West Memphis Three Forensic Experts Meet in Little Rock

According to Arkansas author and reporter Mara Leveritt, defense attorneys for the West Memphis Three, along with four forensic pathologists and two forensic odontologists, met at the Arkansas Crime Lab on May 17.

According to Leveritt, DNA was not the focus of the meeting, but rumors that the focus of the investigation has shifted away from the three have been widely circulated.

The West Memphis Three -- Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley -- were convicted in the 1993 slayings of Michael Moore, Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers.

Pam Hobbs, the mother of Branch, believes the right men are in prison, but in an interview with local news station KATV, expressed doubts that the three worked alone. "I feel like the ones that killed my son, the three that were tried and convicted they are guilty but I am like everyone else, was there someone else out there other than those 3?" Hobbs said.

According to an anonymous defense source, recent DNA testing has not produced "any matches to our guys." The source wouldn't comment on whether the testing has produced a link to another suspect. The source also claims that the forensic experts controlled the meeting, "We wanted to let our science people get with their science people and let the lawyers get out of the way. We want the science to be leading the lawyers, instead of the opposite."

Critics have charged that the investigation was botched and that no evidence tying the three to the crimes was ever found. The convictions hung on the confession of Misskelley, a mentally handicapped then-17 year old who was questionsed for 12 ours without a lawyer or parent present. The crimes gave inspired two documentaries, numerous CD compilations featuring artists as diverse as Pearl Jam, Steve Earl and Henry Rollins.

Mara Leveritt is a prize winning reporter and author. She was named 1994 Arkansas Journalist of the Year, and her book "The Boys on the Tracks" won Arkansas's Booker Worthen Prize in 1998. Her book "Devil's Knot" is the most in depth analysis of the West Memphis Three case. It, too, won the Booker Worthen Prize in 2003.