The many victims and suspects in Paradise Lost 3

Third and final part of Paradise Lost (Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory), the HBO documentary that becan in 1994 and concludes in 2011, brings the mystery of the killing of three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, to as much of a conclusion as we could expect or hope for, though still leaves many elements shrouded in mystery. (Spoilers coming) First of all, we never learn definitively who committed the murders; it seems totally clear that the three teenage boys convicted of the killing were the victims of a horrible trial, a prejudiced jury (there's a lot about that aspect in this installment), a stubborn judge unwilling to even consider his mistakes, an over-zealous police force, and a strangely designed judicial system in which all the appeals go before the initial judge. Yet it's never 100 percent clear that they're innocent, either. At the end, they take advantage of an unusual plea process in which they insist on their innocence but plead guilty and in return are released with time served - 17 years in prison, and the boys are now in their 30s. Obviously the state of Arkansas likes this agreement, as it prevent the guys from suing for damages and makes any further criminal investigation moot, as three have "pleaded guilty" to the murders - justice is served in a most perverse way. The movie directs our suspicion on the stepfathers in the families of two of the victims - both of whom have violent encounters with others and with the law; they're certainly odd and scary characters, but there's no solid evidence on them, either, nor is there a motive - nor has the awful crime been replicated in any way. There's a hint that a transient passing through the town may have committed the crime - but why? The three convicted guys claim quite rightly that they were the victims of a hysteria against satanic cults - a big topic in the '90s - and were victimized because of their hair, clothing, taste in music. The whole case began when one of the three, Jessie Misskelly, "confessed" after hours of police interrogation. It seems as if he was coerced - and it's clear that he has very little mental capacity, unlike the other two, especially Damion Eccles, who is highly intelligent and charismatic. You can imagine him leading his two weaker mates into some serious mischief, but not into a triple homicide. You can tell, when the guys are interviewed after their release, that there's no love between them and Misskelly, nor should there be. The police investigator hints on camera that there's a lot more evidence that for some reason they couldn't bring to trial - would be interesting to know what's still out there. Whatever the case may be, these guys, the West Memphis 3, were victims every bit as much as the three murdered children. Tragic and shameful.

A new suspect - in part 2 of Paradise Lost

Anyone who watched Paradise Lost (The child murders at Robin Hood Creek) will have a pretty good idea about how becomes the center of attention and the most likely suspect in the follow-up documentary, Paradise Lost 2, so I won't be giving anything away (I don't think) by noting that this follow up focuses on whether Byers, the stepfathers of one of the murdered boys, is the killer. There's no doubt that the three young men convicted of the crime were the victims of a terrible police investigation, very shoddy defense and a highly prejudiced judicial system - essentially convicted on the shaky, probably coerced confession of the weakest among the 3, a boy with an IQ of 72. Following the initial documentary, sympathizers from around the country bean a campaign to free the 3 and in particular rallied around Damian Ecles, the obvious leader of the three boys and a somewhat charismatic, intensive, thoughtful, and oddly alluring young man sentenced to death. The filmmakers (Berlinger and Sinofsky, who keep themselves entirely off camera and mic) faced a tough challenge in this followup in that only one of the 3 sets of defense attorneys would speak w/ them, only one member of the victims' families (Byers) would speak with them, and they were denied access to the courtroom and to other locales (many must have felt burnt by the first documentary). So this documentary focuses on the team of supporter for Damian (they are obviously selfless, devoted, liberal-progressive, and much as I admire that I found their obvious fascination with Damian and their enjoyment of the attention from media to be creepy in itself), on Jesse Misskelly's noble defense lawyer and his work with a pathologist who is determined to examine the bite marks on the victims (very upsetting, close-your-eyes scenes there), and on Byers - who by all reasonable accounts is the one guy who should refuse to participate, but he's so weird and obviously disturbed and a drama queen, as M put it, of the highest order that he provides access when he definitely should not. By the end, most viewers will be 100 percent sure that he could have done the killings and at the very least should have been a police suspect (the investigating detective, retired by the time of the sequel, remains convinced he got the right killers). It's not hard to see that Byers was a victim of abuse, that he may well have abused his stepson, and that he is so emotionally unstable that he could have committed these crimes. Not sure if we'll ever have answers, but will watch part 3 sometime soon to find out.

Guilty or framed?: A powerful documentary about a triple-murder

The ca 1994 HBO documentary Paradise Lost is a truly incredible account of the arrest and trial of three teenage boys charged in rural Arkansas with the murder of three 8-year-old boys in what appears to be a satanic ritual involving sexual abuse and some grotesque body dismemberment that the film depicts with unflinching, graphic detail - too much for some viewers, I think. This film is a "pure" documentary - nothing re-enacted, nothing spliced in after the fact - all of the reportage and interviews are contemporaneous with the events, and the filmmakers - Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky - earned and maintained incredible access to almost all of the parties: the accused boys, their families, the families of the victimes, and the defense attorneys - though not to much access to the prosecutors. Also, Arkansas law seems to have given them a great deal of access to live courtroom filming - so throughout we see the anguish of the community, the anger of all of the families, the courtroom drama, the media frenzy. This film is as much about the culture of trailer-park life in the Deep South as it is about this particular case. All of the families involved are very poor, poorly educated, struggling with their lives, nowhere to go - you see this in everything from the horrible condition of their teeth to the sweltering life inside their trailers to the teenage pregnancies. It's a culture of angry fundamentalism (leavened improbably at one point by a beautiful church solo) and violence: guns and knives everywhere. At the heart of the story: are the boys satanic killers, or were they framed to get the police, unable to solve the hideous crime, off the hook? It's clear that there was no solid evidence against the boy. It's also clear that one of the 3 was an intelligent and very odd leader and that the other two suffer from significant retardation. It's possible to imagine him leading their hapless kids into criminal or even satanic activities - but a triple murder? One would think a jury would need more then a flimsy, police-coerced confession. There's no clear answer, but this became the first of a trilogy, as Berlinger and Sinofksy follow the case over a decade. It's long, painful, but impossible not to watch start to finish.