Life After Death: An Interview with Damien Echols & Lorri Davis

Summary

Life After Death: An Interview with Damien Echols & Lori Davis

Podcast: Last Podcast On The Left
Hosts: Marcus Parks & Henry Zabrowski
Guests: Damien Echols & Lori Davis
Release Date: November 29, 2024

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1. Introduction to Damien Echols and Lori Davis

The episode opens with hosts Marcus Parks and Henry Zabrowski introducing their special guests, Damien Echols and his wife, Lori Davis. They set the stage by providing context about the West Memphis Three case, emphasizing that Damien Echols is one of the three individuals falsely accused and convicted of murdering three children in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993.

Notable Quote:

• Henry Zabrowski [02:50]: "He's a very, very interesting and smart individual."

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2. The West Memphis Three Case Overview

The discussion delves into the gruesome details of the crime scene, where the bodies of three children were found mutilated and bound in a wooded area. The hosts explain how local law enforcement, influenced by the satanic panic of the early '90s, quickly targeted Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Misskelley despite lacking concrete evidence.

Notable Quotes:

• Marcus Parks [03:30]: "Why they jumped to conclusions that it was satanic activity was because of the quote, unquote, genital mutilations on the boys."
• Lori Davis [08:51]: "But it wasn't them."

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3. Influence of the Satanic Panic

Henry Zabrowski discusses how the broader societal fear of satanic cults during the satanic panic era influenced the investigation. The local security officer, Jerry Driver, convinced the authorities that the West Memphis area was teeming with satanic activity, leading to the wrongful targeting of the West Memphis Three.

Notable Quote:

• Damien Echols [14:56]: "If you do, it won't look like the last one looked."

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4. The Investigation and Coerced Confessions

The hosts explain how the investigation was marred by incompetence and bias. Jesse Misskelley’s confession, obtained through coercion, was pivotal in securing the convictions of the trio. Additionally, the testimony of an older woman about a fabricated Wiccan ritual further tainted the case.

Notable Quotes:

• Damien Echols [10:11]: "You're right."
• Lori Davis [12:11]: "Yes."

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5. Life on Death Row

The conversation shifts to Damien Echols' 18 years on death row. Damien shares his experiences, including the harsh treatment by guards and the psychological toll of being on death row. He highlights how his practice of Western hermeticism and ceremonial magic provided him with a sense of purpose and resilience during his incarceration.

Notable Quote:

• Damien Echols [12:42]: "He is a very, very interesting and smart individual."

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6. Reintegration and Personal Growth Post-Release

Upon his release in 2011 through an Alford plea, Damien discusses the immense challenges of reintegrating into society after decades of isolation. He emphasizes the importance of routine, martial arts, and ceremonial magic in regaining his mental stability and finding peace.

Notable Quotes:

• Damien Echols [20:00]: "What really started to stitch me back together was whenever I could slowly start returning to the ritual work."
• Damien Echols [36:12]: "Absolutely. ... It saved me in a lot of ways."

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7. Practice of Magic and Spirituality

Damien elaborates on his practice of ceremonial magic, describing it as a transformative tool that instills discipline and self-awareness. He explains how different elements (earth, air, fire, water) correspond to various aspects of personal growth and how this practice has continued to shape his life post-release.

Notable Quotes:

• Damien Echols [32:49]: "It's not just make believe, you know, bullshit. This is actually doing something to me."
• Damien Echols [46:08]: "Discipline, yes, yes."

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8. Ongoing Legal Efforts and Hope for Justice

Lori Davis updates listeners on their ongoing efforts with the Innocence Project to further examine the evidence against Damien and his co-defendants. She discusses recent legal rulings and the hope that new testing methods will finally uncover the truth behind the murders.

Notable Quotes:

• Lori Davis [63:15]: "We ended up having to sue the state... they did have it."
• Damien Echols [67:39]: "I knew you were going to ask that question, and I was going to have no answer to it."

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9. Closing Reflections and Messages

As the interview concludes, Damien and Lori reflect on their journey, emphasizing resilience, personal growth, and the importance of supporting wrongful conviction cases. Damien encourages listeners to find passion and discipline in their lives to navigate turbulent times.

Notable Quotes:

• Damien Echols [58:29]: "All you can do is stop worrying about what other people are doing and find something to pour yourself into."
• Damien Echols [61:33]: "You will approach doing your laundry with the same level of clarity and commitment."

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Conclusion

The episode offers a profound look into the harrowing experience of wrongful conviction and the enduring spirit required to overcome such injustice. Damien Echols and Lori Davis provide invaluable insights into their lives, the flaws in the criminal justice system, and the path to personal healing and advocacy.

Final Thoughts: The hosts commend Damien and Lori for their strength and ongoing efforts towards justice, leaving listeners inspired by their resilience and commitment to uncovering the truth.

Notable Quote:

• Marcus Parks [75:25]: "You truly are an inspiration to people everywhere. So thank you for what you do and for speaking out."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and emotional narratives shared by Damien Echols and Lori Davis, offering listeners a detailed and engaging overview of the episode.

