48 Hours - West Memphis 3: Free

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

In 1994, three teenagers known as the “West Memphis 3” were convicted for the brutal murders of three young boys in Arkansas. Damien Echols received the death penalty, while Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelly were sentenced to life in prison. In 2010, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered a lower court judge to consider newly analyzed DNA evidence, which would result in a stunning turn of events. “48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 8/11/2012. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. My name is Damien Eggles. For the past 18 and a half years, I've been in prison in Arkansas on death row for a crime I didn't commit. My name is Jason Baldwin, and I'm innocent for the crime I was convicted of.

I think I always knew this day would come. I think I always knew that we would be free. I just didn't know how or when. The little boys were found in a drainage ditch, eight-year-olds mutilated and beaten to death, sickening killings that might have been part of a satanic ritual. The crime was horrific because of the victims and how innocent they were.

They loved the woods. They were wonderful children. Christopher was a shy one. Michael Moore, he was going to be a police officer. Stevie, I'm so proud of him. He was an achiever. I'm the mother of Steve Branch. Three teenagers were taken into custody. They are each charged with three counts of capital murder. There's not a shred of evidence against Damien, Jason, or Jesse. This is from the diary of Damien. Johnny Depp has been extraordinarily helpful, and he knows this case inside and out.

Swift justice at the time. Get him out of the way in the back! To placate the understandably angry and frightened community. Mama! You don't say, we're going to get you. Y'all are going to prison. We the jury, after careful deliberations, have determined that Damien Echols shall be sentenced to death by lethal injection. It was very much like the Salem witch trials.

They were easy targets. It was very much like the Salem Witch Trials. They were easy targets. Your freedom comes at a very high price. I don't think it's perfect, but I think it was the best thing we could do for now. This is not what I thought justice would look like. The West Memphis Three, free. Tonight's 48 Hours Mystery. Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioio For 12 years, Lori Davis had been married to a man she couldn't live with. Even worse, they could rarely touch.

Until now. Is there a way to describe what you're feeling right now? Too many things, you know. Just about any emotion, any thought, anything else that you could put a name to, I'm probably having it, or probably have had it at some time over the past week. You know, there's excitement, there's, um, maybe a little bit of anxiety, curiosity. Damien Echols is finally tasting the freedom he's longed for his entire adult life. Convicted

of a notorious crime in 1994, he was on death row, waiting execution when he first spoke with us. The only bright spot in his life was Lori. She's like a living, breathing miracle in human form. She is my life in every aspect, in every regard, in every way. She is my universe. Lori met Damien after she became aware of his controversial case. She wrote to him, traveled from New York to see him, and offered her help. It was the right thing to do because he is innocent.

I can understand you believing that he's innocent and wanting to work on his case, but what made you actually decide to marry him? Well, I mean the simple answer is I loved him. He's an amazing person. Damien is one of the men known as the West Memphis Three. His co-defendants, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Miss Kelly, were also in prison, sentenced to life. But from the outset, serious questions were raised about their guilt. And over the years, a growing number of people

began to demand a new look at the case, including Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. Three innocent people are losing years of their life to a wrongful conviction. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. There's nothing that says they're guilty. And actor Johnny Depp. I'm here because I firmly, truly, thousand percent believe Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse and Miss Kelly are totally innocent. But the demands fell on deaf ears in the Arkansas courts, which repeatedly upheld all three convictions.

Prosecutors maintained that Damien, Jason, and Jesse were responsible for the murders of three 8-year-old boys on May 5, 1993. That day, Chris Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch were out playing together. Stevie was a very outgoing, brilliant child. Anybody that knew him loved him. Stevie's mom, Pam, a waitress back then, didn't worry very much when her son wasn't home before her 5 p.m. shift began. I just figured he might have lost track of time and was on his way home. It was when her husband, Stevie's stepfather, picked her up at 9 that she heard for the first time

that the boys had still not returned. I just started crying and saying, God, no, no. Why ain't he home? Pam searched straight through the night, along with other panicked parents, including Chris Byer's father, Mark. We looked for him all around the night, along with other panicked parents, including Chris Byer's father, Mark. We looked for them all around the area, and we hadn't been able to find bicycle or any clothing

or any signs of them at all. I'm scared to death. Then, at 1 p.m., police made a grim discovery in a wooded strip by the interstate known to the kids as Robin Hood Hills. The three boys were found submerged in water. Stevie, Michael, and Chris were found bludgeoned and drowned in a drainage ditch. Their bodies were naked and hogtied with their own shoelaces.

