Ask Dr. Drew - Damien Echols: I Was Sentenced To Death At 18 With Zero Evidence. How The Justice System Failed The West Memphis 3 – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 638

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

Damien Echols was sentenced to death at 18 for the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. After nearly 18 years on death row, Damien was released – because the entire time, no physical or DNA evidence ever linked him to the crime. In 1993, the media called Damien and his friends “The West Memphis Three.” Prosecutors built the case on his interest in occult magick – a major topic during the Satanic Panic – and a confession from co-defendant Jessie Misskelley Jr. that was later recanted. In 2011, after DNA testing matched none of the defendants, all were released on Alford pleas: allowing them to maintain innocence while acknowledging the state had enough to convict. They are still seeking full exoneration. Damien Echols joins Dr. Drew to talk about how the systems people trust can fail completely, what nearly two decades in prison taught him about discipline and survival, and his forthcoming book “Alchemy of the Broken Blade.” Author and urban-futures scholar Joel Kotkin discusses the rise of socialist politics in America and what it means for the middle class, drawing on his book “The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class.” Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University and a senior research fellow at the University of Texas Austin. He is the author of “The Coming of Neo Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class,” as well as ten other books, including “The New Class Conflict” (Telos Press), “The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us,” and the co-edited collection “Infinite Suburbia.” Follow at https://x.com/joelkotkin Damien Echols is the author of the forthcoming book “Alchemy of the Broken Blade” available September 7, 2026. He was one of the three men known as the “West Memphis Three.” He spent nearly eighteen years on death row in Arkansas for crimes he insisted he did not commit. In 2011, he was released through an Alford plea. His memoir “Life After Death” was a New York Times bestseller. Follow at https://x.com/damienechols 「 SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS 」 • FATTY15 – The future of essential fatty acids is here! Strengthen your cells against age-related breakdown with Fatty15. Get 15% off a 90-day Starter Kit Subscription at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/fatty15⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • PALEOVALLEY - "Paleovalley has a wide variety of extraordinary products that are both healthful and delicious,” says Dr. Drew. "I am a huge fan of this brand and know you'll love it too!” Get 15% off your first order at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/paleovalley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • THE WELLNESS COMPANY - Counteract harmful spike proteins with TWC's Signature Series Spike Support Formula containing nattokinase and selenium. Learn more about TWC's supplements at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twc.health/drew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 「 ABOUT THE SHOW 」 This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Executive Producers • Kaleb Nation - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kalebnation.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • Susan Pinsky - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/firstladyoflove⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Content Producer • Emily Barsh - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/emilytvproducer⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. We're going to talk to Damien Eccles. He was 18 when he was sentenced to death despite no physical evidence. He and his friends were called the West Memphis 3. He spent almost 20 years on death row before DNA testing exonerated him. We're going to talk about how the justice system failed him. It was like to be incarcerated for so long with impending demise. Before we do that, though, we're going to talk to Joel Kotkin, the urban future scholar behind the coming of neo-futalism, talking about the of socialist politics in America. He's the presidential fellow at Chapman University and senior research fellow at UT Austin. There is the book. Lots to talk about, including the seemingly renewed interest in fascism. We'll get into that right after this. Our laws as it pertain to substances are draconian and bizarre. The psychopaths start this.

He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction. Fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor for a say, where the hell you think I learned that? I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician.

I observe things about these chemicals. Let's just deal with what's real. We used to get these calls on Loveland all the time, educate adolescents, and to prevent, and to treat. Do you have trouble? You can't stop, and you want to help stop it. I can help. I got a lot to say.

I got a lot more to say. Joel Kotkin, presidential fellow at Chapman University, senior research fellow at UT Austin. The coming of neo-feudalism, a warning to the global middle class. is the name of his newest book. His other books include the new class conflict, the human city urbanism for the rest of us,

and he had a co-clection, a co-edited a collection called Infinite Suburbia. Joel, welcome the program. That's my pleasure. So I'm not sure where I should start. By the way, I forgot to give your social media. It's Joel Kotkin.com, Gold Kotkin on X.

one of the things I was interested in, and I've been sort of scratching my head about before we get into what's in your book, the only time I heard about Nazis and fascism, say 20 years ago, was in a psychiatric hospital when an acutely paranoid patient came in, and their paranoid delusions circulated around World War II and Nazis. It was the only time that period of history, was mentioned by grossly, floridly, psychotic individuals. Now it has felt to me like the entire populace, or at least a segment of the populace, has become psychotically preoccupied with fascism. Well, I think that's very much the case,

and I think it's, you can see it in the number of mentions of the term fascism in an article I did for Real Clear Politics. We actually traced how often it's been used. it's sort of 20 years ago I think it was like you know behind the you know behind closed doors now it becomes

anybody you disagree with is a fascist you know the I mean Spencer Pratt running from mayor of Los Angeles he gets called a fascist if you obviously Donald Trump is a fascist I mean Donald Trump is a lot of things

but he is not a fascist that's part of what I was saying because a fascist first of all would have an ideology and discipline, two things that I don't think Trump has. And generally speaking, fascist leaders tend to be young, dynamic. They have troops out there to enforce their will. The only people wearing black shirts and causing violence that I see is Antifa.