Transcript

[Ashley Flowers]

True crime podcasts. There is no shortage to consume. And if you're like me, you've consumed them all. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, we cover a case in a way that's not like you've heard before, because I have built a one of a kind team of investigative journalists dedicated to conducting original reporting, making sure that you get the inside scoop. Listen to hundreds of Crime Junkie episodes. Now, wherever you get your podcasts, if you've got a thirst to put the world on notice, Sprite's for you. Whether you're shooting a masterpiece on your phone, filling notebooks with sketches, or turning your bedroom into the booth, keep going. Obey your thirst, Sprite.

[Damien Echols]

There's no place to escape to.

[Marcus Parks]

This is the last podcast on the left.

[Damien Echols]

That's when the cannibalism started.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What was that? You know when you're watching something and you're like, I'm just so glad that's not me.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Lori Davis]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Most of the things I watch, I think is that's the reason why I watch it is so I can say I'm glad that's not me.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just watching all of the go. Because I haven't. It's been so long since I'd seen Paradise Lost. And watching it all again is just like. You just forget how much of a nightmare scenario.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Lori Davis]

Do you remember that movie the Bear where they just follow the bear around and it's cubs and stuff?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lori Davis]

That's the last time I watched something. Like, I wish that was me.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Last.

[Marcus Parks]

Podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name's Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabrowski.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm looking out for the Satanists, and I think that we get blamed for a lot. And one of the big things that we do tend to get blamed for is it's poking the holes in the gloves. Yeah, yeah. And we should. Shouldn't do it. No. If gloves are fishnets. Unfortunately. And this is me speaking as a Satanist, they don't do their purpose as a glove.

[Lori Davis]

Yeah. Satanists have very cold tops of their fingers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They must.

[Marcus Parks]

And of course, the bearish. Ed Larson.

[Henry Zabrowski]

How you doing?

[Lori Davis]

Sorry, I just thought you were a pot of honey.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Very funny. Don't. Don't eat.

[Marcus Parks]

Not the. Not the first time that's happened. Not even this week.

[Henry Zabrowski]

God, is that for the guy? The old man who tried to give you the records is what he called you.

[Marcus Parks]

And today we have a very special episode. We have a very special interview. I Can't believe we were able to talk to this guy and his wife. Today we have an interview with Damien Echols and his wife Lori Davis.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They were wonderful to talk to, but we wanted to set some context of what we were talking about because we did the West Memphis Three, we covered the story.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that's who Damien Echols is. He is one of the West Memphis Three who were falsely accused of killing three children way back in 1993.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And we covered this many, many, many years ago and we've never had the oper opportunity to speak with Damien Echols about his experience. And now I feel like now that we're a little bit more older, a little bit wiser, wizened, so it's a little bit easier to talk with him about this very heavy subject. But I mean it was. He's compelling as ever. He is a very, very interesting and smart individual.

[Lori Davis]

I can't believe he has such a great disposition.

[Marcus Parks]

That's.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I would hate the world. Oh, I would be talking to me.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, for those of you who aren't familiar with the West Memphis Three or just need a little bit of a refres pressure back in 1993, three children named Stephen Edward Branch, Christopher Mark Byers and James Michael Moore were murdered together. They were children all around eight, nine years old. And their dead bodies were found mutilated in a. Basically a wooded area in the town of West Memphis, Arkansas.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They were me. They were seen because they were first discovered missing that one evening, the evening of May 5th Chr. Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch. And they said that they were missing. They went looking for them to begin their search at the Robin Hood Hills which was like right near where all, all of these, the what would come to be known as the West Memphis three would be where they lived. It was this like weird kind of like middle next to a highway, kind of like embankment forest.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean it's just one of those pieces of woods. It's kind of like where Kaylee Anthony was found. It's just like a piece of woods where kids go to play. Yeah. And so their bodies were found and it was an absolutely horrific crime scene. I mean the kids had been bound, their bodies had been hogtied specifically. Yeah, hogtied specifically. And their bodies, as it would later come out, had been eaten by snapping turtles quite a bit. And so of course the cops on the scene were small town cops, no fucking clue how to handle something like this. And they, they just make a mess of this crime scene. They trample all over it. They're they're in shock. Oh, yes. But at the same time, one of the investigators on the scene turned to another and said, well, it looks like Damien Echols finally killed someone, and that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Man was probably Jerry Driver. But we'll get. We're not going to get into the full. All of the guts of the case. Who was a local security guy, I think it was a high school security.

[Marcus Parks]

Officer, something like that. Like, he was. He had basically turned him. He had made himself like the local Satan squad.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He was convinced that the West Memphis area was saturated with satanic covens doing the will of the devil.

[Lori Davis]

You know, it's not there. It's in New York. It's in la.

[Damien Echols]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

It's just. It's going to be a place that's nice.

[Lori Davis]

Now, did they ever find out we know that Damian is proven innocent? Do we ever find out who did this?

