>> the west memphis three in their own words. >> it does something to you when you see something like that. it cracks you inside. >> this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. the case of the west memphis three began in may 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-tied with their own shoelaces. three local teenagers were charged with the crime amid allegations of satanic rituals. damien echols, jason baldwin and jessie misskelley. damien was sentenced to death and the others to life in prison. as the years passed, the west memphis three got attention from famous people, last month, after nearly two decades behind bars, echols, baldwin and misskelley walked free. more in a moment on that. but joining me now, damien echols and his wife lorri davis. welcome to you both. >> thank you. >> an extraordinary saga, no other way to put this, ending in the most bizarre circumstances, and we'll come to those a little later. where eventually you all admit guilt and yet you walk free, which is a bizarre twist in this tale, a weird anomaly in the legal system and will make no sense to anybody, probably least of all you. damien, let me start with you. i mean, you've lost 20 years of your life for a crime you've always said you didn't commit. >> right. >> what has it been like for you? you in particular, you were sentenced to death. you had to live with that every day that you were incarcerated. you spent most of your time in isolation, i think. >> right. >> tell me about the experience. >> well, i spent actually the past ten years in absolute solitary confinement. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, i was alone with the exception of the time that i would spend with lorri. we were 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 like that. but for the most part she was the only person i saw. >> what did you have with your solitary confinement? 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 a solid steel door. there's a little slot in 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 everyone else. >> 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 naps on to put on top of that, and that's your bed. >> a computer? >> no. i had never -- when i got locked up, there was no such thing as the internet. so i had never seen the internet. i had never used a cell 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? were you following them? >> just from what i would see on the major network television stations. >> how often were you allowed to exercise? >> as often as you do it yourself in your cell. there were no exercise periods, there was no gym equipment, nothing like that. it's just whatever you 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 regimen, work out a meditation regimen, start some sort of practice whether it be artwork, writing, whatever it is. you have to create your own world in there or you'll go insane from that stuff. >> well, 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? >> my health -- there's almost no medical care, no dental care, things like that, in prison. so my health was deteriorating 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 gradually lose the ability to. so i started losing my ability to see anything further than a few inches away from me. and i was extremely light sensitive due to the fact of not having seen sunlight. >> the first moment you came out, what was it like to have daylight again? >> it was like having a spotlight turned right in your face. it was extremely bright. i couldn't wait for the nightfall, you know, just to see the sun go down. because i'd never seen that. not 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 is going to be my first year, one of the things i'm really excited about this year. this is going to be my first real christmas. my first real thanksgiving. it'll 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 having to learn 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 when i first got out. 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 had to learn to use a fork again. i hadn't eaten with a fork in 18 1/2 years. >> why? >> they don't give you 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 believing absolutely you're innocent, again, 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 of its time for the town. it becomes a national story. it becomes 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 looked, the music i listened to, things like that. so i had been harassed for quite a while before these murders ever even 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 teenager, something like that. >> ever broken the law? >> no. >> you were into heavy metal? >> exactly. >> you liked reading stephen king books. >> exactly. >> those were thrown at you as kind of allegations. but there's nothing wrong with liking stephen king or nothing wrong with liking ozzy osbourne 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 children. we found out later they hadn't been sexually molested in any way. they tried to say that in the very beginning, but we found out they hadn't been. so what other reason could someone possibly have for murdering these children. the only thing they could come up with was it was a satanic ritual. to them it made sense. >> when was the moment you realized you were going to 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 something like that to. to know these people are coming to you because they actually believe that you are capable of murdering three children. it does something to you psychologically that you will never, ever get over. >> tell me about the relationship with you and the two other men who were accused with you. i say men. you were boying 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 he 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 the mentality he had, what happened was 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. >> just fragments of this interview, which in itself is suspicious and strange and weird. he gives this evidence. he says, yeah, i saw you, and i 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 really even 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. jason baldwin i knew a great deal better. he was my best friend since we were teenagers. jessie misskelley was someone we would see somewhere, like the pool hall shooting pool. something like that. 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 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, that's 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. luck? i don't trade on luck. i trade on fundamentals. analysis. information. i trade on tradearchitect. this is web-based trading, re-visualized. streaming, real-time quotes. earnings analysis. probability analysis: that's what opportunity looks like. it's all visual. intuitive. and it's available free, wherever the web is. this is how trade strategies are built. tradearchitect. only from td ameritrade. welcome to better trade commission free for 60 days when you open an account. damien echols guilty of capital murder in the death of stevie branch. we the jury find damien echols guilty of capital murder in the death of chris byers. we the jury find damien echols guilty of capital murder in the death of michael moore. >> all the west memphis three were convicted of murder. damien echols, the alleged ring leader was sentenced to death. he and his wife lorri davis are here with me now. we've been joined by jason baldwin, another member of the west memphis three. welcome, jason. let's just cut to the quick here. what was the evidence against you, other than the word of jessie who we already established had a mental age of somewhere between 5 and 8 years old? >> the evidence against us was our personal preferences in music. i remember at one point in the trial they lifted up a record, i think john fogleman said, this was found in damien's girlfriend's mother's house. >> he was the prosecutor? >> right. >> as if somehow that implied that you were capable of killing young boys? >> right. >> there's no dna evidence against you? >> 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 haircuts? >> that was it. >> how do you feel? you've listened to damien out here. 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 then the only type of contact we could have, like, through mutual friends. call a friend. i'd be like, hey, how's damien doing? 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. inmates, staff alike. just to do us harm. >> they would attack you? >> oh, yeah. >> how often? >> the first few years, a lot. >> like what? >> i've got a shattered skull, broke collarbone, 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. the 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, lorri, 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 big documentary. you watched this documentary. a lot of famous people now are beginning to get behind this and give it the ultimate 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 deaths of these boys. you start writing to damien. you write back. what are you thinking when these letters arrive? >> i think i fell in love with lorri 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. because -- and 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 in your head 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 they -- 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. yeah. 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, all of our energy and all of our work towards getting out. towards proving our innocence. >> the campaign that you then joined aggressively and began to be more and more vocal and puck lick about it. i want to take another break and when we come back, i want to get into when you were found guilty and also when you admitted guilt to get your freedom, which is, as i said at the start of the show, a bizarre -- some will say ridiculous -- way for this to end. but it got you here. our 4 new rich & hearty soups really have people talking... 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