West Memphis Three’s DAMIEN ECHOLS Allegedly Impressed EDDIE MUNSON’s Character On Stranger Issues

In the event you’re a Gen X’er and true crime fanatic like me, then you definately’re no stranger to the saga of the West Memphis Three—the three Arkansas males that had been arrested and prosecuted for the grisly homicide of three native youngsters in what prosecutors asserted was a Satanic ritual. The three males—Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley, Jr., and Jason Baldwin—all the time maintained their innocence, but their path grew to become prime theater which delivered the paranoia of the 80s “Satanic Panic” period immediately into the houses of frightened dad and mom nationwide.

Whereas Misskelley and Baldwin had been sentenced to life in jail, Echols was sentenced to dying, as prosecutors efficiently argued to the jury that Echols had orchestrated the murders. However in a 2010 resolution by the Arkansas Supreme Court docket, protection attorneys for the three males efficiently argued that new DNA proof, in addition to obvious juror tampering in the course of the authentic trial, had been grounds for dismissal. Echols, Misskelley, and Baldwin had been launched in 2011 with 10-years suspended sentencing after serving 18 years, and solely after entering Alford Pleas as grounds for his or her launch.

Within the years after their preliminary sentencing, Echols grew to become the general public face of the group, all the time sustaining innocence and actively lobbying for launch. Echols and the opposite males had been the topic of a three-part movie documentary, Paradise Misplaced, that debuted on HBO in 1996 and was directed by filmmakers Joel Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (Metallica‘s Some Type of Monster).

Then, in 2002, an album of Black Flag covers entitled Rise Above was organized by Henry Rollins, with all proceeds supporting the West Memphis Three’s authorized charges. Given the highlight on the path (and what we have touched on right here is only a fraction of the whole story), ought to it’s any shock that Stranger Issues creators The Duffer Brothers had Echols particularly in thoughts when creating their beloved Eddie Munson character from this previous season of the Netflix hit?

A minimum of that is in keeping with the Twitter account Netflix Geeked, which provided this tweet when the season started final yr:

Additionally, in a latest BuzzFeed put up discussing characters developed from real-life occasions, the outlet notes that Ross Duffer has commented that, “We actually wished that character who’s a metalhead, he is into Dungeons & Dragons, he is finally a real nerd at coronary heart. However from an outsider’s standpoint, they might go, ‘That is somebody that’s scary.’ In order that’s actually the place the thought for Eddie got here in.

“What’s unhappy about [Eddie‘s] narrative is that the individuals who get to know him love him, and the individuals who don’t have judged him horribly, simply due to the way in which he clothes and simply due to his pursuits.”

If you wish to study extra in regards to the West Memphis Three, Paradise Misplaced is obtainable totally free for HBO Max subscribers and can be obtainable on most streaming platforms, together with Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV.