Summary devil's knot Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Summary devil's knot - Essay Example orts are geared towards depicting the rumors for what they are in an attempt to dismiss this urban legend that consumed the lives of six innocent youngsters. When the bodies of three eight year old boys-Steve Branch, Christopher Myers and Michael Moore were found dumped in a stream barely half a mile away from their home, the police were clueless, the people frightened and the town was in shock. After four weeks, the police, by the testimony provided by Jessie Misskelley Jr. a seventeen year old, arrested him and his two friends Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, charging them with homicide. After a much publicized trial, the trio was pronounced guilty and Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life imprisonment while Echols was put on death row. Leveritt followed the trial from day one and it was clear that the three boys were being put in the dock because they had â€Å"an obsession with heavy metal music†¦.Baldwin had fifteen shirts with the heavy metal thing.† Leveritt’s search for the truth revealed to the world the xenophobia of the small town, and how this is translated into a travesty of justice. The collective moral panic that had gripped the town â€Å"cost at least one innocent youth his life† (Root, 2003) Leveritt, systematically analyses the proof offered and the lack of evidence to show how the police bungled the case and the jury handed out life sentences and death penalties because all were â€Å"blinded by their fantasies about satanic cults† (Ebert). The biggest flaw in the whole case stems from the fact, that the police believed the testimony of Misskelley.Jr. a school dropout with an IQ of 72 and a history of behavioral problems, who implicated himself together with Echols and Baldwin. The police arrested the three without any physical evidence, which was against the law. Apart from that, the scene of the crime had not a drop of blood, while in fact the three children had been brutally killed, and their hands and feet tied together. Since the