West Memphis Three
At the time of their arrests, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was 17 years old, Jason Baldwin was 16 years old, and Damien Echols was 18 years old.
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three
On May 5, 1993, Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Steven Branch went missing from their homes in West Memphis, Arkansas. The next day, their bodies were found in the woods near their homes with evidence showing they had been brutally beaten and savagely murdered. In Byers' case the evidence revealed that he had been castrated, and his private part had been skinned before he was killed. News of the boys' deaths and the manner in which it happened soon reached the inhabitants of the small community. The rumor then spread that the nature of Byers' death, in particular hinted that the deaths may have been related to a Satanic ritual.