I hit the ground screaming, God, no, no. Just a gut-wrenching moment. To put into words the disaster, the devastation. Six days later, Mark Byers buried his son Chris. When these murders happened, it was something that was almost like an atomic bomb going off.

You have three children that are murdered. I mean, that in itself is a pretty horrific thing. And then slowly details start coming out about how they were found. Now, a lot of these details weren't true. There were a lot of rumors. Like what kind of rumors? I heard that one of them was skinned. I heard that one of them's face was cut off.

Then you start hearing all these people whispering about maybe it was Satanists that did this. It was a time when a media-fueled hysteria about satanic cult activity was sweeping the country. It's the practice of evil. It exists, and it's flourishing. Damien, who wore black clothing and listened to heavy metal music, stood out in this rural community, and he came under suspicion. All black was the only thing I ever wore. Ridiculous hairstyles.

I was a stupid teenager. I really was a smart ass. Damien, you didn't help yourself too much, did you? I didn't help myself at all. No, I didn't. Police won't confirm it, but it's believed the murders were cult related. The police had Damien in their sights and word of that got out. I walked into a softball game. I went around the concession stand and I hear people saying, there he is.

That's him. I mean, and they're pointing at you because they think you might have had something to do with the murders. Yeah. Still, there was no physical evidence to connect Damien to the crime. But then, someone he knew spoke out. sister testified against a brother, a lack of physical evidence. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit.

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and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. The fates of the West Memphis Three were sealed just one month after the three eight-year-old boys were found dead in the woods. In June 1993, there were arrests. In custody, 17-year-old Jessie Miss Kelly, 16-year-old Jason Baldwin, and the alleged ringleader, 18-year-old Damian Echols. Each teenager greeted by threats from a big and angry crowd of spectators.

That's why all three of them are punks, punks! Stevie Branch's mother, Pam, was consumed with anger. Beat their head up against the wall. Get them out of the way in the back! I love you, Jackie! What were you feeling? Anger, fear, everything in the world just went wrong, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

The police were confident they had the killers. On a scale of 1 to 10, how solid do you think the case is? 11. The key evidence? A statement that Jesse Miskelley gave them. In it, he said he saw Damien and Damien's best friend Jason abuse the three boys in a devil-worshiping ritual. Did you consider Jesse Miskelley a friend?

To be honest, I didn't really think of him at all. He was just someone that was sort of on the fringes of mine and Jason's life. The best way to describe Mr. and Ms. Kelly's capabilities is he is operating at about the level of a five-year-old child. Dan Stidham, now a state judge, was Jesse and Ms. Kelly's lawyer. He says it was clear his client knew very little about occult rituals. I walked in one day, and he hands me this book. On the cover, it had a picture of the devil.

And he said, Dan, he said, who is Satan? Satan? Satan. Here's a kid who's supposed to have committed the very first ever satanic ritualistic homicide, yet he didn't know who Satan was. At first, Jesse told the police he knew nothing. I got a feeling here.

You're not quite telling me everything. Now just tell us the truth. But after hours of pressure, Jesse finally implicated Damien and Jason. I saw Damien hit this one boy real bad. Then Jason hit Steve Branch. And then Jesse implicated himself by saying he chased down a boy who ran away. He thought he was helping by adding to the story, but he turned himself from a witness into an accomplice. A lot of what Jesse said was just wrong. For example, he first said the crime took place early in the morning.

But the victims were at school all day. Nevertheless, all three teens were charged with murder. In January 1994, eight months after the crime, Jesse Miss Kelly was the first to go on trial. Did it ever occur to you that what he was telling you was false? Defense attorney Stidham attacked the police, not only for the tactics they used on Jesse,

but for the major mistake they made. On the night that the homicides occurred, someone had stumbled into a fast food restaurant covered in mud and blood. That night, the Bojangles restaurant manager reported the bloody man to police. It was an imprint of blood around the toilet. But detectives waited until the next day to collect evidence. And then, they lost it. They had actually taken a blood sample and never got to the crime lab.

