The West Memphis Three are three freed men convicted as teenagers of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, United States. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley Jr. to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin to life imprisonment. During the trial, the prosecution asserted that the juveniles killed the children as part of a Satanic ritual.
Due to the dubious nature of the evidence, the lack of physical evidence connecting the men to the crime, and the suspected presence of emotional bias in court, the case generated widespread controversy and was the subject of several documentaries. Celebrities and musicians held fundraisers to support efforts to free the men.
In July 2007, new forensic evidence was presented. A report jointly issued by the state and the defense team confirmed that there was no DNA found from the three convicted men, further stating that some unidentified DNA: "recovered from the scene… cannot be attributed to either the victims or the defendants."
Following a 2010 decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court regarding newly produced DNA evidence and potential juror misconduct, the West Memphis Three negotiated a plea bargain with prosecutors. On August 19, 2011, they entered Alford pleas, which allowed them to assert their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict them. Judge David Laser accepted the pleas and sentenced the three to time served. They were released with 10-year suspended sentences, having served 18 years.
The crime On May 5, 1993, three eight-year-old boys (Steve Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers) were reported missing in West Memphis, Arkansas. The first report to the police was made by Byers's adoptive father, John Mark Byers, around . The boys were allegedly last seen together by three neighbors, who in affidavits told of seeing them playing together around the evening they disappeared and seeing Terry Hobbs, Steve Branch's stepfather, calling them to come home.; Affidavits Initial police searches made that night were limited. Friends and neighbors also conducted a search that night, which included a cursory visit to the location where the bodies were later found.
A more thorough police search for the children began around on May 6, led by the Crittenden County Search and Rescue personnel. Searchers canvassed all of West Memphis but focused primarily on Robin Hood Hills, where the boys were reported last seen. Despite a shoulder-to-shoulder search of Robin Hood Hills by a human chain, searchers found no sign of the missing boys.
Around , juvenile Parole Officer Steve Jones spotted a boy's black shoe floating in a muddy creek that led to a major drainage canal in Robin Hood Hills. A subsequent search of the ditch revealed the bodies of three boys. They had been stripped naked and were hogtied with their own shoelaces, their right ankles tied to their right wrists behind their backs, the same with their left arms and legs. Their clothing was found in the creek, some of it twisted around sticks that had been thrust into the muddy ditch bed. The clothing was mostly turned inside-out; two pairs of the boys' underwear were never recovered. Christopher Byers had lacerations to various parts of his body and mutilation of his scrotum and penis.
The autopsies by forensic pathologist Frank J. Peretti indicated that Byers died of "multiple injuries", while Moore and Branch died of "multiple injuries with drowning".
Police initially suspected the boys had been raped; however, later expert testimony disputed this finding. Trace amounts of sperm DNA were found on a pair of pants recovered from the scene. Prosecution experts claim Byers's wounds were the results of a knife attack and that he had been purposely castrated by the murderer; defense experts claim the injuries were most likely the result of post-mortem animal predation. Police believed the boys were assaulted and killed at the location where they were found; critics argued that the assault, at least, was unlikely to have occurred at the creek.
Byers was the only victim with drugs in his system; he was prescribed Ritalin (methylphenidate) in January 1993 as part of treatment of an attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. The initial autopsy report describes the drug as Carbamazepine and the dosage at a sub-therapeutic level. His father said Byers may not have taken his prescription on May 5, 1993.
Victims
Steve Edward Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore were all second graders at Weaver Elementary School. Each had achieved the rank of "Wolf" in the local Cub Scout pack and were best friends.
Steve Edward Branch Steve Branch was the son of Steven and Pamela Branch, who divorced when he was an infant. His mother was awarded custody and later married Terry Hobbs. Branch was eight years old, 4 ft. 2 tall, weighed 65 lbs, and had blond hair. He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and riding a black and red bicycle. He was an honor student. He lived with his mother, Pamela Hobbs, his stepfather, Terry Hobbs, and a four-year-old half-sister, Amanda. Steve Edward Branch is buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Steele, Missouri.
Christopher Mark Byers Christopher Byers was born to Melissa DeFir and Ricky Murray. His parents divorced when he was four years old and shortly afterward his mother married John Mark Byers, who adopted the boy. Byers was eight years old, 4 ft. tall, weighed 52 lbs, and had light brown hair. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, dark shoes, and a white long-sleeved shirt. He lived with his mother, Sharon Melissa Byers, his adoptive father, John Mark Byers, and his half-brother, Shawn Ryan Clark, aged 13. According to his mother, Christopher was a typical eight-year-old. "He still believed in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus". Christopher Mark Byers is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery East in Memphis, Tennessee.
