High Magick Damien Echols Pdf Download

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American writer and film producer

Damien Echols
Damien echols 2012.jpg

Damien Echols at the 2012 Texas Book Festival, Austin, Texas, United States
Born

Michael Wayne Hutchison


(1974-12-11) December 11, 1974 (age 46)

Marion, Arkansas
Nationality American
Occupation Writer, film producer
Known for Member of the West Memphis Three
Website damienechols.com

Damien Wayne Echols (born Michael Wayne Hutchison; December 11, 1974) is an American, best known as a member of the West Memphis Three, a group of teenagers controversially accused of a triple murder. Upon his release from prison in 2011 under an Alford plea, Echols authored several autobiographies and spiritual books. He has been featured in multiple books, documentaries, and podcasts about his spiritual works and the West Memphis Three case.

Biography [edit]

Early life [edit]

Damien Wayne Echols was born on December 11, 1974.[1] He lived with his mother and father until their divorce, when he was 8.[1] The family frequently moved and Echols would attend eight schools before the age of ten.[2]

At the age of 13, he changed his birth name from Michael Wayne Hutchinson, taking a new name and the last name of his stepfather Jack Echols.[3] [1]

The family settled in Echols' home in West Memphis, Arkansas, where Echols attended school.[1] He was still in the ninth grade at the age of 17.[4]

Echols, with his habits of dressing in black and listening to heavy metal music, was a misfit within the local community.[5] He also wrote dark and expressive poems and listened to Metallica.[6] [7]

The Robin Hood Hills murders [edit]

In 1993, when Echols was 18, he was arrested along with Jason Baldwin (16) and Jessie Misskelley (17) for the murder of three eight-year-olds: Steve Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers. They were convicted.[8] [9]

On death row [edit]

On March 19, 1994, Judge David Burnett sentenced Echols to death by lethal injection. On December 23, 1996, the Arkansas Supreme Court denied appeals from Echols and Baldwin.[10] In May 1998, Echols won a hearing on charges that his defense counsel has been incompetent, but Judge Burnett ruled against him in June 1999.[10]

In 2007, the new DNA testing became available that was not technologically possible at the time of the crime, and produced evidence that hairs found at the crime scene did not match Misskelley, Baldwin or Echols and possibly matched the stepfather of one of the victims.[11] Based on this, the defendants asked Burnett for a new trial. In September 2008, Burnett denied retrials for all three saying the new evidence was "inconclusive".[12]

Echols spent his time on death row at the Varner Unit Supermax.[2] In his first years he studied Buddhism and was doing meditation five to seven hours a day.[13] [14] Later he became interested in ceremonial magick.[15] He spent most of the 18 years in prison studying magick.[16]

In 2005, he self-published his autobiography Almost Home with a foreword written by Margaret Cho.[17]

Marriage [edit]

In 1996, Echols met his future wife Lorri Davis, a landscape architect, who learned about the case after seeing Paradise Lost in New York and wrote him a letter.[13] They began a romantic relationship and in 1997 Davis quit her job, moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, and began working on his case.[18] [19]

In December 1999, they married in a Buddhist ceremony, held in the prison visiting room.[18]

Release from prison [edit]

In November 2010, after Judge Burnett had retired from the bench, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered new evidentiary hearings for all three defendants based on the new DNA evidence.[20] The state's high court rebuked Burnett's 2008 decision not to grant Echols a new trial based on the DNA evidence.[21]

In 2010, after DNA evidence had proven the three convicted had not committed the crime, they were granted an evidentiary hearing. In August 2011, Echols's lawyers, Steve Braga and Patrick Benca negotiated an Alford plea, which allows the defendant to maintain their innocence while conceding that there is enough evidence to possibly convict them at trial. Under the plea deals, all three were resentenced to time-served for the murders (18 years and 75 days) and immediately released from prison.[22]

Life after release [edit]

After the release from prison, Echols and his wife moved to the New York City and lived in Peter Jackson's apartment.[14] They next moved to Salem, Massachusetts and finally settled in Harlem.[23] [18] In 2012, he published a book Life after Death, which became The New York Times Best Seller.[4] [24]

