[5] Echols, with his habit of dressing year round in a long black trenchcoat and an interest in witchcraft, was considered a misfit within the local community.

[7][8] In 1993, when Echols was 18, he was arrested along with Jason Baldwin (16) and Jessie Misskelley (17) for the murder of three eight-year-olds: Steve Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers.

[25] In 1996, Echols met his future wife Lorri Davis, a landscape architect who learned about the case after seeing Paradise Lost in New York and wrote him a letter.

[26] In November 2010, after Judge Burnett had retired from the bench, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered new evidentiary hearings for all three defendants based on the new DNA evidence.

[28] The state's high court rebuked Burnett's 2008 decision not to grant Echols a hearing on the DNA evidence before rejecting his request for a new trial.

In August 2011, Echols's lawyers, Steve Braga and Patrick Benca negotiated an Alford plea, which allows the defendant to maintain their innocence while conceding that there is enough evidence to possibly convict them at trial.

[30] After the release from prison, Echols and his wife moved to New York City and lived in Peter Jackson's apartment.

[5][32] Also in 2012, West of Memphis, a documentary film directed and co-written by Amy J. Berg, and produced by Peter Jackson and Echols, was released in the US by Sony Pictures Classics.

[44] Considering strong national interest in the case and the age of the suspected perpetrators, HBO commissioned Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky to film the trial and produce a documentary.

[48] A number of Hollywood celebrities, notably Pearl Jam lead vocalist Eddie Vedder and actor Johnny Depp, publicly advocated for the release of The Memphis Three.

[52] Former Misfits vocalist Michale Graves also supported the case, and in October 2007 he recorded his Illusions album, featuring written content and backing vocals from Echols.

[54] In 2013, Atom Egoyan directed Devil's Knot, a feature film adaptation of the book starring Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon, which was produced by Worldview Entertainment.

[57] In April 2020, Echols appeared as Darryl the Fish in The Midnight Gospel animated TV series aired on Netflix.