But while Echols survived death row long enough to walk out a free man, it wasn't, as he admitted during a talk Thursday at the NYC true crime festival Death Becomes Us, an easy task.
For the first 10 years he had access to other people, he claimed, but as the years went by, the inmates were separated more and more until he ended up in his solitary cell, which had just one window. Barely any light came through, as there was a brick wall just a few feet in front of it. He told tragic stories stories of fellow inmates, like a man who cut his throat with a shaving razor and curled up in a blanket so it would hide the blood and allow him enough time to die before the guards noticed, and of someone who broke his fists pounding on his cell, screaming the devil was in there, only to get out, have his hands bandaged, and be thrown back in.
And it wasn't just the bad food, the omnipresent specter of death, and the solitary confinement that made death row so hellish. Echols recalled vicious guard beatings that left him "pissing blood. I was beaten [because] of the new evidentiary hearing, less than an hour after the announcement, they destroyed and took everything in my cell because I was going back to court.
But Echols said he was able to make it through all these hardships because he started practicing magick, which made conditions bearable and kept him sane. Comedian Dave Hill, who interviewed Echols Thursday, joked a bit about magick, knowing many aren't super-familiar with the topic. Magick, as Echols puts it, "is the western path to enlightenment. We don't remember where we come from, where we're going, or why we're supposed to be going there. Magick causes you to remember some of these things and gives you a sense of purpose," he explained.
Practicing magick for Echols consists of a variety of different meditation, visualization and breathing techniques, as well as ceremonies and rituals, all for the purpose of spiritual growth.
This kept him balanced and helped him manage the physical and emotional stress and pain of imprisonment. Echols was able to learn so much about magick through all his time reading in prison. He got his hands on whatever he could find to read during those endless days, and started from there. But, he said, Arkansas politicians have long used capital punishment as a tool to build support.
Patrick Crane, the sergeant in charge of Arkansas's death row in , agreed and added that correctional officers are forced to deal with the emotional and psychological weight of death row while politicians win "tough-on-crime" points with their constituents. Crane said he supported the death penalty when he went to work on death row, but eventually found the policy and environment distasteful. It was Echols's case, as well as many inmates' clear mental illness that made him rethink his position and leave the job he held.
Echols, considered the leader of the West Memphis Three that includes Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley , became a symbol of the potentially innocent man on death row.
To be released, however, Arkansas did not admit Echols' innocence — the state has never exonerated any inmate. Instead, he was granted an Alford Plea, a technicality which allows him to maintain his innocence while pleading guilty. He went through a dozen lawyers over 18 years to get to that point while turning the media's attention to the plight of the death row inmate.
Echols said he nearly was killed when he first entered prison. Then years-old, the correctional officers at the time decided to "welcome me to the neighborhood. His fellow inmates smuggled him food and appealed to a deacon who visited death row to get him out. At one point I entertained thoughts that perhaps the living inmates weren't the only ones trapped on Death Row. After all, if places really are haunted, then wouldn't Death Row be the perfect stomping ground?
At some time or another it's crossed the mind of everyone here. Some make jokes about it, like whistling to yourself as you pass the cemetery. Others don't like to speak about it at all, and it can be a touchy subject. Who wants to think about the fact that you're sleeping on the mattress that three or four executed men also claimed as their resting place? The silence on Death Row is something that seems to unnerve guards when they first get assigned here. That's because every other barracks sounds like a madhouse.
There are people screaming at the top of their lungs 24 hours a day, it never stops. Screams of anger and rage, begging, threatening, cursing — it sounds like the din of some forgotten hell.
These are the "regular" prisoners. As soon as you step through the door of Death Row it stops. Sleep deprivation is a direct result of the lights. They turn them off every night at Then they're turned right back on at 2. If you could fall asleep the moment the lights went out, then sleep through all the guards' activity, you would still get only four hours of uninterrupted sleep.
It's not possible, though. Doors slamming, keys hitting the floor, guards yelling at one another as if they're at a family reunion — it all wakes you up. You can never sleep very deeply here anyway, because you have to stay aware of your surroundings.
Bad things can come to those caught off guard. One of the first things I learned when I arrived was how to cook on a watt lightbulb. This is accomplished in one of two ways. The first is by using the bulb directly, as a heat source. To use the bulb like an oven, you first cut the top off a soda can with a disposable razor blade.
You then fill the can with whatever you want to cook — coffee, or leftover beef stew, for instance. You make certain the can is completely dry, not a single drop of water on it, and then balance it on the lightbulb.
After 20 or 30 minutes, whatever is in the can will be hot enough to burn your mouth. You have to be certain the can is dry, because the bulb will explode in your face if water drips on it. You can always tell when someone has made this mistake — the explosion sounds like a shotgun blast.
For a split second today I could smell home. It smelled like sunset on a dirt road. I thought my heart was going to break. The world I left behind was so close I could almost touch it. Everything in me cried out for it. It's amazing how certain shades of agony have their own beauty. I can't ever seem to make myself believe that the home I once knew doesn't even exist any more.
It's still too real inside my head. I wish I had a handful of dust from back then, so that I could keep it in a bottle and always have it near. Time has changed for me. I don't recall exactly when it happened, and I don't even remember if it was sudden or gradual. Somehow the change just crept up on me like a wolf on tiptoe. Hell, I don't even remember when I first started to notice it. What I do remember is how when I was a kid every single day seemed to last for an eternity.
I swear to God that I can remember a single summer day that lasted for several months. Now I watch while years flip by like an exhalation, and sometimes I feel panic trying to claw its way up into my throat.
Time itself has become a cruel race toward an off-coloured sunset. Forever can be measured with a ruler, and eternity is no longer than a stiff breeze. God, I miss the sound of cicadas singing.
I used to sit on my front porch and listen to those invisible hordes all screaming in the trees like green lunacy. The only place I hear them now is on television. I've seen live newscasts where I could hear them screeching in the background. When I realised what it was I was hearing I nearly fell to my knees, sobbing and screaming a denial to everything I've lost, everything that's been stolen from me.
It's a powerful sound — the sound home would make if it weren't a silent eternity away from me. Hearing the cicadas is like being stabbed through the heart with blades of ice.
They remind me that life has continued for the world while I've been sealed away in a concrete vault. I've been awakened on many nights by the feel of rats crawling over my body, but I've never heard summer's green singing. A single letter would have been enough to kindle a tiny spark of hope in my heart, but I received hundreds. Every day at least one or two would arrive, sometimes as many as 10 or I would lie on my bunk and flip through the letters, savouring them like a fat kid with a fistful of candy, whispering, "Thank you… Thank you," over and over again.
I clutched those letters to my chest and slept with them under my head. I had never been so thankful for anything in my entire life. I had been on Death Row for about two years when I received an odd letter, in February It was from a woman who loved movies and had recently seen the documentary about my case at a film festival in New York.
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