[Marcus Parks]

Absolutely not.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

And that's one of the things we're going to be talking about today with, in our interview with them, the possibility of maybe finding out sometime in the very near future who may have done this. But the point is that before the investigation even started, eyes were already on Damien Echols.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Immediately it came from Jerry Driver, who was a local juvenile officer. He was convinced that Damien Echols was a part of a satanic cult that also featured Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley. He was convinced that they were up to no good, basically because he had found Damien Echols once making out with a chick. They had ran away together when they were in middle school, and he had it out for him ever since.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it was a little more. It was a lot more complicated than that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But, you know, they just had it. It's weird in that way how it does start in a very stupid place and puts a man on death row for 20 years.

[Lori Davis]

Yeah. And this is during the satanic panic, Right.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that's the thing about this, is that, you know, like, the West Memphis three were Damian Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Miscalley. Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were best friends. And they're a couple of kids in a small town. They listen to Metallica, they wear black. They're goth kids, basically. And really, Jason Baldwin really isn't even that much of a goth kid. He just likes Metallica. He likes to draw.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Technically, you'd call him a hesher.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, a hesher, exactly. And Jesse Meskelly, he had been lumped in because he had. I think the quote that Driver said was that he had spiky hair and stuff.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. And he Was like, following them around. Jesse Ms. Kelly was.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, kind of. He said that he was. He knew enough to say hello to him, but he said he. He said Damien Echols actually scared him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah. But he was, like, kind of pallied around him, sort of. And they were familiar with each other. But also remember that Jesse Ms. Kelly had a bit of a learning disability. Yes. And so they were all arrested, subsequently arrested. They could not find the. There was no. There was evidence, but they didn't do anything with it. They had the shoelaces. This is before proper DNA testing could be done. So they had found some portions of material on the shoelaces, but all they could get from it was blood. That was the only thing they had back in the day. They were found stuck in the mud. So when they were pulled up, they had sticks that were stuck in the mud with them that kept their clothes underneath the surface. And the. When they pulled up it. Why they jumped to conclusions that it was satanic activity was because of the quote, unquote, genital mutilations on the boys. Not only were they hogtied, but their genitals were mutilated. And so this was pulled into this. A part of their. They did a big, you know, torture style ritual. And of course, the people with the Marilyn Manson shirt would know exactly how to do that.

[Lori Davis]

But it wasn't them.

[Marcus Parks]

It was turtles.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We were pretty certain. We're pretty certain that it was turtles.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it's pretty certain because, you know, turtles will go after the fleshiest parts of the body first. And, you know, based on the bite marks and based on turtle activity and the fact that just snapping turtles are just everywhere in the Robin Hood Hills area points towards most likely it being snapping turtles that did the mutilation.

[Lori Davis]

Who also, I will say snapping turtles look very satanic.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They do.

[Lori Davis]

They're very, very scary.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They're very scary. They're very, very scary.

[Marcus Parks]

Basically what it all comes down to is that, you know, Damien Echols had kind of been talking around town, being the scary kid, saying, yeah, yeah, I killed those kids.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Whatever. Super evil.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, Basically puffing up his chest a little bit. Just kind of fucking with people.

[Lori Davis]

We all knew a bunch of kids.

[Marcus Parks]

Like that, of course. Yes, of course we did. But at the same time, Jesse Miskelly had been brought in to be interrogated and gave a confession to the police saying that he did it along with Damian and Jason Baldwin. And this is a textbook case of police coercion when it comes to Jesse Miskelly. They lead him on at all points, if he makes. If he says the wrong thing, they'll correct him and he'll say, oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're right.

[Marcus Parks]

You're right. And eventually, you know, and they keep telling him the whole time, like, hey, Jesse, as soon as you tell us this, you're gonna go home.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

All you gotta do is. All you gotta tell. All you gotta do is tell us what happened, you know, and you can go home to the point where, like, he confessed to a triple murder, or at least being involved in a triple murder, witnessing a triple murder, and then sat down and was taken back to his jail cell and sat down, he's like, all right, my dad's gonna come pick me up any second now. Like, no idea of the consequences of his actions. And so based off of that confession, and also based off of the testimony of a woman, an older woman, who said that she had gone to a Wiccan black mass with Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley a few months before. By the way, that was absolutely false. She recanted her entire testimony when it came to that. Turns out she'd just gotten blackout drunk and went to a party in a field and had used that as the framework for like, oh, I went to this Wiccan, you know, this Wiccan party, this Wiccan sacrificial ritual with these other two guys. And so, you know, during the trial, all they had were these confessions. And there was also. They said that they had found these threads on the kids bodies that were, they said, microscopically similar to threads that were found in Damien's trailer, which pretty much just prove that they all shopped at the same Walmart.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, like, it wasn't any. There was by no means anything forensic to link these guys to the crime in any way whatsoever. And there's like, you know, and you can go back and listen to our series to, you know, we go through every single piece of evidence that shows the evidence that shows how they couldn't have done it.

[Lori Davis]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Lori Davis]

The part that tripped me out the most was the stuff with the knife. When the prosecution, like, basically said that this was the knife they used and they found it. But we all know that that was. That knife was tossed in a lake a month before the murders even took place.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, exactly. And so all three of them were found guilty of this triple murder. Jason and Jesse were sentenced to life in prison, but Damian was sentenced to death. He full on got the death penalty. And so Damien Echols spent the next 18 years on death row. And that's going to be a lot of the conversation we're going to be talking about today is, you know, his time on death row, the way he.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Processed it, what he learned from within, what he kind of how he grew while on death row. And kind of looking back, where is.

[Marcus Parks]

He at now exactly, and how his wife Laurie was there for him, you know, and is currently helping him out with this new kind of breakthrough that they're hopefully going to get in this case. But Damian was released in 2011 along with Jason on an Alford plea. Yes, along with Jason and Jesse on something called an Alford plea. It's like basically, an Alford plea is a way for. It's basically a way for someone to get out of jail and at the same time the government not take any responsibility whatsoever.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They essentially be able. He essentially says, okay, I admit the state has enough evidence to convict me, but I am innocent. I am. I'm going to declare this kind of semi version of guilty in order to get off. Yeah, you can get out of jail.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. And that's how they got out of jail was on this alpha plea because they spent, you know, there were, you know, Metallica came to his aid.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Eddie Vedder became a fucking massive cultural phenomenon.

[Marcus Parks]

A cost celeb. You know, Paradise Lost was the first time that Metallica ever allowed license, the use of their music to be licensed in a movie. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because Lars is not the nicest man.

[Marcus Parks]

Who'S ever lived, of course, until they. They really got the opportunity to really let themselves shine in Mission Impossible 2.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they really had it, really had it down there. So we're going to start our interview right now with Damien Echols and Laurie Davis. And we're going to start by talking about what got him into trouble in the first place. And possibly the thing that we're in the middle of right now, good old fashioned satanic panic. So as somebody who was, I would say, directly affected by the Satanic panic of the 1980s and the 1990s, probably the most high profile person to be affected by the Satanic panic. Do you think that America is in the grips of another satanic panic or that another one is coming?

[Damien Echols]

It's hard to say. I mean, if it does, it won't look like the last one looked. You know, the same thing might happen. You might have like groups of people that are persecuted for various reasons, but I don't think it's going to look exactly like it did back then. You know, back then it was like, people today, if you look back at the way the satanic panic looked back then, most people today would think that just looks cheesy. Yeah. You know, you had all the people, like, accusing, you know, Ozzy Osbourne of making people commit suicide by putting backwards lyrics in his music and all this kind of stuff. Nobody would take anything like that seriously now. So I think if something like that does happen, it's going to look completely different.

[Marcus Parks]

All right, so like, for you, like, the satanic panic of the 90s, like, how did that trickle down from a national level down to your local authority figures? Because you know what, and what's incredible to me about your story is, like, how there were people that were in your life even before the murders that seemed to believe that they were battling a personal war against Satan himself. Like, how did that. How did that manifest itself?

[Henry Zabrowski]

And they definitely weren't, because Satan would have won.

[Damien Echols]

I think it kind of trickled down in things. Like you had. I don't even know where these guys came from, but you had people going into these small towns and doing, like, seminars for the cops on how they could recognize, like, satanic activity in their neighborhood. So it was coming, like, trickling down is a really good way to describe it, because it was coming down from somewhere else and being put in, basically put into people's heads, put into the cops heads. Even if the cops had never even thought about it, they had these people coming in and saying, look, this is going on and this is what you need to be on the watch for. And they're like, oh, okay, well, you must know more than we do. So we're going to do what you say.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know, I know that you got a lot of harsh treatment when you win, specifically by the guards who seem to sort of take enjoyment of what you said. Getting you used to the water, essentially, I think you said in your interview with Henry Rollins. It's like one of my questions is, though, like, do you feel like you got any different treatment from the prisoners or anything when you first go in there as the, like, minion of the devil himself?

[Damien Echols]

It was a different situation for me because I was on death row and death row is not like the rest of the prison. You know, there's. There's almost a sense of, like, not exactly camaraderie on death row that you don't have in the rest of the prison, but a sense of unity in that we all have a common enemy. You know, we have someone trying to kill all of us and we are all trying to stay alive. And people on death row look at it as, you know, like, if they, the guards, the administration, whatever, are doing something to you, even if I don't like you, I'm going to try to do something about it. Because if they're doing something to you, they'll do the same thing to me. And you don't really have that in the rest of the prison. So it was like, in a lot of ways, I was really fortunate in getting the death penalty.

[Lori Davis]

Would you say that death row is safer than general population?

[Damien Echols]

I don't think there's anywhere in prison you can call safe. I mean, I think I had. I had been on. I'd been there for, I think maybe three months, the first time I ever saw someone get stabbed to death. So you still have stuff like that going on. You know, you're not by any stretch of the imagination in a safe place, but it's still like a completely different vibe from, you know, general population, say, where you're dealing with, you know, 2,000 people that are there for everything from meth to stealing cars to killing old women, you know, whatever it is.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I mean, I do want to get back to the small town stuff, but while we're on the subject of death row and camaraderie, one of the things that I found really interesting in your writing is how when you wrote about some of these other inmates, there seemed to be not necessarily a sense of fondness, but definitely a sense of familiarity with these other people. Like, were there people that you were with on. On death row that you miss or that you mourn?

[Damien Echols]

Huh? Honestly, I would have to say no. Just because there was nobody.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That was like, super hilarious.

[Damien Echols]

Yeah, yeah, but it wasn't. It wasn't like a deliberate hilarious. It's. It's, you know, people that are so fucked up that you can't, you know, Like, I think I wrote about this, but there was a guy that had like one tooth and he wouldn't drink coffee because he said it would stain his tooth. He's not trying to be funny. Like, he's dead serious. But if you have, you know, even average intelligence, you're going to find that funny.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Damien Echols]

But at the same time, looking back on that stuff now, you know, it really is like that was another person. You know, the person that lived in there, the person that survived that stuff died the day I walked out of prison. So it almost feels like when I try to remain remember these things now, it's almost like, you know, trying to remember someone else's memories or even a Past life or something.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And you're sitting here with Lori Davis. You're honestly extremely brave, powerful wife. You guys have been at your partnership. You've been working together a long time. And was there a part of you, when he left prison that. Did you miss the Oz version of him where you're like, damn, you used to really have that swing and walk?

[F]

That's a. That's a really interesting question, because Damien really did. I mean, he. That was one of the things about him that enabled me to be with him, to stay with him, was. I mean, he commanded that place. He didn't. I'm not saying that there weren't times when things were really scary or he was in danger. It was always. And it was always stressful to think of what could be happening to him, but there was something about him that just commanded his space and he was able to hold his own. And that was the hard part about when he got out, he didn't know the world. He didn't understand any of the systems out here or how to do. I mean, most of. I mean, here's the thing. He survived in a place most of us would never survive.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah.

[F]

For all those years.

[Marcus Parks]

For 18 years, correct?

[F]

Yes. And then he gets out and everything crashes. His brain just crashes. And he can't. It. He was like. He said he was a different person to me, but then I became a different person too, because, you know, I. I say this sometimes. I'd become weaponized to do the things that I needed to do. I wasn't like that before I met him. And so suddenly we're these two people who had these abilities that we don't need anymore.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And it was interesting. Like, how do you put down the sword? Like, what. At what point do you say, we're safe?

[Damien Echols]

Yeah, that's. That's a really good way of looking at it. That's what it felt like. It's like you get used to living in hell. You get so used to living in hell that you get up and you don't even think about it in the day. And then when you get out, suddenly you're having a nervous breakdown because you've never used a debit card before, and you're having to figure out how to do that. You know, all these little things that people out here take for granted, that they grow up knowing how to do it was like I had to figure all of that stuff out. Like, figure out a lifetime's worth of, you know, operating in the world in. In days. And it completely and absolutely destroyed Me, I have almost no memory of the first two years that I was out of prison because it, like, mentally crippled me so bad. It really did something to me. I didn't realize it what it was at the time, but in hindsight, I realized now what was happening was I was having a nervous breakdown. Yeah, I just, like, I would try to tell Lori something is wrong, something is wrong. And she would say, what? And I would say, I don't know. I just know something is wrong. And it would manifest itself in ways. Like, you know, when I was in prison, I would read, like, non stop. Like, sometimes I would read like five books a week. What else are you going to do in there? You read? You work out that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Damien Echols]

The day that I walked out, I couldn't read anymore. Like, I would read the same page of a book over and over and over, and I could not retain what I had read. When I got to the bottom of the page, I knew something was wrong with me. Like, I wasn't thinking right. I couldn't. You know, I would go to dinner with someone and then reintroduce myself to them the next day because I could not even remember it. So I knew. I knew something was going wrong and I knew I was absolutely miserable. But I could not figure out what it was until years later, looking back, what fixed it?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Was it Ivermectin or what brought it all back around? Honestly, like, what is. When did you notice? Like, I actually, I'm okay. Like, I might be okay.

[Damien Echols]

I think it was two things, really. One was, you know, kind of going back to the satanic panic thing for a minute. When I was in prison, one of the things that allowed me to survive in there was the fact that I didn't even think about being in prison for days at a time. And. And the reason for that was because I had built a life for myself inside there. I had stuff that I was doing, like immersing myself in to the point where I didn't even think about the fact that I was in prison. And one of those things was Western hermeticism or ceremonial magic, you know, and it was when I was practicing this, by the time I walked out, I was doing it for like eight hours a day sometimes. And it feels like you're on this adventure where you're. You're constantly having all these experiences and learning stuff, and it's like being on the quest for the Holy Grail to the point where I was content even when I was on death row, not saying I didn't want out didn't want my name cleared, didn't want to go home, but I was content even while I was there. When I walked out of prison, that was one of the things. In addition to like reading and losing my short term memory, it was like I could not do the ritual work that I had been doing for hours a day that had held me together. Suddenly I could not do it at all. And that was another big contributing factor to like the disintegration that I went through. What really started to stitch me back together was whenever I could slowly start returning to the ritual work, pulling my attention away from the world, on trying to figure out how to operate in the world, bringing my attention just back to doing the ritual work and doing that for hours a day. That was one of the things that started stitching me together. The other thing was martial arts. Karate, karate and boxing were two huge steps in returning to any state of being normal.

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[G]

I'm Elliot Kalin and I cannot wait to tell you all about the new podcast I'm hosting for Smartless Media. It's called Smartless Presents Clueless, a bite sized twice weekly game show with a different main game and cliffhanger puzzle every single episode. And all this season, the contestant will always be Sean Hayes. That's the Clueless promise. Since you never know what the game will be, you won't want to miss a single episode. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[Marcus Parks]

It's incredible. I mean, what I'm hearing from you again and again, it seems like the word that keeps coming back to me is reality. Is that it seems like over your life, the nature of reality has changed so many times. And when all of this stuff was starting to happen way back when, way back in the 90s, before you're arrested or even afterwards, at what point did it finally hit you like, oh shit, this is real?

[Damien Echols]

I don't think it's a one time thing. I think it's, you know, that you're in serious shit whenever they arrest you. But you still keep thinking, you know, surely somebody's going to realize something's going wrong here and fix this. At any minute, somebody's going to step in and set this right. You know, someone with an IQ of more than 15 is going to intervene in this situation and write it. And you keep waiting on that to happen. For years you wait on that to happen. And for some men in there, I don't think it ever fully sits in. Like they go all the way up to the point of being strapped to that execution table thinking, okay, at any minute now, this is going to stop. You know, at any minute something's going to change.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Damien Echols]

And so, I mean, I don't think there is ever like, like one moment that you can pinpoint. I think it's a gradual process. And for me also, you know, this is going to sound weird in a way, but there are, there's been a few times in my life when I've met a very small, very small number of people or been in a very small or handful of situations. Whenever I've been in a place or something, whenever I knew. You know, like a lot of times we don't realize in our lives that something is important until we look back at high in hindsight.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Damien Echols]

We, we don't realize while we're experiencing that this is going to be a pivotal moment in the trajectory of my existence. But one of those times was the very first letter that I got from Lori. Like the very first letter that I ever got from her. I knew to the core of my bones this is not just another person, this is not just another letter. And one of the ways that I knew that it felt like something clicked into place and I had this feeling of they can't kill me now, they can still hurt me, they can still fuck me up, but they cannot kill me. It was just like a certainty that went all the way to a soul level. So that also kind of prevented me from, you know, giving into despair or you know, experiencing that moment of, of complete loss of hope and, and all that kind of stuff too.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I also wonder if that like, I find it also fascinating the idea of using hyper methods of concentration to save you, to pull yourself up and out and that really like what a very interesting thing to roll you into ritualistic magic, which is legitimately all about a harness of self awareness and perception.

[Damien Echols]

Yeah, well, you know, a lot of people, whenever they think of magic, they, they have all these like woo woo conceptions, like stuff they've seen in movies or whatever. They don't even, you know, realize like what it really does to you and what it really is. So you know, for example, whenever you, you start first off the very basic beginning levels, you're working your way extensively through levels that correspond to the elements like earth, air, fire and water. And then from there you move on to the planets and then, you know, astrological signs and fixed stars and things like this. But whenever you're doing this, like for example, when you start working on the elements and you start invoking Earth, for example, what, you know, one of the things you do is you start doing ritual work every Single day, repeatedly to invoke energies that correspond to the element of Earth. Well, what starts happening is the aspects of yourself that correspond to that particular energy start to change. So, for example, with Earth, one of the things you find yourself doing is, you know, you're invoking this energy every day and you start to think, you know what, maybe I really should start to exercise a little more. Or maybe smoking cigarettes isn't the greatest idea. I think I'm going to quit. And those are all things that I did in there. So those were aspects of myself that started to change. And I saw that and I realized, holy shit, this isn't just make believe, you know, bullshit. This is actually doing something to me. This is changing me in some way. And the same thing starts happening, like when used. Start invoking water. Every single day, the aspects of you that correspond to water start to change. You know, that includes stuff like your, you know, your, your emotions, your unconscious, your subconscious and, and like, you know, working through like, artistic mediums, you know, so you're invoking water every day. The next thing you know, you just think, you know what, maybe I think I might like to start doing some painting. And I did that. I started buying, you know, I couldn't get paint brushes or anything, so I started using Q tips and I, I bought paint from other inmates that were like, smuggling it in to the prison. And I started doing paintings and even having art shows while I was in prison. So it's like when you're working on magic, it changes every aspect of, of yourself. You know, like when you're invoking air every day, air corresponds to like, your intellect, you know, your ability to use logic and reason. And when I was doing that, that, that was when I woke up one day and I decided, you know what? I want to have the same frames of reference that everybody else has. So I'm going to start, you know, just. I read everything under the sun, from Camus to Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Freud. I started taking psychology classes, sociology classes, German classes, you know, all of them.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You really did prison, prison really well, that's a great. This is a great plan.

