WEBVTT - #095 Jason Flom with Joe Berlinger 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:05.240 In May nineteen ninety three, three young Arkansas boys, Stevie Branch, 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:08.640 Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore, went missing. 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:10.959 Three little cub Scouts hog Tide and left in an 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:12.000 Arkansas did. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.800 One of the most controversial legal cases in the state's history. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.640 A jury found the man guilty of murdering the eight 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.479 year old boys back in nineteen ninety three, in what 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.239 prosecutors at the time had called some sort of a 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:24.480 Satanic ritual. 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.400 Celebrities fighting for the teen's release claimed the kids were 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:31.720 railroaded because of their mummets, dark clothes, and fascination. 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.040 With the occult sticking killings that might have been part 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:35.479 of a Satanic ritual. 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.879 Convicted murderers Jason Baldwin, Jesse mss Kelly, and Damian Eccles 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:41.280 are now free men. 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.280 They spent seventeen years in prison for a crime that 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:45.159 stunned Arkansas. 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.720 So West Memphis three would be allowed to walk out 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.600 of prison, but prosecutors agreed to sign off on the 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.720 deal only if the defendants would plead guilty. 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.320 A long time on death row for something that you 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.040 insist you didn't do. There's always the possibility that the 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:01.760 person that you're killing is aest. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:12.960 This is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today. 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.200 I have a special show for you, and I think 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.000 it's going to be a real treat because with me, 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:24.080 I have a guy who has done profound work in 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:29.080 film dealing with wrongful convictions. I'm super excited to have 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.640 him here to share some stories and some wisdom and 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.000 his outlooks. So Joe Burlinger, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:36.399 Jason. 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:36.720 Thanks. 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:38.760 I'm a big fan of the podcast and a fan 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:40.800 of you, so I'm glad to be here. In fact, 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.640 it amazes me that since I consider myself a music 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.080 and wrongful conviction guy, and you're amazing music and wrongful 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.200 conviction guy, I'm amazed. We haven't met until recently, which 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.600 is why this podcast came to me. We shared a 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:54.600 nice dinner together. 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.960 Yeah, we had dinner recently with Damian Eccles and Amanda 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.840 Knox and so we really connected. And it's interesting because 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.400 I do sort of music and justice. You do film 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:08.000 music injustice. And the thing that you've been known for 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.040 was your movie about the West, Memphis three, because it 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.840 was such an important not only such an important documentary, 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:19.800 but also such an important moment in the changing of 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.880 the perception of the American public and the worldwide public 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.600 as to how these things happen. And I'm interested to 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.200 know how did you because you know, you and I 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.640 both were in criminal justice reform before it was sort 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.679 of a thing, right, I mean, we were early adopters, 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.560 and I like to say we were in before it 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.880 was cool, but that sounds ridiculous, but anyway, true. Listen, 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.440 I'm glad it's cool because we need more and more people. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.400 We didn't have enough storytellers shining a light on injustice 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.240 and activists trying to change this miserable system we have. 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:55.119 No we need an army. And so you made this 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.079 remarkable Paradise Lost trilogy that I'm holding in my hand 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.919 right now, which which told the story of the three kids. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.680 And they were kids. They were teenagers, Damien Eccles, Jason Baldwin, 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:16.120 and Jesse Miskally, who were persecuted, prosecuted, arrested, tried, convicted 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:21.160 for one of the most gruesome and notorious triple murders 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.359 in the history of the world. Yeah, from the three 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.200 eight year old boys that went missing in West Memphis, Arkansas, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.720 out riding their bikes and turned up in a riverbank, tortured, 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:37.720 brutally assaulted, sexually mutilated, and of course dead. And how 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.880 did it come to be that? And we'll get into 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.360 how the wrongful conviction happened, but how did you go 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.040 from being a filmmaker to being this guy? And how 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:49.480 were you made aware of this case and how did 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.200 you get involved? And boy, it's a good thing you did, 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.000 or Damien would have been executed by now. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.880 Yeah, you know, it's amazing and thank you for all that. 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:58.600 That's very kind of you to say, because you've also 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.520 done amazing work, which I appreciate. You know, my first film, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.400 which I should say, Paradise Lost and Brothers Keeper were 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.280 made with Bruce Sinofsky, who recently passed away. You know, 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.200 so if I revert to the eyes, I always mean we. 