Police never identified or found that potential suspect. But at trial, their blunder was overshadowed by Jesse's own words. Jurors heard the recorded parts of his statement. Did you see any of the boys be killed? Yes, I saw them. It was enough.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, your verdict. Jesse was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Are you in a cult? Are you in a cult, Damien? Are you in a cult? Are you in a cult, Damien? Less than three weeks later, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin went on trial together. I had people standing out there screaming, telling me every morning when I would go into court how I was going to die, how the state was going to fry me. Jesse, are you sorry for what you did? Jesse Miskelley refused to testify against Damien and Jason. Prosecutors could not use his confession

because it would have violated the defendant's right to face their accuser. All right, call your first witness. But two girls who were at that softball game that Damien attended testified that they overheard him admit to the murders. And who was Damien talking to? All the people there. All the people there? that they overheard him admit to the murders. And who was Damien talking to? All the people there. All the people there?

I don't remember saying that at the time because to me, I didn't actually do it. So it would have been like a joke. Help me understand why you would think that's a joke back then. It's the person I was and it's the way I thought at that time in my life. And I can't make excuses for it. Statement number 77.

There was no physical evidence to connect Damien and Jason to the crime, but the state had Dale Griffiths, a self-professed satanic cult expert. This guy had a mail-order Ph.D. Are you saying that this murder was held at an occult service? Yes. There were no signs of any service, satanic or otherwise, at the scene.

Still, Griffiths noted that the moon was full, and he offered an opinion about why the police didn't find much blood. They will take it and store it. They will use it to bathe in. They will use it to drink. But police didn't find any blood in Jason and Damien's homes. You can't believe that anybody's going to take that kind of stuff seriously when you're going through it, but evidently they did.

Dale Griffiths was the gasoline that they threw on the fire. You decided to take the stand? Yes, I did. But I behaved in ways that were very, very stupid. There were times when I was really inappropriate. Unlike Damien, Jason Baldwin never took the stand. Prosecutors had tried to get him to testify against Damien in exchange for a five-year sentence, but Jason refused. In essence, that would actually make me guilty of murder.

I'd be guilty of murdering Damien, because that's what it would have done. It would have put him on death row, an innocent person, and I'd have committed murder right there in my heart. I can't even contemplate doing something like that. But even without testimony from Jason... We, the jury, find Damien Echols guilty of capital murder and the death of Stevie Branch. Guilty. Both Damien and Jason were convicted of first-degree murder. Do either of you have anything you want to say? No.

Jason got life. Damien Echols shall be sentenced to death by lethal injection. Damien, believed to be the mastermind, got death. That was the absolute worst. Absolute crushing despair. Knowing that you didn't do what they sent you here for. I had come to feel absolutely hated and loathed by the world. Condemned to death row in 1994, Damian Echols had little hope.

And then, two years later, Paradise Lost, a documentary about his case, was released. That is probably what has saved my life. I really do believe, without that footage of the trials, the state would have probably already killed me by now. We, the jury, find Damian Echols guilty of capital murder. People were outraged by what they saw. Reporter Mara Leverett detailed the flaws of the case in her book, and Damien heard from people around the world. This is a card he made, I think. Including the New York landscape architect, Lori Davis.

In 2009, Lori told us how it changed her life. In 2009, Lori told us how it changed her life. I took two years off completely from working, from my job, to work completely on the case. Every minute that I wasn't sleeping, I was working on the case. In time, Lori spearheaded the campaign that would eventually get the case back to court. We finally got the funding we needed to hire experts like forensic scientists, investigators, profilers, everyone who could look at this case and take it apart. And that's exactly what we did. This is how she explained the unorthodox romance that developed along the way. I had never met anyone as fascinating and anyone who captured my attention as much as he did.

So I wasn't going to let him go. So you married a man that you had never touched or kissed? Yes. Yeah, I did. Just days after being released from 10 years in solitary confinement, Damien sat down with Lori for their first television interview as a couple. They told us what it was like to finally be together. It was just strangely... Normal.

Normal. Yeah. And, you know, we didn't feel, I mean, I didn't feel... In a way, it didn't feel like it was anything new. Yeah, it didn't. Because I know it's hard to understand, but we know each other really, really well. We're very close on many levels. I think people, when they think of relationships,

when they think of physical or sexual relationships, they don't take into account all the other levels of activity and things going on on the mental level, on the emotional level, all these different things. We had all of that already. You know, the only thing that was lacking was the physical sensation. So that's why I guess it didn't really seem that new in a lot of ways. Are you glad you married him, Laurie?

