good evening. the case of the west memphis three began in 1993 when the naked bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found in a ditch in west memphis, arkansas. stevie branch, michael moore and christopher byers had been hog-tired by their shoe laces. three local teenagers were charged with the crime. damien echols, jason baldwin and ajesse misskelley. damien was sentenced to death and the other to life in prison. as the years past, the west memphis three got attention from famous people, last month, after nearly two decades behind bars, echols echols, baldwin and misskelley walked free. more in a you moment on that. by joining me now, damien echols and his wife laurie davis. welcome to you both. >> thank you. >> an extraordinary saga, no other way to put this, ending in the most bizarre circumstances, where eventually you all admit guilt and yet you walk free, which is a by you czar twist in this tale, a weird anomaly in the legal system and will make no sense to anybody, probably least of all you. damien damien, let me start with you. you've lost 20 years of your life for a crime you've always said you didn't commit. what has it like for you? you in particular you were sentenced to death, you had to live with that every day you were incarcerated. you spent most of your time in isolation, i think. tell me about the experience. >> well, it's been actually the last ten years in absolute solitary confinement. 24 hours a day seven days a week i was alone with the exception i would spend with laurie. we ar allowed to see each other once a week for three hours. >> she was the only person you saw. >> pretty much. every once in a while maybe her family would come, maybe once a year or something, but for the most part she was the only person i saw. >> what did you have? did you have a television? >> there was a television, no cable anything like that. just the basic television channels. your shower is right there in the cell with you. there's a drain in the floor. it's solid concrete walls and solid steel door. there's a you slide many the door that they open up to pass food through or to give you mail, things like that. but for the most part, you're completely and absolutely sealed off from everybody. >> what was the bed like? >> it's a concrete slab along the back of the wall, about 2 1/2 feet off the floor. they give you a mat like kindergartners take nas on to put on top of that, and that's your bed. >> a computer? >> no. when i got locked up there was no such thing as the internet. i you had never used the interknit, never used a cell he phone. >> were you aware of news other than through the television -- i presume you could catch up on news, but were you aware of world events? >> just what i would see on the major network television stations. >> how often were you allowed to exercise? >> as ofb as you do it yourself in your cell. there were no exercise periods, no gym equipment, nothing like that. it's just whatever you can could devise on your own. >> when did you see daylight? >> never. i hadn't seen daylight in almost a decade. i hadn't been exposed to sunlight. >> in ten years? >> for almost ten years, yes. >> what are you thinking throughout this period? i mean, this is, for an innocent man, as many believe that you are and you've always protested this, what are you thinking when you're stuck in there? >> the only thing you can do and maintain your sanity is to not think about the case and not think about what's happening to you. you have to sort of immerse yourself into a routine and never deviate from that routine, work out your own exercise regiment, a meditation regimen, start a practice, artwork, writing, whatever it is. you have to create your own world in there or you'll go insane from that stuff. >> i don't know how you keep your sanity. >> you don't have a choice. it's not like you can get up one day and say, i quit, i'm tired of this, i'm going to home. you do whatever it takes to keep putting one foot in front of the other and get through the next day. >> what effect did it have on your health? >> there's almost no medical care, no dental care in prison so my health was deteriorat ing very rapidly. i've lost a great deal of my eyesight. whenever you're in a confined space, you never get a chance to see anything far away so you eventually lose the ability to. i you started losing my ability to see anything further than a few inches away from me. i was extremely light-sensitive due to the fact of not seeing suns light ff the first moment you came out, what was it like to have daylight again? >> it was like having a spotlight right in your face. it was extremely bright. i couldn't wait for the nightfall, you know, the sun to go down because i hadn't seen that in almost 20 years. i'd never gotten to see a sunset. it was one of those things i had been waiting on for so long, sunsets, to see the leaves change colors, to feel autumn come in. this will be one of my first years, one thing i'm really excited, my first real christmas, thanksgiving, it will be our first anniversary that we spent together outside in 20 years. 