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.600 But you know, we had made Brothers Keeper, which there 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.880 was no sense of social justice behind the making of 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.960 that movie. That was purely an aesthetic exercise to push 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.400 the documentary form a little further. You know, there was 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.599 a handful of filmmakers in the late eighties early nineties 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:28.359 that were looking to expand what it means to be 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.919 a documentary. Errol Morris did it with thin blue line. 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.200 But his contribution, besides the wrongful conviction aspect, was you know, 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:41.359 pushing recreations to a whole new level. Michael Moore was 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:46.680 pushing documentary by you know, the filmmaker as on camera curmudgeon, 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.040 you know, crusading for a social cause. That was new. 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.479 Morgan Spurlock then picked up that kind of thread in others. 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:55.760 What we were trying to do with Brothers Keeper was 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.599 simply by using a murder trial because it has perfect 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:03.080 dramatic structure, to take the documentary and create a just 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.520 a film that feels like a narrative film because of 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.760 how it shot, how it's edited, how it looks, how 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.680 it's structured, and to push the documentary form. I had 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.600 no interest in social justice, no interest in wrongful I 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.640 didn't even know wrongful convictions took place back then. I 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.320 was very naive about the justice system. And Brother's Keeper 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:23.039 was very successful. And so Sheila Evans from HBO came 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.840 a calling. You know, the she was until very recently 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.040 the head of documentaries at HBO for three decades. And 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.200 if I had to pick one person responsible for expanding 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.240 the form to what it is today, Sheila would be 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.640 that woman, but she also likes salacious material, and so 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.880 she read this story about three devil worshiping teens who 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:48.159 were just been arrested for these horrible crimes, and she 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:52.159 wanted a satanic kids killing kids movie because it seemed 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:56.200 like that was the case. So one week after the 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.480 arrests of the three. Of course, they weren't called the 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.160 West Memphis Three back then, they were these rotten teenagers 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.240 accused of these horrible crimes. We went down to West Memphis, 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.799 Arkansas in June of ninety three, thinking we were making 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:13.120 a film about kids killing kids. All the press was 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.360 saying they were guilty Jesse miss Kelly's confession without any context. 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.360 The multiple statements over time were reduced to a digestible 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.520 paragraph without context, published in the local paper. So we 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.080 thought there was a confession. You know, the prosecution and 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.760 the police were saying at press conferences on a scale 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.320 of one to ten, this is an eleven. I was 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:37.800 going down as a filmmaker, coming off of a really 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.880 great experience on my first film of pushing the form 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.040 of documentary, but no idea of social justice. 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:44.720 We go down. 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.440 We embed with the families of the victims, mainly the 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.159 trial is still seven months away. For the first three 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.159 months of the project, we really spent time with the 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:54.320 families of the victims, and of course they hated these 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.200 guys and thought they were, you know, the devil, and 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:58.960 we had no reason to believe otherwise. 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.640 On season seven of Wrongful Conviction, on the fifth episode, 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:08.360 I interviewed Damien eccles. Here's an excerpt. You were an outcast, right, 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.840 and there were these very small minded people around who 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:18.160 sort of came to this instinctual call it conclusion that 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.600 it must be the weird kid, right, it must be 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:22.800 the kid that wears black and listens to heavy metal. 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.240 And this was during the Satanic Panic as well. Right 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:27.760 back then, for those of you who are old enough 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.440 to remember, in the early nineties, there was this very 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:32.720 strange thing that was going on in America with rumors 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:34.280 of Satanic cults and stuff like that. None of them 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:35.880 turned out to be true. But that's beside the point. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.160 So what happened for me my entire life, The thing 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.240 that has been most important to me, that I love 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.320 the most, that my life always sort of revolved around, 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.360 was Western hermeticism ceremonial magic. All the way back from 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:51.800 when I was a child, But I lived in an 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:56.360 incredibly right wing fundamentalist town where I mean there were 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.520 places in this town where you come to a four 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.000 corner step and on all four corners of the street 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:02.720 will be churches. 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:03.760 It was like Starbucks. 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.040 Now, yeah, that's exactly what it was like. And if 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.760 you didn't belong to, you know, one of these mainstream 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:14.440 for that area, mainstream fundamentalist religions, you were automatically viewed 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.120 as suspicious. You were Satanic. That's what they thought. And 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:19.920 it didn't matter if you were a Buddhist or a 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.720 Hindu or something like that. You're still satanic. You just 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.240 don't know you're a Satanist. You're just being you know, 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.000 tricked by the devil into thinking there's some other religion. 