Running Head: THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE 1

The Miscarriage of Justice Done Upon the West Memphis Three

Hannah Dion

University of Cincinnati
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THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE

Hannah Dion

Professor Godsey

The West Memphis Three

29 April 2020

The Miscarriage of Justice Done Upon the West Memphis Three

On the evening of May 5, 1993, three young boys were reported missing by their

families. Their bodies were found in the woods the following afternoon. The local law

enforcement could not believe such a gruesome crime could happen in their quaint town of West

Memphis, Arkansas. Public outcry put pressure on the police department to find the perpetrator

as soon as possible; this led them to choose the citizens that stood out the most: three teenage

boys that are rumored to practice witchcraft, one of which being mentally challenged. The boys

were imprisoned and tried to fight their case but received nothing but pushback from law

enforcement and their community. The journey to freedom traveled by the West Memphis Three

is one with many accounts of poor work done by law enforcement and led to three wrongful

convictions that cost three young men over 18 years of their lives waiting in a prison cell.

The town of West Memphis, Arkansas is a small, predominantly white, Christian

community where every citizen knows everyone else. People leave their front doors unlocked

and say, “hello” to every passerby. Children get together and ride their bikes together from sun-

up to sundown, only coming home to grab lunch; this is exactly what three young boys,

Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch, decided to do after school on May 5,

1993. At 6:00 P.M., a witness last sees the boys riding their bikes through town. After

Christopher does not return home when he knows to, John Mark Byers, Christopher’s stepfather,

reported him missing at 8:30 P.M. At 9:00 P.M. Dana Moore and Pamela Hobbs report their
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children, Michael and Stevie, missing as well. The following morning, Gary Gitchell, the chief

inspector for the West Memphis Police Department, announce the boys as missing and a search

led by Crittenden County Search and Rescue begins for the boys. At 1:45 P.M. on May 6, 1993,

West Memphis officials find the bodies of the three boys near a drainage canal in Robin Hood

Hills, the area the boys routinely play in. The bodies were stripped naked and tied up by their

shoelaces and the genitals of Christopher Byers had been removed and were not recovered at the

scene. The autopsies show the cause of death for Byers was the laceration injuries he received,

while the cause of death for Branch and Moore was drowning and their laceration injuries. Now

that the bodies had been found, it became time to search for the perpetrator, or perpetrators, of

this heinous crime.

The town of West Memphis, Arkansas is a typical rural southern town in the

Bible Belt made up of mostly Caucasian Christians, meaning any person that stands out from the

crowd is immediately a suspect. Damien Echols, who was 18 years old at the time of the

murders, had been arrested along with Jason Baldwin, who was 16 at the time of the murders, for

vandalism and shoplifting. They created a friendship based on their similar taste in rock music

and disdain for the cultural climate of their Bible Belt town. These two young men were deviants

in their town and stood out from the rest, which made them excellent targets for the crime.

Additionally, Echols had been released from a psychiatric hospital in September of 1992 after

being treated for major depressive disorder; to investigators, this hospitalization makes him seem

capable of committing the murders of three children. An interest in witchcraft and occultism by

Echols is also noted by investigators and they stated, “the crime had ‘cult’ overtones,” further

implicating Echols into the murders. A 16-year-old at the time, Jessie Misskelley, was known for

having anger issues and dropping out of high school; furthermore, Misskelley had a mental
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disability, making him more likely to confess to the crime. Echols and Baldwin stated that they

were not close friends with Misskelley, although they knew of him due to school. Misskelley

was brought under the radar of investigators after a local waitress, Vicki Hutchinson, began to

question Miskelley, who was her neighbor, and he mentioned Echols. Hutchinson motivated

Misskelley to introduce her to Echols and, according to her statement, he took her to a cult

gathering in the woods on May 19, 1993 where they gathered around a fire and performed sexual

acts. Soon after arriving, Hutchinson asked Echols to drive her home and he did, but left

Misskelley there. This eyewitness account does not make sense considering Echols did not have

a driver’s license and had never driven a vehicle, but a polygraph test done by the West Memphis

Police Department proved Hutchinson to be telling the truth. She later brought her son, Aaron

Hutchinson, in for questioning and he stated that he often played with the victims in Robin Hood

Woods and they once witnessed five men in a circle chanting satanic hymns and “doing what

men and ladies do.” Aaron, after being questioned by investigator Gitchell, then admitted to

witnessing the murders occur. During an interview with the Arkansas Times in October of 2003,

Hutchinson recants her statements made to police, stating that the department threatened to take

her child away if she did not provide information leading to the arrest of the West Memphis

Three; her and her son’s statements were used as evidence in the trial due to the lack of evidence

relating to unethical interrogation techniques. This information was used to depict the West

Memphis Three as members of a satanic cult and belonging to this group gives them the capacity

to commit this crime. The interrogations of these young men began on May 7, 1993.