And I think they're on the other side. So, you know, it's just become some sort of weird reflex. And by the way, among people, who, if you ask them anything about the history of fascism, they probably couldn't answer it. Right. And so the same thing with the term Zionist, too, but I don't want to confuse this conversation with, but these words have just become these pejoratives that have these gigantic sweeps to them that are completely disconnected from historical record, their historical reality. I mean, they were total. Fashions were totalitarian. They were militaristic. There was charismatic leader, all this kind of stuff. I see no connection other than projection. So I feel like, you know, I spent 20 years talking to damage young people. And we had, I think, a pandemic of

destroyed families and childhood abuse and all kinds of childhood trauma. And I started wondering in the early 2000s, what is going to happen when these people become adults? And I started looking for other periods of history, which had a similar sort of antecedent to it. And the only thing I could find was pre-revolutionary France. And I thought, well, 1789, the mobs, maybe we're going to see mobs. I did not conceive of cancel culture and how social media would influence mob behavior. But am I on to anything that this is what narcissists or narcissistically injured individuals do? They project, they mob, and they act out there.

aggression. Oh, that's exactly what happens. And by the way, it happens on the other side, too. I mean, there's a tendency among some conservatives to call anybody who isn't a conservative a communist. That was an old, that's an old man. That's an old habit, though. That habit's been around for, I think, 40 years. I remember that for my childhood. Yeah. But this new thing is new, the fascist. Oh, and it's unbelievable. You know, I spent quite a bit of time in Europe. And, you know, you talk to people and they say, well, Maloney, the prime minister of Italy is a fascist. Nigel Farage is a fascist.

I mean, the AFB is fascist. Jordan Bardella, Jordan Bardella, Marine LePen, also fascist. And so, you know, what they have is they have, there's sort of an inability to identify what is actually happening and then projecting this kind of, you know, very tuperative characterization. And it makes them feel good, I guess. It makes them feel like they're, they're not just fighting conservatives or Republicans or Donald Trump. They're fighting fascism.

And of course, you know, this is just so insane when you look at the Supreme Court as knocked down Trump numerous times. The Republicans and the Congress have been on and off rebelling on certain issues for quite a long time. And by the way, I don't notice that the, you know, progressive media is being stymied in any way. If you want to talk about getting stymied, you've got to talk about what happened under Biden.

And that's another story, you know, where, you know, obviously if you if you didn't have the right party line on let's say COVID, you were, you were canceled. And we even had a segment on our podcast with a with a doctor from UC Irvine, a very respectable guy who just disagreed on the map on the math policy. And we get a notice, oh, this has been, this can't appear because it's, it violates, you know, some sort of public safety. And, you know, I think that there's a, I think what you're, what you may be getting to, and I think I'm very interested in what you said about this damaged generation, is that they're projecting onto politics the things that actually really bother them. And they're finding an escape of sense of belonging by being involved in these, you know, fairly radicalized political organizations. Yeah.

And I, you broke up a little bit, but I think you were talking about Aaron Carriotti at UC Irvine, who was, but he was, he was a longstanding head of bioethics at the institution and was a decorated professor and had always lectured how when the tough time comes, you have to walk the walk, you must stand up and stand for it's bioethically right. And he had put it, when he stepped forward, he framed it as I've been telling you people, it's going to be tough, but now I feel I have to speak. up, you don't have the bioethical standing for a mandate, immediately put on leave and then eventually fired. So, you know, what, I mean, that, that, that and many, many other examples were extraordinary. And I think woke people up. Tell me what's in the neo-feudalism, because that sort of, to me, feels like the beginning of whatever's in your book. Well, I think there are some interesting parallels. I mean, one thing, of course, is that we have this sense that the order that we've lived under, which has been pretty successful for a long time, is falling apart.

You can go back to the end of the Roman Empire, and all of a sudden, all the standards, how you did things, knowledge was lost, and people gravitated very often to, you know, millennialist ideas, you know, ideas that came out of sort of parts of the Christian community, later on with Islam, even among Jews. There was this belief in some sort of messianic era that was about to approach because the reality on planet Earth wasn't so great. And I think there's similarities there. There was also some of the similarities on the sexual front, which you know more about, than I do, but, you know, there was a period in which one out of every five people in Europe,

according to some accounts, were a celibate. They were members of, they were men and women who chose to live that kind of lifestyle. I mean, there were all sorts of disorders going on, and people trying to find some way of understanding what was happening to them and what was happening to their world. and very often they chose very extreme ways of explaining things and they would follow people. You know, there was this whole movement in Europe of young people who were hysterics, who would go from village to village flagellating themselves and things like that. So, you know, I mean, not everything, not everything is new.

And my question always when I, you know, open the historical record is what comes next? Like what? So, okay, so there's some corollus here. How do we get through this? What should I expect? Well, you know, I think, and this is what I'm working on in the new book, is I think that fundamentally we're looking for solutions on the political level, particularly on the federal level, even in some cases in the global level. And the real problem with the society is inside the society itself. It's a decline of the family.

It's the loss of any sort of belief system. It could be that constrains behavior. It could be the whole sort of war that now is taking place between men and women. I think these underlying things are more important. because fundamentally, the things that are going to change the future society are largely technological. And the question is, are we moving to a world of smart machines and dumb people? And I think that's the direction we're going in, unless we get a hold of ourselves and say, there are certain things that are important, there are certain things that aren't important.

And to me, it's very clear what those things are. And I'd start with the family, and I would start with your community. and I think we need to be able to look at how we can do this. I have seen amazing things. I've been to a Catholic-affiliated school in the South Bronx where kids in one of the worst ghettos in America are doing really well. They're learning foreign languages. They have very strict moral codes.