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:28.760 You know. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.719 The fact that I actually did love ceremonial magic, and 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:34.920 that's been one of their things that you know, they 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.959 harp on forever that that is Satanism. So that was 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:39.800 a huge part of what made them focus on me 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:41.760 as well. You know, that was what they thought made 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.520 me a freak. They think, automatically, you're a Satanist. It 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.680 would take a Satanist to commit a crime like this. 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.080 Stick all those things together, and they didn't even look 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:51.320 for anybody or anything else. 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.400 So in this case, they focused on you. And then 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:57.800 they had to find a way to get to you, 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.720 right because there was no evidence connecting you no, So 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.640 they found a way, and that way was Jesse Miskeally exactly. 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:10.040 So they originally sort of tricked him into confessing and 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.559 he immediately recanted after he confessed. 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:17.200 Of somewhere between seventy and seventy two, and they interrogated him. 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:19.679 I can't remember exactly how many hours it was, it 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.080 was something like between twelve and fourteen hours. And they're 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.720 tilling this guy who has an IQ that's way way 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:28.760 below normal. They're telling him things like, you know, just 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:30.760 tell us what we want to know and we'll let 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.000 you go home. So they finally get this guy to confess, 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.480 and he can't get anything about the crime scene right 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:37.840 because he wasn't actually there, so he didn't know anything. 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.120 They didn't care. The only thing they cared about was 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:42.559 the fact that they got him to say yes. 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.079 And we also know, Damian, that people who are most 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.240 susceptible to this are adolescents. We now know that the 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.000 human brain isn't fully formed until you're twenty five. He 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.680 was sixteen, right seventeen, and with his low IQ, he 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.840 was totally outmatched, overwhelmed, and probably after twelve to fourteen 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.720 hours he would have confessed, do you know anything killing 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.839 Abraham Lincoln? Exactly? I mean just to go home? So 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.120 he implicated you and Jason. So Jason was sort of 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.840 your one and best and pretty much only friend at 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.440 the time, rightly, And he was just physical appearances, he 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.080 didn't have the same stigma that you did, right. He 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.240 was sort of just an average looking kid, very young looking, 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.640 must have weighed a hundred pounds or less. Didn't look 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.400 like a killer, right, But to them you did, exactly. 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:27.920 And he got caught up in all. 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.280 Of this too, yep, just because he knew me, right. 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:35.640 Unbelievable. On season two of Wrongful Conviction, Episode eight, I 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.920 interviewed Jason Baldwin. Here's what he had to say. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.600 And so when the police came, Honestly, it didn't really 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.640 scare me or alarm me, because I figured they were 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.440 going everywhere. I figured it was door to door, you know, 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.920 that they were talking to everybody they could, you know, 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.120 and to me that made sense, you know, that was logical. 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.200 But what I didn't know that they were targeting us. 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:00.800 So now everything goes completely haywire and you guys get arrested. 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.520 Correct, They mugshot in me, but when they fingerprinted me, 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.760 they didn't stop there. They took a fingerprint, they took 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:12.520 an entire hand impression. They took my entire foot prints, right, 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:14.720 and then they took me to the hospital and they 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:19.240 took hair samples, they took saliva samples, they took blood samples. 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:21.840 When they were taking these samples from me, it gave 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.280 me hope because I thought, Okay, whoever committed this crime, 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.839 they've left something for the police to compare my samples to, right, 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.839 And so that's where my hope was. And now at 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.079 this point, I had already been engaged with the police, 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.120 and they had asked me, you know, questions and stuff, 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.199 and I told them where I was at, and they 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:44.240 absolutely refused the truth. They kept telling me, no, we've 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.760 got another story. Your friend has told us that you 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:49.760 have done this and that what you're telling us is 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:51.960 not true. I'm like, well, who is this friend? And 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.880 they refused to tell me. The boys' bodies were found 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.679 May sixth, We were arrested. Jesse Muskelli gave the false 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.040 confession on June third, so what many people have not 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.560 really noticed it. On May the fifteenth, just a couple 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.600 of weeks after the boys' bodies are found, Jesse went 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.120 to the police with another friend because there was a 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:14.439 tip line and a reward offered out for any information 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.240 on who may have committed this crime. Now, Jesse did 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.360 not know who committed his crime, but he wanted the 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.280 reward money. He was imagining the brand new truck he 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:25.680 could buy his father and things like that. So him 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.240 and another kid out of his trailer park went to 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.520 the police and said, there's this suspicious guy in the 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.200 town that you know, you need to check out. And 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.280 I don't know exactly what all he told them about 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.960 this guy or whatever, but they ended up telling him, Jesse, 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.559 you need to come back with a more believable story 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.520 than that. Right, a few weeks go by, now they're 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:50.400 saying they've got that believable story when he gives the 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.319 false confession against Damian and me. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.800 Then we finally negotiated access. They were all in county 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:02.080 jail awaiting trial, and somehow we taught you know, documentary 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.280 was a little more naive in those days in terms 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.400 of people's perceptions, and so we were able. I mean, 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.319 one of the amazing things about Paradise Loss is just 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:12.000 where we stuck our camera. I mean, we got tremendous access, 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.560 which I don't think we'd ever get today, luckily for 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.920 all involved. But we finally negotiated access to the West 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:22.160 Memphis three and again they weren't called that then, and 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.880 we did our first series of interviews, and I think 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.400 I'm sitting down with killers, you know, horrible kids, wanting 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.200 to understand how three teens could be so disaffected from 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.080 life that they would they would do this horrible thing. 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.320 There were some killings in the UK on railroad tracks 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.439 just a few years before, you know, the Jamie Bolger 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.800 case that actually I had tried to get access to 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.400 and make a film about. So my head is kids 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.720 killing kids, it's a trend, Let's make a film about it. 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.320 Of course, the late eighties was the whole Satanic panic 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.640 and satanic hysteria. I was a young filmmaker and you know, 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.920 didn't have any reason to think that wasn't necessarily true. 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.000 So I went into this project. In the great irony 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.800 is that, you know, two decades and three films later, 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.720 this crusade to get these guys out started off as 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.200 let's make a film about these rotten punks. So we 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:18.120 sit down, we do our first series of interviews. Honestly, 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.040 Damien was a little hard to read. I look back now, 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.760 Obviously he was in shock. He didn't believe he would 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:29.320 actually be convicted. Not to be judgmental, I mean, Damien's 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.000 a hero to me, who's gone through the most amazing journey, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.680 But that first interview I couldn't quite tell with him. 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.920 But the person who really just whatever sense of tapping 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.800 into something that I had at the time, it was 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.880 talking to Jason Baldwin, where I just said, this doesn't 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.960 add up four months before the trial, three months into 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.120 being embedded in West Memphis, Arkansas, because we spent literally 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:56.880 seven months camping out there before the trial started. And 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.400 it's not like a light bulb went off and I said, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.040 oh my god, they're innocent. But something didn't seem right. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.000 And so I remember calling Sheila Evans, who, again, to 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:10.520 her credit, she's an amazing catalyst for what documentary has become, 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:15.200 but she also likes, you know, salacious subject matter, and 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.720 she had sent me down, or sent us down to 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.520 make a film about teen satanic killers. So I remember 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:23.960 picking up the phone calling her to let her know 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.920 that something. You know, I'm not sure these guys are guilty, 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:28.960 and I'm not sure the film is what you think 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.280 it's going to be a little trepidacious that she was 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.960 going to cancel the project, but I felt I had 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.000 to tell her. You know, we're like four months in 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.440 and we've gathered enough information that these kids seem like 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.920 they're the wrong guys had been picked up. I also 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.120 created this incredible moral ambiguity because we had convinced the 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.440 parents of the victims that we were here to tell 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.160 their story, and they were utterly convinced of their guilt. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.040 But I called Sheila, and to her credit, she said, oh, 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.800 that sounds even more interesting. Stick with it, because she 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:00.160 couldn't pulled the plug. 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:00.440 You know. 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.400 And it's the number one lesson. I mean, I'm not 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.520 sure if there are filmmakers in your audience or whatever, 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.400 but my number one lesson that I tell people about 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.440 filmmaking is never, particularly in documentary, never lock into the 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:14.520 preconceived idea of what you think your film is about, 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.520 because you'll miss the story. If we had locked into 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.680 teen Satan killers, and hadn't opened our eyes to the 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.240 real story, we might have missed the story. But I 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:24.760 never imagined that it would actually ever get to trial 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.080 because I had faith in the justice system. I never 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:31.960 imagined that evidence such as Metallica lyrics or Stephen King 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.520 novels would be presented in a court of law in 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.240 the United States of America as the main evidence, and 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.640 that somebody could be convicted on literally no forensic evidence, 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:42.240 no blood at the crime scene. I mean, you know, 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.280 you know the details of this case, and. 