"West Memphis 3 figure seeks solace in Salem" by Loren King | Globe Correspondent, March 16, 2013
Salem has made the most of its infamous connection to the 17th-century witch trials, with reenactments, witchcraft museums, Halloween parades, and year-round spooky events. So perhaps it’s no surprise that Damien Echols, a man who spent 18 years on death row for a crime many people now believe he didn’t commit, has found refuge in this North Shore town.
The 1993 murder of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Ark., along with the prosecution and legal battle that followed, captivated the nation and earned Echols and the two men convicted with him the moniker of the West Memphis 3. As questions about their guilt mounted, celebrity supporters, including “Lord of the Rings” filmmakers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, and Johnny Depp clamored for justice, and eventually it came with the trio’s release in 2011 under an obscure provision.
That journey from crime to conviction to release is chronicled in a new documentary that opened here Friday, “West of Memphis.”
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When he was 18, Echols was sentenced to execution for the murders of Steven Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers, despite a lack of DNA and forensic evidence. Sentenced to life imprisonment were Echols’ friends Jason Baldwin, 16, and the mentally impaired Jessie Misskelley Jr., 17, who recanted his confession to police. Prosecutors contended that the teens, led by Echols, killed the boys as part of a satanic ritual, citing as evidence Echols’ penchant for wearing black and listening to heavy metal music.
Related: Avowed Satanist accused of terrorizing woman
I guess devils do exist.
He says that he survived nearly two decades on death row by writing and by developing mind and body techniques for dealing with rage and bitterness. “For the first two or three years when I was in prison, I was pissed off all the time about everything. From the moment my eyes opened in the morning it was like, ‘I should not be here. These people have no right to do this to me.’ ”
Others agreed.
The West Memphis 3 became a cause celebre. But despite public pressure, the state of Arkansas refused to grant a new trial but instead released the West Memphis 3 under an obscure provision called an Alford plea. This allowed them to go free if they agreed not to sue the state of Arkansas for financial damages. But it did not overturn the guilty verdicts.
Echols considered fighting for full exoneration, but accepted the bargain. “If I didn’t take that deal, I was never going to see the outside world.”
One might think that Echols and Davis, who married in a Buddhist ceremony in the prison visiting room in 1999, would simply want to live quietly in Salem and not revisit the past. But the couple are balancing a desire to settle down and enjoy time together with their quest for justice.
To that end, Echols and Davis co-produced the documentary with Jackson and Walsh, with the hope of one day overturning the guilty verdict that remains on Echols’ record and spurring prosecutors to find and charge the actual killer.
“We filed all the new evidence in front of the same judge who had sentenced me to death. He refused to hear it. Case closed. Peter [Jackson] said, ‘If we can’t be heard in a court, let’s take it public and make a film,’ ” Echols recalls.
The producers hired director Amy Berg on the strength of her Oscar-nominated documentary “Deliver Us from Evil,” about the Reverend Oliver O’Grady, a Catholic priest who was relocated to various parishes around the country during the 1970s in an attempt to cover up his abuse of dozens of children....
Echols and his supporters already understood the power of a documentary. HBO’s “Paradise Lost” trilogy first focused public attention on the case. But that was not an investigative documentary. “West of Memphis” attempts to discredit much of the expert testimony in the trial and presents new witnesses and information that casts suspicion on Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the murdered boys....
As part of their nationwide promotion of the film, Echols and Davis participated in discussions following two sold-out screenings of “West of Memphis” at the recent Salem Film Fest. The crowd was supportive, treating the couple like neighbors and friends (“You two are adorable!” said one man during their Q&A). They hung out waiting for the screening to end and grabbed dinner at Gulu-Gulu Cafe.
But a message posted on the festival website by a man claiming to be Todd Moore, father of victim Michael Moore, is a reminder of the past, even as admirers ask to take his picture with their cellphones. “How shameful for anyone to support this monster that brutally murdered my son and his friends,” the message says.
Echols dismisses it.
“I spent nearly two decades in a building with murderers and rapists. I’m not concerned with what someone says on the Internet,” he says.
“The most suspicious thing I found out about Damien is that he doesn’t think gummy bears are a proper topping for ice cream,” says Joe Cultrera, the Salem Film Festival founder and director. “He’s a sweet guy with a bunch of tattoos.”
Echols has left most of the past in Arkansas behind except for an ongoing friendship with Baldwin. “Jason and I talk every few days. He’s in Seattle now, going to school and hoping to get a law degree. But he won’t be able to practice until he’s exonerated.”
Echols says he knows that exoneration for Baldwin, for Misskelley, or for himself, is unlikely.
“I’m not naïve to think it’s going to happen just because of this movie,” he says. “It’s going to be a long, hard, bitter fight.”
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Just innocent boys convicted by mob mentality or another Leo Frank case?
The point about the agenda-pushing Zionist media machine picking up the torch is well taken.