18 1/2. >> what are the things you've had to learn again about real life? the simple things. >> well, there are things that most people would expect you to have to learn, you know, like i said, i had never even seen the internet so i'm learning how to use a cell phone, how to use a computer. but there are also things, for example, i hadn't walked in 18 1/2 years without chains on my feet. so i'm -- i wasn't used to that so i was literally having to learn to walk again. and the first few days i would almost keep falling over myself because i was used to walking with short strides with chains on my feet. i you had to learn to use a fork again. i hadn't used a fork in 18 1/s 2 years. >> why? >> you don't get forks in there. >> how do you eat? >> with your hands. >> people watching will say, had you been the person responsible for the death of three young boys in this horrific manner, they don't care how badly you're treated in prison. the problem comes if you're completely innocent and you're being treated in these barbaric circumstances. >> right. >> i mean, for someone like you to be enduring such an intolerable lifestyle but leaving absolutely -- believing absolutely you're innocent, i come back to the question of sanity. it must have been incredibly hard. let me take you back to what happened. may 5, 1993, the bodies of three 8-year-old boys are found. it's a small town. everybody knows each other or knows someone who knows someone. >> right. >> so it becomes the biggest story, a national story, something that grips people and it's so horrifying, the desire by people to catch the perpetrators is intense. when is the first time that you hear you are going to be in trouble with this? >> almost immediately, and it wasn't just because of this. it was i had been harassed a great deal. it really was a really small town, and i stuck out due to the way i you looked, the music i listened to, things like that. so i had been harassed for quite a while before these murders took place. >> were you a troublemaker? or were you just a bit different? >> the most trouble i had ever gotten into was running away from home as a teenage ir, something like that. >> ever broken the law? >> no. >> you were into heavy metal? >> exactly. >> you liked reading stephen king books. >> right. >> allegations but nothing wrong with stephen king, nothing wrong with liking ozzie osborn or whoever it was. >> in 1993 i hadn't even heard the word but now it's common. they say i was goth. you didn't have that in small towns back then. it drew a lot of notice from a small town crowd. it made me stand out and sort of made me a target. >> so what happened? >> just immediately, as soon as it happened, people said a murder this horrific couldn't have just happened. you know, what would have been the reason for it? obviously they weren't robbed. they're 8-year-old chirp. we found out later they hadn't been sexually molested in any way. they trieded to say you that, but we found out they hadn't been. so what other reason kwo someone have for murdering these children? the only thing they could come up with was it a satanic ritual. to them it made sense. >> when did you notice you would be pulled in by the police. >> they showed up at my door the day after the bodies were found. i mean, it was almost immediate that they started coming to me. >> and how did that make you feel? >> there's no words to even describe it. most people don't have anything in their frame of reference to compare that to. to know these people are coming to you because they actually believe you are capable of murdering three children. it does something to you psychologically you that you will never, ever get over. >> tell me about the relationship with you and the two other men who were accused with you. men, you were boys at the time, 16, 17. tell me about jessie. because he and his testimony to police very early on were the catalyst of what happened to you. >> right. >> what we've heard subsequently is he has a very low iq, 72, he is mentally retarded. >> right. >> he's not somebody who really should have been giving lengthy evidence without a lot of legal help. >> exactly. >> what happened? >> well, whenever they called him in for questioning, like you said, he was mentally retarded. he had been in like special education classes in school, things like that. they said he had mentally functioned at the level of something like a 5 to 8-year-old child. they called him in and started questioning him and basically with mentality he had, what happened is he agreed to anything that they said. they would say, did you do this? he would say yes. >> and very little of this testimony was ever kept on tape, certainly on tape that was found. >> exactly. >> fragments of this interview, which in itself is suspicious and strange and weird. >> exactly. >> he gives this evidence. he says, yeah, i saw you and he saw jason and i saw them kill these boys and they raped these boys, horrific stuff he came out with. >> right. >> as a result of that, you guys are now in very serious trouble. >> yes. i don't think he -- with the mentality he had and his iq level, i don't think he could even really comprehend the level of trouble that he was in or that he had drug us into with him. >> how well did you know him? >> not very well. ace jaisen baldwin i knew a great deal better. he was my best friend since we were teenagers. jessie misskelley is someone we would see somewhere, pool hall shooting pool. but he wasn't as close to us as we knew each other. >> why did you think he was doing this? >> it's hard to say. i think part of it was just prompting by the police. part of it may have