James Michael Moore Michael Moore was the son of Todd and Dana Moore. He was eight years old, 4 ft. 2 tall, weighed 55 lbs, and had brown hair. He was last seen wearing blue pants, a blue Boy Scouts of America shirt, and an orange and blue Boy Scout hat, and riding a light green bicycle. Moore enjoyed wearing his scout uniform even when he was not at meetings. He was considered the leader of the three. He lived with his parents and his nine-year-old sister, Dawn. James Michael Moore is buried in Crittenden Memorial Park Cemetery in Marion, Arkansas.
Victims memorial In 1994, a memorial was erected for the three murder victims. The memorial is located in the playground of Weaver Elementary School in West Memphis, where all three victims were second graders at the time of the crime. In May 2013, for the 20th anniversary of the slayings, Weaver Elementary School principal Sheila Grissom raised funds to refurbish the memorial.
Suspects
Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelley
At the time of their arrests, Jason Baldwin was 16 years old, Damien Echols was 18 and Jessie Misskelley Jr. was 17.
Baldwin and Echols had been previously arrested for vandalism and shoplifting respectively, and Misskelley had a reputation for his temper and for engaging in fistfights with other teenagers at school. Misskelley and Echols had dropped out of high school; however, Baldwin earned high grades and demonstrated a talent for drawing and sketching, and was encouraged by one of his teachers to study graphic design in college. Echols and Baldwin were close friends, and bonded over their similar tastes in music and fiction, and over their shared distaste for the prevailing cultural climate of West Memphis, situated in the Bible Belt. Echols and Baldwin were acquainted with Misskelley from school, but were not close friends with him.
Echols's family was poor, received frequent visits from social workers and he rarely attended school. He and a girlfriend had run off and later broken into a trailer during a rain storm; they were arrested, though only Echols was charged with burglary.
Echols spent several months in a mental institution in Arkansas and afterward received "full disability" status from the Social Security Administration. During Echols's trial, Dr. George W. Woods testified (for the defense) that Echols suffered from:
serious mental illness characterized by grandiose and persecutory delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, disordered thought processes, substantial lack of insight, and chronic, incapacitating mood swings.
At his death penalty sentencing hearing, Echols's psychologist reported that months before the murders, Echols had claimed that he obtained super powers by drinking human blood.Mark Caro, In Search Of Evil, Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1996. At the time of his arrest, Echols was working part-time with a roofing company and expecting a child with his girlfriend, Domini Teer.
Chris Morgan and Brian Holland Early in the investigation, the WMPD briefly regarded two West Memphis teenagers as suspects. Chris Morgan and Brian Holland, both with drug offense histories, had abruptly departed for Oceanside, California, four days after the bodies were discovered. Morgan was presumed to be at least casually familiar with all three murdered boys, having previously driven an ice cream truck route in their neighborhood.
Arrested in Oceanside on May 17, 1993, Morgan and Holland both took polygraph exams administered by California police. Examiners reported that both men's charts indicated deception when they denied involvement in the murders. During subsequent questioning, Morgan claimed a long history of drug and alcohol use, along with blackouts and memory lapses. He claimed that he "might have" killed the victims but quickly recanted this part of his statement.
California police sent blood and urine samples from Morgan and Holland to the WMPD, but there is no indication WMPD investigated Morgan or Holland as suspects following their arrest in California. The relevance of Morgan's recanted statement would later be debated in trial, but it was eventually barred from admission as evidence.
"Mr. Bojangles"
The sighting of a black male as a possible alternate suspect was implied during the beginning of the Misskelley trial. According to local West Memphis police officers, on the evening of May 5, 1993, at 8:42 pm, workers in the Bojangles restaurant located about a mile from the crime scene in Robin Hood Hills reported seeing a black male who seemed "mentally disoriented" inside the restaurant's ladies' room. The man was bleeding and had brushed against the restroom walls. Officer Regina Meeks responded to the call, taking the restaurant manager's report through the eatery's drive-through window. By then, the man had left, and police did not enter the restroom on that date.
The day after the victims' bodies were found, Bojangles manager Marty King, thinking there was a possible connection to the bleeding man found in the bathroom, reported the incident to police officers who then inspected the ladies' room. The man reportedly wore a "blue cast type brace on his arm that had white Velcro on it", which would have made it difficult to tie up and murder three young boys. King gave the officers a pair of sunglasses he thought the man had left behind, and the detectives took some blood samples from the walls and tiles of the restroom. Police detective Bryn Ridge testified that he later lost those blood scrapings. A hair identified as belonging to a black male was later recovered from a sheet wrapped around one of the victims.
Investigation Evidence and interviews