Oh, yeah. Over the years, as Laurie fought for Damien's freedom, she worked closely with the advocates who could bring attention to the case, like Johnny Depp. Is there something about the way Damien Echols was treated as a teenager that you can relate to? Well, I immediately related to Damien what he went through growing up.

He comes from a small town in Arkansas. I come from a relatively small town in Kentucky. I can remember being kind of looked upon as a freak or different because I didn't dress like everybody else. So I can empathize with being judged by how you look as opposed to who you are. It's mind-blowing how it actually happened. My reaction was, this is an outrage.

Lori also reached out to renowned attorney Steven Braga, who agreed to take Damien's case pro bono. I tend to get incredibly personally invested into my cases, but these kinds of cases in particular, cases where life or death is at issue, it's like going to war with somebody. And I need to know that the person I'm in the foxhole with is a person I want to be with and a person I believe is innocent. By the time Braga came aboard in 2009, the defense team had already attacked the heart of the state's case, that the victims were killed in a satanic ritual. Some of the world's leading forensic pathologists have come forward, six or seven of them,

all agreeing that in fact these were wounds caused by something called post-mortem animal predation, basically means after death, animals attacked the bodies and created these wounds. Not only were jurors misled about the forensics, he says, they also failed to abide by crucial rules. The jury foreman took it upon himself to tell the jurors in deliberations about Mr. and Ms. Kelly's confessions. Remember, Jesse and Ms. Kelly's confession was ruled inadmissible at Damien and Jason's joint trial. But these notes taken by a juror indicate the confession was brought up during deliberations.

indicate the confession was brought up during deliberations. And ironically, they heard about the confession, but didn't hear about the problems with it. Oh, absolutely. The defense lawyers never had the chance to attack the reliability because they didn't even know the jury was going to consider the confession. Twice as devastating. Since the trials, experts have discredited Jesse's confession, concluding he didn't seem to know

much about the crime. Laurie says that's because Damian, Jason, and Jesse did not commit the crime, and no physical evidence links them to it. Three teenage boys, there's no way they would've been able to come home not being covered in mud, their clothes, their shoes, and possible, you know, blood spatter. I don't think for a minute they would have been able to cover up their tracks. someone else just might have left something behind.

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Join Wondery in on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. That used to be all trees over there. There was woods over there, and the Robin Hood Hills area was right over there. Private investigator Rachel Geiser was working on Damien Echols' case in 2007, when evidence found here at the crime scene was retested for DNA. Actually, the two bikes were found on either side of the pipe in the water. One key find was a hair entangled in the ligature that bound eight-year-old victim Michael Moore. Whoever tied it, there was a hair caught in it,

and that would just be extremely incriminating evidence, in my opinion. The DNA did not match any of the victims. More important, it excluded Damien, Jason, and Jesse. But incredibly, the hair in the knot was consistent with this man. More important, it excluded Damian, Jason, and Jesse. But incredibly, the hair in the knot was consistent with this man, Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Stevie Branch. Hobbs says one of the victims could have carried the hair to the crime scene. They played in our homes. If it got there by transfer, that's how it happened. If it was even my

hair 14 years after the murders the police finally questioned Terry Hobbs possible new evidence that may have come up and just to fill in some blanks Terry is told varying stories that often contradict what other people have said. For example, his friend David Jacoby, in a sworn affidavit, said he was in the woods with Terry after dark, but not between 6 and 6.30, as Terry said. You know David Jacoby says that you left and you went off by yourself. Well, I went off with David. David left with me. Is he then lying when he says that? David didn't say that.

So you say you were never by yourself? Correct. Do you think Terry Hobbs is a honest guy? No. You said that pretty quickly. I've called him in quite a few lies over the years. Back in 1993, Terry Hobbs' ex-wife, Pam, lashed out at the teenagers she believed killed her son. That's why all three of them are punks. Punks!

Now, she has doubts. Does that trouble you, the fact that DNA that is consistent with Terry's was found right in the ligature? What troubles Pam is that years after the murders, she found Stevie's small pocket knife with Terry's belongings. Terry says he took it from Stevie long before the crime. As a parent, you don't want an eight-year-old carrying a pocket knife around. And as far as you know, did Stevie have that knife up until the day he died? Mm-hmm. Are you saying that Terry lied about that?

