Last week, three men were released from prison in Arkansas – one of them from death row. This wouldn’t have happened without two HBO documentaries, the 1996 Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and its sequel Paradise Lost 2: Revelations. HBO is rebroadcasting them on Monday, August 29th (the first one) and Tuesday, August 30th (the sequel).
The men had served over eighteen years each for a horrific crime that they apparently had nothing to do with. Three second grade Cub Scouts were brutally raped, murdered and their bodies mutilated. The authorities, under understandable pressure to solve the crime, arrested three Metallica-loving teenagers and railroaded them for a supposed Satanic ritual killing. Although no physical evidence tied them to the crime, one teen with an IQ of 76 was browbeaten into a confession that he later recanted.
The HBO films spawned media interest and public and celebrity support for the convicted men, who became known as the West Memphis Three.
Recently-processed DNA evidence was inconsistent with any of the defendants. Facing the specter of a futile new trial, the prosecutor accepted a plea bargain that freed the men without their having to acknowledge guilt. Interestingly, the father of one of the victims has gone from the villain of the second HBO film to a supporter of the recently freed men. Here’s the New York Times coverage.
And here’s a trailer for the first film.