Three from Memphis

 There are criminal cases in the world in which the tragedy of the victims is somewhat overshadowed by the tragedy of the suspects. Such a story is undoubtedly the one about the Memphis Trinity.

In early May 1993, the bodies of 3 boys were found in West Memphis, Arkansas. They died a cruel death at the hands of a psychopathic murderer. A year later, three teenagers, including one with an intellectual disability, were convicted of a heinous crime. Has justice been done?

On May 5, 1993, John Mark Byers called the police to report his eight-year-old stepson Christopher missing. The boy was last seen by his parents around 5:00 PM. At 9:30 PM, a similar report was made by Dana Moore and Pamela Hobbs. The women's sons - Michael and Steve - also did not return home.

Steve, Michael and Christopher were all the same age living close together in West Memphis, Arkansas. They were friends. The news of their disappearance quickly spread among the neighbors. One of them claimed that around He saw boys riding bicycles near Robin Hood Hills at 8:00 PM.

Robin Hood Hills Park is built around the Tenmile Bayou dredge canal. Entwined with a network of bicycle paths, it encouraged the local kids to play all kinds of things: building forts, swinging on hand-made swings, walking on trees, camping.

The alerted policemen started searching for the missing boys there, but had to give up quickly. It was dark and the air was full of mosquitoes. Nobody was prepared for such conditions. Officers withdrew to return to the scene in the morning.

The search resumed at eight. The policemen and volunteers created a tight line. They combed meter by meter in this way of the wetland. Unsuccessfully. It was not until 1:45 PM that Officer Steve Jones noticed a baby boot floating on the surface of a muddy tributary of the main canal crossing Robin Hood Hills.

The search team focused their efforts in this area. Following the shoe, other items of children's clothing were found, and eventually also the bodies of Stev, Michael and Christopher. The victims were naked. Their arms and legs were tied with laces taken from their own shoes.

First, the body of Michael Moore was recovered from the river. There were blows on the boy's head. Stevie Branch was next, also with a smashed head and a battered face. Christopher was fished last. Like his friends, he was also beaten, but the murderer paid much more attention to him. He removed his genitals with a sharp instrument, most likely a knife, and covered the entire perineal area with stab wounds.

Soon, the boys' parents and journalists found out about the macabre discovery. Everyone was shocked without exception. In West Memphis, such things did not happen. Fights, thefts - yes, but brutal murders of children? It was impossible for anyone to understand.

The autopsy results showed that Christopher died as a result of numerous injuries, and that his colleagues died as a result of drowning. Police suspected all three of them had been raped. During the investigation, traces of DNA were found on the pants of one of the victims. No signs of rape were revealed on the bodies themselves.

The bloody crime against eight-year-olds fired the imaginations of both residents and policemen. Officers took into account various hypotheses, including a ritual murder by a group of Satanists. Even witnesses who heard the sounds of a satanic mass on the night of the murder were reported to report to the police.

The neighborhood was searched. Neither the murder weapon nor any other useful traces were found. Officers questioned the boys' parents and local residents. The obtained leads turned out to be rumors or half-truths and as such were of little help.

The Satanic trail seemed most interesting to everyone. West Memphis school superintendent Jerry Driver decided, based on his own experience, to create a "suspect list" of teenagers who might be involved in the murder. The list included eighteen-year-old Damien Echols.

The boy was the perfect suspect - his ex-girlfriend claimed he was invading her and threatening her after she decided to break up with him. Damien came from a poor family, he lived with his family in a trailer. His mother married a 20 years older man who had adopted her children. The family was suffering, and little Damien escaped from the harsh everyday life into the world of dreams and fantasies.

To make matters worse, he dressed in black and listened to heavy music. He gave the impression of an outsider - that was how he dealt with the reluctance of his peers at school. He was interested in the Christian religion, and then - paganism and witchcraft. It all sounded very disturbing to the curator of Driver. Consequently, he referred Damien to a mental hospital. The boy came out of it after 3 weeks with an overall good opinion and a diagnosis of depression. He was prescribed pharmacological treatment.

Damien had been friends with 16-year-old Jason Baldwin since he was a child. The boys listened to the same music, dressed in black and out of society. Probation officer Driver also stuck to him - reported to the police that he believed Damien and considered themselves out of society. Soon the officers came to the boys to inquire about what they were doing on the unlucky day when Steve, Michael and Christopher went missing.

Damien and Jason had an alibi for the day of the murder, confirmed by many witnesses, including Damien's mom and the apothecary who sold him the drugs. The teenagers did not know the victims of the macabre crime, never had anything to do with them. During the interrogation, they were not informed that they were suspected of anything, they had not been read about their rights.