These sessions of interrogation were long, grueling, and not done in accordance to

interrogation standards. Polygraph testing was used on all three suspects and the results of these

tests played an important role in the conviction of Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley. Polygraph
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testing determines whether a person is telling the truth by measuring their physiological response

to their answer of a question. These tests require a person to be hooked to the device, which may

make them more nervous on top of already being intimidated by the interrogation in general; this

can lead to inaccurate results. Determining the accuracy of a polygraph test is difficult due to

each individual’s different physiological response to lying. The American Psychological

Association suggests that polygraph testing be used along with substantial evidence, but people

should remain skeptical of the accuracy of the test. Echols’ denial of involvement in the murders

was discredited by investigators when the polygraph results revealed he was lying. After days of

interrogation with Echols, investigators realized they would not get a confession from him, so

they began to focus on Misskelley.

During the criminal trial, the defense asked the investigators why they pursued

Misskelley since the Echols and Baldwin were not friends with him. Their response was that they

were most likely to get a confession from Misskelley due to his low IQ and suggestibility. The

sessions with Misskelley did not have a guardian or attorney present and he was a minor,

meaning he was unable to give consent to be questioned. Before confessing to the murders,

Misskelley was interrogated non-stop for twelve hours on June 3, 1993 and only 46 minutes of

the interrogation was recorded. Misskelley initially denied knowledge of the murders until a

$35,000 reward for information leading to arrests was mentioned; after this, he began using the

information given to him in the questions he was asked. The recorded segments of the

interrogation reveal the use of leading questions to lead Misskelley into saying what the police

want. Instead of using unbiased questions such as, “What time did the murders occur?” the

questions posed sounded more like “Why did you choose the late evening to murder these

children?” It is unknown what could have been said to Misskelley during the unrecorded
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sessions, as his confession included information that was not yet available to the public, but the

police had access to. The confession contained no information that was not already available to

investigators, meaning all of the information included could have been suggested to Misskelley

through his unethical interrogation. This coerced confession, full of inconsistencies, was the

basis of the arrests and later conviction of these three young men. On the evening of June 3,

1993, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley were arrested on three counts of capital murder.

Misskelley quickly recanted his confession, telling his appointed attorney that he felt scared of

the police during his endless interrogation and he was just repeating what the officers told him.

Before long, investigator Gary Gitchell holds a press conference about the arrests, and he is

asked how confident he feels that these three are the perpetrators. He simply answers, “eleven.”

This shows that Gitchell has tunnel vision about the case and will fall victim to confirmation bias

when collecting evidence.

The pretrial began on August 4, 1993. The judge, David Burnett, decided that Misskelley

should be tried separately from Echols and Baldwin and that all three will be tried as adults.

Judge Burnett also ruled that Misskelley’s confession could be used as evidence even though

there was clear coercion. Misskelley’s trial began on January 18, 1994. During his trial, his

defense attorney, Dan Stidham, stated that the prosecution of the three young men was a result of

immense pressure from the community for arrests relating to the murders and tunnel vision

focusing of Echols due to his history of being a delinquent with mental health issues. Aaron

Hutchinson’s eyewitness testimony was not used in the trial in the interest of avoiding Stidham’s

cross examination and potentially having Hutchinson recant in front of the judge. Fabric fibers

found at the crime scene were “microscopically similar” to clothing owned by Echols and

Misskelley, but the cross-examination of this evidence proved that the presence of the fibers does
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not imply that any of the suspects were at the crime scene. Stidham wanted to bring in a

polygraph expert to review the polygraph results of Misskelley’s confession, but Judge Burnett

dismissed the witness, stating that bringing such a witness was not in accordance with Arkansas

law. The testimony of a social psychologist, Dr. Richard Ofshe, was going to be used to prove

that Misskelley’s coerced confession should not be used as evidence. Soon after Dr. Ofshe took

the stand, the prosecution objected, stating the opinion of the validity of the confession is for the

jury to decide. Judge Burnett agreed with the prosecution and Dr. Ofshe could not argue that

Misskelley produced a false confession. Misskelley was found guilty of one count of first-degree

murder and two counts of second-degree murder; he received a life sentence plus forty years.

