MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Most prison inmates count down the weeks or months to freedom.
For Damien Echols, who spent half his life on death row, it came almost out of the blue.
His nearly two-decade-long fight for exoneration in the gruesome murders of three Cub Scouts produced an unexpected deal. He and two others, known collectively as the West Memphis Three, pleaded guilty Friday to lesser charges in exchange for sentences of the 18 years they had already served.
And just like that, Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were freed, if not cleared. That fight continues, but right now, Echols, who once came within three weeks of execution, is relearning to live outside prison.
“I was up all morning and most of the night trying to figure out how to use those iPhone things,” he said Saturday in the lobby of a posh Memphis hotel, just across the river from West Memphis, Ark., where the Scouts’ bodies were found in 1993. “One minute I’m looking at something about Judge (David) Laser. The next minute, it’s on, like, some hardcore porn site.”
Echols became the star of the West Memphis Three as the only one sentenced to death.
He spent the night before on the rooftop with supporters, including Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines, who both whipped out guitars. Liquor flowed. Hugs were plentiful, especially for a man who hasn’t had much physical contact for 18 years.
Instead of prison whites, he wore a dark suit that made his skin look almost translucent after years without sunlight.
Before breakfast, he sniffed a glass of cranberry juice as a sommelier would a rare Bordeaux.
“It’s like sensory overload,” said Steven Drizin, legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University’s law school and a member of Echols’ legal team. “When someone has been so deprived of this kind of experience . . . it’s almost experiencing it again for the first time.”
Echols’ freedom doesn’t sit well with everyone. Some relatives of the three boys who died, Michael Moore, Steve Branch and Christopher Byers, remain convinced the West Memphis Three are guilty.
The 8-year-old boys were found naked and hogtied in May 1993. Two drowned in a drainage ditch. One bled to death.
Police had no leads until they received a tip that Echols had been seen covered in mud on the night of the boys’ disappearance. The big break came when Misskelley unexpectedly confessed. There were problems with his story, but the three were convicted.
