A Crittenden County Circuit Court Judge has ordered that ligatures and hairs collected as evidence in the infamous West Memphis Three case to be tested by advanced DNA techniques. Judge Tonya Alexander issued the order on Friday (Aug. 1), according to court documents.
Defendant Damien Echols has been fighting the state to get advanced DNA testing done on evidence in the case since March of 2020. His wife, Lorri Davis, told Talk Business & Politics he’s pleased with the decision and items to be tested could be sent to Bode Labs within the next 10 days.
Three boys – Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore – were riding bikes in their West Memphis neighborhood on the afternoon of May 5, 1993, when they vanished. The next day the three boys’ bodies were found nude and hogtied by their own shoelaces.
Police developed a theory that the boys were killed in a Satanic or occult ceremony and targeted Echols along with two other teens at the time, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. The three charged and convicted of the heinous crimes even though no evidence linked them to the murders.
They spent 18 years in prison until they were released after agreeing to Alford or no contest pleas in 2011. The three, dubbed “The West Memphis Three” in popular culture have steadfastly maintained their innocence in the case. Misskelley gave an error-riddled confession prior to their arrests.
Echols approached prosecutors in 2020 about doing M-Vac touch DNA testing on the ligatures that bound the boys, and former prosecutor now judge, Scott Ellington tentatively agreed to the testing. After he was elected as a judge in a special election, Ellington was replaced by Prosecutor Keith Crestman.
Crestman told TB&P in April of 2021 he was opposed to the testing and would seek to have a judge destroy the evidence. This led to a protracted court battle that ended up in the Arkansas Supreme Court. The state’s high court ruled in April of 2024 that the three defendants had a right to have the evidence tested using modern techniques.
Despite complaints from the defendants, prosecutors have lagged in allowing the testing to be done until this court order. Ironically, it was Judge Alexander who first denied the petition for testing in June of 2023.
The court order stipulates that all three men have agreed to do this testing at Bode Labs and will pay for the testing to be done. The victims were submerged in water and that could have impacted the DNA left by their killer or killers, M-Vac CEO Jared Bradley previously told TB&P. But, the shoelaces have a rough surface that could have pulled a lot of skin cells and there are knots that could have protected the DNA from water, he added.