been he thought he was going to get something out of it. it's hard to say. >> when is the worst moment for you? >> it's hard to say. i almost want to say there were no worst moments. it just kept getting worse and worse. every single moment was worse than the last one. it doesn't ever stop. you know, you think the moment you're rs arrested, that's the worst moment. you think the moment you're in the trial, that's the worst moment. you think the moment you're convicted is the worst moment. you think the moment you're sentenced to death, that's the worst moment. your first execution date rolls around, that's the worst moment. it just gets worse and worse and worse. it's a horror story. it's like a train that doesn't stop. it just keeps picking up speed and getting worse and worse. >> very few people can understand anything that you've been through. one of them is going to join us after this break. he's one of the other members of the memphis three [ beep ] [ mom ] scooter? 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>> well at the time they had evidence and stuff but since it didn't match us it wasn't brought up. >> nothing tangibly linking any of you to the deaths of these boys. >> right. >> has ever emerged. was there anything else other than music you listened to, books you read, clothes you wore or hair cuts? >> that was it. >> how do you feel? you've listened to damien out there. i'm assuming you didn't have much contact in the years that you were both incarcerated. >> no. when we first got locked up, we would write letters through his sister, damien, but i got called up to the warden's office and told i wasn't permitted to do that. so i was no longer permitted. so only the type of contact we could have was through mutual friends, call a friend. i'd be like, how is damien? have you talked to damien? kind of pass on words of encouragement like that. >> presumably, in prison you are pariahs, right? >> yeah. in the first few years, like when i first got there, people were literally waiting for us to get there. you know, just to do us harm. >> and they would attack you? >> oh, yeah. >> how often? >> the first few years, a lot. >> like what? >> i've got shattered skull, broke collar bone, teeth knocked out, multiple scars on my face and stuff from it. but as the years progressed and people got to know me and as the documentaries came out and stuff, you know, the curses turned into prayers. fistfights turned into hugs. >> this must just be -- this is a nightmare. were you going through the same thing? >> yes, absolutely. >> it's just unthinkable to me that you're going through this. then the mood begins to change. that's when i want to bring you in here, laurie, because a campaign begins. there are rumblings of discontent about this case. people are beginning to think, this doesn't add up, there isn't the evidence, and hbo did a documentary. you watched this documentary. a lot of famous people now have been able to get behind this and gave it publicity. when you watched it, it was very powerful and led the viewer to an obvious clearcut conclusion, that you could not have been responsible for the death hes of these boys. you start writing to damien. what are you thinking when these letters arrive? >> i think i fell in love with laurie pretty much from the very first letter. >> why? >> because i just knew this was someone, unlike anyone i had ever known in my life. she just stood out. it was something completely and absolutely different about had her. she was out of my frame of reference. it was something -- she was something completely magical and alien to me at the time, and it was one of those kinds of love that just hurts because it's so much. >> i'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment -- this won't surprise you -- when you read about women who write to convicted killers and so on, there is a kind of freaky element to a lot of those relationships, it's unhealthy, it's weird. this is different because you did it after watching a documentary where, as i say, you couldn't conclude from that that you were the killers. so really you're writing to an innocent man, as you see it. >> right. >> that is the distinction. but you must have still had family, friends, people around you, presumably, as this relationship developed thinking, what are you doing? >> well, fortunately, for most of my life i've been a pretty grounded, responsible person so i think if i had been a little more erratic in my life, then maybe -- but it was astounding because my close friends stuck by me. >> you fell in love. you started meeting each other. you were allowed to see him. and you get married. >> right. >> there's still the prospect of you facing an execution. how do you deal with that psychologically? >> i never entertained the thought of it. i just never did the whole time. >> that's what i was going to say. it's almost like you refuse to accept it. i heard a guy one time talking about race car drivers and whenever they're training them they tell them, never look at the wall. because if you look at it you're going to drive into it, you're going to move toward what you focus on. therefore, we wouldn't focus on that because we didn't want to move toward it. we focused all of our attention, energy, and work toward getting out, toward profg our innocence. >> the campaign that you then joined aggressively and began