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West Memphis Three - Part I · Murder Files Unsealed

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  Speaker 1: In May nineteen ninety three, the bodies of three eight
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  year old cub Scouts were discovered in Arkansas, tragically murdered, hogtied,
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  and discarded in a ditch. The mutilation of their genitals
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  was so severe that prosecutors characterized the incident as indicative
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  of a Satanic ritual. The brutal nature of these killings
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  sent shockwaves through the community of West Memphis where the
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  crimes took place, prompting a fervent push to convict three
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  seventeen year old individuals who were fans of Metallica in
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  a region predominantly influenced by country music. These teenagers, Damian Ecoles,
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  Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Miskelly Junior, collectively known as the
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  West Memphis Three, were ultimately exonerated in twenty eleven after
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  spending eighteen years in prison. Their release came as part
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  of an agreement that permitted them to maintain their innocence
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  while conceding that the prosecution possessed adequate evidence for their conviction.
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  The agreement, commonly referred to as an alfored plea, was
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  a significant affront to miss Kelly's attorney, Dan Stidham, whose
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  recent publication A Harvest of Innocence, The Untold story of
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  the West Memphis Three murder case introduces an alternative hypothesis
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  that the cub Scouts were victims of a serial killer
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  traversing the highways of America. I have been developing this
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  theory over the past five years in collaboration with investigators,
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  Stidham stated to the Post. I made a commitment years
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  ago to exonerate Jesse, and I will not cease my
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  efforts until the true perpetrator is apprehended. The narrative surrounding
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  the West Memphis Three garnered national interest and led to
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  the creation of the acclaimed HBO documentary series Paradise Lost,
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  the Child Murders at Robert Hills, as well as the
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  film Devil's Not featuring Rhese Witherspoon. Although many individuals recall
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  the case primarily through cinematic portrayals, the genuine horror has
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  lingered with Stidham, now sixty one, for nearly half of
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  his life. The then novice attorney from the South revealed
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  that he endured decades of nightmares stemming from the crime
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  scene images he encountered depicting the brutal murders of young
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  boys Steve Branch, Chris Byers, and Michael Moore. The images
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  of the children their disfigured bodies are memories that remain indelible.
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  Stidham remarked it epitomizes a profound human atrocity. Like many others.
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  Stidham followed the news following the arrests of the West
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  Memphis three, discovering that police had obtained a confession from
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  miss Kelly. Consequently, the attorney concluded that the most effective
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  course of action would be for him his client to
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  testify against Ecoles and Baldwin. Upon finally meeting with his client,
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  Stidham discovered that the seventeen year old boy was completely
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  unaware that he had confessed to the police. Even more
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  startling was the revelation that miss Kelly had a learning
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  disability with an IQ estimated at around seventy Jesse merely
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  relayed what the investigators wanted to hear as he sought
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  any means to escape the interrogation. Stidham stated he was
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  subjected to psychological coercion to confess. They even persuaded him
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  that his own mind was deceiving him regarding his knowledge
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  of the events. Convinced of his client's innocence, and recognizing
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  the inconsistencies in the investigator's timeline, Stidham embarked on a
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  quest for the truth. Years later, what remained most vivid
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  in his memory was the location of the crime scene.
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  When he visited the site in the robin Hood Hills
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  Woods in nineteen ninety three, Stidham observed that the ditch
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  where the bodies were discovered was situated close to the
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  Blue Beacon truck wash and the seventy six truck stop
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  station along the heavily trafficked Interstate forty. Stidham was particularly
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  struck by the proximity of the truck stop parking lot
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  to the crime scene, a detail vividly illustrated in Paradise Lost.
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  It would have been remarkably simple for a truck driver
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  to abduct the boys, murder them, conceal their bodies in
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  the truck, and subsequently dispose of them in that ditch,
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  the attorney speculated. Years following the trial, while striving to
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  exonerate the West Memphis three, Stidham sought the expertise of
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  two retired FBI profilers, including the late Mike Napier, who
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  authored a definitive guide on understanding the mindset of a killer.
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  The agents arrived at the same unsettling conclusion that had
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  troubled Stidham since his initial visit to the Hill. Throughout America,
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  numerous cases involving serial killer truck drivers have emerged along
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  its highways, many of which remain unresolved, including incidents near
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  Interstate forty. Stidham remarked, I do believe this case is
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  connected to one of those, he said. Stidham's hypothesis may
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  soon come to fruition following the Arkansas Supreme Court's decision
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  in April, which determined that a judge had improperly rejected
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  Eccles's twenty twenty two petition for new genetic analysis of
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  the crime scene. Eccles, who was sentenced to death row
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  after the convictions of the teenagers in nineteen ninety four,
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  has dedicated the last thirty years to achieving full exoneration
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  for himself and his co defen