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.480 So yeah, but it's worth refreshing that we're. 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.800 At the police station. The only thing. Every so often 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:53.440 one of the cops would come in and say, are 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:55.600 you ready to make your confession? Yet I would just 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:56.480 stand there and look at them. 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:57.120 They would leave. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.720 I stood there all night long until the next day 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.480 they got me and took me into a courtroom. They 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:06.159 tell me, you know, somebody's already confessed to this crime. 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.800 They've implicated you. They're saying you were the ring leader 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.520 of this. So now what you need to do is 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:14.800 confess to this and say no, you weren't the ring 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.000 leader they were. Try to put the blame back on 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.440 them or you're gonna die because of this. I can't 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.120 even figure out who the hell they're talking about, because 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.159 I've only got one friend in the entire world, and 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.560 that was Jason Baldwin. I knew it wasn't him because 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.280 he was with me, and I knew he didn't do it. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.040 I knew he wasn't going to confess to something he 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:33.159 hadn't done. So I didn't realize who it even was 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.400 that had confessed until the next day. Whenever they take 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.040 me into the courtroom, they say who it is, and 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:39.960 they ask, you know, how do you plead all this 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.320 sort of thing. They refuse to even read the confession 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:45.680 in the courtroom. They asked me, did I want it read? 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.080 I said yes, and they wouldn't read it even after 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.200 they asked me and I said yes. Instead, they take 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.280 me out of the courtroom into a janitor's closet with 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.679 mops and brooms. They give me a transcript, a type 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.760 transcript of this confession. When I started reading it, it's 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.320 immediately obvious why they didn't want this thing or read 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.640 in court. It made no sense whatsoever. You know, you're 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.880 talking about this story that's like a Frankenstein patchwork thing 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.960 that they've sewed together out of many statements made by 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.720 somebody with an IQ of between seventy and seventy two. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:17.440 And what they would do is when he would confess 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.199 to something and wouldn't get anything right, they would come 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.240 back into the room and say, well, do you think 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.640 maybe this could have happened? Or I mean, even more 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:28.760 blatantly obvious. The first time they asked him when did 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:30.919 the murders happen? And he says something like eight o'clock 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.160 in the morning. Well, they knew that wasn't true because 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.000 all three of the kids were in school. So gradually 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.600 what they did was shape this thing to make it 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:40.920 what they wanted it to be. That's why they didn't 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:41.760 want it read in court. 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:46.760 No, and they ignored obvious signs that pointed to at 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:51.199 least one, arguably up to three other individuals. Yes, including 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.720 there was a local restaurant, was it Bojangles or something? 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.000 Was it Bojangles where the manager called the cops that 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.040 night and said there was a guy covered in mud 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.800 and blood that stumbled into the fast food place and 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.960 went into the bathroom. And to their credit, the manager 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.719 called up and a police officer came, but didn't investigate, 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.800 and they ultimately collected evidence from that bathroom that he 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:15.919 went into, which there was blood all over the place 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.960 and mud, and they lost it. Yes, and there again 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.439 were obvious signs. I mean the one I just talked about, 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:23.680 the various signs pointing to the stepfather of one of 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.640 the boys. I mean, this one kind of came with instructions, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.000 and I know that it's difficult. I'm not an anarchist. 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:32.920 I believe we do need a system of law and order. 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.080 I think there are a lot of very good police 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:38.359 and judges and prosecutors out there. But in this case, 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.119 it's a small town, high profile, complicated crime. Because the 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.840 crime scene itself was a muddy riverbed, not the easiest 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:46.840 place to collect evidence. It seemed to have been scrubbed 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.680 to some degree. And then all the pressure you ran 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:51.000 into the perfect storm. 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:52.840 They put me in another sale where I would stay 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.280 for almost the next year while I waited to go 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.120 to trial. When we do go to trial, the evidence 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.320 that they present again us as things like Stephen King books, 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.440 the fact that we owned Metallica T shirts and albums, 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.560 posters that were hanging on our walls, you know, things 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:14.400 that were from like skateboarding magazines, ceremonial magic books. This 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.359 is the evidence they had. The prosecutors tell the jury 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.600