I've been to an academy that's run by the Greek Orthodox in a very, very tough part of Houston. They have a requirement by the fifth grade. They have to be fluent in either Latin or Greek. People are capable of doing a lot, but they're going to have to do it on themselves, by themselves, and with their families and with their communities. The whole era in which we could have top-down solutions has clearly caused a disaster. And the only really important way of combating that is to do things at the local and family level. I completely agree, but how we, you know, the top-down stuff is more the impediment to solving these problems than the solution.

It's, you know. I can think when you were talking about the causes, and I saw you that at a good point from one of your listeners, you know, the reality is that look at the public schools. Look how, you know, I teach. So, you know, A, I realize they are not learning history at all. The Soviet Union never existed as far as their teachers are concerned. I put up a picture of Lenin. I was doing a lecture on propaganda, and one of them was socialism.

32 kids, only one recognized who Lenin was. Wow. And he was an Armenian who grew up in Moscow. So, you know. Oh, my God. And the fact that they don't know. They don't know some of the most basic things. And then they tell me about their experiences.

I had kids who said, well, you know, I was taught in school that all white people were racist. I mean, when you indoctrinate people like that and you indoctrinate them, you know, let's say on a whole series of issues, and it's supported by the teachers union and it's financed by the nonprofits, no surprise that these kids come out, you know, wearing, you know, kaffias and, and, you know, marching in the transfer for Hamas rallies. Right. It might find Adam Carolla thinks that the... To do that. Yeah, I get you.

He feels that the where this is going is going to break down into something he calls safe spaces and octagons. And I had to call me that day and said, Adam, I think you're on to something. There's actually an octagon in the White House now. And they actually put it up. And so, but he's saying essentially that, you know, there's going to be Florida and then California. They're going to be Tennessee and then New York. And the safe spaces are going to break down into this neo-feudalism, I guess. And it's ultimately the rise of socialism.

Is it not that is, let's say, fueling this? Well, I think that the rise of socialism, I think, has two main causes. is the breakdown of family, people looking for some sort of solution to problems. There's that psychological side. But I also think it is also because there is an economy which many young people feel they don't have an opportunity. They can't buy a house. And of course, in many cases, I think a lot of businesses are looking at the quality of the education that the kids are getting and saying, you know what, I'm going to hold on to that 60-year-old who,

who at least can get the job done, then hire some 22-year-old who really doesn't have any real skills and doesn't have the discipline. So I think, you know, but also, I mean, the blame is, you know, could be spread many places. I mean, I would think of, you know,

some of the luxurious ways that people live and put it in your face. I mean, I don't know who's advising Jeff Bezos to buy, you know, build a $500 million yacht and shoot his girlfriend into space. I don't know. Somehow that doesn't seem like something that a respectable business person who wants to be relatable would do.

And obviously the whole lack of basic morals that are very obvious within the upper classes. And by the way, that is very much a parallel with the French Revolution. because one of the things that created the conditions for the French Revolution, and of course it cost some of these guys their heads, is that they could see how the aristocracy was living in completely irresponsible lives, not contributing much of anything, and yet at the same time acting like they were great free spirits. And I think we're seeing some of that as well.

And I wouldn't exempt the Trump family for. from this either. The other thing that I don't know if you get into it in the book or not, but it seems like a risk to me, again, looking at the echoes of history, is a strong man stepping in. I mean, back to 1789, is 1794. Somebody steps in. So tell me that are we at risk for that?

Well, we're certainly at risk of that. You know, my background was studying classical history, so I'm always thinking about Rome. and in the Roman Empire, you know, it was the Republic, as the empire empire got bigger and bigger and bigger, and as the middle class of that time, you know, basically small farmers and mechanics were being replaced by slaves, it became very unstable, very violent, and eventually an imperial regime was founded. And we could, in the worst case scenario, head in that direction.

And by the way, that dictatorial figure could be on the left, could be on the right. I have no way of knowing. I mean, I think the next cycle, the threat's going to come from the left because I think Trump has left such a mess that I think the Democrats are likely to win in the next few years. And the other thing, though, I would say about that particular piece of history is that when, typically when the strong men do step in, there is serious violence going on. I mean, when I read Roman history, I'm always shocked at the level of violence that they maintained. And the same thing happened with Rose Pierre in 1790s. I mean, it was really like so violent. we you know i i would

shudder to think that we devolve into something like that well and the other thing that that is a and i talk about this in the book is now with the technology the ability to survey people and to watch what they do we can see it already in china today

um the capacity the control society from the top has never been greater you know and as uh old as huxley wrote a technologically empowered dictatorship will never be overthrown because people won't even have the thought of wanting to change it. And I think we have great dangers facing us. And I see it less is right and left and more about, you know, are we going to be able to maintain our autonomy as human beings, as families, as communities, when the powerful outside,

forces private and public, try to influence what we do and what we think. Do you have a prediction? Or does the book have a prediction? Both will suffice. I would say the one thing is that the only way to stop this is for people

themselves to challenge it. If we just allow things to go along the way they're going, we'll have some sort of autocratic system. It could be different in different countries, but I think it would be very hard to stop. If we don't have a young generation that is capable of civic leadership, the elites are

going to be very happy to fulfill all the roles that governs society. Yeah, I do think it's a time for a turning with the elites. They really are so ossified. I don't understand where there's not more talk about that. But the young people, I never hear them articulate it that. way. Well, I think they, they, they, you know, some of it is, well, let's get at the boomers. You know, that's like sort of a generational conflict. So I think you do see some of that. But of course, it all depends on which boomers. If they're boomers, they agree with like Bernie Sanders, they're fine with it. Bernie is even, maybe even too old to be a boomer. But on the other hand, you know, they say, look, you guys, you have the money. You bought a house. You worked

all your life. Now you have to have to give some of it to us. And there's a great temptation of people. The Tockville talked about this as well. In a democracy, our great danger is that people will vote themselves essentially your property. And if you want to see a very, very chaotic and dangerous situation, if you start saying, oh, you know, they say, well, we're going to go after the very, the billionaires. The billionaires, there's not enough money there. They're going to have to go after the upper middle class and then you're going to have some very serious repercussions. In the sense of conflict or just in terms of people's lives being destroyed? Well, both. Conflict and, you know, if you take a person, let's say, who bought a house for 200,000 and now it's

worth a million and you say, well, you've made it 800,000. thousand capital gain. So you have to pay 20% of that to the state, who basically doesn't give you much of anything. People are going to resist that. They're going to be very unhappy. Right now, what we're seeing is in places that have that kind of politics are just chasing people out. So people leave California, they go to Texas. They leave New York. They go to Florida. But if you had a national regime that had the, let's say the democratic socialist agenda, you would be very close to a civil conflict, I think. Lastly, who should be reading the book? Well, as many people as possible, right? But I think it's particularly important for young people because older people do

know the history that I talk about, but I find that sometimes I'll speak to a group of young people and they use the word feudalism, they don't even know what it is. They didn't even know that it had ever existed. So, you know, how do you have a discussion when people don't even know the basics? It's like they found in UCLA, they had people in medical school who couldn't identify the bones in the body. I mean, I wouldn't trust that doctor, that's for sure. By the way, my father was a doctor and taught in the medical school, so I'm a little sensitive about it. I'm obviously very sensitive about it as well.

All right, well, listen, I'm, is all bewildering to me that we are here. I never, this is not at all what we intended. And we would not have predicted this, but I guess that's the way history goes. So I appreciate you writing and hopefully we'll read. I look forward to reading it. I want to be as informed as possible because I do feel that's part of the responsibility. that we have in turn of making our way through all this. Other than Joel Kotkin.com,

anywhere else you'd like people to find you? Well, they can find me at the Civitas site at the University of Texas or at Chapman at the Center for Demographics and Policy. Those would be really good places. Chapman in Orange County here in California? Yes, in Orange, California. But I mean, it's Texas. in Orange County.

You've got some running around to do. You know, the airlines like... What are you so positive? No, what are you so positive? You're either behind the orange curtain or you're in Texas. I was just going to say the same thing. You can stay positive living in those areas. Well, yeah, I think you're right.

I mean, we, you know, we moved. I loved L.A. I was there for 40 years. And it just got to a point. My youngest daughter was going to go to the school. And we said, you know, I don't want to pay for private school for the next, you know, seven years. It was the best move we ever made.

And the quality of life that we enjoy here is much better than what we had in L.A. There are things I miss about L.A., but I don't think it's the city that I came to in 1975. I'm imagining you in the Anaheim Hills. All right. Well, thank you for joining us here. We appreciate it very much. All right. Well, not far.

Villa Park. Listen, I was around when that planned community, Villa Park, was invented. I had friends lived there when I was in high school. My dad owned a hardware store in Tustin and Orange. That's my wife. Yeah, well, those are, you know, they're really, you know, I mean, it's, and it's not a John Bertrand. You know, it's pretty much 50-50, but there's a level of civility that I think,

think L.A. needs to recover. And function, people in government that govern. We've gotten to a point where people go into government to represent, to talk. That is not governing. In Orange County, they govern.

Things work. You can see it when you drive across the county line, everybody. I challenge you. Drive from City of Commerce to Santa Fe Springs and it's like going to Tune Town or something. but appreciate it, Joel.

Thanks for joining us. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Isn't Santa Fe Strings in Orange County? Where is it? Switch over at like Menna Park, I guess, right? Susan. Yes, Boenapark.

You're the Orange County person. All right. We're going to take a little break and back with Damien Eccles. That's where Nottsbury Farmers. Yes. That's where Notts Fair. Best place in the world. Back with Damien Eccles right after this.

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Dr. Drew called me unfixable. All right. So Damien Eccles, the author of an upcoming book, Alchemy of the Broken Blade, available in September. He was one of the three young males known as the West Memphis 3, spent nearly 18 years on death row in an Arkansas prison. He apparently did not commit these crimes. and he was exonerated by DNA evidence.

He was released through an Alfred plea. His memoir is Life After Death, a New York Times bestseller. You can find him on X at Damien with an I-E-N-E-N-E-E-N-E-C-H-O-L-S. Damien's welcome. Thank you for having me. So if you don't mind sketch the story out for people who may not be very aware of what happened to you. So it all took place or it started in 1993 during the tail end of what people now call the satanic panic. Me and two other teenage boys, one was 16, one was 17, one was 18, and I was 18.

We were arrested for the murder of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, where the police said that these murders were carried out as part of a satanic ritual, some sort of human sacrifice. We sat in prison until 2011. Keep in mind, DNA testing is constantly progressing. Even now, they can do DNA testing that they couldn't do whenever I got out. But by 2011, they could do DNA testing that was not available at the time we were arrested. So the results came back showing that not only did the DNA found that the crime scene not match me or the other two guys, it matched one of the victims' family members. We were released not too long after that,

but even now we're still going, like I said, DNA, they can do tests now that they couldn't even do back then. So we're in the process right now of doing even more DNA testing to hopefully give us more evidence to completely clear our names. And they're saying that it should be finished in July. I don't hold my breath on that stuff anymore

because I've heard that over and over, but that's what I'm being told. Are they then going to go after who it is they identify in the DNA? They don't have to. They don't have to do anything. It's entirely up to the state. The state has done every single thing that they could to hinder us, even doing this testing, getting this testing done.

We wanted to test everything found at the crime scene. Like even right now they have hair found from the crime scene that they still will not let us test. We wanted to test the victim's clothing. We wanted to test sticks that were found there at the crime scene. And to this day, the prosecutor is still doing everything that they possibly can to hold this up or prevent it from happening. What is the alchemy of the broken blade about? It is basically about how I survived during those 20 years, not just survived, but thrived.

I had to figure out a way to live so that I did not go stark raving and sane or just completely and absolutely disintegrate the way so many people in that situation and in that environment did. So it's about things like finding purpose for your life and how to do that. And, you know, when I was in prison, the thing that allowed me to survive was not really focusing on my circumstances, on my situation. it was creating a life for myself, creating some sort of structure, finding things that I love doing even in that environment

and pouring myself into them with my whole heart. You know, I use the example of Timothy Leary whenever he went to prison for doing the LSD experiments. At one point, Romdas goes to visit him, and he tells Timothy Leary, we've come up with a plan and we're going to break you out of here. And Timothy Leary says, you can't do that. I've got too much work.

do. That was how I started to feel by the time I got out of prison towards the end. There were entire days that would pass when I didn't even think about the fact that I was in prison anymore because I was so deeply immersed into the life that I had created for myself that I wasn't paying attention to that. So that's what I'm trying to introduce people to out there. Tell me more Tell me more about what that is because I hear stories of, it must be dependent on the environment of the particularly prisoner. And I hear people of teaching themselves, you know, laws and going to, you know, going to libraries and things. And then I hear about other people within the system who become sort of conciliaries, you know, teach other newcomers how to get on in the system and how to, they're sort of of service to them. What was your thing?

What did you do? For me, it was internal alchemy. You know, one of the things that horrified me the most about being in prison is I would see how so many people in there never really changed. You know, they never really grew. I would see men come in the door and 10, 15 years later, they were the exact same person that they were when they walked in. They had stopped developing. And that horrified me. You know, I did not want to be like that.

So I was constantly exploring ways to change myself, make myself grow. You know, you have to give yourself some sort of stimulus in there because, you know, noon is the same as midnight or the 4th of July is the same as Christmas. You live in a vacuum. You have to create some way to change yourself. And for me, what it was was Western esotericism and internal alchemy. So how did you get access to those ideas? There were, oh, that was another thing.

If people are more interested, if they want to know more about like the details of the case, there's been many documentaries made out about it. There were three titled Paradise Lost, another one titled West of Memphis, been countless shows. But people who saw those documentaries and TV shows and read articles about the case while I was in there, started to come together and try to figure out what they could do to help in some way. One of those things that they would do to help would be stuff like, You know, they would tell me, send us a list of books that you want.

And people out here started to send me reading material books. I would correspond with people. You know, while I was in there, I developed a relationship with the head abbot of a 300-year-old Zen temple in Japan, who would eventually become my teacher. I received ordination in the Renzai Zen tradition of Japanese Buddhism while I was in there. It was the same tradition that used to train the samurai in ancient Japan. So it came from all different sorts of directions. In a lot of ways, I was really, really blessed while I was in there in that regard. When you talk about the internal alchemy, is that Zen?

Is that Zen Buddhism? It's Zen, but through a Western lens. You know, it tries to accomplish the same aim, the same purpose, which is to help us not believe or have faith. that we are not this independent self that we believe we are, but that we are the field of consciousness behind this self. We are this consciousness that this, what we think we are arises from and will one day dissolve back into. It's a process of experiencing that firsthand,

you know, not believing it or reading it at a book or any of that sort of stuff, but knowing it to be true because you have went through that process. through some sort of meditation practice? Meditation, visualization, breathwork. A lot of the same things that you would find in traditions like Taoism or some of the more esoteric aspects of Buddhism. It's the exact same things only through a Western lens. For example, instead of using like Bodhisattvas and Buddhas and things like that,

we would use archangels and Hebrew God names, things of that nature. going back to the original sort of reason you were put in prison, you called it the, what did you call it, the sort of preoccupation people had with the occult? At that time period, the satanic panic, was that? Satanic panic. And what was that and where did that come from? Was that, and I remember a lot of devil talk back in the 70s,

people were sort of weirdly panicked about the devil for a minute. and the devil was taking over bulldozers and dogs and all kinds of, there was a killdozer. I mean, all kinds of crazy shit. But the satanic panic. Go ahead. Oh, it was, you know, this was also during the time when people were saying that heavy metal, you know, albums had satanic messages and that if you, you know, played the album backwards, it would convince you to kill yourself, all of that sort of stuff.

Right. Right. And what caused that, in your opinion? Why do we get into that satanic panic? To be honest, I have no earthly idea. You know, I was a kid at the time. You know, I was 18 when I was arrested. Whenever it started, I was probably...