February 17, 1994 is when the trial begins for Echols and Baldwin. The night before the

trial begins, Misskelley decides he is not going to testify against the two, meaning the

prosecution had little evidence to convict them. They used the emotional testimony of the

mothers of the children describing the last time they saw their children alive to evoke an

emotional attachment by the jury. Additionally, the prosecution emphasized on Echols’ supposed

involvement and interest in witchcraft, his mental health issues, and deviance in the past to

persuade the jury that these two boys were capable of committing murder. A knife found behind

Echols’ house is shown by a medical examiner to be consistent with the lacerations found on the

boys, but upon cross-examination, the laceration pattern is more consistent with a knife owned

by John Mark Byers and had Christopher’s DNA on it. The medical examiner also admitted that

the facts in Misskelley’s confession are inconsistent with the injuries on the bodies. To add, the

idea to search for the knife behind Echols’ home was the idea of the prosecutor and the detective

that found the knife would not admit to the knife being the murder weapon. This suggests that

the weapon may have been planted there by the prosecutor. Next, a jailhouse snitch, Michael
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Carson, was brought to the stand and stated that Baldwin had made incriminating statements

while in a Juvenile Detention Facility; the information from jailhouse snitches may reflect what

the prosecution wants due to the fact that the snitch may receive a shorter sentence in return for

information, so this information is not reliable. When Gitchell was questioned by the defense, he

stated that the West Memphis Police Department owned both audio and video recorders but did

not think to tape any of their meetings with Echols or Baldwin. The lack of recordings leads the

defense to believe that the department was using unethical interrogation tactics similar to those

they used when interrogating Misskelley. On March 17, 1994, both Echols and Baldwin were

found guilty of three counts of capital murder and sentenced to death and life without parole

respectively.

All three defense attorneys immediately filed appeals, all of which were unanimously

denied by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Then, on June 17, 1999, Echols’ petition for a new trial

was denied by Judge Burnett, citing Arkansas Rule 37 (failure to make a compelling discovery).

The three spent years in prison until a strand of hair found in the knot of the shoelace used to tie

one of the children was retested and did not match the DNA of Echols, Baldwin, or Misskelley;

the DNA, however, was “not inconsistent” with the stepfather of Stevie Branch, Terry Hobbs.

This new evidence was dismissed by Judge Burnett and, according to the Judge, a new trial was

not justified. The attorneys appealed this decision to the Arkansas Supreme court, who agreed to

a new trial. On August 19, 2011, all three men agreed to enter an Alford Plea and were released

from prison. An Alford Plea occurs when a person accepts the guilty plea but maintains their

innocence. Echols still fights for his exoneration to this day.

There are numerous examples of why this case led to three wrongful convictions. To

begin, the confession given by Misskelley should have never been used as evidence. He denied
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any involvement in the murders until a reward was mentioned. The police were trying to bribe

him to give them the information that they wanted. Investigators admitted to using scare tactics,

such as showing graphic photos of the victims, to evoke a response when Misskelley was

“repeating the same thing over and over.” The confession contained inconsistent information and

it took over twelve hours for the investigators to get the confession they wanted to record; after

being hounded for this long and being told that they know Miskelley was lying, his memory of

the events likely melded with what he was being told by investigators. There also was no policy

regarding audio-visual recording of interrogations, so only the confession of Misskelley was

audio recorded, not the interrogation of any of the suspects. The only eyewitness of the crime,

Aaron Hutchinson, was not reliable, especially after the October 2003 interview when his mother

stated that the police were threating her to comply; no one knows what she or police told Aaron

to admit to witnessing the murders. The jailhouse snitch that supposedly heard Baldwin admit his

guilt was rewarded by the prosecution for information they wanted, meaning he would say what

the prosecutors wanted to hear even if it was not true. The confirmation bias in this case is

evident when Gitchell says he is an eleven on a confidence scale from one to ten. He only

validated evidence that fit with his tunnel vision and the West Memphis Police Department used

unethical tactics to get enough evidence to arrest these young men. The Police Department was

under immense stress from the community to make arrests, which may have caused them to

overlook evidence that did not conform with investigator Gitchell’s beliefs. The implicit bias of

the community likely led to the arrests and wrongful convictions of the West Memphis Three;

the boys did not fit into the norms of their society, making them initial targets of an

investigation.
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The emphasis of the polygraph testing was done due to how little evidence there was

against the West Memphis Three; Judge Burnett did not allow a polygraph expert to testify,

citing Arkansas law not allowing polygraph testimony, but allowed the prosecution to cite the

results as concrete evidence. To add, the inconclusive test of the fibers at the crime scene should

not have been used in trial, as it does not add any evidence to the case, it just gave the jury more

to think about. While a plea bargain was not used initially to secure a conviction, all three men

agreed to enter an Alford Plea to be able to walk free. This means the men, under the eyes of the

law, are still guilty of the crimes.

The wrongful conviction of the West Memphis Three was caused by many tactics such as

implicit bias, malleable memory, and false confessions. The three young men who never stopped

fighting for their innocence faced nothing but opposition by the officials whose job it is to keep

the community safe and ensure that justice is properly served. This case is one of many cases

used to learn about how wrongful convictions occur.

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References

Leveritt, M. (2014). Devils knot: the true story of the West Memphis three. London: Simon &

Schuster UK Ltd.

Paradise Lost: the Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. (1996).

The Truth About Lie Detectors (aka Polygraph Tests). (2004, August 5). Retrieved April 1,

2020, from https://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph