. They asked Jessie about the esbat in Turrell, Arkansas, which Jessie denied attending. He said he had never even been to Turrell before.
The police thought Jessie was lying and asked if he would take a polygraph test. Jessie agreed, but didn’t even know what a polygraph was. Officers went to talk to his dad to get permission; Jessie still hadn’t been read his miranda rights. When they went to talk to Jessie’s dad, they didn’t mention his rights or anything, but just kept bringing up the reward money they could get if he helped them. They agreed to Jessie taking the polygraph.
At noon, Jessie was given the polygraph. He was asked 10 yes or no questions, generic questions about the murders. One question was if Jessie had used drugs before to which Jessie said no. After the test, the officer told him that he was lying his ass off. Jessie admitted to lying about the drugs, but the officer told him he was lying about the murders, and he knew it because “Jessie’s brain was telling him so.” He’s just been told by a police officer, someone he was raised to respect and trust, that he was lying. Plus he had his dad talking to him about the reward money. He was feeling pressure from all sides for various reasons.
Jessie was next questioned about the murders for 2 more hours, and he denied having anything to do with them. He asked to talk to his father, but they told him no. 17 years old and he’s being held for questioning and not allowed to talk to his parents, because the police knew they could get away with it. Detective Gary Gitchell pressured Jessie more and more, and eventually Gitchell pulled out pictures of the mutilated boys, which scared Jessie. Then Gitchell pulled out an audio recorder and played a section of their interview with Vicky’s son Aaron. It was just a snippet. They didn’t tell Jessie it was Aaron, all he heard was a child’s voice saying, “Nobody knows what happened but me,” while looking at the pictures.
Next Gitchell pulled out a paper and drew a circle and put three dots in the middle. The outside, he drew several dots on the outside. He said the dots on the inside were Jessie, Damien, and Jason Baldwin. The dots on the outside were the police and everyone else. He asked Jessie if he wanted to be on the outside with the police or on the inside with Damien and Jason. This is the point where Jessie broke and told them he wanted out and he wanted to go home. In his mind, the only way to do that was to tell them what they wanted to hear. The police told him if he helped them, he could go home.
The next few hours were spent rehearsing what happened. They fed him details in the form of questions. Initially they asked him what time they killed the boys and he said noon. Then they said that the boys were in school so Jessit said it was 5 or 6. Then the detectives asked if it was 5 or 6 or closer to 7 or 8 and Jessie said it was 7 or 8, and detectives said, “That clears it up” and moved on. He finally broke down and said he saw Damien and Jason murder the boys. He inadvertently told them too much and made himself an accomplice when he said that Mike Moore broke loose and he ran and caught him. When all was said and done, Jessie didn’t go home, he was taken to a cell. Over 12 hours worth of an interrogation, and only a total of 43 minutes were recorded. Immediately following the confession, when Jessie was taken to the cell and realized he wasn’t going home, he recanted everything. But the die had been cast and the wheels were in motion. Damien and Jason were immediately arrested.
Buckle Up
The goal of the prosecution in these trials was to get Damien in prison for these murders. Jessie was given his own trial, because under the Bruton Rule, his confession couldn’t be used against Damien and Jason who were tried together. Prosecutors offered Jessie a deal if he would testify against the other two, which he shot down, professing his innocence. Jessie’s trial was first.
Jessie was appointed an attorney by the courts. His attorney said that coming into the case, he thought that Jessie was guilty. There was a confession. He thought that his job was going to be to make the best deal he could for his client. Upon speaking to Jessie initially though, he knew that something was wrong. He said that Jessie didn’t even know what a lawyer was. He had to explain to him that he himself wasn’t a cop, and that he was there to help. He said that there was absolutely no way that Jessie understood any of the miranda rights that were read to him, when they were eventually read to him. He also told a story about Jessie asking him who “Satin” was. His lawyer was confused until he realized that Jessie meant Satan. Here’s this person on trial for murder as part of a Satanic cult, and he didn’t even know who Satan was.
During the trial, when Gitchell was on the stand, Jessie’s lawyer asked him if it ever occurred to him that what Jessie was saying was fales? That his entire story was false. Gitchell said that Jessie just got confused, that’s all. There were several witnesses called for Jessie’s defense. Many focussed on that night having been one where several people went to a local wrestling event that was being held in a different county. The prosecution brought up witnesses who said that the wrestling event was held on a different night, and the date of the wrestling event was never confirmed. The prosecution had also planned to call up William Jones who had earlier claimed to hear Damien drunkenly admit to the murders, but hours before he was set to testify, he recanted saying he lied about everything. Vicky Hutcheson testified under oath to everything she told investigators. After both trials were over though, she admitted that she lied completely. She said that on the night of the esbat, she was so drunk that the next day she woke up in her front yard and had no recollection of what happened and could have dreamed the whole thing.