Were you into that stuff? I mean, obviously you're prone to going down pathways and philosophical pathways. Were you into some of that stuff? Nothing related to Satanism at all. But what happens when you're talking about subjects like this, you know, like alchemy, people hear that, and they've been told, oh, that's dark, that's satanic. You know, they don't really even comprehend what it is. They're just going on what someone else told them.

So things get misconstrued and twisted, manipulated, that sort of stuff. Now, what do you, did you spend time, did I get this correct, that you spent time in solitary confinement? I did. I was in solitary confinement for almost the last nine years. that I was in prison. I was in for 18 years and 76 days. What's that? The whole time you were in solitary, those whole nine years,

or just in and out? Yes. Yes. The whole time. Yes. Why? It's a long story. It has to do with how the system in Arkansas

was getting money from the federal government and not doing what they said they were going to do with it. It was being pocketed and the federal government says, this isn't what you told us you needed this money for. We needed what you said you needed it for security reasons.

And it ends up with them taking everyone on death row and moving us over into a building that they had previously been using for storage and putting everyone on death row into solitary confinement. They used to brag. They would bring in tours of like politicians and stuff sometimes. And they would brag to them that death row was the most well-behaved population in the entire prison system. but we were also the ones under the, you know, the strictest security. And completely isolated all those years. Absolutely. 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You know, they say that you're allowed outside for one hour a day, but what outside means is they take you out of your cell and put you in another concrete cell, the only difference being that there's no toilet or sink. Jeez. And then you were able to get books and interact with people on the outside, though, in spite of that? Through letters and in the later years phone calls. And what was the other two young men? They were in a completely different situation than I was.

They were both in, I was in a super maximum security unit prison. They were both in like more normal prisons. And why did you end up there? because I was the only one sentenced to death. One of the guys was sentenced to life plus 40 years. The other one was sentenced to, I believe, three life sentences, and I was given three death sentences. Are they still in prison? The other two?

No, they're out now also. And, you know, going back to the solitary confinement thing, stuff like that, I think all three of us do to just what we went through, what was done to us. You know, you don't come out of that situation intact. You know, it takes a lot of work to put yourself back together after going through something like that. And it's not fun to talk about it, you know, a lot of times because it takes you back into it. So both of them kind of stay away from it a little bit. You know, they don't do a lot of interviews or talk to the press just because they're trying to live their lives. this is a wild story

Caleb you wanted to mention something about the McMartin case creating a lot in my head too that's what I was connecting it in my head and yet that wasn't specifically satanic yeah this so if this is what I remember from reading

about all these stories especially around Damien's story as well as around this same time there was the new newly popularized concept of repressed memories that came from a book called Michelle remembers and so it was, I didn't read the book, but I knew from browsing about it is that it was

someone who was working with a, like a psychiatrist and with this person who was saying that she had repressed memories of satanic ritual abuse. And then after that, it proceeded into like around 1983. There was this day, preschool center called the McMartin preschool trial

where they had a bunch of kids that were saying, oh, they're taking us underground for satanic ritual abuse stuff. They dug into it. They believed these repressed memories. And then it all came out that the kids were kind of being coerced into all of this. It was like Q&ON decades before Q&N ever happened. No, you're right. I actually remember, well, listen, I was in the side, working at a psych hospital when that was being brought up. I remember a couple of cases

where they put them under an amatol interview. They actually gave them into barbitol and it was so-called truth serum to see, you know, what was real, could they remember, blah, blah, I don't know that anything ever came of it, but there was a lot of that kind of stuff going on. And people who, I mean, remember they were up in Northern California, Modesta or something, there was supposedly a large circle of this kind of stuff going on. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do remember this now. And I want to take a little break, if you don't mind.

But Damien, when we come back, I'm just curious, what was it about your case that had them becoming so connected to the hysteria around Satanism and that stuff. And it wasn't even, I guess it was, it was really about satanic group rituals where kids were damaged in certain ways, right? Isn't that sort of what the thinking was back then? All right. We're going to back with David Nichols right after this. Hey, Dr. Drew here.

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At Susan, if you could move that screen for me, I really appreciate it. I was talking to Damien Eccles before the break, and you can follow him, we guess, some of his specifics. Oh, sorry here. It takes me a second. X, Damien Eccles, as I said. YouTube at Damien Eccles 8091. Instagram is Damien Eccles.

And Damien is with the I-E-N. And it seems like everything is Damianneckles, Damiennecles.com. The book is The Alchemy of the Broken Blade talking about how to make meaning where there seems to be no meaning. Wouldn't that be a reasonable way to describe the book? Absolutely. Yes. Yeah, we are meaning making machines, are we not? Absolutely.

It makes us able to survive things that we wouldn't be able to survive otherwise. If you have a reason for going through something, then it's almost like you have a lifeline that pulls you out. the other side. Purpose. So before the break, I was asking why was your case connected to that satanic panic? I think it was a lot of reasons, one of which it was a really small town in the middle of the Bible Belt, West Memphis, Arkansas. And it was a horrific crime.

You know, people were trying to figure out why would someone do something like this. It was, it kind of defied, you know, every, like no one could comprehend it or wrap their around it. They obviously weren't robbed. We now know they weren't sexually abused. So people were wrestling trying to come up with some kind of reason why something like this would have taken place. And that was, you know, in a place like that, that was the only reason that they could come up with. And then how did they make that into a legal case that convicted three young males? Honestly, they can make a legal case out of almost anything that they want to. You know, they presented things against us that they were considering evidence.

