On May 5, 1993, the bodies of three eight-year-old boys were found next to a muddy creek in the wooded Robin Hood Hills area of West Memphis, Ark. A month later, three teenagers, Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelly, were arrested, accused and convicted of brutally raping, mutilating and killing the boys.
Innuendos of devil worship, allegations of coerced confessions and emotionally charged documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, the case was on of the most sensational the sate of Arkansas had ever seen. The film and its sequel, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, sparked a national debate regarding the innocence or guilt of the West Memphis 3.
Filmmaker Joe Berlinger and his co-director and producing partner Bruce Sinofsky have followed the story over an 18-year period with the support of premium cable outlet HBO.
Today, a ruling was handed down which saw the three incarcerated boys (now men), Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelly, set free after spending the last 18 years on death row.
At the time of the ruling, Berlinger and Sinofsky were filming for their latest installment of the documentary, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory. The film, which is to have its theatrical premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, will air on HBO in January 2012. Paradise Lost 3 chronicles the entire story, from the arrests in 1993 to the growing movement, through the entire appeals process and the uncovering of new evidence, concluding with their release.
As Damien Echols notes in the film, if not for the “Paradise Lost” documentaries, “…these people would have murdered me, swept this under the rug, and I wouldn’t be anything but a memory right now.”
“Eighteen years and three films ago, we started this journey to document the terrible murders of three innocent boys and the subsequent circus that followed the arrests and convictions of Baldwin, Echols and Misskelly,” said director and producer Joe Berlinger. “To see our work culminate in the righting of this tragic miscarriage of justice is more than a filmmaker could ask for.”
Added co-director Bruce Sinofsky, “Today, we, along with HBO, are humbled to be a part of this remarkable outcome.”
