Autopsies revealed that Michael Moore and Stevie Branch died from "multiple injuries with drowning," while Christopher Byers died from blood loss due to severe stabbing and mutilation in the groin area.
In 2012, Pam Hicks, the mother of Stevie Branch, filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the West Memphis Police Department. She had been trying for 19 years to view the evidence from her son’s murder: the clothes he was wearing when he died, the last bicycle he rode, and the shoelaces used to bind him. Her most painful complaint, however, was that her son’s autopsy photos had somehow been leaked onto the internet and put up for sale on eBay. Hicks did not ask to take possession of any evidence; she simply wanted to see the items. “To the West Memphis Police Department [they] are old evidence, but to me they’re precious memories,” she said. Police Chief Donald Oakes responded that most of the evidence was sealed, and that any outside access could compromise a future prosecution. Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington eventually agreed to allow the families to the items under controlled conditions, but a state statute required the police to hold the evidence for 99 years, and the law does not permit physical handling of the material.
In 2007, a judge ruled the new evidence could be heard. Rather than risk a new trial, in 2011 the state of Arkansas allowed Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley to enter an Alford plea—maintaining innocence but acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence for conviction. They were released after 18 years.
It was a bare foot. An adult-sized bare foot.
If you're interested in learning more about the West Memphis Three case, I recommend exploring reputable sources, such as documentaries, books, and news articles, that provide a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the case.
In the years following the convictions, prominent forensic pathologists, including Dr. Werner Spitz and Dr. Michael Baden, re-examined the high-resolution crime scene and autopsy photographs. Their findings starkly contradicted the original prosecution narrative:
On May 6, 1993, the bodies of the three eight-year-old boys were discovered in a drainage ditch in a patch of woods known as Robin Hood Hills. Crime scene photographs from that afternoon document a highly chaotic and poorly managed scene.
The crime scene photos from the 1993 West Memphis Three case are central to one of the most controversial forensic debates in American history. While the images are highly sensitive due to the ages of the victims—eight-year-olds Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers—they have been extensively analyzed by experts to challenge the original "Satanic Panic" narrative that led to the convictions of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. The Role of Photos in Forensic Re-Evaluation
