Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. You’d think after spending weeks watching elves, dwarves and wizards running around that I’d be pretty much prepared for anything on the Hobbit set, right? I mean, you can’t get much geekier than talking shit about a popular teen film franchise with Sir Ian McKellen, dressed in full Gandalf beard and robes no less, or making childish jokes while on location with dwarves about how phonetically Lake Pukaki sounds like… well, something rather disgusting.
While I hold all of the cast and crew in very high esteem the person I was most shocked and excited to meet was a man by the name of Damien Echols.
Like most people who know the case of the West Memphis Three, I first heard of Echols through the Paradise Lost documentaries that aired on HBO and was floored at what I saw there. From the initial heinous crime, the brutal murder of three children, to the railroading of three local teens in a ridiculously flawed trial to the conviction and incarceration of these kids I was infuriated and hooked at the same time.
I read more about the case online and the more I read the more furious I got. I understand a case like this gets under people’s skins. Remember, going into that first documentary I knew nothing about the case and trusted the Arkansas authorities found their murderers… until the case began. And the sketchy evidence was presented. I get people’s knee-jerk judgment of these three weird kids, but anybody who takes a critical look at the case will realize something smells about the prosecution’s case.
Recently the West Memphis Three, Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols, have been granted their freedom after 17 years in prison via a bizarre piece of legalese known as the Alford Plea in which the convicted pleads guilty on paper, but still maintain their innocence. In that way the State of Arkansas saves face (and, it must be noted, saves itself from being sued for wrongful imprisonment) and the boys get released from prison.
In Echols’ case that didn’t just mean he was able to go home with his wife, it meant he dodged a lethal injection needle with his name on it.
Before meeting Damien and his wife, Lorri Davis, I knew that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh were invested in the case, had donated money and time to the defense and were finishing up producing a documentary about the new DNA evidence they uncovered.
So, I was told in advance that I’d get the chance to meet them, but that still didn’t make it any less surreal on my part when the moment actually came. The whole West Memphis Three case felt so hopeless for so long that it was still a shock to shake the man’s hand. In New Zealand of all places!
Damien and Lorri were there working on the documentary, West of Memphis, giving notes on rough cuts and input to Jackson, Walsh and director Amy Berg. Lorri has been hands on with the film since the beginning, but Damien wasn’t exactly available until August 2011, so his involvement has been limited.
It was quite a trip getting to know Damien a little bit over the last few months. He’s a fascinating guy. In many ways he’s still the teenage kid who was put in prison just due to being removed from society for the last 17 years. Talking to him about Tintin after he saw a screening in Wellington was like talking to a kid who just saw his first movie. He was in awe of the technology. Imagine the culture shift for him. Toy Story hadn’t come out when he went to prison. Think about jumping immediately into something like Tintin, in stereoscopic 3-D.
After a few days worth of small talk around the set I was approached about setting up an official interview with Damien and Lorri to discuss their involvement as producers of West of Memphis. If I’m not mistaken, this is the first interview with Lorri and Damien since the big press hullabaloo following the release of The West Memphis Three. It’s for sure the first time they’ve discussed working with Peter, Fran and Amy on West of Memphis.
It’s a fascinating chat. Damien talks candidly about his time in prison and his plans for the future and Lorri shows herself to be every bit the determined fighter she’s proven to be over the last decade.
Quint: We should start with how you guys first got in touch with Peter [Jackson], Fran [Walsh], and Phil [Boyens] and at what point that contact was made.
Damien Echols: Lorri would probably be the best one to speak to that since they contacted her.
Lorri Davis: It would have been, I believe, in July of 2005. I got a donation through the defense fund from Peter Jackson, two of them actually in a row and the note that went with the Paypal receipt said, “Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help from New Zealand” and I immediately wrote back. Then Fran and I started an in-depth correspondence that lasted several months.
Quint: I know in speaking with Fran she seemed to be very interested in helping the investigation side of it.
LD: Right.
Quint: Is that something that came up early for you guys?
LD: Yep. She wanted to understand what had been done from the investigation, which really quite frankly isn’t much…
Quint: And by understanding that, then she would know what hadn’t been done yet.
LD: Right, because everything that was happening up to that point… I’ve known Damien since 1996, but I didn’t start working on the case until about 1998. I was aware of what was going on, but he had just gotten a new pro bono attorney out of Houston and so mostly what was going on was Rule 37, which is an appeal that proves you had ineffective council. There should be a great deal of work, but most of the time attorneys don’t go into new investigation with that. Mostly there just aren’t the funds available to do it and it’s just not something post conviction attorneys usually do.
