FOR: Damien profile picture

FOR: Damien

FREE THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE

About Me

Register today for the Skeleton Key Auctions website. We will be posting a lot of great items for you to bid on very soon. All proceeds will go to the West Memphis Three legal defense fund!Almost Home is a message to you from a faraway place. It is a message from a 12-foot by 9-foot cell in a cinderblock building surrounded by coils of razor wire in the middle of a dirt field in Arkansas. It was written by a young man named Damien Echols and it chronicles his life and his experiences in a way that clearly illuminates him, not as a monster, but as a human being. For over 10 years Damien has been an inmate on death row for a crime he did not commit. He, along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley have become known as The West Memphis Three, and though the story of their arrest and conviction is widely known, most people don€™t know the real people behind the sound bites and the TV news segment clips. Damien has spent much of his time behind bars diligently maintaining his integrity and his sanity by writing.
Almost Home is the product of that self-discipline, and in it you will meet someone who has survived an ordeal many of us would find impossible to live through. There are a few who still believe that Damien is a devil-worshipping child killer, but as time passes and more facts rise to the surface, it becomes even more clear that he is the victim of a peculiar species of hysteria. Read this book and know the truth about him. It is an urgent message from death row; the whole story of who Damien Echols really is.
..This profile was edited with MySpace Profile Editor MySpace Profile EditorWM3 Living Petition 2008 Part 1WM3 Living Petition 2008 Part 2
West Memphis Three: Time for Truth from Brian Quist on Vimeo .

My Interests

Shortly after three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, local newspapers stated the killers had been caught. The police assured the public that the three teenagers in custody were definitely responsible for these horrible crimes. Evidence?

The same police officers coerced an error-filled €œconfession€? from Jessie Misskelley Jr., who is mentally handicapped. They subjected him to 12 hours of questioning without counsel or parental consent, audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes. Jessie recanted it that evening, but it was too late€” Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were all arrested on June 3, 1993, and convicted of murder in early 1994.

Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon, motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus 40.

For over 12 years, The West Memphis Three have been imprisoned for crimes they didn€™t commit. Echols waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a rush to judgment.

But there€™s still hope for them, and you can help.

Learn about the WM3 here.

I'd like to meet:

Any mindful correspondence will be sent to Damien from here. Any messages on his book or to him. It will passed along to him.

Educate your friends.

It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us escape, not from our own time -- for we are bound by that -- but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time. T.S. Eliot

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and will never be. Thomas Jefferson

Education should consist of a series of enchantments, each raising the individual to a higher level of awareness, understanding, and kinship with all living things. Author Unknown

Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends. Benjamin Disraeli

Write to Damien at:

Damien Echols ..SK931
Varner Unit
PO Box 400
Grady Arkansas 71644

Please remember his prisoner ID number (number SK931) must be included in the address. The prison mail rules are here, and we strongly suggest everyone take the time to read them. http://www.wm3.org/live/faq/faq_category.php?id=4..faq5

Music:

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Movies:

Hi Folks, NOTE: This website is NOT run by Damien Echols. I am a friend of Damien's and I do send him all emails/comments from this page. However, the messages WILL NOT reach him quicker than you sending your own letter/message via snail mail. Thanks!

Books:

ALMOST HOME: MY LIFE STORY VOL. 1 has been published. The book is available amazon.com. Buy via skeletonkeyart.com and a portion of the proceeds go back to the WM3.

Heroes:

Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., Jason Baldwin

My Blog

Wives of murder victims speak out

Gov pardons 19 -- some had been exoneratedChicago Sun-Times - United StatesAlso pardoned Wednesday was Dan Young Jr., who was exonerated in 2005 after DNA tests proved he was not responsible for the r...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:53:00 PST

"BROKEN JUSTICE" Fundraiser for the Defense of the WM3

Hello Folks, I wanted to share with you the latest and greatest Tshirt that was created to raise money for the WM3 Defense Fund. The Tshirt design "Broken Justice" is by Gris Grimly. Please take ...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:14:00 PST

Limitations in Helping to Free the West Memphis Three

Below is a blog a Mother has written. Perhaps you might have your own ideas for her and can post them on her site?   Fae - Limitations in Helping to "Free the West Memphis Three"By Fae The "West ...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:07:00 PST

4 had been wrongfully convicted of murder

Blagojevich pardons 19 By Azam Ahmed and David Heinzmann | Chicago Tribune reporters 11:31 PM CDT, July 3, 2008 Gov. Rod Blagojevich has pardoned three men who were exonerated in 2002 after a feder...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Sat, 05 Jul 2008 07:35:00 PST

Jessies 33rd Birthday - REMINDER

Hey y'all,Jessie's  birthday is July 10th-- hopefully the last one at Varner Unit. Please take the time out to at least send him a birthday card?  Supporters can also send him book...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:10:00 PST

West Memphis police officers shot and killed a suspect,

Video of violent police chase played in courtWMCTV Memphis Thu, 03 Jul 2008 3:53 PM PDTFor the first time Thursday, video of what happened on the night in 2004 when three West Memphis police officers ...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:23:00 PST

Martin Tankleff and Other Exonerees and Legal Experts Testify at ...

Who Will Die?: Computer Predicts Which Death Row Inmates Will Be ...Scientific American - USABy Larry Greenemeier LETHAL: According to a computer system developed to predict which death row inmates ar...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:30:00 PST

DNA indicates late Texas inmate innocent

Getting Smart About DnaNewsweek - USAI'm codirector of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, which uses DNA testing to exonerate inmates wrongfully ... SC go...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:03:00 PST

Jessies 33rd Birthday

Hey y'all,Jessie's  birthday is July 10th-- hopefully the last one at Varner Unit. Please take the time out to at least send him a birthday card?  Supporters can also send him book...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:16:00 PST

California’s death penalty process is ’dysfunctional,’ panel finds

California's death penalty process is 'dysfunctional,' panel finds The time from sentencing to execution is twice the national average. A state commission says delays undermine the system and recom...
Posted by FOR: Damien on Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:13:00 PST