Essay On The West Memphis Three

The West Memphis Three are three young men, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr., and Jason Baldwin, who were tried and convicted as teenagers for a triple homicide that they did not commit. Both Misskelley and Baldwin were sentenced to life imprisonment, Misskelley with two additional 20-year sentences, while Echols was to receive the death penalty. Many believe that the trial was, for lack of a better term, a “witch hunt”, due to the fact that there was very little and horribly careless sincere investigation carried out in order to attempt to prove the young men innocent, there were multiple interviews disregarded simply for the sake of upholding the false notion that the teenagers were guilty, and the majority of the world at this time

The young boys’ bodies were found on May 6, 1993, in the creek located in the patch of woods that separated West Memphis from Route 61, Robin Hood Hills. Their bodies were found bare, and they had been “hogtied” with their own shoelaces, meaning that their right leg had been bound to their right arm, and likewise for the left; their clothes were also soon found in this creek, some of which had been wrapped around sticks and forced into the muddy ditch bed. The three autopsies indicated that while Byers had died of "multiple injuries” and had abrasions to numerous parts of his body, both Branch and Moore died of "multiple injuries with drowning". In 1994, a memorial for Branch, Moore, and Byers was constructed at the playground of Weaver Elementary School, where all three children

Damien Echols moved to New York City with his wife, Lorri Davis, but soon thereafter bought a house in Salem, Massachusetts, settled down, and became a successful artist whose work is now displayed in the Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, California. Jessie Misskelley Jr. returned back to his home of West Memphis upon his release, the only one of the three to do so, and he has opted to stay out of the spotlight. Jason Baldwin has moved to Seattle and made his home there within the first five months; he is now married, and he was an executive producer of the 2014 film about the travesty, Devil’s Knot. Regardless of their decisions to stay out of the public eye or to embrace it, few could ever forget the dreadful story of the West Memphis Three. For now and until the true murderer confesses or evidence is found to prove one beyond a shadow of a doubt, the case will remain a