DE: An appellate lawyer is different from a trial lawyer. A trial lawyer focuses on things like that, like investigation. An appellate lawyer, basically what they focus on is nitpicking at the proceedings to find flaws in what happened…
LD: Procedural flaws. By the time Fran and Pete came onboard we had an appellate attorney who even though he was going for actual innocence, what we had asked him to do, he really wasn’t focusing on investigation and that’s what Fran and Pete wanted to do. So that was a whole new start to the defense team and the way it would work from there. From the moment they came onboard everything in the defense team and the way the work would go changed.
DE: Both of them were incredibly hands on. It’s not like they just threw money at it and said, “Well, tell us how it goes.” I mean they were on the phone, on emails, everything with Lorri every single day, sometimes several times a day saying “We need to get this done. We need to get that done. How did this turn out?”
LD: And they were right in the middle of post production on KING KONG and that must have been insane for them.
Quint: I’m sure it must have been something to hold on to as things started looking bleak that you still had people who not only had the resources, but had the passion to free Damien and the others.
LD: Oh, that’s what completely what got me through. There were some really very dark times. Even though we were working on the case from 2005 to 2007 when we finally had the press conference with the new evidence… Those were dark years. Then we had another dark year in 2008, and 2009 frankly, because that’s when (Judge David) Burnett turned down (the appeal for a new trial), which lead of course to this film.
DE: And during that time also I was getting sicker and weaker and just basically collapsing.
LD: And even though Pete was very much involved and kept up, Fran and I really did develop a very close relationship. There was the financial support, the intellectual support, which was unbelievable, but there was also the emotional support from her and both of them and their concern for Damien and his health and that’s just unheard of.
DE: And it does make you breathe a little easier. I mean when you are sitting on death row looking at death and then you realize you’ve got Peter Jackson and his partner and everybody on their team suddenly coming to your defense, it does feel like there’s a huge weight lifted off your chest.
Quint: Were you aware of who they were before they became involved in the case?
DE: Yeah, because there’s a charity organization that would donate like DVDs to the prison that they would show around like Thanksgiving and Christmas and things like that, because that’s when times get really tense in there, because everybody starts thinking about what all they are missing with “another Christmas in here.” So they show these DVDs to keep things calm and take people’s minds off it a little bit, so they would show all of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, all three of them. I’ve seen each one at least five times each before I ever got out of prison and I used to see Peter in magazines, interviews with him and things like that, so I knew who they were very well.
Quint: I think Phil said she went to go visit you, is that right?
DE: Yeah, Phillippa and Seth came to see us at the prison and that was one of the things Fran and Peter were always a little superstitious about. They didn’t want to see me in the prison, they didn’t want to see that. They wanted to wait until I walked out the front door before we ever talked face to face, but Seth and Phillippa did come to the prison.
LD: And also they spent time at the crime scene, well what was remaining, because it was destroyed in early 2000 and we walked around and talked to the investigators who were working on that case at the time and they met with them.
Quint: So what were the feelings from both of you whenever the private investigators started actually coming up with what seemed to be extremely solid evidence in your favor?
LD: Well, I think the first real breakthrough was the forensic pathologists. When the first pathologist came back with “animal predation,” that was huge. When it first came through, which was Dr. Ophoven, no one believed it and we were like “That’s insane.” And then they all started one after another, without even consulting with the other doctors, all were coming through with the same thing and we were all just beside ourselves. That was the first breakthrough. At that point we all started feeling that.
Quint: Because once it was established that the mutilations on the victims weren’t ritualistic, then that’s pretty much the state’s entire case.
LD: Or even a knife was involved. That was the centerpiece of the state’s evidence, that knife. Whether it was ritualistic or not, it’s still that they were saying a knife was being used and when that was ruled out completely everything started to turn around.
DE: It’s also one of those things without giving too much away there’s a scene in the movie where they demonstrate the animal predation and whenever you see it and you see how well it matches the crime scene, you sit there and you say “Oh my God…” even me. You know, for me there’s not much about this case that comes as a surprise anymore. It’s like watching a rerun for the hundred millionth time for me, but seeing not only these experts saying this, but demonstrating exactly how it happens and you see it matches like a finger print in a crime scene it’s pretty amazing.
