Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols (left to right)
CRAIGHEAD CO., Ark. (KTHV) -- Attorneys for Damien Echols have released a status report about DNA testing that they say excludes Echols, Jesse MissKelley and Jason Baldwin of the slayings of three boys in West Memphis in 1993.
The status report was sent by Echols' attorneys to the Craighead County Circuit Court, and alleges that three places on Christopher Byers' shoe where DNA was found excludes all three suspects as the source of these new DNA samples.
Attorneys said that the labratory's conclusion was that DNA found on Byers' shoelaces and around the shoelace hole comes from the same unidentified male, while DNA from his other shoe comes from another unidentified male source completely.
Attorneys also listed in their report that Echols requested that papers alleged to have held the boy's wet clothes be tested. However, the papers were not in the evidence box they should have been in, and West Memphis police cannot find them.
The three men were convicted in 1994 of killing Stevie Branch, Byers and Michael Moore and leaving their bound bodies in a water-filled ditch. Echols was sentenced to death while Misskelley and Baldwin received life sentences.
Each is asking for a new trial on grounds that new DNA evidence exonerates them. Evidentiary hearings for all three men are set to be held Dec. 5-21 of this year.