In 1993, three eight-year-old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas.

As the small town local police struggled to solve the crime, rumors soon spread that the

killings were the work of a satanic cult. Suspicion landed on three local teenagers,

but there was no real evidence linking them to the murders.

Still, that would not protect them.

Wondories show American scandal brings to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history,

presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In their latest series, three teenage boys

are falsely accused of a vicious triple homicide, but their story doesn't end with their trials or

their convictions. Instead, their plight will go on to capture the imagination of the entire country and spark a campaign for justice that will last for almost two decades.

I'm about to play you a clip from the latest season of American Scandal.

While you're listening, follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American Scandal. On the night of May 5, 1993, the tiny police department in West Memphis, Arkansas was swamped with distress calls.

Three local eight-year-old boys had gone missing, and no one had a clue where they'd gone.

Michael Moore, Stevie

Branch, and Christopher Byers were second-grade boys from ordinary blue-collar families.

They were best friends, members of a local Cub Scout troop, and as inseparable in life as

they would be in death. The savagery of their murders shocked their local community,

located on the eastern edge of Arkansas just across the Mississippi River from Tennessee,

West Memphis was the kind of town where everyone seemed to know everyone else, and they all

wanted to help find the little boy's killer.

But with a lack of hard evidence and limited resources, local police would struggle to resolve

the case, and as pressure mounted, they would cast around for clues with increasing desperation,

...