Menphis Three

The Victims and the Suspects

As per Vanessa West (2011); America, a country founded on principles that promise us all that we are entitled to certain inborn, irrevocable rights. The writers ofConstitution, those who penned the Bill of Rights, wanted to make sure that as Americans, we were free to speak our mind, to worship as we wish, to assemble as we see fit. Those documents also promisedthat when a crime occurred, justice would be handed out fairly, without prejudice, with punishment for the guilty and exoneration for the innocent.

Arkansas proved otherwise on May 1993, when threeeight year old boys were found in an area of West Memphis called the Robinhood Hills. Nestled behind a carwash and cut through by a drainage ditch, the naked, beaten, drowned, and maimed bodies ofChristopher Byers, Steven Branch, and Michael Moore were found. The boys were bound wrists to ankles with their own shoelaces, savagely beaten, and Christopher Byer's genitals were violated in hideousways. The boys bore deep bite marks, (indicating that the murder was sexual in nature or was a product of battered child syndrome,) stab wounds, and all three showed signs of having been brutally beatenabout the head, torso, arms, and legs.
Christopher Byers Steven Branch James Michael Moore




Somehow the belief of satanic involvement in this case was introduced from a conversationbetween Lieutenant James Sudbury, of the West Memphis Police Department, after he contacted Juvenile Officer of Crittenden County, Steve Jones. Jones informed Sudbury that there was one person he knewof that was involved in cult activities that could be capable of committing such a crime. He named Damien Echols. After this assumption was made, the case investigation concentrated in finding a wayto prove Damien’s involvement in the crime looking into his past and acquaintances. Through this they interviewed Jessie Misskelley, from whom they got a questionable confession also involving Jason...