On May 6th, 2003, the battered bodies of three young boys were found in a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas.
About a month later, three teenage boys would be arrested and charged with the crime.
Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, two documentary makers, headed down to Arkansas to film this interesting case. The two young filmmakers arrived with the assumption that the three charged — Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Miskelly — were guilty. Hell, Miskelly had apparently confessed to the crime. It seemed the case was open and shut.
But, as time went on, the two noticed that there was no evidence against the three defendants. Other than some minor scrapes with the law, there was nothing pointing to the fact that these three teens killed the boys. Oh, wait, they wore black and listened to heavy metal music. And they also had that confession from Miskelly (who, buy the way, is borderline retarded).
When I first saw Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, the finished documentary, I was blown away at the miscarriage of justice. Not only did it feel like I was watching a real live witch hunt, I couldn’t fathom how backwoods and ignorant the people involved with the case were, from the police investigating all the way up to the useless fuck of a judge overseeing the case.
Then its sequel, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations came out. Having not knowing much, I figured this documentary would have a nice update, such as the teens getting released, or at the very least, new trials. No such luck. All the sequel did was piss me off more, as it suggested another possible suspect in the case, Mark Byers (one of the victims’ father).
So, when I heard about Mara Leveritt’s book, “Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three,” I knew I had to read it. But, arriving late in the game, it was a hard book to track down. It seemed that it was often sold out at Amazon. But I lucked out a couple weeks ago and picked it up from a bookstore in B’more (the name of it escapes me, but it was one of those great bookstores that has all those types of books you can’t find anywhere else).
Wow. What an asskicking this book gave me.
I knew Echols, Baldwin and Miskelly had gotten completely railroaded at their trials — the documentaries showed this. But the book complements the docs perfectly, as it goes into more detail on how completely the State completely and utterly mishandled both the investigation and the trial. And we’re not just talking about a very questionable confession. We’re talking about leads not followed up on (like the bloody man that stumbled into a Popeye’s that no one ever bothered to investigate, or the kid who admitted to killing the three young boys, but no one bothered to follow through with checking out the story).
Leveritt is an extraordinary writer. While it’s obvious she feels the boys are innocent — any reasonable person would, I think — her writing is still level. Hell, while I hated the prosecutor after watching the documentaries, I found that, while he was extremely misguided because of the pressure he was under, he came across as, dare I say it, somewhat likeable. It still pisses me off that you get the feeling that he, the prosecutor, knows he fucked up, but he won’t swallow his pride and re-open the investigation.
Leveritt doesn’t bother throwing out a lot of potential suspects for the murders. Instead, she displays the entire case, from start to finish, in front of you and asks you to make the call.
I intentionally kept this post as vague as I could. If you ever get me talking about the case, I get angry as I talk more about it. But, if this sort of thing interests you, I want to be vague so you can make your own decision.
If you want to see one of the biggest courtroom injustices in recent history, I implore you at the very least to watch the documentaries. And if you are moved by them at all, to read “Knot.”
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