Terry did die. Although Pam now says that in her heart, she can't believe Terry could have committed such a horrible crime, she did wonder why her ex-husband waited so long to tell her that Stevie was missing. If you were really worried and Stevie had never been out that late, you didn't call Pam and say, look, your son still isn't home. Pam was working. Lose your little kids like you. There is one matter on which Hobbs has been very consistent. He has always said he didn't see his stepson Stevie at all the day he disappeared. So you're saying for a fact you did not see Stevie all day?

That's the truth. did not see Stevie all day. That's the truth. Two of Terry Hobbs' old neighbors dispute that. Down there, it's the next one down. Debbie Moyer lived with her daughter, Jamie, 13 at the time, just three houses away from Stevie Branch when he was murdered. Did the police ever come to your door and ask you any questions whether you had seen the boys?

No. They never did? The police never canvassed the neighborhood? If they did, I did not see them. So they said nothing until 2009 when they called a tip line set up by Damien's defense team to report something they remembered seeing back on May 5, 1993. to report something they remembered seeing back on May 5, 1993. Around 6.30, they say, they saw the boys playing in their backyard as Jamie was leaving for a church meeting. She spoke with Chris Byers.

He ran right out in the bushes in between the two houses right here, and I said, Christopher, go home. And he said, I don't have to do what you tell me to do. Right then, she says, Terry Hobbs called out to the boys. And he said, get back down here to the house. And they went that direction. Terry Hobbs has said to me that he did not see the boys at all that day. If he says he did not see them, he's not telling the truth. He saw them. He was out there with them. He told them to come to his house. I

did not see Stevie at all May the 5th. Are they mistaken? They're lying. Terry, you've got to help me out. Why would they lie? I don't know why. Did you kill your stepson? Did you have anything to do with his death? No, I did not. And why should somebody believe you? It's the truth. After Hobbs spoke with the West Memphis police in 2007, they told the press that he was not, and never had been, a suspect. Still, the DNA evidence would be critical

if Damien ever got a new trial, says his attorney, Stephen Braga. This hair from the Moore ligature is not sufficient to convict Terry Hobbs of committing these crimes, and we've never said that we have proof that he committed these crimes. What it is sufficient to show is a reasonable doubt

that these defendants did not do it because it's definitely not their hair. But getting a new trial seemed almost impossible. Appeal after appeal was turned down until finally, in August 2011, a development that no one could have anticipated. could have anticipated. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best

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You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. It's just The best idea yet. When we first spoke with Damien Echols, he was still hanging his hope on the DNA found at the crime scene. You can do a lot of things now with forensic testing and DNA that you couldn't do back in 1993. Judge David Burnett, the original trial judge, denied Damien and the other two defendants a new trial based on the DNA.

But the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed to review that ruling. That's when Lori decided to pull out all the stops. I contacted all of our long-time supporters and friends, you know, kind of heavy hitters, and said, let's do something in Arkansas to just wake people up, to let them know, send the message out to everyone about what we're going into. And all of them said, yeah, let's do it. We will have the power.

In August 2010, those friends of the West Memphis Three show up in force. Natalie Maines, Eddie Vedder, Patty Smith, Johnny Depp are all determined to keep the case in the spotlight. You want to do all you can to help right the wrongs, and the clock is ticking. Two months later, a stunning reversal of fortune. It was like winning the Super Bowl. The Arkansas Supreme Court blows all three cases wide open, ordering a different judge to examine all evidence,

old and new, and decide if there should be new trials. The hitch? Everyone will have to wait another year. Sometimes I think they hope things are just gonna like die away and people want to start going away and stop paying attention. But then, attorney Steven Braga comes up with an idea to get Damien out, a rarely used legal procedure in which a defendant proclaims innocence and yet pleads guilty, the Alford plea. The Alford plea is sort of a technical wink and a nod. We're innocent, but we're signing this paper to get the case over.

in a nod, we're innocent, but we're signing this paper to get the case over. Damien, Jason, Jesse have spent the last 18 years saying, we're innocent. And then an Alford plea? Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Echols was living in a box about 8 foot by 11 foot, no windows, no open bars, a little slat through the door. He needed to get out of there. To Braga's surprise, the state agrees, but only if all three men go along with it. The prosecutors were demanding finality. That's what they wanted.

They wanted to bring an end to this legal tangle. It sounds crazy, but fine. He's going to have to plead guilty, but he can maintain his innocence. I literally felt like I was going to have a heart attack. There's a possibility that I may walk out of this place within a week, that this can all become like a bad dream. Like Damien, Jesse Miskelley agrees to the deal.

