Devil's Knot

Devil's Knot is a 2013 American biographical crime drama film directed by Atom Egoyan. Adapted from Mara Leveritt's 2002 book of the same name, the film is about the true story of three murdered children, and the three teenagers known as the West Memphis Three who were convicted of killing them, during the Satanic ritual abuse panic. The teenagers were subsequently sentenced to death (Echols) and life imprisonment (Baldwin and Misskelley), before all were released after eighteen years. Produced by Elizabeth Fowler, Richard Saperstein, Clark Peterson, Christopher Woodrow, and Paul Harris Boardman, the film stars Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Dane DeHaan, Mireille Enos, Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Stephen Moyer, Alessandro Nivola, Amy Ryan, and Martin Henderson. The film premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8. It had a limited release in Canadian theaters on January 24, 2014, and was released in U.S. theaters and video on demand services on May 9, 2014. Plot In 1993, in the working class, deeply religious community of West Memphis, Arkansas, three eight-year-old boys – Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore – go missing from their neighborhood. After an extensive search, their bound and beaten bodies are found the next day. The community and the police department are convinced that the murders are the work of a satanic cult, due to the violent and sexual natures of the crime. A month later, three teenagers – Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. – are arrested after Misskelley confesses to the murders following 12 hours of interrogation. They are taken to trial, where Baldwin and Misskelley are sentenced to life in prison, and Echols to death, all the while proclaiming their innocence. In real life, August 2011, after nearly 20 years in prison, Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were given a new trial and released after entering an Alford plea, under which they remain convicted felons; the boy and his mother, who testified against the defendants recanted; Lax discovered a hair sample from the crime scene that resembled Terry Hobbs's DNA;, the step-father of one of the victims, the wife of John Mark Byers was found dead under "unsolved" circumstances; and Pam Hobbs continued to look for the truth about her son's murder.