Devil's Knot: The True Story Of The West Memphis Three (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
this title is outdated, but it served as a pretty comprehensive look at the evidence that was presented in the trials and subsequent appeals filed by the defendants up until the early 2000's...it was not an easy read...for one thing, the gritty, uncompromising look at the particulars of the crimes was hard in places to look at head on...so disturbing, what was done to these three little boys, that it makes you mentally flinch away...i found myself having to put it down and walk away, take a breather until i could bear to face more...also, there was such a overwhelming amount of evidence, lack of evidence, contradictions, oversights, outright mistakes, and numerous evidence of glaring misconduct committed by law enforcement and various players in the larger judicial system all through the evolution of the case, that the writer was at some pains to present it in a comprehensive, chronological narrative manner....that said, i think she did achieve a comprehensive look at how it all went so terribly terribly wrong and while there have been subsequent updates in the cases of each of the defendants since its writing, i think the book, overall, achieves what i presume to be it's purpose, which was to call a more intense scrutiny to this travesty of American justice, and to serve as a warning to the rest of us subject to the American justice system that all is not as fair and balanced as we are led to believe, and that 'presumed innocent until proven guilty' is often a misnomer, one that could entangle any of us in a web of misinformation, ineptitude and corruption that could result in a cost of lives, both literally and figuratively....at the conclusion, the book leaves one hanging, with all three defendants still languishing in prison, one on death row, with a 1/3 of their young lives spent there for a crime none of them could have committed...since then other books have been written, documentaries and movies have been made, evidence has been retested, new suspects developed and others that were once considered to be good candidates to have been fingered as the 'real killer' have been cleared and finallyfinally, on August 19, 2011 the three young men that were railroaded into conviction for the heinous murders of the three innocent young boys who this story 'should' have been about, have been freed after spending 18 yrs in prison, pleading guilty in exchange for time served under a odd lil twist of jurisprudence that allowed them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging that the state had sufficient evidence to convict them...while the fact that they have been freed is both relieving and satisfying, i personally feel that it was just another backhanded slap at justice that has allowed those culpable in the conspiracy of ineptitude that caused these boys' lives to have been stolen from them to save face and carry on to corrupt American jurisprudence another day...and the real killer or killers has yet to be positively identified, or tried...an important observation to keep in mind....would he/they have been caught and convicted by now, had not law enforcement so badly mishandled this case?...and it should not be overlooked in all of this...that killer is still out there, that committed these heinous acts, presumably capable of killing again....i think the author of this work, the authors and film makers of other works both before and after this book's publication, the creators and participants of the website dedicated to freeing the West Memphis Three, all those, known and anonymous, that supported their respective efforts, and HBO should all be recognized and rewarded for fighting the good fight on behalf of these kids that were hopelessly overwhelmed and undergunned in a fight for their lives and their sanity...and i think those responsible for the mistakes and the overt and illegal actions to railroad these kids should all be subject to prosecution...i realize that is unlikely, especially now, given that the boys have accepted this extraordinary plea in order to try to salvage something from the tatters of their life, but just as in my following of this case, along with millions of others all over the world, i continue to hold out hope...if there is a God?....justice will be served, one way or the other...real justice....for all parties involved, known and unknown....
It's always difficult for me to assign a rating to a book like this. Was it well-written? Yes. Did it make me think? Yes. Was I profoundly disturbed by how American justice can go so wrong? Absolutely. Do I hate that it had to be written in the first place? Definitely.I began reading this shortly after the release of the West Memphis Three. Having only vague recollections of the murders and the trial from when I was a teenager, I wanted a better understanding of the case. And a better understanding is what I got. Leveritt's research is thorough and meticulous. If I have one complaint about the book, it is that relevant information sometimes gets relegated to the "Notes" section where it could be easily overlooked. But that's only a testament to how thorough the research is. The saddest thing about this book is that it's filled with victims. At the heart of it are the three eight year olds whose brutal murders left police stymied as to who could have committed such a heinous crime. There are the three teenagers, convicted on rumors of occult activity and left helpless at the hands of a justice system meant to protect them. But even beyond those six, there are countless examples of children being manipulated and exploited by adults. Whether it's teenagers telling police what they want to hear, or a small child encouraged to expand (and change) his story over and over with no restraint from the adults, Leveritt demonstrates the vulnerabilities of the children at the center of this crime. It's a heartbreaking and disturbing perspective on the case, but one that everyone should recognize if only to prevent it from happening again.
What do You think about Devil's Knot: The True Story Of The West Memphis Three (2003)?
Remind me not to wear a black t-shirt next time I'm in Arkansas. For those who have seen the two "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" documentaries, you should know that the films barely scratched the tip of the iceberg. For those unfamiliar with the case, in 1993 in the town of West Memphis, three 8-year-old boys were found murdered in a ditch near a truck stop. The unbelievable investigative and judicial shit-show that followed resulted in three teenagers being convicted, with no physical evidence whatsoever, other than the fact that they were into Metallica and one of the kids checked a book on Wicca out of the library. The cops decided the motive for the killing was that the teens were in a satanic cult and the murders were a a ritual killing, even though there was no sign of occult activity at the scene. The book piles on maddening details of the "amateur justice metted out" (according to Henry Rollins's blurb on the back cover), such as the initial coerced--then recanted--confession by one of the convicts (a kid with a borderline mentally retarded IQ) whose 12-hour interrogation (only 45 minutes of which was recorded) was filled with inaccuracies, the constant blockings by the biased trial judge of anything the defense did to help their clients, leaks to the media, numerous second-hand witnesses who all admitted to lying after the fact, the prosecutors calling to the stand an "occult expert" who was then revealed by the defense to have gotten his PHD through the mail, random sticks and knives brought in to the jury as "evidence" that had no fingerprints, dna, blood, etc., numerous other suspects not followed up on by the police (many of whom were under investigation themselves for corruption prior to the case), and so on and so forth.
—Patrick
I read this in 2002 when it first came out, but have re-read it in preparation for a freshman composition class I'm teaching this fall, where the theme is "witch hunts." As other reviewers have pointed out, here, Leveritt is not unbiased, but it is hard to be unbiased in the face of such overwhelming evidence--that these three young men were the victims of a witch hunt quite similar to the day care center trials of the 1990's and ultimately to the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century. The book does not take into account more recent DNA evidence indicating that a father of one of the boys (not John Mark Byers, as Leveritt argues) came into contact with the bodies post mortem and is as likely a suspect as Byers, but that is understandable. Perhaps she needs to update the text. At any rate, this is an excellent book, an enjoyable read, solid true-crime reporting of the first water.
—Ed Eleazer
I picked this up for several reasons. For one, I've been hearing about this case from friends of mine for a really, really long time. For another, now that the WM3 have been released, they're turning Devil's Knot into a movie which is being shot in my homestate. (Incidentally, *not* Arkansas.) For a third thing, a friend of mine is going to be in the movie. So when I found the book on sale, I figured what the hell and gave it a shot. And it... made me unreasonably angry, which is a mark of a book that is extraordinarily well written. It appalls me that it took eighteen years to reverse this wrong, when the facts as they're laid out in this clear, concise narrative blatantly show that you could have driven a bus through the holes in the prosecution's case. I found myself staring at the book in horror on more than one occasion, just...slackjawed and appalled. I kept wanting it to be fiction, or at least sensationalized, because at least then I could have been skeptical. But it wasn't. Leveritt's narrative is clean and concise and as free from bias as she could possibly make it. I highly recommend it.
—Capiz
