Imagine being locked away for life for a crime, with the possibility of no solid proof that you committed the crime. Well, this is what happened to three young teenagers from Memphis. Although this case has been public for many years I only recently got round to finding out about it and when I watched the first documentary; (Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills). I wanted to know everything about the case so, I did by watching all three documentaries about it as well as many other videos on the case and by reading about it and eventually watching the film about it (Devils knot).
Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr and Jason Baldwin were convicted of three child murders in 1994. During the trial and mentioned various times throughout the Lost Paradise documentaries it was expressed that the murders were done as part of a satanic ritual. The documentaries expressed that the accused and convicted teenagers were being misunderstood and that police were discriminating them due to the fact that the teenagers enjoyed dressing in black and listened to heavy metal music such as Metallica
When I watched the first documentary (Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills), from looking at how the boys acted in the documentary it came across to me that Damien Echols was guilty because of how he would answer questions so mysteriously he kind of reminded me of a character I would see in a horror movie. For some reason, I felt like he would have been the one to encourage the other two boys. The teenager that I felt looked more remorseful was Jason Baldwin, as in court when they showed him he looked truly upset and broken, but I did think that it was possible for him to be persuaded by Damien. And Jessie well he confessed that he saw Damien do it but his story did not add up and it was like the person who was questioning him was feeding him information and I also find it weird that in court they only played the part of the confession and nothing of what lead up to the confession, which I thought was really strange.
The murders were so horrific and when they showed the crime scene pictures it was disgusting the three children were naked and tied up with their own shoe laces and one of them has their private parts mutilated (this was one reason why they thought the murders were satanic). The pictures can be found on google images but they are so graphic I don't want to include them in this post out of respect.
Then I went on to watch the second documentary (Paradise Lost 2: Revelations) this was the documentary that made me double think that any of the teenagers had anything to do with the murders that took place. The documentary started to focus on one of the parents of the children, John Mark Byers and displayed how he could have been involved in the murders. This was mainly because he was acting up for the cameras and he also kept on changing his story about why he had his teeth removed (the victims had bite marks) which made him seem more suspicious.
Then I watched the last Paradise Lost Documentary (Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory) the
documentary showed how Damien's defense team hired top forensic scientists in hopes of using evidence from DNA from 1994 in order to appeal for a new trial. It also points the finger at Terry Hobbs who was the stepfather of one of the victims. The evidence gathered was a piece of hair found on one of the victims and it matched Terry Hobbs, (this would mean that they convicted the wrong people for the murder). It also came to light that he was violent in the past to his wife and also to his stepson.
This focused on the convicted boys who are evidently now grown men because of how long they spent in jail they were then granted another chance after 18 years of being in jail for potentially a crime they had nothing to do with. Then the state decided to allow them to be set free on the terms of the new evidence but, they had one catch which was they had to say they were guilty (even if they were not) this was obviously done in order for the people who dealt with the case to save face and to not be potentially sued by their wrongdoing by sending them away without solid evidence.
I 100 percent think that anyone who has not got the chance to watch the documentaries, to watch them and I also think that it is ridiculous that they did not convict or even sentence Terry Hobbs who evidently had more evidence of actually committing the crime.
I found the documentaries on youtube I recommend you watch all three of them, it's fascinating yet sad at the same time also some of the best documentaries I have ever watched. It's an incredible documentary but also a very sad one my condolences go out to the families of both the wrong convicted boys and the victims.
I have also linked a website which has facts that the documentary did not speak about http://www.westmemphisthreefacts.com/
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