Devil's Knot : Jessie's Confession

Devil’s Knot: Jessie’s Confession
Have you ever seen a horror film where bodies are discovered in ditches and the victims have been gruesomely murdered? Have you ever seen films where trials take place in court but they are full of errors? What if someone told you that such things happened in real life? Would you believe them? I know that I would not. However, when I read Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt, I was shocked. The book is a compilation of real-life events that occurred in 1993. It tells the story of three eight-year-old boys, Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore, who were mutilated, possibly raped, tied up, and then brutally murdered in May of 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas. There were discovered the morning after they disappeared in Robin Hood Hills submerged underneath water in a ditch. What is even more saddening is the way the trials of the murders were conducted. Three innocent teenagers, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., Jason Baldwin, and Damien Echols, were arrested and accused of murdering the boys. The reason for the arrests you might ask; a vague connection to a satanic cult, the wearing of black t-shirts, musical tastes, seriously flawed interviews with an eight-year old boy, Aaron Hutcheson, and a coerced confession from Misskelley, Jr. There was never any direct evidence linking the three boys to the murder and still they were arrested. No clear reason for their arrest was ever given because there was never any substantial amount of evidence against them. Evidence against other possible murderers was disregarded because the police were convinced that they had found their killers in the three teenagers after hearing and recording Jessie’s so called confession to the crime and his tying Damien and Jason to it as well. Even though alibis were presented by the boys the police ignored them and went ahead with the arrests. It is rather obvious, that basing the whole case and investigation on the coerced confession given by Jessie is a...