The Empathy Exams

Jamison recounts the trilogy of documentaries titled Paradise Lost, telling the story of the West Memphis Three. She begins by describing footage of police removing the bodies of three dead boys from a pond. Stephen Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore were murdered and abandoned in the woods. Jessie Misskelley Jr., Jason Baldwin, and Damien Echols were teenagers who were accused, tried, and convicted for their murders. The teenagers were first suspected because they were accused of being Satanists for their love of heavy metal music and their goth-like appearance. Jamison gives away the ending of the last film and explains that, before the final documentary was released, the once-teenagers were freed from prison.

Jamison describes the poverty-stricken West Memphis and the many people who struggle to make ends meet there, including the battles with addiction and the perception of its populace as “white trash” (163). She details Misskelley’s confession and calls out the inconsistencies within it, noting that of his 12-hour interrogation less than an hour of it was recorded. Misskelley is small in stature and seems emotionally immature. Jamison describes Baldwin and feels conflicted because the documentary presents the evidence as insufficient to convict the boys, but her own uncertainty makes it hard to dismiss their guilt entirely. She is torn between believing what the documentary presents her and knowing that it is presented to make her believe. She reviews the documentary footage that discusses Echols’s name change from his birth name to Damien and how many accused him of choosing Damien because it means devil. This is false but highlights the way the boys were accused of murdering the children for Satan. Echols publishes autobiographies and Jamison is surprised by their honesty and the way Echols refuses to write about things in a way that paints them as fantastic.

The parents of the murdered boys are also described in detail, as Jamison touches on each of their different forms of mourning. Pam Hobbs is described as “unhinged by grief,” while Tom and Dana Moore seek validation of their grieving and desire to know the details of their son’s death (169). Meanwhile, Melissa Byers is the angriest and verbally abuses the accused any chance she gets while her husband curses and performs rituals that Jamison assesses as exaggerated. In a later documentary scene, Byers and Moore shoot guns at pumpkins, and as they do Moore joins Byers in making crude jokes about the teenagers getting raped in prison and wishes for their death. Jamison explores how the need for vengeance and retribution corrupts her sympathy for Moore, turning her emotions toward sadness at the wider implications of such an overwhelming desire for revenge. Jamison uses this to transition into her own feelings of anger when she watched the documentary trilogy for the first time. It was a sense of injustice activated within her that had not previously been explored. She notes they “offered evidence of my own inclination toward empathy,” serving as proof she could explore emotions and situations beyond herself (173). She also notes that while she was fascinated with the accused, it was not until much later she thought about the boys who had been murdered, and she shares details of their autopsy reports to compare the physical devastation that was done to their bodies compared to the emotional devastation experienced by those left behind. Jamison contrasts the anger of an outside viewer to the anger of the parents who wanted to see justice for their children, but she also feels guilty for the families because of their involvement in the conviction of the other boys. Jamison compares the families’ experiences to witch trials and controlled burnings, noting that they had become complicit in something violent following the violence they have already survived.

Jamison talks next about the trial and how Chief Inspector Gary Gitchell was confident of the boys’ guilt leading up to it. She discusses the absurdity of the trial for the accused teenagers, highlighting their disbelief at their sudden involvement. She includes descriptions of moments of levity, when the absurdity becomes too much and laughter ensues despite the terrible circumstances. Baldwin and Echols are described again in terms of their friendship, which is unwavering even after 20 years of imprisonment. She notes a moment between the two of them at a press conference when they hug and repeats a story of Echols catching sight of Baldwin in prison. Jamison then moves on to note the apparent lack of motive for the murders. Press, when nothing was abundantly clear, claimed satanism and the idea stuck. Because of this, for many, rage replaced mourning. However, the former teenagers have a different experience of anger because there is no one to direct it toward, and Echols even exhibits sympathy for the boys who died. Jamison is drawn to Baldwin, both because of a slight resemblance to her own brother and because he manages to find compassion for the victims’ families even as they condemn him.

In the last film of the series, Jamison recounts how John Mark Byers now believes the accused to be innocent and Pam Hobbs believes there should be a new trial. Echols and a woman get married in a Buddhist ceremony while he is still incarcerated. Jamison briefly recounts the history of America’s first witch trials before she describes an Alfred Plea, which is a legal argument that the accused admits that there is enough evidence to convict them without claiming guilt. The three accused take the Alfred Plea and are released from prison. Jamison explores the ways in which the films contribute to them getting attention and is a part of writing its own ending. Jamison provides a brief overview of what the men do upon their release but ends the essay asking speculative questions about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.