Also in 2012, West of Memphis, a documentary film directed and co-written by Amy J. Berg, and produced by Peter Jackson and Damien Echols, was released in the US by Sony Pictures Classics.[25] It has been reported that Jackson and Fran Walsh started to work on this project in 2005 and conducted their own private investigation.[26] The film received a nomination for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America.[27]

In 2014, Echols and Lorri Davies co-authored a book Yours for Eternity, which consists of their letters while Echols was in prison.[28] [29]

Echols had a number of art exhibitions, showing pieces of art that he created in prison.[30] [31] He also held a number of events devoted to Ceremonial Magick.[32]

In 2018, he published High Magick: A Guide to the Spiritual Practices That Saved My Life on Death Row, a book that described his spiritual experience in prison.[33] [34] It was followed by Angels and Archangels: A Magician's Guide, published in 2020.[35]

In popular culture [edit]

Paradise Lost documentary series [edit]

Considering strong national interest in the case and the age of the suspected perpetrators, HBO commissioned Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky to film the trial and produce a documentary.[36] In an unprecedented move, the judge allowed full access to the hearings, the victim's families and the accused.[37] The resulting three film series became the most famous work of Bruce Sinofsky and won him Emmy Award and Peabody Award in 1996 and an Oscar Award nomination for 2011's Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory.[38] [39] The first film, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills came out in 1996. It was the beginning of a world-wide campaign to free the young men who became known as "The West Memphis Three".[39]

Celebrity support and collaborations [edit]

A number of Hollywood celebrities, notably Pearl Jam lead vocalist Eddie Vedder and actor Johnny Depp, have been publicly advocating for the release of The Memphis Three.[40] [41] Vedder sat next to Echols' wife Lorri in the front row of the courtroom and embraced Echols once he was released.[42] Echols co-wrote the lyrics to the song "Army Reserve" from the "Pearl Jam" (2006) album.[43] Former Misfits vocalist Michale Graves also supported the case and in October 2007 he recorded his Illusions album, featuring written content and backing vocals from Echols.[44]

The Devil's Knot book and film [edit]

Echols's character is central for the Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, a 2002 true crime story by Mara Leveritt.[45] In 2013, Atom Egoyan directed Devil's Knot, a film adaptation of the book with Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth. Echol's character was played by an upcoming actor James Hamrick.[46]

The Midnight Gospel appearance [edit]

In April 2020, Echols appeared as Darryl the Fish in The Midnight Gospel animated TV series aired on Netflix. His character walked the main character Clancy through the philosophy of magic.[47]

Books [edit]

  • Echols, Damien; Greer, John Michael (2020). Angels and Archangels: A Magician's Guide. Sounds True. p. 288. ISBN9781683643265.
  • Echols, Damien; Vedder, Eddie (2018). High Magick: A Guide to the Spiritual Practices That Saved My Life on Death Row. Sounds True. p. 216. ISBN9781683641346.
  • Echols, Damien; Davis, Lorri (2014). Yours for Eternity: A Love Story on Death Row. Blue Rider Press. p. 320. ISBN9780399166198.
  • Echols, Damien (2012). Life After Death. Blue Rider Press. p. 418. ISBN9781101598580.
  • Echols, Damien (2005). Almost Home. iUniverse. p. 168. ISBN9780595357017.

