West Memphis 3

Satan worshipers, cultist, murderers. Three words that describe three teenage boys that were wrongfully convicted of the murder of three eight years old boys. The West Memphis Three are three men who were tried and convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys, Steve Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers, in West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial, the prosecution asserted that the children were killed as part of a satanic ritual. Believing that the boys were Satan worshipers since they wore dark clothing, seemed to be Gothic, and had long hair. This was very judgmental of the police to base this as evidence because you can't judge a book by its cover. Thousands of people had developed their own opinion of the west Memphis three. My opinion is that they were not the ones that murdered the three boys. The police had absolutely no evidence on Damien, Jason, or Jessie. They based their evidence on what Jessie Misskelley had told them when they knew that the boy had an IQ of 72! He was questioned for twelve hours and only 46 minutes was recorded. In the recording, Jessie said, “The murder happened around 1 o'clock.” If this was so the boys would have been at school, but of course the police ignored that and kept interrogating Jessie to get him to say what they wanted him to say so they could pinpoint Damien and Jason as the murderers. Damien went on trial and was completely honest with everything that he told the judge and jury, yet the jury and judge were very contradictory of Damien because of his image. Lawyers contradicted and twister every word Damien said while he was on the stand. In my opinion, During the trial of all three boys amendment six was not necessarily present. I believe the boys were not trialed