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The West Memphis 3 were three people tried and convicted for triple homicide in the 1993 murders of three children in the Robin Hood Hills in West Memphis, Arkansas in the United States. One of them, Damian Echols, was sentenced to death; the other two, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, were sentenced to life in prison. It is claimed by some that all three are innocent. There is, ten years later, still no physical evidence of the guilt of the teens. A mess was made of the crime scene by police officers who investigated. Things like black concert t-shirts and Pink Floyd lyrics were presented in court as evidence against the teenagers. A support group of people protesting Echols' innocence was formed shortly after the convictions. Two films, Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost - Revelations, have documented this case, as has the books Blood of Innocents by Guy Reel and Devil's Knot by Mara Leveritt.
In October of 2003 Vicki Hutcheson, whose testimony was used to convict the WM3, gave an interview to the Arkansas Times in which she stated that every word she'd given to the police as a fabrication. She further asserted that the police had insinuated if she did not cooperate with them they would take away her child. She noted that when she visited the police station they had photographs of the WM3 on the wall and were using them as a darts target. She also claims that an audio tape the police claimed was "unintellegible" (and eventually lost) was perfectly clear and contained absolutely no incriminating statements.
Various hip-hop, heavy metal, punk, and other musicians came together to record Rise Above, an album of unusual covers of songs originially done by the hardcore punk rock band Black Flag released in support of the West Memphis 3.
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