The forensic experts have uncovered DNA and new witnesses that draw suspicion from Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the murder victims. One important fact is the allegations of jury misconduct with the jury foreman discussing the case with an attorney during the Echols-Baldwin trial and bringing Misskelley’s confession into deliberations even though it was not let into evidence. The defense teams and supporters of Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley have uncovered new details that occurred during the trial that led to guilty verdicts against them. Damien Echols’s defense team has hired some of the most renowned forensic scientists to collect DNA and other evidence that had never been tested during the 1994 trials in hopes of getting a new trial. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky update the case of the West Memphis Three since the release of Paradise Lost 2: Revelations in 2000. The three films chronicle the arrest, 18 year imprisonment, and eventual release of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, otherwise known as the West Memphis Three. With the failures of the police, the courts, the media and, most crucially, the community, there will never be true justice for either the victims' families or Baldwin, Echols and Misskelley, but with Paradise Lost 3, there's at least a document for us to hopefully learn from so many mistakes.Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is a 2011 documentary film and sequel to the films Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations. Informative, they complement the rest of the trilogy well while also showing the restraint on the part of the directors attempting to streamline the sprawling story for audiences. Included on the DVD are deleted scenes and other unreleased footage, although curiously, the former come from the first film. Despite working within the documentary medium, without the advantage of much planning ahead, Berlinger and Sinofsky have unravelled every consideration about the murders that took place on to create a narrative tapestry on par with HBO's The Wire. On a more positive note, John Mark Byers (a wild-card, grieving parent in the first film and central antagonist in the second) shows a major change of heart when he returns in a minor role to vocalize the injustices of both the initial investigation and subsequent trials. Griffis return for an interview and maintain that the West Memphis Three were involved in the occult partially on the basis of their black T-shirts. It's amazing to see so-called occult expert Dale W. Although it could be watched by itself, the film rewards viewers who have stayed with the story throughout, in particular when it brings back minor characters from the first film who were absent in the second. Digging up unused footage from their first two instalments, the directors provide fresh perspectives on the tragedy they've spent almost two decades returning to. Whereas the first film, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, immersed itself in the nuances of the initial trials and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations felt like a tragic addendum with only a flicker of hope (released in 2000, it shows the proponents for the West Memphis Three boasting about their new website), the third film wisely re-examines the story anew. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is a momentous conclusion, in part because it comes back with a little more bite that its predecessors, but also because it abruptly bumps up against its own surprise ending. And yet part of what has made the films about the so-called "West Memphis Three" so powerful is the sheer tenacity, defiantly returning every few years to restate the innocence of its subjects. Epic yet underrated, the Paradise Lost series has always deserved more: more viewers, more awareness and more action. But the filmmakers' change of heart can be felt in their passion and commitment to the case, which over the last 18 years has grown to become a trilogy of documentaries. Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky have said that when they first travelled to Arkansas in 1994 to film the trials of Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley, Jr., they assumed, like many, that the defendants were guilty for the murder of three boys.
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