Everything's a go. Until Jason Baldwin weighs in. I told him I would not accept the play because it's wrong. Anybody logical and reasonable and unbiased can look at it and realize that they had the wrong guys, you know, and release us. And I was just unwilling to accept anything less. What was your reaction when you heard that? I can't even describe it. Just despair.

Because Damien couldn't contact Jason directly, his longtime supporter, Eddie Vedder, and attorney Stephen Braga did it for him, writing Jason letters. How close did this deal come to just dying, not making it at all? I'd say very close. We had a deadline from the prosecutors. We were within 48 hours of the deal going away. Jason changes his mind. He'll take the deal

and give up his hope for a new trial. There's really no guarantee as it was proven during my original trial that the right thing would have happened. And Damien could have very, really lost his life. On August 19, 2011, the three men who hadn't spoken with each other for 18 years were brought to court.

You know, I lived in almost absolute terror that this wasn't going to happen, that something was going to fall through. And I literally could not rest until they came and got us and took us to the courthouse. There are victims' parents among the supporters there, Stevie Branch's mother, Pam Hobbs, and Chris Byer's father, Mark. Because they're innocent. They did not kill my son. But other victims' relatives, including Stevie Branch's father, are angry. They were found guilty. And I think they are guilty. Mr. Echols, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. and Ms. Kelly, if you would stand.

The men stand before Judge David Lazor in a procedure that takes all of a half hour. Your Honor, I am innocent of these charges, but I'm entering an Alford guilty plea today. They are sentenced to time served, and in the paradox that is the Alford plea, the prosecutor gets his convictions. I have no reason to believe that there was anyone else involved in the homicide of these three children but the three defendants who pled guilty today.

And the imprisoned men are allowed to walk free. If they didn't know they were innocent. If they actually believed you were guilty, there's no way in hell they would let you go. Three kids murdered and they're going to let three murderers, one of them on death row, walk out of prison, and, you know, that just wouldn't happen. I did not want to take the deal from the get-go. However, they're trying to kill Damien. I recognize and acknowledge that he did do it almost entirely for me. Thank you.

Mr. Brodden. Yeah, yeah, he did thank me. Gave me a big old hug, actually, you know. It felt good. What's the first thing you wanted to do when you got out of there? Go outside at night. When was the last time you've been outside at night? Eighteen and a half years before that.

The night we were released from prison, everybody just sort of had like a small celebration, and we went out on the rooftop and watched the sunset, watched the stars come out. I smiled so much that my face actually hurt from it, but it's a good thing. Jason says his days behind bars weren't as bad as Damien's. He had a job and tutored other inmates. He's now soaking up the everyday life that most people take for granted. I'm trying to learn the rules of the road so I can learn to drive. Went to the movies the other night.

I'm living a great life. I'm free for the first time ever. This is a whole new world. Damien credits Lori for keeping him sane all these years. Yeah. This is the corner of 57th and 5th. Just days after his release, they came to New York. That's where I used to work. Does it feel overwhelming how much stuff there is you have to learn?

It is, but it's also fun. It's male. It's just getting stronger and stronger. Well, it's horses is what it is. I don't want to be a child. I want to know how to navigate in this world, whether it's technology or whether it's finding my way up and down the streets of New York City. I can get exhausted. He doesn't. Jesse Miskelley is back home with his family and enrolled in a community college. But all

three men are paying a heavy price for their new lives. Mr. Echols, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Miss Kelly, if you would stand, please. To the world, they're convicted felons. We can continue work on this case, but we can do it from out here instead of with me sitting in a prison cell. The fight's not over with. I talked to my attorney, and everything's a go on continuing this investigation. So who did kill those three innocent eight-year-old boys? things a go on continuing this investigation.

So who did kill those three innocent eight-year-old boys? Was it someone they knew? And who was that bloody, muddy man at the Bojangles restaurant who was never found? There was also DNA and a partial fingerprint recovered at the crime scene that are still unidentified. Hopefully someday we will find that smoking gun, that key piece of inculpatory DNA or a deathbed confession, or a witness will come forward and say,

you know, this is really what happened. Until then, it's an imperfect ending and something short of justice for everyone. You have a tough road ahead of you. It's not going to be easy. Name one thing in our lives that has been easy. Or normal. Everything we've done in our lives since we've been together

hasn't been easy, but it's worked. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.