LD: It’s funny, because Fran and Pete didn’t like to talk on the phone and I was instructed from the beginning to pretty much just use email. They did send me their contact information and I respected that all along, but whenever it was big news it was always a phone call. (Laughs) I would be calling… like when the first DNA hit came in that matched Terry Hobbs… I don’t even know what time it was in New Zealand when I called Fran.
Quint: And when it was news like this, it doesn’t matter.
LD: Yeah, the phone call is going to be taken and she knew. She knew that it was going to be important if I was calling.
DE: I think one of the sad things for me is that by the time the DNA had started coming in, I had already gotten so jaded, because so many things had happened in the past, like people coming forward and saying “I lied on the stand” and “The cops blackmailed me” and all of this… I had gotten so jaded, because every time something like that happened, my hopes would get up and I would think “This is it. Surely somebody is going to step in now and do something” and I had been through that so many times that by the time the DNA had come in I was like “Oh. That’s interesting.”
LD: Yeah.
DE: Yeah, because I had realized years before I got out that it wasn’t just about the evidence, because if it was just the evidence they would cover it up. They did it time and time again and it actually took other people on the outside paying attention, with the media focusing on it. It really is 50/50. You can have tons of evidence pointing to the fact that you didn’t do it and someone else did and unless you can find someway to get that out into the public eye, the system will just plow it under and kill you anyways just to keep from admitting they made a mistake.
Quint: So at what point did the talk of this documentary come up?
LD: It was some time in 2008. I’m trying to remember when Burnett denied a hearing. That was the end of 2008.
DE: That’s when it was, it was when Burnett denied the hearing and it was kind of like what I was just saying. Peter and Fran realized “If they refused to have this evidence heard in court, we have to get it out so everybody else can hear it at least and see what they are hiding.”
Quint: Shine a spotlight on it.
LD: Right. They hadn’t ever really talked about a film before that moment, but Pete and Fran were both “When you think it’s the right time to start…” and we knew that that was a possibility then, because I think before then they hadn’t really been thinking about doing a film or it was just at the point when we knew that there wasn’t any other way to get this information out there and they were both “Well, that’s what we do. This is what we are good at” although I would have to say I think they are pretty good at running a legal team. (laughs)
So yeah, that’s when we decided. It wasn’t because they wanted to do a feature film…
DE: They wanted to get the evidence out.
LD: Yeah, they wanted to do a documentary. They didn’t want to dramatize the story. That actually never even came up. That has never been talked about, so this was all about what could be helpful for the case and to get the evidence out and nothing else was happening. At that point 48 HOURS hadn’t stepped up and there weren’t any other films being made at the time and there wasn’t anything really happening.
Quint: And the PARADISE LOST stuff had hit and then just kind of…
DE: Just died off for a while and we were just sort of like a ship that’s lost the wind and you’re just stranded out at sea and nothing’s happening and you don’t know what to do. So they figured “Well, let’s set something in motion. Let’s get something going at least.”
Quint: And they must have felt the ticking clock, like obviously you did. They didn’t want to see you put to death.
DE: I mean we all knew that it was… Between media and evidence it really is almost a 50/50 situation. It’s 50% media and 50% evidence, because if you have the evidence and can’t get it out where people know about it then it doesn’t do you any good.
Quint: So you started working with them closely on the doc I assume?
LD: Yeah. When the time did come, when things really hit rock bottom they were so quick with it, as with everything they do. They had done some research into a good director and we all watched her film and looked at other works she had done. It’s interesting, because she’s the only person we looked at and I knew when I met her that Amy [Berg] was the right person for the job. That was another stroke of genius for them, because she really has turned out to be incredible.
DE: She’s done such a good job. We watched the first two cuts of the film just to see what needs to be lengthened and what needs to be shortened and stuff like that, but when we are watching it my first thought whenever we were sitting down for the first time is “Oh God, I don’t want to go through this again. I’ve seen this all before,” but when I started watching it there was nothing in it that I had seen before. It held my attention from the beginning to the end, which was a huge accomplishment.
Quint: What was the most surprising thing for you?
DE: I guess it was how deep she gets into the story. She spent months at a time with everybody involved and I think that’s the difference between everything else that’s been done whether it’s 48 HOURS or PARADISE LOST or all of the other shows that were done, they were almost done from like an outside perspective, like an outsider looking in. This one is the exact opposite, it’s like going from the inside out. It starts with the people and goes into their lives and then takes in everything else.
LD: It starts with the case. It starts with the trial and the case. I think that’s kind of the difference, because it really does go to the root of the matter of “Why did people buy this?”
