West Memphis Three: Brutal murders of three 8-year-old boys were linked to satanic rituals but questions remain
The events of May 5, 1993, changed the city of West Memphis, Arkansas, forever. It was the day three families lost three young children to a gruesome triple homicide that seemingly had satanic overtones, and which remains unsolved close to three decades later.
It all started at around 7 pm that fateful day when the adoptive father of one of the victims, Christopher Byers, reported him missing. But when the father admitted that he beat the young boy the same evening with a belt, the common suspicion was that he might have been brooding somewhere and would eventually make his way back home.
However, alarm bells rang when Todd and Dana Moore, who lived across the street from the Byers, reported their son, Michael Moore, missing the same evening.
Those alarm bells graduated into a full-blown panic when, a few minutes later, when police received a report from a third set of concerned parents who also reported their son, Steve Branch, as missing.
All three boys, all eight-years-old, were allegedly seen playing together by three neighbors at around 6:30 pm that evening before they disappeared.
The West Memphis Police Department launched a limited search that night with the help of the boys' parents, as well as friends and neighbors, but aborted it without success. A more thorough search kicked off the next morning, led by the Crittenden County Search and Rescue personnel.
The search primarily focused on Robin Hood Hills, a stretch of forested land in the area that was popular amongst the children and where Christopher, Michael, and Steve were all last seen together. But even a shoulder-to-shoulder search by a human chain failed to uncover any sign of the missing boys.
In the afternoon, juvenile parole officer Steve Jones spotted a black shoe floating in a muddy creek that had everyone fearing the worst. Those fears were realized a few minutes later when Jones, wading through the water, found Michael's body.
A further search turned up the bodies of the other two boys as well; all three had been stripped naked and hogtied with their shoelaces -- their right ankles had been tied to their right wrists behind their backs, and their left ankles had been tied to their left wrists behind their backs as well.
Their clothing was found in the same creek, and some of it had been twisted around sticks that had been fixed into the muddy ditch bed. While most of the clothing was recovered, two of the boys' underwear were missing.
Both Michael and Steve had bruises across their body, but it was Christopher who had suffered the most gruesome injuries. The young boy had lacerations to various parts of his body, and mutilation to his scrotum and penis, with an autopsy ruling that he had died of "multiple injuries."
A coroner also determined that two of the three boys had been sexually assaulted -- something that was later disputed by expert testimony. The graphic nature of the murders had the city in a frenzy, with the police put under enormous pressure to track down and bring the perpetrator(s) to justice. However, a startling lack of evidence, including no blood whatsoever at the crime scene, left detectives with no leads.
One-and-a-half weeks later, when no progress had been made into the investigation, a theory was floated that the killings were satanic, and police began looking into an 18-year-old high school dropout named Damien Echols.
Echols was well-known in the community because of his propensity to dress in all black even when hot, his long, uncut hair, and his dark, brooding personality. He had also been arrested for breaking and entering, and in juvie, had allegedly sucked on someone's else's blood.
When brought in for questioning, he all but convinced officers he was guilty because of his nonchalant attitude to the murders, as well as the fact that he had EVIL scrawled across his knuckles. Books seized from his home highlighted his obsession with the occult, as well as Wicca, a modern Pagan religion also called 'Pagan Witchcraft.'
The lack of physical evidence that tied him to the crime scene did not dissuade the authorities from concluding that he was behind the murders.
Soon after, police also zeroed in on 16-year-old Jason Baldwin, Echols' friend, who had a similar affinity towards black and heavy metal music, a big no-no in such a conservative community, as well as an arrest for vandalism.
They then found 17-year-old Jessie Misskelley Jr., another high school dropout, who during questioning, tied all three to the crime and gave the prosecution a case that they could take to court. Misskelley Jr told detectives under coercion that he, Echols, and Baldwin came across the three victims in Robin Hood Hills on May 5 and that the latter two attacked them and raped them before killing them and dumping their bodies in the creek.
The highly-publicized trials that followed saw Echols and Baldwin tried together, and Misskelley tried separately, with prosecutors focusing on the trio's characteristics rather than evidence, of which there was little.
Despite maintaining their innocence, all three were convicted by a jury. Echols was sentenced to death; Baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment; Misskelley was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences.
New DNA evidence that emerged, however, would soon turn the spotlight on one of the deceased boys' stepfathers as a potential suspect and throw into question the legitimacy of the conviction.
The story of Echols, Misskelley Jr., and Baldwin, as well as the gruesome murders and trial that followed will be chronicled in a three-hour special, 'The West Memphis Three: An ID Murder Mystery,' which will premiere on Investigation Discovery on Sunday, April 5 at 9/8 c.