DAMIEN ECHOLS & HENRY ROLLINS

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In 1993, then 18-year-old Damien Echols was arrested along with fellow teenagers Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and charged with the murders of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. As the supposed “ringleader” of the group, Echols was sentenced to death, while Baldwin and Misskelley were given life sentences. The convicted men, known as the West Memphis Three, ultimately became part of one of the most notorious cases of wrongful conviction in recent history.

Damien Echols, the central figure of the West Memphis Three, presents a gripping, eloquently written account of his early life, his arrest and trial, his eighteen years on death row, his new life after prison, and his ongoing quest for full exoneration in his definitive memoir, Life After Death. In conversation with Henry Rollins, a longtime supporter of the effort to free the West Memphis Three, Echols will discuss the story of his life before and after his trial, including his spiritual and intellectual journey in prison as well as his wife, Lorri Davis, whom he met and married while on death row. As inspiring as it is terrifying, Life After Death reveals Echols to be not only a survivor, but also an extraordinary writer.