Further DNA testing was approved in the case of the murders of three boys in West Memphis. On Friday, Judge Tonya Alexander gave the green light to test a mysterious box of evidence. This decision may bring a decades-long murder case to a resolution.
The case
In 1993, three boys went missing in West Memphis. Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers were found murdered a day later. The crime scene was gruesome: the boys were found hogtied, naked and lying by a drainage ditch.
Investigators quickly pinned the crime on three local teenagers: Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley.
The prosecution claimed they were involved in “satanism,” and killed the three boys as part of a ritual. In 1994, a jury found the three guilty. Echols was sentenced to death, the others to life in prison.
In 1996, an HBO documentary called “Paradise Lost” put new light on the convictions. Public backlash grew as new reporting questioned the evidence.
Misskelley confessed to the crime, but only after hours of interrogation. He was mentally challenged, and his confession contradicted evidence at the murder site. Witnesses who testified to overhearing confessions from the accused have recanted. The prosecution claimed the murders were caused by a knife, but no knife wounds were found on the victims bodies. Their deaths were more consistent with drowning. Later DNA testing did not match the three convicted men. Later hair studied in a private DNA test matched one of the boy's stepfathers.
In the 2012 documentary “West of Memphis,” a neighbor said she saw the same stepfather leading the boys into the woods the night they went missing.
The trial also happened during an odd era in American criminal history. The early 90s was the apex of the “satanic panic.” This was a moral hysteria, in the 80’s and 90’s. Then, many lawyers, psychologists and police officers became convinced American children were experiencing widespread and secret “satanic ritual abuse.” The evidence was virtually non-existent, and responsible for several overturned convictions.
In 2011, the three men in the West Memphis case took an Alford plea. This allowed them to maintain their innocence while pleading guilty to a lesser charge. They were set free, and while living civilian lives still maintain their innocence.
Echols especially has always pushed for new testing in the case, hoping to be fully exonerated. Echols was represented in the case by lawyer Patrick Benca. In 2021, the state claimed the evidence did not exist. Some reports say it was lost in a fire. A prosecutor told Talk Business & Politics he wanted the evidence “destroyed.”
The same year, the missing evidence was found in a box owned by the West Memphis Police Department. The box had the shoelaces which had been used to bind the children — a key piece of evidence in the case. Since the murders in the early 90’s, huge strides have been made in DNA science. The accused men want the evidence retested.
Hearing
Lawyers for the three men chatted with state lawyers about the testing process. The hearing only lasted a few minutes.
Joseph Rosen, the lawyer for Misskelley, told Little Rock Public Radio the state is comfortable going forward on the testing. He said their conversation was mostly about “chain of custody” for testing the evidence in the box.
Jason Baldwin was the only member of the three present at the hearing Friday. He told Little Rock Public Radio the DNA will not match him.
“No one wants to come here,” he said of being back in West Memphis. “We want the truth.”
