Several years ago I read a book called, if I remember correctly, �Innocence Lost�. It is the true story of how 3 young boys were brutally murdered. It takes place in West Memphis, Arkansas in May of 1993. For you to fully understand where I am going with this and why I am now writing about it, I am going to have to give a brief history of this story.
* Christopher Byers, Steve Branch and Michael Moore are the murder victims.
* Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin are the suspects.
* May 6, 1993, 3 young boys were found brutally murdered. All three of them were naked and they had been tied ankle to wrist with their own shoelaces. The children had been severely beaten, and one child, Christopher Byers, appears to have been the focus of the attack; he had been stabbed repeatedly in the groin area and castrated.
*Having minimal experience with cases such as this, the West Memphis Police Department allowed potential evidence to be destroyed at the site where the bodies were discovered.
* The police department failed to preserve or properly document the scene or to make accurate notes. Many unidentified people can be seen milling around the bodies in the brief crime scene video.
* For an unknown reason, a juvenile probation officer was present when the horrible discovery was made and he indulged in speculation with a police officer about who might be responsible for such an unspeakable act. He based these ludicrous ideas solely on the fact that his �suspects� were into heavy metal music.
* This same juvenile officer had tried pinning past crimes on one of the suspects, Damien Echols, for years.
* Because of the way Damien looked, the officers had decided that he was the only one capable of committing this gruesome triple homicide they had just discovered. They were convinced that he was part of a cult in which he was the leader of.
* There was no evidence of any "cult" activity in the woods.
* The investigating officers found nothing incriminating the next day when they visited Damien Echols in his trailer in the nearby town of Marion.
* Though there wasn't any evidence to connect Damien to the victims or to the murders, the rumors, irresponsible police work and the media created an environment where it was decided, well before the trials, that the three teenagers were devil worshippers who were guilty of the murders.
* A local woman offering to invite Echols into her home so she could voice record him incriminating himself approached police. The tape revealed nothing.
* This same woman was in trouble for writing bad checks. The reward for anyone who was able to offer up evidence was $30,000.
* Again, this woman had yet another idea. She urged her own son to go to the police and tell them that he had witnessed the murders. However, the boy�s accounts of what took place that day were so bizarre and obviously exaggerated, the police disregarded his stories.
* Without any if the solid evidence that the police had so carelessly mishandled that day, they decided that relying on hearsay was their only option.
* This same woman had a final idea. She approached and urged a mentally handicapped 17-year-old named Jessie Misskelley to go to the police with another eyewitness account of having seen Echols kill the children.
* Jessie has the IQ of 72, which, as we all know, is extremely low. 100 is average and with IQ�s, each point counts dramatically.
* Jessie was interviewed by cops with no legal representation for 12 hours. That is like interviewing a 2 year old. You can imagine what they will say and do just so they can go home because that is what they were promised when they went in.
* Although the interview lasted 12 hours, the video shows very little time. No one knows what was said or done to this boy who is certifiably mentally handicapped.
* In the short video they did manage to tape, a baseball bat can be spotted in the corner of the room. One would have to wonder what a baseball bat is doing in an interrogation room.
* Although Jessie made numerous mistakes in his �account� of the murders, the police still accepted it as a confession. He had every detail wrong.
* Jessie passed his polygraph test; the police said he failed.
* Without hesitation, Jessie Misskelley was arrested, and soon after, so were Jason Baldwin, along with the exclusive focus of the West Memphis Police Department's investigation, Damien Echols.
* During Jessie's trial, Dr. Richard Ofshe, a Pulitzer Prize winning expert on false confessions and police coercion testified that the brief recording was a "classic example" of police coercion. He pointed out how the officers heard Jessie state that the murders had taken place in the morning - but since they knew that the victims had been in school all day, they "suggested" to Jessie that it "must" have been later when he was in the woods. Jessie obligingly agreed.
* The testimony of this expert witness for Jessie's defense was not heard in its entirety by the jury.
* John Mark Byers, the stepfather of one of the victims told the media that his stepson's testicles had been found in a jar of alcohol under Damien's bed. This, of course, was a complete fabrication, but the local people heard it, and soon had their own vivid memories of that jar. Byers later claimed to have heard the jar of alcohol rumor on his police radio. It was believed to the point that it was actually printed in the book as a fact. There were many more rumors, but this one seems to represent them best.
* Books written by best-selling author Stephen King were used as evidence against Damien when no real evidence could be found.