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Leveritt, Mara (1994-06-23). "Witch on death row: Damien Echols contends his only crime was being different". Arkansas Times. Archived from the original on 2020-12-13. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  2. ^ a b Feyerick, Deborah; Chen, Stephanie (2010-09-29). "Echols of West Memphis 3 talks about appeal, death row". CNN. Archived from the original on 2020-11-09. Retrieved 2020-12-12 .
  3. ^ Guernsey-Pitchford, Julia (2018). "Divided Selves of the Social Alien from Milton's Satan and Mary Shelley's Monster to Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three". Studies in Popular Culture. 40 (2): 78. JSTOR 26582185 – via JSTOR.
  4. ^ a b Maslinsept, Janet (2012-08-19). "Freedom After Fire Ants and Tumult: "Life After Death," by Damien Echols". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2019-08-10. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  5. ^ Austin et al. 2005, p. 153. sfn error: no target: CITEREFAustin_et_al.2005 (help)
  6. ^ Tost 2011, p. 28. sfn error: no target: CITEREFTost2011 (help)
  7. ^ Berlinger, Joe; Milner, Greg (2014). Metallica: This Monster Lives: The Inside Story of Some Kind of Monster. St. Martin's Publishing Group. p. 48. ISBN9781466866966 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ Lampinen, James Michael; Neuschatz, Jeffrey S.; Cling, Andrew D. (2012). "Expert Testimony". The Psychology of Eyewitness Identification. Psychology Press. p. 231. ISBN978-1-84872-883-7 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ Turvey, Brent E.; Cooley, Craig M. (2014). Miscarriages of Justice: Actual Innocence, Forensic Evidence, and the Law. Elsevier. p. 141. ISBN978-0-12-411558-3 – via Google Books.
  10. ^ a b Newton 2004, p. 308. sfn error: no target: CITEREFNewton2004 (help)
  11. ^ Dewan, Shaila (October 30, 2007). "Defense Offers New Evidence in a Murder Case That Shocked Arkansas". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-11-11. Retrieved 2020-12-12 . according to long-awaited new evidence ..., there was no DNA from the three defendants found at the scene
  12. ^ Zeman, Jill (2008-09-10). "Judge: No new trial in 1993 Ark. boys' slayings". Fox News. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2008-09-12. Retrieved 2020-12-12 .
  13. ^ a b Gray, Geoffrey (2010-10-13). "A Death-Row Love Story". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2020-12-12 .
  14. ^ a b Dalton, Tom (2012-10-04). "From death row to Witch City". The Salem News. Archived from the original on 2020-12-12. Retrieved 2020-12-12 .
  15. ^ McLendon, Kim (2017-06-08). "Johnny Depp And Damien Echols: Magick And The Power Of Words". Inquisitr. Archived from the original on 2018-10-12. Retrieved 2020-12-12 .
  16. ^ Dunne, Carey (2018-10-27). "Magick 'saved my life': the former death row inmate turned warlock". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-11-09. Retrieved 2020-12-12 .
  17. ^ Brogle, Courtney (2020-03-19). "Which Celebrities Advocated For The Release Of The West Memphis Three?". Oxygen. Archived from the original on 2020-04-04. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  18. ^ a b c Dunne, Carey (2018-02-14). "Paradise found: she waited for him while he was wrongly on death row". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-11-09. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  19. ^ King, Loren (2013-03-16). "West Memphis 3 figure seeks solace in Salem". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 2020-12-14. Retrieved 2020-12-14 .
  20. ^ Douglas, John; Olshaker, Mark (2013). Law & Disorder: Inside the Dark Heart of Murder. Kensington Books. p. 402. ISBN978-0-7860-2884-9 – via Google Books.
  21. ^ "Court orders new hearing for 'West Memphis 3'". NBC News. Associated Press. 2010-11-04. Archived from the original on 2020-11-18. Retrieved 2020-12-12 .
  22. ^ Robertson, Campbell (2011-08-19). "Deal Frees 'West Memphis Three' in Arkansas". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-11-20. Retrieved 2020-12-12 .
  23. ^ Curley, Jerome M.; Malcolm, Dorothy V.; Dionne, Nelson L. (2013). Legendary Locals of Salem. Arcadia Publishing. p. 53. ISBN978-1-4671-0080-9 – via Google Books.
  24. ^ Michallon, Clémence (2020-05-05). "The West Memphis three: How a trilogy of HBO documentaries helped free three men convicted of murder". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2020-11-20. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  25. ^ Kit, Zorianna (2012-01-23). "Damien Echols discusses life "West of Memphis"". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2017-03-28. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  26. ^ "West of Memphis: Sundance Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. 2012-01-20. Archived from the original on 2019-07-30. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  27. ^ Kim, Wook (2013-02-18). "2013 WGA Awards: The Complete List Of Winners". Time. Archived from the original on 2016-03-10. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  28. ^ Nolasco, Stephanie (2019-03-20). "Former West Memphis Three inmate Damien Echols says he pays 'very little attention' to true crime fandom". Fox News. Archived from the original on 2019-03-20. Retrieved 2020-12-14 .
