EXHIBIT A-IOI - West Memphis Three Case - Document Archive

Case 4:09-cv-00008-BSM Document 30-5 Filed 07/17/2009 Page 30 of 297
Horrific child sex slayings an . .guing mystery The Toronto Star February 21, )7, Friday, METRO EDITION
Already established through their 1992 documentary Brother's Keeper, they had HBO bankrolling them. But what
they found in their river's edge was more lurid than fiction.
As Paradise Lost begins, three 8-year-old boys have been murdered near Interstate 40. Police videotape taken at the
river-bank scene reveals that they've been sexually attacked. One has had his genitals removed.
Outraged, the community puts the police under the gun to do something. A month later, the cops produce. Three arrests
are made in what was suggested is a Satanic cult. Jessie Misskelley, 17, admits to taking part in the killings and
names Jason Baldwin, 16, and Damien Echols, 18, as his accomplices.
Blood rituals! Dog slaughtering! Heavy metal Metallica! At their trials, it matters little that Misskelley, with an IQ
of 72, was shown to be easily suggestible, or that there was little physical evidence linking any ofthem to the crime.
But it matters one heck ofa lot that Echols wears black, reads Aleister Crowley and says he's a Wiccan. In West
Memphis, being a Wiccan doesn't carry quite the weight being a Rotarian might.
The hapless trio - Misskelley is uncomprehending, Baldwin utterly resigned, Echols, preening and vain - doesn't
have a chance, not in this town.
But, then again, the town doesn't have much of a chance, not in this doc - particularly when everyone is shown to
be, at best, a bunch ofsouthern crackers, red-necked from the heels up or, at worst, cornpone geeks chewing on hatred
like so much chaw tobbaco.
But don't we know this cast ofreal-life rubes already? Indeed, aren't they almost stock documentary characters
whenever northern cineastes need a bit ofgothic Americana to give us a rural shock.
A similiar crowd shows up Salesman (only they're in New England and Florida). They show up in Errol Morris's
The Thin Blue Line (in Dallas). The women are bitter and bulgy. The men are stone-faced and crazed-looking.
But boy can they hate. And you sense they're been set up by Berlinger and Sinofsky no less than the teenagers were
by the town.
Admittedly, the documentarians have gone out oftheir way to say they weren't taking sides. Ifthere's any fingerpointing
it's in the direction ofthe West Memphis legal system, said Berlinger, because there was "an incredibly weak
case against these kids."
Actually, Paradise makes a case against anyone who'd send the kids down the river - particularly John Mark Byers,
the father ofChristopher Byers, the castrated victim.
Byers is first seen ranting madly near where the bodies are found. Later, in church, he sings some gospel. Still later,
he's shown shooting holes in a pumpkin, pretending it's the head ofan accused: "I don' blowed you halfto Tucson."
But Byers caused further confusion when he handed over to Berlinger and Sinofsky a knife that may have some
bearing on the case.
"We were in an incredibly difficult legal, moral and ethical dilemma," Berlinger explained. "We feel strongly you
shouldn't change the outcome ofthe story you're following. We were concerned about being dragged into our own story.
We felt badly about adding to the man's pain. There was a professional worry, too. We thought it was going to shut the
film down."
The knife was turned over to the investigators - HBO insisted - and the teens were nevertheless imprisoned.
"There is a point ofview in the film," said Berlinger. "It's not smashed over your head. We don't try to dot every 'I'
and cross every 'T.' We ask our audiences to weigh every bit ofinformation. Frankly, 15 per cent ofthe people walk
away thinking the kids are guilty."
But mostly you don't. Still, whatever balance goes missing is made up in the lure ofthe tabloid headline-screaming
mystery ofit all - the sheer beguiling uncertainity.
GRAPHIC: 2 Photos: MURDER TALE: Filmmakers Bruce Sinofsky, above left, and Joe Berlinger based their documentary
Paradise Lost on the murders of, from left, Steven Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. Three teens,
from bottom left, Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, were arrested.movie; review