* Black concert T-shirts were held up as evidence in an American courtroom in the 1990s as "proof" that Jason Baldwin was capable of murdering three 8 year olds.
* Lyrics to songs by Blue Oyster Cult and Pink Floyd were shown to the jury, apparently in an effort to suggest to them that they were relevant to the murders, and somehow showed that the defendants were guilty.
* The inconsistent testimony of a jail house snitch and a couple of little girls who claim to have overheard Damien "confessing" at a girl's softball game were taken seriously even after the sources were shown to be less than solid * On the night that the children were reported missing, Officer Regina Meek received a call to investigate a man in the ladies restroom of a nearby Bojangles restaurant. According to the manager of the restaurant, the black man was muddy, bleeding and mumbling, but Meek simply drove through the restaurant's drive-through window without getting out to even take a look. Twenty-four hours later, long after the bodies had been found, officers returned to the Bojangles restaurant, which were only a few blocks from Robin Hood Hills woods. This time the officers actually got out of their vehicle and entered the building, but unfortunately they were still wearing the clothes in which they had searched the woods and handled the bodies earlier that day. Whatever evidence might have been collected at the Bojangles restaurant was now contaminated by whatever material the police officers brought in with them on their shoes and clothing.
* Blood scrapings were allegedly taken from the walls and tiles in the restaurant, but Detective Bryn Ridge apparently didn't feel that this potential evidence was very important, because he later testified that he lost it.
* Adult human bite marks, which were found on at least one of the victims, were also overlooked during the original investigation. This is very likely due to the fact that a Board Certified Medical Examiner never examined these bodies. They were buried without ever having been subjected to an autopsy by a qualified forensic pathologist.
* Almost five years after the murders, the first board certified medical examiner, forensic pathologist and forensic odontologist to ever examine the victims did so by looking at the autopsy photographs. They testified during Damien Echols' Rule 37 hearing that the bite marks were in fact of human origin, and after obtaining dental impressions from Jason, Jessie and Damien, concluded that the three young men who are currently serving prison sentences for this murder COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BITE MARKS seen in the victim photographs.
* When HBO did a documentary on this case, the crew was given a knife as a gift by John Mark Byers, the stepfather of one of the victims. The knife had blood on it that matched his stepson�s blood. The evidence was destroyed.
* John Mark Byers was a skilled hunter. Because of this skill, he is logically the only one that could have castrated his son in the manner in which it was done.
* Jason and Jessie were each sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole.
* Damien was sentenced to die by lethal injection.
* There was no physical evidence that pointed to Damien, Jason or Jessie. There was nothing to suggest that they had killed the three children except the superstitious suspicions that were being fueled by the local media who seemed reluctant to publish a story unless it contained the word "Satan" or at least "cult."
When I first read of this story, I too believed in their guilt. I loathed even hearing their names, I was so convinced. But after watching the documentary and seeing for myself the real evidence, I have no doubt in my mind that they are innocent. The same judge that presided over the initial trial remains to deny them their appeals, which they are entitled to. They do not have the funds for adequate representation. Unless this changes for them, they will all die in prison by either lethal injection or by living out their life there. The person who is responsible for these murders, whom I believe to be John Mark Byers, is out there somewhere, living free while these boys are suffering in prison because they dressed in black and listened to heavy metal music. Every piece of evidence points to their innocence. Yet they are being misjudged and paying a very steep fine because they didn�t look and act like anyone else. This was in the �90�s; I thought we were past this sort of dark age thinking? He we are, in 2003, and things still haven�t gotten better for them. This enrages me. I have been following this case for almost a decade. I will continue to follow it until they are exonerated. There are things that can be done to help them. Henry Rollins has made a CD for their benefit and he is also going on tour to raise money for their defense fund. If you believe in their innocence as I do, I urge you to help in any way you can. Below you will find links that will tell you what you can do for this worthwhile cause.
How to Start
Who do I write to?
WM3 Link Banners
Flyers and Posters
WM3 Music
Events and Support Groups <--- updated almost daily! Check back often.
Raising Awareness
The Films
Media Links
Books
Victim Bios
T-shirts
Store
Contacting the WM3 Support Fund
Who
Do I write to?
Write the Governor
Write the Appeals
Court Judges of Arkansas
The Media Blitz
The Great Postcard Project
Links
WM3 Link Banners
Flyers and Posters
Download PDF files