[Lori Davis]

I gotta ask is. I guess it's kind of a weird thing to ask someone because obviously the worst thing that could happen to anyone other than being the victim of crime is being wrongfully imprisoned, for one. And. But where do you see yourself if this never happens? Are you a better person because of this? Like now, now? Are you a better person now than you think you would have been if this.

[Damien Echols]

Absolutely.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He might have skipped it. I think he might have skipped the 18 years of death row, but I feel like. I know, I know.

[Lori Davis]

I'm just.

[Damien Echols]

I don't know, you know, that's. I. It's one of those things that to. I think, to most people, when they look at my life and they look at, you know, things like that, that look like blatantly, obviously horrific things, they. They probably think that I have had a shitty life. But honestly, if somebody told me, you know, I think a lot of people got it worse than I did. You know, if they told me, you can do 18 years in prison or you can work at McDonald's for 18 years, I'd be like, fuck, send me to prison. In a lot of ways, I think I really was fortunate in, you know, it took me out of a situation. You know, nobody in my family has a education beyond like the ninth grade when I was born. My mom was 15, my dad was 16. You know, you're not going to find any college graduates, even high school educated, you know, diplomas or anything in my family. So, like, looking at the trajectory of the lives of everyone around me, I didn't have anything to look forward to. You know, there was nothing that. That looked like my fortune was going to be any different from, you know, the people in the environment that was around me. And something happened where I was plucked out of that world, and it saved me in a lot of ways. So, yes, I went through some horrible. But at the same time, I was really, really blessed in a lot of ways.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, the fact that you're not smoking crack and selling, like, high tech pillows and Trump White House, like, literally, the fact that you skipped that shows that you did something, I think.

[Damien Echols]

Correct.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you.

[Damien Echols]

Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. I want to ask you, Lori, like, I know when the two of you got married, you moved down to Arkansas from New York City to be closer to Damien. Did Damien have to give you a kind of like, Arkansas primer of, like, here's what.

[F]

No, because I grew up in rural. I can't say that word ever. Rural.

[Lori Davis]

Me neither. Don't worry about it.

[F]

I grew up in West Virginia. I grew up.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, okay. I grew up in. I grew up in rural Texas, so. Yep, I get to. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Were you a goth, Lori? Like, when you said, were you full gothed out?

[F]

You mean when I was growing up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

When you met, when you, like, guys matter? Like.

[F]

No, I was. We were polar opposites, really. It just didn't make any sense at all.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you feel the pressure now, though? Like, do you feel like Well, I gotta goff it up now if we're going out. I gotta. Got it. I gotta do some stuff. Get some fishnets.

[F]

Here's the thing. I mean, dam. I mean, I never knew how to dress. I didn't have any senses. I just didn't. Well, according to him, I didn't have any sense of style at all. And Damien. So, I mean, I just started after he got out. I said, why don't you just start buying my clothes? So he did, and he still does to this day.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So it's amazing.

[F]

He has a much better. I mean, I dress better now than I ever. I mean, my whole wardrobe, yes, is black, but I have. I actually. I actually really love to. And now he's got me. So we both just wear uniforms all the time. Like I have the same 10 pairs of pants and 10 shirt.

[Damien Echols]

That's. That's not even an exaggeration.

[Lori Davis]

That's.

[Damien Echols]

That's literal. Like, I reached a point where I did not want to have to think about clothes anymore. So I got like five pairs of the exact same pants, 10 of the exact same shirts, about 10 of the exact same kind of underwear, socks, everything. So you just pick up the next one in line and don't have to expend any energy planning on what you're going to wear that day.

[F]

It was funny though, when we got married, all the goth girls online, they were so pissed. I mean, they were.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She doesn't even. She doesn't know. She wasn't on warp tour when I.

[Lori Davis]

I sit around and learn about Buddhism like you did.

[F]

And I wore. I wore this like. It was kind of a. It was like a red kind of. It was. I mean, it was pretty, but it was this red kind of flower dress. And there were all these comments online about she wore that dress. You know, it's just on.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Unbelievable.

[Marcus Parks]

So, Lori, do you also practice like ritual magic? Magic?

[F]

I. My. I. I have a practice. It's not exactly the same as Damien's.

[Lori Davis]

It's.

[F]

It's. It's different, but it's still.

[Damien Echols]

It's in the same vein, the same results.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure.

[F]

Hopefully.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Yeah. Because we all. Because me and Henry have both, you know, practiced ritual magic in the past as well. And, you know, it's. It's different for absolutely everybody. What works for them. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

As I'm getting older, it's changing.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's for certain.

[F]

Yeah.