The testimonies on Jessie’s behalf fell on deaf ears. Jessie was found guilty and sentenced to life plus 40 years in prison.
Three weeks after Jessie’s trial, Damien and Jason went on trial. Days before the trial though, Jason Baldwin was offered a deal. If he testified against Damien, he would only serve 20 years. He refused, proclaiming his innocence. Then hours before, he was offered a deal that would have him serve 10 years, again he declined, saying he and Damien were both innocent. The prosecution called experts to testify on everything from the condition of the bodies to the occult. They hammered home the Satanic ritual angle. They said that Damien had knowledge of the crime scene that only the killer would know. The defense said that he knew things because during the interview by Jerry Driver the day after the bodies were discovered, Driver told him several things about the crime scene, and everything else he saw on TV from where the police leaked the information.
Michael Carson was called as a witness. He claimed that Jason Baldwin had confessed to him that he did kill the boys when they were in a juvenile detention center together. He said that Jason told him that he “dismembered the kid and sucked the blood out of his penis and scrotum and put his balls in his mouth.” Here’s the thing, Carson by his own admission, was on several powerful drugs at the time and he was also huffing gas. He was facing years in federal prison for residential burglary, and suddenly, the prosecution comes to him and he gets a way out. He has also recanted his claims.
John Fogleman, the prosecuting attorney, also had another card up his sleeve. There was a lake behind the mobile home that Jason Baldwin lived in. Fogleman had been given a tip by an informant about a knife that was in the lake. It was a hunting knife with a serrated portion, which experts testified would have caused some of the lacerations on the boy’s bodies. Fogleman sent in a diver to retrieve the knife and it was presented as the weapon used in the crime. So, you would think that you call the informant at trial and get them to connect the knife to the murders and murderers, right? Well, no. The informant was Jason Baldwin’s mother. And she had mentioned a knife that Jason had at one point that she threw in the lake.. A YEAR BEFORE THE BOYS WERE MURDERED. Fogleman knew that the knife had nothing to do with the crime. Witnesses questioned about if it was used spoke in a way to never really say it was used in the crime, just that the injuries on the boys could be cause by such a knife.
In Arkansas, the crime lab wasn’t an independent authority looking over cases. They’re an arm of the prosecution. So, essentially, the medical examiner gets with the prosecution and the prosecution tells them what they think happened. This is obviously problematic. Frank Peretti was the assistant ME who testified and said that the knife caused the wounds and was used to castrate Chris Byers. In Arkansas, you don’t have to pass a test to work in the ME office though, Peretti had tried to pass the state board twice and after the second failure, said he wouldn’t try again because of personal issues. Peretti’s testimony painted the picture of the ritualistic killings, and rape of the boys. His testimony went on and on and on, and the photos were shown time and time again to the jurors.
So after all the witnesses were called and the case was turned over to the jury, they found both Damien and Jason guilty. Jason was given life while Damien was given the death penalty, as the supposed ring leader.
In 1994, Damien, James, and Jessie all appealed their convictions, which were upheld. Time and time again, appeals were denied.
At one point, Damien Echols lawyer was speaking with the West Memphis police department and asking about the evidence in the case and was told that it had been lost or burned in a fire that had taken place. Down every turn, there was just roadblock after roadblock. When they were examining the ligatures used to tie the boys up, the police did find a single hair that was caught in one of the knots. That hair was used to create a DNA profile, which didn’t match any of the 3 in prison. It did however link Stevie Branch’s step dad, Terry Hobbs to the crime scene.
From 2007 to 2010, lawyers did everything they could to get a new trial. They had new DNA evidence that linked Terry Hobbs to the crime scene, and they had an expert who said that Frank Peretti’s testimony was flat out wrong. Vincent DiMaio was a well known and respected medical examiner in Texas. During his testimony, Peretti actually bragged that he was on a first name basis with DiMaio, so people trying to help the WM3 get out of prison went directly to DiMaio to have him look over evidence from the case. He said that while the autopsies were done in exquisite detail, the interpretation of the findings were completely wrong. After looking at the photos, he said that there was nothing there that he would attribute to being caused by a knife. He said looking at the photographs, it was obvious that the wounds occured after death and because of the irregular nature of the wounds and the fact that there was no pattern, it was obvious animal activity. It just so happens that the place where the boys’ bodies were found was nicknamed Turtle City. There were turtles everywhere, and that particular time of the year, the turtles were mating and eating any and everything around them.
