West Memphis Three

West Memphis Three: The West Memphis Three are Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin. In 1994, 2 juries found the men, who were teenagers at the time, guilty of murdering 3 eight-year-old boys (Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers) in May 1993 in West Memphis. Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin and Misskelley to life without parole. Misskelley was the 1st of the 3 to be tried in 1994. He was 17 at the time. He was tried separately from the other two because he had confessed and implicated Echols and Baldwin in a statement tape-recorded by police. Misskelley retracted the statement but was convicted after prosecutors played it at his trial. Though prosecutors had asked for the death penalty, jurors sentenced Misskelley to life in prison. Echols and Baldwin were tried immediately after Misskelley. Prosecutors wanted Misskelley to testify at their trial, but he refused, despite offers of a reduced sentence if he would say again that he'd seen them kill the children. Echols and Baldwin have always said they are innocent. The case gained national attention soon after the teenagers' arrests, when word was leaked that the murders were committed as part of a satanic ritual. A key prosecution witness in the second trial was a self-proclaimed cult expert, who stated that the murders bore "trappings" of the occult. This testimony, combined with testimony about books Echols read and some of his writings, plus evidence that he and Baldwin liked heavy-metal music, and that a number of black t-shirts were found in Baldwin's closet, helped to convict the two. Prosecutors asked jurors to sentence both to death. Jurors complied with regard to Echols, who was the oldest of the three, at 18, and the accused ringleader. Baldwin, sixteen, was sentenced to life in prison. Shortly earlier the trial, prosecutors had offered not to try the death penalty versus Baldwin, if he would say he had seen Echols kill the boys. Baldwin refused. In 1996, the Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously affirmed all 3 convictions. Years of appeals followed, and evidence from the crime was subjected to scientific testing not available in the early '90s. No physical evidence at the trials or discovered since has been linked to any of the 3 convicted. Recent tests, however, did establish that a hair found inside a knot used to bind one of the boys may have come from the stepfather of another of the victims. Additionally, a hair found in the bark of a tree near where the bodies were found was identified as belike belonging to a friend of that stepfather.