You know, things like they brought up the fact that I read Stephen King books during trial. They brought up notebooks that I had kept when I was a teenager that actually had like passages from Shakespeare in it. And they said that this was satanic. So they just took whatever they could find and spun a story out of it. So my other area of curiosity is, you know, you're a young person facing death. I mean, like, what did you think at first? How did you evolve? What was that?

I'm probably, you don't even want to think about this. But if you're willing, I'm just wondering how you process something like that. You know, this is one of those things that is absolutely impossible to articulate. I try to explain this to people, and I don't think many can comprehend it, but I can't really answer those questions anymore because I'm not that person. Like, that person died. The person that they did that to, the person that they put in that situation, did not survive that situation, did not come out of that situation.

So when I try to remember things like that, it's like trying to remember past lives, like real past lives, you know, because I've been so many different people. since that time period and had had so many different experiences that it makes it almost impossible to reach back and find any of that stuff anymore, like what I thought or what I felt, that sort of thing. I'm going to push you on that a little bit in a second, but first, so many different experiences. What do you mean by that? Well, just I don't even, honestly, don't even know where to start, you know, just all the things that I've done,

and all the different worlds that I've kind of delved into, whether it's writing. This is like my eighth book. So, you know, I went into writing for a long time, and that became my life. That became who I was. And before that, I used to do, like, visual art shows where every moment of the day was spent creating visual art for different shows,

galleries around the world, just, you know, things like that. Not even to mention, you know, when I was in prison, that's when my wife and I met. she's my wife now. We met in 96. We got married in 1999 and we created a world together. You know, she was the one who handled the case. When I was in prison, she handled all of this stuff so that I didn't even have to think about it. You know, a lot of times I did not even know what was going on in the case just because I could not focus on that sort of stuff, you know, what was happening outside as well as maintaining my sanity and surviving on the inside. So, you know, even that, like our relationship was, you know, it feels like multiple lifetimes. And what do you do with people that still accuse you of being guilty?

How do you handle that? I don't. You know, I've been called pretty much every name of human being can be called at one point or another. I've been tortured. I've been starved. Whatever a random person on the Internet. says probably I'm going to move the needle very much. Right.

That makes sense. That makes perfect sense. But back to your being so far, have grown, would it be accurate to say you've grown from who you were when you entered prison, right? Or even that, but also even since I got out. Okay. Who were you when you went into prison? I was a kid that grew up in complete and absolute poverty.

You know, I had a ninth grade education. I dropped out of school when I got to ninth grade, and I think that's more than anybody in my family had. You know, you're not going to find people in my family with like college degrees or any of that. I come from a world where people work jobs that they absolutely hate until their bodies break down. they usually aren't going to go very far from where they were born. Just complete, absolute white trash, trailer park white trash. That was what I was.

That was the world I came from. And that was also part of why they thought they could do to us what they did. They thought these are kids of, you know, nobody's going to miss these kids. Nobody even knows who they are. These are just people that we can toss into this situation. and move on. You really should write about that too, it seems to me. Or maybe you have, have you?

I don't believe that they made a mistake in this case. I think most of the people involved that did this to us, I think they knew from the very beginning that we didn't do this, and I don't think they cared. I think they just saw us as a easy way to get rid of a problem. not only to get rid of that problem, but they also used it years later, just about everybody involved,

use it as a platform to run for higher political office. You know, the judge went on to run for Senate. Yeah, prosecutor went on to run for the Arkansas Supreme Court, all of that sort of stuff. Ooh, we. So how do you then go from that seemingly with,

I mean, again, dropped out at 9th, right, no motivation to educate yourself or to grow, right? And were you working then when you went before you went to prison? Did you have a job? Yeah, most of them were like short, short term dead-in jobs, you know, work at a gas station for a while, work, construction for a little while, roofing, stuff like that, you know, nothing long term, nothing you would want to do for the rest of your life. But, you know, I always was hungry, very hungry as a child in a way that the rest of my family and the rest of my environment wasn't. You know, even when I would skip,

I would skip school and go to the library and spend the day in the library just reading. You know, I read nonstop. And I was always convinced that there had to be a better world out there somewhere somehow. And I just didn't know how to reach it. So that's interesting. So when I'm trying to figure out you went from that kid who was dropping out of ninth grade to being so motivated to grow and find meaning. You had something already going on inside of you. Yes, absolutely. And the other two doesn't sound like they had that so much, not being critical of them, just didn't have this lust for knowledge, growth, meaning, something.

Well, one of them was mentally handicapped. You know, one of the youngest guy or the middle guy, the guy who was 17, they said he had an IQ of, I believe, 72 to begin with. So, you know, he kind of didn't stand a chance. Right. And did you at any point, obviously Zen is a kind of a religion, but did you have any sort of Western religion thoughts as you went through all this? Not really religious in nature. To me, I don't really place a lot of emphasis on what you believe, which is usually what religion is to me. For me, it's about experience. I wanted to experience things firsthand. And you don't really experience a lot if you just accept a belief. If you just accept dogma, you have to put yourself through a process if you want to experience something. So for me, it was always more about like the experience of it and wanting to know, not believe what's real or not hope for what I want to be real, but I wanted to know. So for me, it was always more about the actual

practices, the doing. I said I was going to push a little more on what you were like when you entered prison. All right. So what I was saying was I'm going to push on this, you know, again, please, you don't feel compelled to answer my questions. But, you know, here you are 18 and you're told your life is over and you're going to be killed. I mean, I just, I can't even imagine how an 18-year-old process is that. Did you just fall into a depression for X number of years? Or how did you, what happened to you? Yeah.

