The murders of three 8-year-old children and the controversy surrounding their alleged killers' cases will be spotlighted tonight at 7 in the UC Theatre.
"The Media's Role in the West Memphis 3 Case" is free to the public.
The award-winning author of "Devil's Knot," a book about the West Memphis 3, Mara Leveritt, is the event's featured speaker. Lorri Davis, wife of accused killer Damien Echols, and members of the media, legal experts and a U of M student, will serve on a panel to talk about the media's role in the case and the court's failure to produce documents that should have been available to the public.
Leveritt said she has reported on the convicts, widely known as the "West Memphis 3," since 1993, when the children were found dead near their homes in West Memphis, and teenagers Echols, Jessie Misskelly and Jason Baldwin were charged with their murders. Echols received the death sentence, and Misskelly and Baldwin received life in prison.
"I compare what happened in West Memphis to the Salem witch trials, and this is already an important part of the history of this region," Leveritt said. "Three teenagers have been in prison for most of the lifetime of the students at this University."
Ashley Wislock, journalism graduate student at The U of M and member of tonight's panel, has been compiling her master's project about the West Memphis 3 for the last year. Wislock said she is "really excited" about meeting the other panelists and people she has only read about in books.
"I really think that students at U of M should be excited, too, because this case has been on CNN — there (have) already been two documentaries," she said. "It's a huge case, and the fact that we're having this at The U of M is amazing."
Leveritt said the West Memphis 3 debacle, which has been ongoing for nearly two decades, has been and will be a part of our culture for decades to come.
