Stuff
Product Details
Atria Books, October 2003
Trade Paperback, 432 pages
ISBN-10: 0743417607
ISBN-13: 9780743417600
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
Description
"Free the West Memphis Three."
Maybe you've heard the phrase.
But do you know why their story is so alarming?
Do you know the facts?
The guilty verdicts handed out to three Arkansas teens in a horrific capital murder case were popular in their home state -- even upheld on appeal. But after two HBO documentaries called attention to the witch-hunt atmosphere at the trials, artists and other supporters raised concerns about the accompanying lack of evidence. Now, award-winning journalist Mara Leveritt provides the most comprehensive look yet into this endlessly shocking case.
For weeks in 1993, after the murders of three eight-year-old boys, police in West Memphis, Arkansas, seemed stymied. Then suddenly, detectives charged three teenagers -- alleged members of a satanic cult -- with the killings. Despite stunning investigative blunders, a confession riddled with errors, and an absence of physical evidence linking any of the accused to the crime, the teenagers were tried and convicted. Jurors sentenced Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to life in prison. They sentenced Damien Echols, the accused ringleader, to death. Ten years later, all three remain in prison. Here, Leveritt unravels this seemingly medieval case and offers close-up views of its key participants, including one with an uncanny knack for evading the law....
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Chapter 1Sr. Helen Prejean Author of Dead Man Walking The abuses of the criminal justice system shown here are so blatant -- and so profoundly tragic
-- that they would be hard to believe were it not for the depth and evenhandedness of Mara Leveritt's reporting.
Henry Rollins Devil's Knot is the brutal, riveting story of the Robin Hood Woods murders and the amateur justice meted out in the subsequent trial and sentencing. The true horror of Leveritt's well-written book is that this barely believable fate could potentially befall any American.
Library Journal Reviews Arkansas Times investigative reporter Leveritt explores the 1993 West Memphis Three murder convictions, which have been the subject of two HBO documentaries. The book is arranged chronologically, from the crime through the trial, and dispassionately dissects the prosecution's case against three teens who were convicted of the grisly murders of three eight-year-old boys. Leveritt interviewed the principals, reviewed the police file and trial transcripts, and leads the reader to conclude from her exhaustive research (430 footnotes) that the case was botched, improperly based on a single confession from a retarded youth and the defendants' alleged ties to satanic rituals. Well written in descriptive language, the book is an indictment of a culture and legal system that failed to protect children as defendants or victims. Highly recommended.
Arkansas Times Devil's Knot becomes the best horror novel you've ever read, one of those that leaves you wondering what new sick dread might be lying in wait on the next page, one of those that telegraphs the frustration and fear of its characters through the cover like a chunk of iron struck with a mallet. The monster Leveritt reveals in the end, however, is more terrifying than even the fork-tailed bogeymen conjured by West Memphis police and prosecutors to fit their crime.
