In hindsight, his persona bespoke a sensibility shared by many with an interest in the macabre or the Gothic -- a pose more suited to art college than death row. In any case, Echols grew out of the phase. Now he devotes himself to Buddhism while waiting for his death sentence to be carried out -- by lethal injection.

He's not without friends. A growing group of defenders believe that Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley are victims of an injustice. Fired up by the first documentary, a Free the West Memphis Three Support Fund sprang up with a Web site run by three professionals in the entertainment industry -- photographer Grove Pashley, screenwriter Burk Sauls and art director Kathy Bakken. This trio, all in their 30s, jumped into the fray in 1996. They visited Echols and the others in prison, attended appeals hearings, hired a forensic profiler who discovered exculpatory evidence and launched the site, which they say gets from 4,000 to 8,000 hits a day.

"It's like my second job," Sauls tells me. "When I get up in the morning, I'm working on this case. And before I go to bed at night, I'm working on this case. Sometimes, I have to remind myself to do some 'work-work' so I can make money to keep going."

Bakken says that her company was designing the posters for the first "Paradise Lost" film when she saw a screener. Engrossed, she passed the tape on to Sauls and Pashley, both friends of hers. Soon all three were reading everything they could about the case, and a few months later they traveled to Arkansas for the first time to meet with the young men they would dub the West Memphis 3.

"When we went there, the lawyers hadn't talked to him in about a year," she says of Echols. "He was just sort of abandoned. I think all of the support has helped him a lot."

Convinced of the WM3's innocence, Bakken eventually went so far as to take a class in criminal profiling given in Los Angeles by noted profiler Brent Turvey. She asked Turvey to look into the case, and Turvey discovered what he thought might be bite marks on the body of victim Chris Byers. A forensic odontologist later testified during a 1999 appeal of Echols' case, known as a Rule 37 hearing, that there were indeed bite marks on the Byers boy, according to his examination of autopsy photos. Impressions made of the teeth of Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley reportedly ruled out all three as sources of the marks. However, the prosecution disputed the evidence with its own forensic odontologist, and the appeal was later denied.

Bakken, Sauls and Pashley have aided the WM3 in other ways. They've cultivated celebrities to aid their cause, and have become the means through which Echols and the others communicate with the outside world. On June 9, their Web site received an enormous spike when "South Park" co-creator Trey Parker exclaimed "Free the West Memphis 3!" while accepting a trophy at the MTV movie awards. Parker caused another spike on July 16 when Access Hollywood showed an interview with Parker and his partner, Matt Stone. Parker was wearing one of the support fund's black T-shirts imprinted with the WM3 site's URL.

In addition, the Free the West Memphis Three fund has been crucial in bolstering the theatrical release of "Paradise Lost 2: Revelations," in which all three organizers appear. The opening night of the film's limited run in Los Angeles on July 28 drew more than 200 people, impressive considering that it has been running on HBO for several months now. "PL2" was scheduled for theatrical release Thursday in Seattle. It will open in New York, Portland, Ore., and San Francisco in September.

Bakken, Sauls and Pashley are organizing a banner comprising postcards in support of the WM3 from all over the world. They plan to surround the Arkansas Supreme Court in Little Rock with the banner on the date of Echols' appeal (yet to be announced). They're also touting the release of a WM3 benefit CD in September from Aces and Eights Recordings, which will include tracks by Eddie Vedder, Tom Waits, L7, Nashville Pussy and others.

Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky -- the creative team behind both documentaries (and the widely acclaimed "Brother's Keeper," released in 1992) -- say that Bakken, Sauls and Pashley have helped move the case of the WM3 from the entertainment pages to the editorial pages. "We used them extensively in the second film," says Sinofsky. "One, because they were good subjects. Two, because they had involved this criminal profiler. And three, because the first film had become this event documentary and attracted tens of thousands of people to their Web site. They were there, and they were active in what they considered to be their search for justice."

Indeed, in the second film, Bakken, Sauls and Pashley -- each one clean-cut and well-spoken -- parallel to some degree the roles played by the Canadian activists in Norman Jewison's "The Hurricane." They energize other supporters and act as self-appointed watchdogs and secondhand sleuths.

"I probably wouldn't get near [as much] support or interest that I have without what they've been doing," says Echols. "Without them being constantly there 24 hours a day to give out information, people would see the film and say, 'Oh, that's too bad,' and just go home and forget it. Now they go on the Web site and get involved."

Strangely, the argument in favor of a new trial for the WM3 can be summed up in a statement from Gary Gitchell, the former chief of detectives for the West Memphis police and the lead investigator on the triple homicide. Gitchell, who retired in triumph after Echols and the others were convicted, now works as a manager for Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations in Memphis, Tenn. He says he still adamantly believes in the guilt of Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley. But he concedes the prosecution's case was far from bulletproof.

"You've got a lot of circumstantial evidence is what you've got," Gitchell says. "There's no smoking gun. This is not a smoking-gun-type case."

Instead, Gitchell says that one has to look at the preponderance of the evidence. According to him, this includes statements made by two teenage girls who claim to have overheard Echols confess to the crimes; a hunting knife found in a lake behind Baldwin's home (though it was never linked to the murders); a fellow inmate's statement that Baldwin made a jailhouse confession; and the hotly contested confession of Misskelley.

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