I think that's exactly what happened for the first few years. I started to get really angry also, really sad and really angry. Like I would wake up in the mornings for probably the first couple of years that I was in prison. I would wake up and the moment that my eyes opened, I would feel anger. You know, I would think they have no right to do this to me. I'm not supposed to be here. You know, why isn't someone doing something about this? Every moment of the day I felt like that.

And then I started to realize, well, now not only are you in this. external hell, but now you've created this internal hell for yourself also. And if you don't want to be a miserable bastard, you're going to have to figure out some way to deal with this. That was a huge part of what drove me with these practices is I didn't want to be that angry person. I didn't want to be miserable. I didn't want to be depressed. Going back to, you know, why you'd wake up angry and who cares? How did you even get to where you cared whether you were angry or not in the morning? I guess just because I didn't, you know, nobody wants to feel bad. You know, when you feel that way, you're, you become a miserable person, you know, being angry and being sad, that's not fun.

It's not enjoyable. And I guess, you know, most of us are just driven to find ways to extract some kind of joy or some kind of enjoyment out of life in some way, even in that situation. Yeah. And were you confronted at any point with imminent execution, or was that still off in the distance somewhere? My first, I was given an execution date. My first execution date was May the 5th of, I can't remember if it was, I think it was like 94, 95, something in that timeframe. And I came closer to it being carried out than I should have because I had really inept public defecutive. who didn't realize that they had to file a stay of execution. They thought it was just going to happen automatically.

So I came closer to execution than I should have just because of the incompetence of attorneys. You had a May execution date. How far into your prison sentence? That was right when I first got there. And I came closer to execution than I should have just because I had incompetent public defenders that didn't realize they had to file for a stay of execution. They thought I was just going to be given one automatically.

So I got closer to execution than I should have just because of that. And were they preparing you for it, that sort of thing? Or was it just were so helpless at that point, you know, what am I supposed to do? They don't really prepare you. I mean, the only thing they do is they'll usually come get you maybe a couple of days before they're getting ready to kill you and they take you over to what they call the death house where they hold you in isolation, they keep you there and kill you. That's the extent of preparation.

Did you get to know any other folks on death row there? Yeah, for the first, before I went into solitary confinement for almost the first decade, you know, I used to live with the other guys that were on death row. I think they were, when I was there, there were about 37 of us total, so about 36 other guys on death row. and I knew pretty much all of them. You know, in the beginning, before solitary confinement, we would go to the yard and play chess or checkers or just talk or, you know, whatever it was.

And I think during the time I was there, I lost count over the years. But I think about somewhere in the range of 20 to 25 people that I knew over time ended up being executed. Did you come away with any deeper understanding of that and those people and thoughts? I guess just to get everything you can out of life, to try to ring every experience you can and every bit of knowledge and beauty and everything that you possibly can out of it because you never know when it's going to be over. And has that continued to grow in you since you've been out of prison? Absolutely. Probably even more so. All right.

We've got to wrap this up. What are your final thoughts that you want people to know? Just that I appreciate everyone who supported us through the years, you know, the people who put on bake sales and held benefit concerts and wrote newspaper articles and created documentaries and everything else. Everyone who had anything to do with supporting us while we were in prison, I appreciate you more than I could possibly say. You are the reason that we didn't give up. You are the reason that I am not dead right now, that I'm actually sitting here talking. I don't take that for granted. And thank you to everyone very much.

Well, the extent that in addition to growing, you can continue to also engage and do good, right? That's part of that growth process. Absolutely. I think, you know, Beethoven, I always go back to this quote by Beethoven, where he said, like, the greatest thing that we could aspire to do

is approach divinity as closely as we can, gather its rays and then disseminate them out to mankind. And we're all going to do that in different ways. Some people are going to do it through music. Some people are going to do it through art. Some people are going to do it through raising kids. Whatever it is. That's the way that I try to approach the things I do in my life.

I try to disseminate light. Well, thank you for being here, and that's a great place to stop. Thanks, Damien. We'll look for the book when it comes out, Alchemy of the Broken Blade. Thank you. You got it. All right.

coming up, Caleb, are we on Starlink now? Shall I be quick about my comments? Yeah, just be quick about it. Just in case. Okay, Dr. McCullough coming in tomorrow. Dr. McCullough in, everybody. We've got a lot to talk about it, including we've done research on some ivorymectin people were using in their cancers.

That just research was out. And we have some research on the utility of the emergency kits. Of course, Dr. McCullough is working very hard. on vaccine injury. Nick Fright is coming. Uncle Cliff coming back. That's good. Uncle Cliff, your favorite.

Chris Fenton. A lot of people coming up, Eric Bowling coming back. So as much to do, I can't quite read what's up for the Thursday show. Caleb, can you read that? So on Thursday, it's Mike the situation from Jersey Shore, Eric Metaxis, and Dr. John Gianatus or Giatanis. Perfect. All right, everybody.

We'll see you tomorrow at four. It's Wednesday. Don't forget. It's 4 o'clock Pacific time. We'll see you then. Atah. Ask Doctor Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky. Emily Barsh is our content producer. As a reminder, the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment. This show is intended for educational and informational purposes only. I am a licensed physician, but I am not a replacement for your personal doctor and I am not practicing medicine here. Always remember that our understanding of medicine and science is constantly evolving.

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