DE: Yeah, that’s exactly what it is and that’s sort of a mix of personal and case related, because it goes into the psychology behind all of it. It’s hard to articulate in a lot of ways, but I mean once you do see it you will understand exactly what it is we are saying.
LD: And Amy moved to Arkansas.
Quint: Oh? I didn’t know that.
LD: She lived in Arkansas. Memphis actually, but that was where she needed to be.
DE: That way she could just cross the bridge everyday into West Memphis and then go home.
LD: So we spent a lot of time together and she had all of her crew down there. It was such an intense year on that side and then at the same time we had brought on new council and during that time we won the new hearing, so everything was sort of going full speed and everything was so intense. Fran and the new council and the new team started these weekly conference calls and so the film actually became part of the defense team, because it became an investigation. So you’ve got this whole other arm of investigation going on while we are getting ready for this hearing and it was…
DE: They have things that will absolutely blow people away in this movie that hasn’t been covered anywhere else and nobody else knows about yet, like the things that they uncovered and the people that came forward… that part of it makes you very angry.
LD: It’s hard to watch, but it’s also…
Quint: The best documentaries are the ones that infuriate you.
DE: They got other things in this that nobody else has been able to get before like just interviews with the prosecutors and things like that that they would never… There are times whenever you hear the prosecutor talking and you can’t even believe what he’s saying. He just… he’s just a scumbag and it’s amazing that he would even say this stuff.
LD: I just thought of this, but I wonder if there has ever been a film that has actually been a part of a legal team in a case like this. I mean you think of THIN BLUE LINE, but that was after…
DE: And even the very first PARADISE LOST, it was there during the trial, it was recording the trial, but it wasn’t like…
Quint: So what you are saying is that you wouldn’t be sitting here right now without Peter and Fran coming in?
DE: No, I wouldn’t.
LD: There’s no way. We wouldn’t have had the resources. We wouldn’t have had the expertise they brought to it and also the emotional support. That was just as important to me as any of it was. Also for me, I’m going try to be as kind as I can, but working with lawyers is very difficult.
DE: (Whispering) I despise lawyers. I hate lawyers.
Quint: Why? I don’t understand why you’d feel that way!
DE: (laughs) We got a couple of guys at the end, Steve Braga and then Patrick Benca that were unlike anything we had discovered in the legal world before. To be honest, everything that goes wrong is not entirely the state’s fault, it’s also the defense lawyer’s fault, just because a lot of times they don’t care, they go about things half-assed and halfhearted. We had lawyers that whenever the new evidence would start coming up would start getting pissed off that new evidence was coming, because their whole theory was “We are just going to look at the case and try to pick little loopholes in it and you are messing with our theories and plans by bringing up this new evidence.”
LD: Fran and Pete would get so frustrated when they first came on board, because things weren’t moving quickly and they are used to working on a set where when a director says “This needs to be done quickly,” it’s done immediately and on this there would be several requests “Why isn’t this being done?” Weeks would go by and it wouldn’t get done and “We are actually paying for this now. Why isn’t it done?” They brought that into it.
DE: You’ll have lawyers doing conference calls and then a week later they want to do a conference call about the last week’s conference call.
LD: That would go on, but I do think their presence… A lot of people, you can’t help it, you’re awed by them. Everyone is awed by them, so you would have these lawyers who first of all knew they had some resources, but secondly they knew they were being watched by very powerful people.
Quint: They had somebody cracking the whip.
LD: Yeah. What happens in these cases, and unfortunately it did go 18 years, but I think this case would have gone a lot longer had it not been for them. First of all it wouldn’t have been resolved without their work, but secondly I think it probably cut the time down by five years.
DE: And without them also this would sort of be the end of the case. We would have been forced to take this deal (the Alford Plea) and be marked with this for the rest of our lives, but they are still pushing for complete and absolute exoneration of us and that the people who actually did it be arrested and put on trial.
Quint: How possible do you think that’s going to be with the system that’s set up in Arkansas?
DE: I think it comes down to entirely how much attention can be brought to this situation, because like we said only 50% of it is evidence. You can have all the evidence in the world pointing to somebody else and it won’t do you any good unless you can bring enough attention to what they are doing and how they are covering things up. So I think it really is going to depend entirely on that; to how much people many people see this documentary and how much they care about it and how much they want to get involved and how much pressure they want to bring.
You know, the prosecutor said during an interview that basically what this came down to him for, us taking this deal, was us not being able to sue the state for like sixty million dollars and that’s really what it came down to for them. To them it didn’t matter whether we were guilty or innocent or anything else. To them it doesn’t matter whether you are innocent, whether you are guilty, or anything else. It’s all about money and winning the next election.
Quint: Because there’s so much on the line for them is there any way that they are ever going to grant you that exoneration?
DE: Again, I think it’s all about the size of the spotlight you put on them. That’s the reason I’m sitting here right now. It’s not because they finally grew a conscience and said, “Okay, we’re going to do the right thing.” It was because of the size of the spotlight shined on them and it will take that big a spotlight again in order to get them to do the right thing.
LD: This is a pretty big spotlight.
Quint: So the movie’s showing at Sundance and you said you’re going to be out there with it?
DE: Right.
Quint: What do you think audience’s reactions are going to be? What do you anticipate?
DE: I think there’s going to be a lot of anger involved when people see what went on, when they see what happened with everything behind the scenes. I really do believe people are going to be stirred up even more than they were by things like the 48 HOURS piece and the PARADISE LOST movies and things like that, because the impact of this, with the things that nobody has seen yet, is so much stronger that I think people are going to be angry when they see it.
LD: And it’s really in-depth. What it does, and I think amazingly so, is she’s filmed so much and she did so much work and there is so much investigation put into it and all of the work that Fran and Pete did and being involved with the defense team, to get all of that material into a two and half hours? Every moment in that film counts for something. She also manages to bring in humanity, so it’s not like you’re watching this dry courtroom legal thing with lawyers and talking heads.
Quint: Yeah, that’s important, because people will just tune out if it just becomes facts.
LD: She really manages to bring the humanity and the pain and there were some light moments and that’s a hard thing to do with a story like this.
DE: Because the people involved had to have humor in their lives, in mine and Lorri’s lives and in everybody else’s lives, or the horror and the weight of everything that was happening would break you. You have to find things to laugh at even in that and she did manage to get a few of those.
Quint: So what’s next for you guys? What’s your focus after the doc starts screening and people start seeing it?
DE: We’re not even sure yet. We’re just trying to bring as much attention and focus onto the case as we possibly can with this movie and also I’m working on a book deal with Penguin. Hopefully my book will be out in September, so it will keep the momentum rolling.
As it stands right now we still have three counts of murder on our records. You know, you have to jump through hoops to do anything. Trying to find a regular job or anything else with that kind of record…
Quint: You’re free, but you’re kind of free.
DE: Exactly. It’s almost like you still have a chain around your foot. It’s a very long chain, but it’s still a chain.
Quint: So you’re saying you’re going to try to get that chain off your foot?
DE: Exactly. To get this stain off of our lives.
Quint: I have to imagine that you just want to put it all behind you, too.
DE: Well, you know Jason (Baldwin), one of the things he talks about that he wanted to do even while we were in prison is he says he wants to go to law school and help out in other cases where innocent people are sent to prison. You can’t even become a lawyer with a criminal record, so he’s going to have to be exonerated before he can even do something like that. So there are lots of areas of your life where that still bleeds into.
Quint: Well, thank you guys for taking the time to talk to me.
It’s pretty crazy that Baldwin, Misskelley and Echols still have murder felonies on their records and like Echols says in the interview it’s not just something they can move past. For an example, when it became known that Echols was in New Zealand the headlines read “Peter Jackson Gets Child Killer Into NZ.”
I saw Damien the day those headlines appeared and saw the pain in his eyes. He has his (limited) freedom, but the shadow of this case still looms over him.
Talking with Damien and Lorri they rarely complain about that, though. They’ll always talk about it being more important that the man who did murder those children be brought to justice, something which can not be done, no matter what rock-solid evidence is uncovered, while Misskelley, Baldwin and Echols are still considered guilty of this crime.
It’s a mess of a situation, but one everybody involved is determined to clear up once and for all. By all accounts Berg’s documentary will go a long way to clearing the air and righting a wrong that impacted many lives since 1993.
Audiences will get their first look at West of Memphis on January 20th when it has its world premiere at Sundance. Entertainment Weekly has the trailer if you’d like to check it out.
And I’ll be back soon with another interview, this time with director Amy Berg where we go into a little more detail about the documentary, her thoughts on the Paradise Lost films and how comfortable she was as a documentary filmmaker having her work be part of the defense in this case she’s covering.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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