  29. ^ "Yours for Eternity". Kirkus Reviews (May 15, 2014). 2014-05-07. Archived from the original on 2019-09-30. Retrieved 2020-12-14 .
  30. ^ Flanary, Patrick (2013-01-05). "West Memphis Three's Damien Echols to Exhibit Art Made on Death Row". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2018-08-25. Retrieved 2020-12-14 .
  31. ^ Greiving, Tim (2016-03-23). "Former death row inmate channels experience and magic into his art, on display at Copro Gallery". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2019-10-14. Retrieved 2020-12-14 .
  32. ^ Monroe, Rachel (2018-09-26). "Damien Echols and the Secrets of Magick". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-11-23. Retrieved 2020-12-14 .
  33. ^ Kaplan, Ilana (2018-11-19). "How Damien Echols Used Magick to Survive Death Row". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2020-11-08. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  34. ^ Dodd, Johnny (2019-01-09). "Freed Death Row Inmate Damien Echols on What Helped Him Survive Nearly Two Decades in Prison". People. Archived from the original on 2019-01-10. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  35. ^ Auryn, Mat (2020-10-13). "Review: Angels and Archangels". Patheos. Archived from the original on 2020-10-25. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  36. ^ Mee, Laura; Walker, Johnny, eds. (2014). Cinema, Television and History: New Approaches. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 201. ISBN978-1-4438-5379-8 – via Google Books.
  37. ^ Belloni, Matthew (2011-08-23). "The Idea That Led to Justice". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2020-07-10. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  38. ^ Lang, Brent (2015-02-21). "Bruce Sinofsky, Oscar-Nominated Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 58". Variety. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  39. ^ a b Weber, Bruce (2015-02-24). "Bruce Sinofsky, Lauded Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 58". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-02-09. Retrieved 2020-12-13 .
  40. ^ Parker, Suzi (2010-11-16). "West Memphis Three: Three men convicted, DNA evidence reopens case". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2020-12-11 .
  41. ^ "Death row inmate seeks new trial". CNN. 2010-09-30. Archived from the original on 2020-11-09. Retrieved 2020-11-12 .
  42. ^ Fernandez, Sofia M. (2011-08-19). "How Eddie Vedder Fought for the West Memphis Three". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2020-08-08. Retrieved 2020-12-11 .
  43. ^ Prato, Greg (2006-10-09). "Ex-Misfits Singer Rocks With West Memphis 3's Echols". Billboard. Archived from the original on 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2020-12-11 .
  44. ^ Sokol, Tony (2019-01-14). "True Detective Season 3 and the West Memphis Three". denofgeek.com. Archived from the original on 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2020-12-11 .
  45. ^ Itzkoff, Dave (2014-05-07). "A Continuing Murder Mystery Keeps Its Grip on Filmmakers". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2020-12-11 .
  46. ^ Holden, Stephen (2014-05-08). "Three Boys Entangled in Mass Hysteria". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2020-12-11 .
  47. ^ Franich, Darren (2020-05-07). "The Midnight Gospel is a heartfelt cosmic masterpiece: Review". Yahoo! Entertainment. Archived from the original on 2020-05-21. Retrieved 2020-12-11 .

Bibliography [edit]

  • Leveritt, Mara (2002). Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three. Atria Books. ISBN0-7434-1759-3.
  • Newton, Michael (2004). The encyclopedia of unresolved crimes. Checkmark Books. p. 308. ISBN0-8160-4980-7 – via Google Books.
  • Mnookin, Jennifer L. (2005). "Reproducing a Trial: Evidence and Its Assessment in Paradise Lost". In Sarat, Austin; Douglas, Lawrence; Umphrey, Martha Merrill (eds.). Law on the screen. Stanford University Press. p. 153. ISBN0-8047-5162-5 – via Google Books.
  • Tost, Tony (2011). Johnny Cash's American Recordings. The Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 28. ISBN978-1-4411-7461-1.
  • Laycock, Joseph (2014). "27. The Trial of the West Memphis Three: Rival Visions of Evil". In Packer, Sharon; Pennington, Jody (eds.). A History of Evil in Popular Culture: What Hannibal Lecter, Stephen King, and Vampires Reveal About America. 1. Praeger. p. 327. ISBN978-0-313-39770-7 – via Google Books.

External links [edit]

  • Official website
  • Damien Echols profile on WorldCat
  • Damien Wayne Echols at IMDb

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Echols

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