(Left to right) Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin speak to the media after being released following an 18-year imprisonment in the murder of three boys in 1993 in West Memphis
WEST OF MEMPHIS B
USA New Zealand (147 mi) 2012 d: Amy Berg Official site
WEST MEMPHIS THREE is a film that has the luxury of twenty
year hindsight and a bankroll of celebrities, that was originally brought to
the world’s attention on HBO TV by filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky
in an astonishing film PARADISE LOST:
THE CHILD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS (1996), a film with a limited
budget that outlines the details of a gruesome triple murder in 1993 of three
8-year old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, including the arrest and subsequent
trials of three accused teenagers, best friends Damien Echols (18) and Jason
Baldwin (16), along with Jessie Misskelley (17) from the same high school, who
were all supposedly involved in a Satanic cult.
Based on the horrific brutality involved, where the boys were sexually
mutilated, the region was in an uproar, stirred into a hysteric frenzy vowing
blood, demanding the electric chair for whoever did it, eventually convicting
all three in an atmosphere resembling a public witch hunt. Berlinger and Sinofsky went on to make two
follow up films, PARADISE LOST 2:
REVELATIONS (2000) and PARADISE LOST 3:
PURGATORY (2011). It’s impossible
to separate this new film from the earlier Trilogy, as they’re all dealing with
the same subject matter. What’s unique
about this film is the active involvement of the producers, specifically New
Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh, where Jackson
actually hires a private detective to uncover background evidence that the
police overlooked, also hiring a forensic team in 2007 to examine the existing
DNA on the case, while Walsh is an unseen narrator heard throughout the
film. In addition, co-defendant Echols
and his wife Lorri Davis are co-producers, so there is nothing to suggest this film
is remotely impartial. While the
forensic tests reveal there is no DNA evidence whatsoever connecting any of these
three defendants to the crime, a motion filed to have the case reconsidered in
2007 was denied, as the state of Arkansas refused to consider new evidence,
including one of the primary witnesses, Vicki Hutcheson, who in 2003 recanted
her original testimony that a Satanic ritual was involved, claiming she made it
up in exchange for local police dropping suspected credit card theft charges
against her.
It was only then that the case drew public attention, not
only LORD OF THE RINGS (2001–3) director Jackson, but high profile actor Johnny
Depp, the Dixie Chicks, and Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, all raising money
and drawing public attention. Questions
raised about the original trial reveal the State brought in an expert on the
occult to testify the murders were in fact a Satanic ritual, while a knife was
brought into evidence as the murder weapon, though the prosecution had prior
knowledge that it had been thrown into the river a year before the murders took
place. Perhaps most egregious was the biased
testimony of the Medical Examiner, a supposed forensic specialist that in the
state of Arkansas works for the office of the prosecution, so no independent
inquiries were ever conducted, concluding the knife was responsible for the
sexual mutilations and the large quantities of blood on the victims’
bodies. It was Peter Jackson who hired 7
of the top forensic experts in the nation to examine the evidence, all of whom
concluded there was no evidence of a knife at all in the murders, that there
was instead inflicted head trauma where the cause of death was drowning,
suggesting the mutilations occurred after death, most likely animal bites,
specifically snapping turtles that were known to be in the vicinity, leaving
various bite wounds on the body consistent with animal bites. A more considered approach to examining the
evidence instead reveals none of the 3 defendants were present at the murder
scene, there was no Satanic cult, and there was no sexual mutilation inflicted
by human hand, which is certainly a different scenario than what was presented
at the trial. Even the parents of the
children were beginning to believe the three convicted kids had nothing to do
with the killings, but they continued to languish in prison anyway, as Arkansas
refused to grant them a new trial.
In a highly unorthodox documentary approach, Jackson himself unleashes his own investigation, which uncovers two other potential suspects whose DNA was present at the scene of the crime, including Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the boys killed (Stevie Branch) as well as his alibi witness. While Hobbs informed police of nothing but marital harmony, the private investigator revealed otherwise, uncovering battery charges against both a former spouse and the murdered child’s mother, who years later divorced Hobbs due to the inflicted beatings. In fact, he has a trail of uncontrolled violence and possible sex abuse, as he likely abused his stepdaughter from a young age, but she’s so acutely damaged by drugs she can hardly remember if it’s real or all in a dream, currently undergoing treatment, but not altogether off drugs yet which she uses to forget the nightmarish things that happened to her. Hobbs inflicted plenty of brutally harsh punishments, especially to Stevie, inducing welts from a belt, where he often hid in the closet due to his extreme fear of Hobbs. Nonetheless, even after this uncovered information, the State of Arkansas has never really brought Hobbs in for serious questioning, as in their eyes, they already convicted the killers. Raising many of the same questions as The Central Park Five (2012), where convicted teenagers spent as many as thirteen years in prison for crimes they never committed, these three spent 18 years behind bars for crimes they never committed before they reached a deal with Arkansas prosecutors in August of 2011, a somewhat archaic and questionable agreement called Alford pleas, where they have to admit guilt while still pleading innocence, but are immediately released from prison, where the State has a guilty plea on the books and is not liable for subsequent lawsuits. Perhaps the most devastating revelation is hearing the Arkansas prosecutor Scott Ellington gloat afterwards about their all-important guilty plea, which will be hoisted on a law and order banner of honor come election time, where political ads will run showing a prosecutor who gets tough on crime, where wrongful convictions hardly seem to matter to an uneducated electorate in Arkansas that will be sold a bill of goods. This kind of win at all costs mentality lacks any moral authority and is a hollow charade parading around as justice. There wasn’t a hint of remorse or contrition for sending three innocent men to prison for 18 years, so the real crime is he’d do it all over again in a heartbeat, and probably has already several times over, where it’s the State that is a repeat offender.