To illustrate the bite mark, they went to a turtle expert who let a turtle bite him so they could see what it looked like. It was almost identical to the marks found on the boy’s bodies.
After DiMaio looked at the photos, they sent out everything to 6 more independent medical examiners, who also agreed with DiMaio and said that Peretti was essentially full of shit.
In 2008, Judge David Burnett, who had been the judge over the cases from the start, denied the request of a new trial, saying that the DNA test results were inconclusive. That ruling was appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, who set Sept 30th, 2010 as the date they would hear the case. In November 2010, they ordered that a lower judge consider whether the new evidence might exonerate the three men. Then in December of 2010, Judge Burnett was elected to the Arkansas State Senate, meaning a new judge needed to be appointed. This was what they needed. Judge David Laser was eventually appointed and would preside over the evidentiary hearings.
Damien hired a new defense team that included Stephen Braga and Patrick Benca. However, as the new lawyers worked to present their case at the hearing, they were shocked to find that the new evidence did not conclusively point to a different perpetrator. As was typical for this case, the evidence was only circumstantial. Braga and Benca, convinced that the West Memphis Three were innocent and deserved their freedom, decided to take a different approach. Benca had a working relationship with Arkansas attorney general Dustin McDaniel. The two met to discuss the case. During that meeting, Benca asked McDaniel if his team would consider skipping the hearing in order to move straight to new trials. The judge, Benca argued, would certainly grant new trials after seeing the evidence. McDaniel agreed to discuss the idea with his team.
As negotiations between the lawyers continued, Benca and Braga suggested that both sides agree to an Alford plea, with time served, in order to avoid the risk to both sides that a new trial would bring. An Alford plea required the WM3 to plead guilty to a series of lesser charges while at the same time stating for the record that they were innocent and only pleading guilty because it was in their best interest. Both legal teams agreed that the plea would be acceptable provided that all three defendants were willing to cooperate.
Despite this hopeful new development, Benca and Braga were still concerned. Jason Baldwin, by this time in his late thirties, had the most to lose by accepting this plea. Untainted by false confession as Misskelley was and without the threat of death row that Echols faced, Baldwin was unsure that pleading guilty was the answer. However, after considering that Echols’s execution date was quickly approaching, Baldwin agreed to the legal maneuver in order to preserve Echols’s life.
On August 19, 2011, Judge Laser approved the Alford plea. Each of the defendants pleaded guilty while maintaining their innocence and were released on time served. After eighteen years, one of Arkansas’s most controversial murder cases came to a strange, semi-permanent close.
And just like that, they walked out of a courtroom and back into society. Despite the release of the West Memphis Three, the case remains unresolved, and the legal conduct of both the prosecution and the defense remain relatively unexamined. Prosecutors will not continue to investigate the murders of Stevie Branch, Chris Byers, and Michael Moore. Echols, Misskelley, and Baldwin will not receive compensation for time spent in prison, and they may never be cleared of the crimes to which they pleaded guilty.
So, essentially, the State of Arkansas says, we put the people responsible behind bars and will not look into anything else. West of Memphis, the documentary produced by Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh, goes into further detail about Terry Hobbs as a suspect.
After their release, Jessie Misskelley has stayed out of the spotlight. Jason Baldwin has been involved in some movie production and pursues a career in law. Damien Echols has written books about his experience in prison on death row. He’s also an accomplished artist and has produced movies. When he was released he said that his eyesight had deteriorated to the point where he could only see about 2 feet in front of himself. He had been in a confined space for so long that he had to re-train his eyes to see distances again. They still fight for justice in this case, with Damien being the de facto leader, he’s on the forefront of their fight. On December 21st 2021, Damien tweeted:
The chief of police was not truthful. He has now resigned, and we know that none of the evidence was destroyed. It can now be tested, to see who left DNA at the crime scene. My attorney was in the evidence room this morning and saw it with his own eyes. Every piece is still there.
The evidence was supposedly destroyed in a fire in 2011, but was in the West Memphis evidence room, in pristine condition and cataloged. Initially prosecuting attorneys agreed to have the evidence released and even agreed with the defense about a testing facility in California, but they’ve since changed their tune and said that the defense will have to petition the courts for the evidence to be tested. Echols’ team petitioned the courts on Jan 24th, 2022 to release the evidence for testing and are awaiting the court’s decision.
This case is a big one in the True Crime world. It’s been covered everywhere. We’ve gone into detail about a lot of it, but there’s still so much more out there. We’ve given the broad strokes, but if you want to dive in even further, take a look at The Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt.