Damien was soon called in for another questioning - without his parents or a lawyer. During it, he shared his reflections on the murder. These were casual comments that any intelligent, fact-knowing person would make. For investigators, they sounded like evidence that the suspect was at the crime scene.

Damien underwent a polygraph test. Investigation indicated that he had lied when asked if he had anything to do with the murder of the three boys. Witnesses soon reported to the police to see Damien and Jason walking along the road in the Robin Hood Hills area in muddy pants on the evening of May 5.

The last of the Memphis Three was Jessie Misskelley. The boy was 17 years old, he was slightly handicapped (IQ below average), he did not study. He lived in a trailer and earned his living from part-time work. His neighbor Vicky reported to the police and suspected Jessie of suspicious dealings with Damien and Jason.

Vicky once asked Jessie if he knew Damien Echols. Jessie replied that something had happened to his ears. It is true that he associated James Baldwin better - James was the only one who did not tease the handicapped boy. Jessie couldn't read or speak well. He didn't understand the world around him. In addition, he was only 154 cm tall, which provoked his peers to jokes and mockery.

Four weeks after the murders, Jessie was taken by police officers for questioning. The boy was totally confused, but he wanted to help. Jessie's father signed the relevant consent. A disabled teenager was subjected to a polygraph test.

The policemen grinded him for hours, and Jessie finally admitted that he saw Damien and Jason kill Steve, Chris and Michael as part of a satanic ritual. The officers were satisfied - they tracked down the murderers. Justice could be done. Three from Memphis were arrested.

Jessie Misskelley was tried in a separate trial, Jason and Damien - in a separate trial. None of the teenagers pleaded guilty. In Misskelley's trial, the defense argued that the boy's testimony had been extorted by police officers. Officers advised the intellectually disabled Misskelly how to respond and led him to appropriate conclusions.

All in vain. Jessie was convicted of murder and having two intentions of murder. Sentence - life imprisonment plus an additional 40 years imprisonment. The defenders of the accused appealed, but the appeal was rejected by a higher court.

Three weeks later, the Damien and James trial began. They were charged with three ritual murders. There was no doubt about their guilt. They quickly heard the sentence: Damien, the death penalty, James - life sentence. They both appealed. One and then more. They were all examined by the same judge and rejected each time.

According to the media, Damien Echols was a psychopathic, twisted leader of a powerful Satanic cult. He confused teenagers like him, and then persuaded them to do macabre deeds. History quickly gained credibility in the tide of the then "anti-sectarian" atmosphere in American society.

After the Memphis Three were convicted, doubts gradually began to emerge. The press revealed and publicized the mistakes made in the investigation. Eventually, the sewn theory of the satanic conspiracy began to be undermined with thick threads. A civic movement called Free West Memphis Three arose. Defenders of Damien, James and Jessie staged demonstrations and protests outside the courthouse.

Mark Byers - the stepfather of one of the victims - was present at each such event. He was pleased that his son's torturers had been convicted. The press gladly listened to him - everyone felt sorry for the man so cruelly troubled by fate. Later - ironically - there were suspicions that in fact he might have been the murderer of boys.

Thanks to the efforts of the social movement, it was possible to raise money to re-examine the evidence collected during the investigation. They found that the DNA samples taken from the victim's pants did not match any of the Memphis Three. The mutilations that were allegedly testimony to the ritual nature of the crime - most likely resulted from the actions of wild animals and after the victims' deaths.

John Douglas, a retired FBI agent, and creator of forensic profiling, also spoke on the case. He stated that eight-year-olds were killed by one man. The murderer was cold and composed, able to maintain control of three victims at once. He acted methodically and deliberately. He probably has already had incidents involving violence. Neither Damien, James, nor Jessie fit that profile.

Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin, and Damien Echols were released in 2011. They spent 18 years behind bars. Ultimately, they agreed to sign a plea in which they pleaded guilty but were allowed to leave the prison in return. Under American law, this is known as the Alford Doctrine.

At first, the men enjoyed great media attention, which had previously turned them into Satanists. Jessie and James got married. Damien did it while in prison with a woman named Lorri. He devoted himself to art, writing, and works to abolish the death penalty. He published diaries in which he made his point of view on the case.

Despite the release of the Memphis Three from serving their sentence, there are still people who believe that Jessie, Jason, and Damien are the killers at Robin Hood Park. Because if not them, who? There was a lot of speculation on this subject. Even the aforementioned Mark Byers was among the suspects. However, nothing has been proven to anyone, and the case remains officially closed.