Further Reading For The West Memphis 3
Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt
Life After Death by Damien Echols
True Stories of False Confessions by Rob Warden & Steven A. Drizin
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
Info
The West Memphis Three is the name given to Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin, three men in West Memphis, Arkansas that faced murder charges as teenagers for the brutal slaying of Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers in 1993. Each was convicted and sentenced in 1994 with Misskelley and Baldwin receiving 20 year prison sentences and Echols, thought to be the ringleader, received the death penalty.
This case was covered extensively in the press as an example of Satanic Panic, as the extraordinarily incompetent local law enforcement was influenced heavily by so-called occult experts that alleged that the murders were part of a satanic ritual and that the West Memphis 3 were satanists because of their black clothing and taste for heavy metal music.
Following new DNA evidence introduced to the Arkansas Supreme Court, the state struck an Alford Plea deal with the three men, thus freeing each of them.
Episodes: 335 – 337
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