West Memphis, Arkansas

“How do you make someone understand what it means or how it feels to be torn in half? Not many people know this desperate need to be put back together again.” This quote came from none other than Damien Echols, the so called “ringleader” of the Worldwide group of teens known as The West Memphis Three. The West Memphis Three were three teenages: Jason Baldwin, Damian Echols, and Jessie Misskelley. These three teens were accused of murdering three little boys along the bank of a creek. The West Memphis Three and Sacco and Vanzetti are two different crimes of murder. Sacco and Vanzetti were accused of robbery and murder of two police officers. Justice is something that changes people’s lives for better or worse, and isn’t something…

Being guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” is the highest standard of proof in any trial, especially in criminal trials where a defendant can be deprived of his or her liberties and even result in his or her death. This principle, however, is often forgotten with the presence of strong religious beliefs and rising emotions following violent crimes. Directors, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, in the documentary film Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996) takes an insider look…

West Memphis 3: Wrongfully Accused? On May 5th, 1993 three eight year old boys were reported missing in West Memphis, Arkansas. The boys were found the next day, hog tied in a wooded area called “Robin Hood Hills”. After the case had been “thoroughly” investigated, the West Memphis Police announced on the news that they had found the murderers, pointing fingers at Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, three teenagers who were different from the norm in West Memphis, making it…

Mara Leveritt writes a fascinating tale of the American justice system gone terribly wrong in her book Devil’s Knot. On May 5, 1993, Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Steven Branch went missing from their homes in West Memphis, Arkansas. Subsequently, their bodies were recovered in a body of water by their homes with signs that they had been ferociously beaten and murdered. The evidence showed that Christopher Byers had been castrated before he was killed. Quickly, the town found out about…

the boy grows stronger in the end because of it. For when he stood up for himself, that day, he learned a valuable lesson. The novel is set in the South and the North of the United States of America. The first part of the novel, as the title "Southern Nights" suggests, is set in the American South in Memphis, Tennessee and Jackson, Mississippi. Richard’s early childhood is spent in Memphis. Here he lives in "a one-story brick tenement." His father works as a "night porter in a Beale Street…

When five children die in a fire without any clue as to where they went, it is suspicious. This is exactly what happened to five children in the Sodder family. The official statement is that they died in the fire, but there are many clues to say otherwise. A psychopath could have murdered them, or someone could have kidnapped them. What happened that fateful night still remains a mystery. Crimes do not occur out of nowhere. Many things lead up to crimes committed. Similarly, there is background…

to look bad. The witch trials are a great example and one of the oldest to happen in the colonial era, but it was still in America. The West Memphis three is another great example of the judicial system being corrupt. Even though these trials were hundreds of years apart, they are very similar. The Witch trials were hundreds of years ago, but they still have relevance today. The trials consisted of people being accused of being witches and the community went insane because they thought their…

In Missouri the year of 1993, 17 year old Christopher Simmons and two friends Charles benjamin and John Tessmer planned to murder Shirley Crook. The friends planned to commit a burglary and murder by breaking and entering, they were going to tie up the victim. The boys met up during the night but Tessmer dropped out of the plan, Simmons and Benjamin proceeded with the plan and broke into Mrs.Crooks home and bounded her hands and covered her eyes, they then drove her to the state park and threw…

Pine Bluff, Arkansas Sissy’s Log Cabin- The robbers at the [crime scene] were only teenagers. The [conflict] cause a lot of media attention. The teenagers were Caucasian and African- American males. The [crime victim] was held up against their will. The police went to the crime scene finding two teenagers with their hands bound together with rope by the store owner. Luckily the owner had a gun to hold the [criminals] until they were brought into custody by the police. The citizens were…

the police come after me? Who did they kill? How did they kill them? In May 5 ,1993 three teenagers were convicted of three murders are Damien Echols was 18 Jason Baldwin was 16 and Jessie Misskelley was 17: and one of them was ordered to serve a life time in prison . Echols who was sentenced to death. That involved three boys from West Memphis. They were an easy…