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Damien Echols shares how 18 years in prison changed his worldview.
Damien Echols was born in 1974 and grew up in Mississippi, Tennessee, Maryland, Oregon, and Arkansas. At age 18, he was falsely convicted, along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. —afterward known as the West Memphis Three—in the case known as the Robin Hood Hill murders. Echols received the death sentence and spent 18 years on death row. In 2011, all three were released in an agreement with the state of Arkansas known as an Alford plea. The West Memphis Three have been the subject of Paradise Lost, a three-part documentary series produced by HBO, and West of Memphis, a documentary produced by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh.