Delta Digital News Service

DDNS Story by Jerry Don Burton

JONESBORO – Attorneys who defended three freed men convicted as teenagers, known as the West Memphis Three, spoke in a panel discussion at Arkansas State University to share insight, advice, and theories regarding the case.

The highly publicized and controversial case originated from the murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. Damien Echols, Jessie Miskelley Jr., and Jason Baldwin were convicted of the murders, despite questionable evidence.

The A-State Sociology and Criminology Association (SCA) hosted the public panel on Thursday, Nov. 6, in the Reng Student Union Auditorium.

Stacy Dewald, faculty co-adviser for the SCA, said she wanted the event to bring attention that the criminal justice system is flawed, show wrongful convictions exist and offer new perspectives for those who still think the West Memphis Three are guilty. She said she believes the panel discussion achieved this goal.

The three attorneys who participated in the panel, Jeff Rosenzweig, Paul Ford, and Dan Stidham, began the discussion by detailing their connection to the case. Rosenzweig was on the team responsible for releasing the West Memphis Three in 2011, Ford was on the original defense team for Baldwin, and Stidham represented Miskelley as an attorney.
Ford said this case highlights the power of confirmation bias.

“Once you have this notion, all new information is going to be sorted to reaffirm whatever that notion is. If your first notion is ‘they’re guilty,’ you’re going to hold on to that,” Ford said. “So when you meet people who are less than 40 years of age and their first involvement in this proceeding was to watch the HBO documentaries, they can’t believe they were convicted. Because that was the first story that they heard, but that was not the first story that people heard in 1993.”

Ford said the citizens of West Memphis needed somebody to blame so they could feel their community was safe.
The existence of multiple potential suspects other than the West Memphis Three contributes to the controversial nature of the case and is the topic of many ongoing debates.

The three panelists said they are confident the West Memphis Three are innocent and have their own theories as to who committed the murders.

Rosenzweig said one valid suspect is “Mr.Bojangles,” referring to a bleeding man who was seen entering the nearby Bojangles restaurant about two hours after the boys were reported missing. Witnesses said the man was mentally disoriented and entered the women’s restroom. The next day, police took blood samples from the restroom that were later lost.

Ford said he has always been suspicious of Chris Morgan, a teenager who unexpectedly traveled to California with Brian Holland, another teenager, four days after the bodies were found. During questioning, Morgan said he had a history of drug and alcohol use and experienced blackouts and memory lapses. He said he might have killed the victims, but recanted this statement. This recanted statement was debated in the trial, but was found inadmissible as evidence.

Stidham said he has a suspect, a serial killer, whom he can place in the vicinity of the murders. He said he will explore the lead further and hopefully have more information to present before he retires.

Prevalent media coverage represents another element that generated controversy for the case.

Ford said national attention in the case, specifically from the media, was a double-edged sword.

“To have a CNN truck pull up outside of the courthouse in Corning, Arkansas, that’s like finding Bigfoot,” Ford said. “It was a big deal. Everywhere you went, there were reporters, cameras, people wanting interviews, producers from talk shows.”

Ford said if he could do anything differently in the trial, he would trust the media less. However, without a relationship with the media, he said, there would never have been a documentary and the West Memphis Three would still be in prison.

Dewald said the 1996 HBO documentary, “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills,” saved Echol’s life. Echols was the only teenager sentenced to death in the trial.

The case is also associated with the Satanic panic, due to the prosecution’s assertion that the children were murdered as part of a Satanic ritual. The Satanic panic was a social panic that began in the 1980s and continued throughout the late 1990s, involving widespread cases and accusations of Satanic ritual abuse.

Rosenzweig said some still believe the West Memphis Three are guilty for a number of reasons, ranging from having personal connections to being ill-informed.

“You’re never going to convince everyone, no matter what,” Rosenzweig said. “You just have to move on and go to the next person.”

Stidham said the use of the Alford Plea in the case is a common source of confusion that many people struggle to understand.

In 2011, the West Memphis Three entered an Alford Plea, meaning they pleaded guilty while maintaining their innocence. Judge David Laser accepted the plea, which simultaneously freed the men after serving 18 years in prison and put the case to rest.

Rosenzweig said he agrees with Stidham that the Alford Plea is a confusing part of the case and is controversial in its own right. Rosenzweig said if the state really thought the West Memphis Three killed the boys, they would still be in prison.

Ford said if the prosecution felt the teenagers actually killed the three eight-year-old boys, they should feel ashamed for letting them go free.

“Why would you ever agree to let people you think killed eight-year-olds walk free?” Ford said. “That, to me, is the greatest evidence that they really didn’t believe it.”

Scott Ellington, the prosecuting attorney at the time, said he recognized the compromise was not ideal. Still, he said, it gave the state the guilty plea it wanted and the defendants the ability to continue asserting their innocence.

“It certainly was not a perfect resolution to the case for the state, but it was much better than having three trials, trying to convince 36 jurors of the defendants’ guilt using old evidence, failed memories, changed minds, dead witnesses and the parents of two of the victims who now say they believe the defendants are innocent of the crimes,” Ellington said in a 2011 article from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law.

Rosenzweig said procedural mechanisms, which are rules designed to secure a fair and consistent application of due process, have not improved in Arkansas since the original West Memphis Three trial. He said forensic advancements make scientific evidence much more precise, but misunderstandings still persist and proliferate on social media.

Stidham said documenting is important, and interrogations should be recorded in their entirety. Ford said what he found egregious about the case was that adolescents were questioned by law enforcement without a parent present or knowledge.

The discussion ended after the panelists advised the audience on what to do if they are ever falsely accused of a crime. Stidham and Ford said to stay quiet and get a good lawyer, and Rosenzweig said to recognize that the exoneration process takes time.

Dewald, who is also an assistant professor of criminology, said planning for the event began in August, when A-State students Lesleigh Sullivan and Anna Hartley expressed an interest in the West Memphis Three for their honors project.
Dewald said she feels a connection to the West Memphis Three because she grew up around the same time and shared similar interests in music and books.

“I kind of felt connected to them, but what was different is they grew up in the South, I grew up in the North,” Dewald said. “So it wasn’t so frowned upon in the North to like Metallica and Stephen King.”

The assistant professor of criminology said the case remains nationally relevant because DNA evidence remains to be tested and many questions remain unanswered. She said community interest endures because many people feel a local connection to the case.

Stidham said interest in the case will persist for many years.

“People are going to be talking about this case in 300 years, like we talked about the Salem witch trials,” Stidham said. “It’s essentially the same thing.”

Dewald said she didn’t think the panel would draw as many attendees as it did. Nevertheless, she said she appreciates the interest and hopes the event raises awareness and helps dispel some myths surrounding the West Memphis Three and the criminal justice system.

On Aug. 1, 2025, new DNA testing for evidence from the original crime scene was ordered by Crittenden County Circuit Court Judge Tonya Alexander. At the time of writing, however, no other updates have been announced.

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