Book Recommendation: Life After Death by Damien Echols..

[SomethingFishy]

If you don't know who he is Damien Echols was one of the West Memphis 3. 3 teenagers tried and convicted for 3 murders they didn't commit. He spent 18 years on Death Row before being released on an "Alford Plea" in which their guilty verdict remains but they are allowed to maintain their innocence. There are alos some movies about the case, Paradise Lost 1,2 and 3 which aired on HBO and "West Of Memphis" a theatrical release documenting the case.

The book is a heartbreaking journey into our truly fucked up Justice system and the incredibly corrupt for profit prison system. Damien proves himself a truly amazing and spiritual human being who was taken to the very limits of his sanity by a system that considered him "useless white trash".

I can't recommend this more. I should probably have posted this in GD...

[Ron Obvious]

1. Thanks for the tip!

I'm definitely going to buy that.

I only became interested in the case a couple of years ago after watching the Paradise Lost documentaries, and was just dumbstruck how those kids got convicted without any evidence except an obviously coerced (and instantly retracted) confession. The reaction of the townsfolk and even the parents was utterly bizarre to me, and I've lived in the Bible Belt.

It was also humbling to confront my own prejudices, since I (any many others) strongly suspected the stepfather of one the victims (Byers) was quite likely the real killer based mostly on his bizarre behaviour and appearance, when the DNA later linked another stepfather (and one who hadn't said a word in the documentaries) to the crime instead.

[SomethingFishy]

2. He avoids rehashing the case file too much and deals more with

his reactions and emotions. Like you I saw the Paradise Lost docs, and became interested in the case. While I wasn't as impoverished as he was I had a difficult childhood as well and what really struck me was that that could just as easily have been me.

You won't be disappointed..

[Ron Obvious]

3. He came across as thoughtful and articulate in interviews...

So I'm not surprised he writes well also.

I'm from an intact middle-class professional family, so there's way I would have been treated like he was at that age, but I was certainly always an outsider who was into weird music and stuff and dressed in black, so I also strongly identified with him.

God, when one of those idiot prosecutors listed Stephen King novels as being suspicious reading material, I just wanted to hit the guy! Geez! I had LaVey's Satanic Bible, the Necronomicon, and various books on the occult on my bookshelves back then.

[RebelOne]

6. I also had Anton LeVey's books, Stephen King, and witchcraft books on my book shelf.

I guess if I had been in his shoes, they may have convicted me on my reading matter.

[alan_phillips]

4. A quick question about this

What is the point of having the guilty verdict if they are innocent? I don't know the justice system very well, so I am a bit confused. Thanks for the recommendation, I will have to check that book out.

[Ron Obvious]

5. It was a way for the state to safe face and not have to face lawsuits...

The three kids took the deal because they had been in prison for 16 years or so already since they were about 17 themselves and Damien Echols was on death row and was facing execution.

It was a shameless dodge by the state. If they really believed the kids guilty, they would have never released them. They knew.