West Memphis Three (Part Five: Alford Plea)
Unresolved: A True Crime & Mystery Podcast
Unresolved Productions
4.5 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2026
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On 19 August 2011, three men - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. - were transported from their respective facilities to a courthouse in Jonesboro, Arkansas. They were there to plead guilty to a crime they had spent the better part of two decades denying. At the same time, they were asserting their innocence and obtaining their freedom in an unusual legal maneuver called an Alford plea.
What led up to that decision was the culmination of years of painstaking progress. What had started back in 1996 as a single HBO documentary had become a movement by 2011 heralded by celebrity backers and advocates pushing new DNA evidence. Yet at the end of the day, three men regained their freedom at a cost while questions continue to linger about the deaths of three boys...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode contains graphic content that may not be suitable for all ages. |
| 0:08.0 | Listener discretion is advised. |
| 0:10.0 | If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. |
| 0:15.0 | Call or text 988 or chat with someone at 988 lifeline.org. Those outside of the U.S. |
| 0:22.7 | reach out to someone at your local crisis center or hotline. Please do not suffer in silence. |
| 0:33.6 | A court hearing in Arkansas today could mean freedom for the West Memphis three who've |
| 0:37.8 | been fighting for 18 years to prove they're not the killers of three eight-year-old boys. This is a bittersweet development for anyone who's been covering this case for a while, too, Chris. So what's going to happen? Are they just literally, I mean, they've been convicted of killing these kids? Are they just going to walk out of jail? Well, I want to point out there is a gag order and no one has violated it, but what we |
| 0:56.2 | have heard, what could happen today is that they could enter something that's very unusual |
| 1:00.1 | called Alfred Please. |
| 1:01.7 | And the three men will say, look, we are innocent, but in order to get out of jail, we |
| 1:06.4 | will plead guilty. |
| 1:08.3 | And so, and then if everything goes to plan, the three will be freed today. |
| 1:13.6 | And that makes a very big deal for Damien Eccles, who will be 38 years of age in December. He has spent |
| 1:19.5 | more than half his life on death row. |
| 1:21.3 | But they have to plead guilty for murder. So what does this do as far as a life for them |
| 1:26.6 | out of court? Can they sue for reparations to anything alone? |
| 1:30.7 | And this is a good deal for the state because the state saves face. |
| 1:34.1 | There was going to be an evidentiary hearing this December. |
| 1:36.7 | There's a very good chance these three men would have gotten a new trial. |
| 1:40.1 | And the state just doesn't have the evidence now to convict them. |
| 1:43.0 | And what's really sad is |
| 1:45.3 | they'll never find out who really did kill these boys. It's a cold case again. Yeah. All right, |
... |
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