[Lori Davis]

I'm more of a fan of practical magic. The movie.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The movie with Sandra Bullock. He has a full theatrical poster tattoo on his back of the Poster.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's been different kinds of magic. Like, one of the things I was so surprised to read about is that you, you found a theosophist on death row, a guy who actually studied Madame Blavatsky like crazy. What was, what was his. How did that conversation begin? And like, what was that guy guy? What was his deal?

[Damien Echols]

So he and his best friend, his best friend was a Zen Buddhist who got into a gunfight with the cops and got two of his fingers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Normally, you don't normally hear. That's how a Buddhist does.

[Damien Echols]

They shot off two of his fingers. So everybody on death row used to call him Three Finger Wood. But he had, he had a Zen teacher, a Zen master that would, you know, he was the head abbot of a 300 year old temple in Japan and would come back and forth to teach him. And when you're executed, the only person that's allowed to be with you is your spiritual advisor. Like, no family, no friends, any of that. So this Zen master came over to be with the theosophist's best friend whenever they, whenever he was executed. And after he was executed, he was allowed to come back on death row and tell us, you know, what the guy's last words were and you know, how he held up during the execution, all this kind of stuff. And we just started talking and then started corresponding with each other. And his teacher became my teacher. And before I left prison, like, by the time he was executed, he had become, you know, an ordained priest in the Renzai Zen tradition of Japanese Buddhism. And I followed the same route, you know, trained for years while I was in there, with the same teacher, got ordination while I was in there. But those two guys, the day that I walked in the door on death row, those two guys were the first people to approach me. And they gave me just this pack that had stuff in it that you need on your first day in prison. You know, like, for example, stamped envelopes so you can write to your family and let them know where you are or, you know, what, a bar of soap, you know, stuff like that. And one of the very first things that they said to me whenever I got in there is you can either turn your cell into a monastery and work on yourself, or you can be like the rest of these guys and you can sit in here and go stark raving insane.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, that is such a. It's just an amazing tool to be able to use. And now, like, how do you find it's changed that now that you've been out for a decade plus like, are. Like, do you still kind of have that same mindfulness about you or like, I know you still practice, right? And that's what you teach on your Patreon.

[Damien Echols]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think what it was, like, what part of what was so destructive to me about getting out of prison was getting away from that, you know, being introduced into this world where so much is happening and there's, you know, I went from. From solitary confinement. Like, the last nine years that I was in prison, I was in solitary confinement. I went from solitary confinement to the streets of Manhattan literally overnight. It was like being bombarded with. With everything you can imagine. And I kind of wanted to make up for everything that I had missed and not experienced. I lived on the streets of New York for, you know, years. When I first got out, I wanted to see everything, do everything. I was like, I would go stand in drugstores and just, you know, look at all the ink pens and the chocolate bars and, you know, just the stuff that I hadn't seen in years and years. And it. It got me further and further away from having a consistent routine. Like, part of what started allowing me to heal was getting back to the same things that had allowed me to find contentment and growth in prison, which is in a lot of ways shutting myself off from the world. You know, really, other than even like whatever I'm doing, you know, work wise, like whether it's being on Patreon and doing live streams on there, or writing, you know, the occasional book and have to do, like a book tour or something, for the most part, I found that I am the most content when I am living a very monastic kind of life. You know, I get up every single day and I start practicing karate every single morning. And that's pretty much what my days are dedicated to now. And as long as I do that, I find that I am probably happier than 90% of the people that I come across in the world.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I find that that is the key. I'm stumbling upon it in my older life. But this idea of it's about a sense of discipline, but it's getting rid of the stink off the word discipline.

[Damien Echols]

Discipline, yes, yes. You have to get to love it. Like, you have to realize that this discipline, you know, it might be hard. Like, it's a sacrifice. You sacrifice going on, you know, drunken benders or football games or, you know, whatever it is that people do. You. You sacrifice a lot of that, that socialness that, that people get lost in, but it comes with, you know, a hell of a reward. If you do, do you ever feel.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like it was also intoxicating because when you got out, you were, like, essentially best friends with, like, Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, like, all these, like, rock stars came out. When you guys first got, like, do you find that. That, like, that also must have been very intense and distracting?

[Damien Echols]

It was. You know, in a lot of ways, you know, this. This sounds kind of odd. I'm very, very, very appreciative to all those people more than I could ever say. You know, they've been everybody from Johnny Depp to Eddie Vedder to Henry Rollins, Margaret Cho. You know, so many people. Peter Jackson, you know, more people than I can even name. I would be dead if not for these people, and I appreciate everything they did. But one thing I realized very quickly is I do not like being in those worlds, in those, you know, Hollywood worlds or, you know, being caught up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why, though? It's one of the most pure. There's nothing. What are you talking about? It's not a. It's not a season of other free rapists and criminals and racketeer.

[Lori Davis]

How were the Puff Daddy White parties?

[Henry Zabrowski]

You had to see everything.

[Marcus Parks]

Conversation gone bad. But did you. But when you first came out, did you, like, feel a pressure to participate in those sorts of worlds?

[Damien Echols]

Kind of. Just because when I walked out of prison, you know, I didn't have a penny to my name. I didn't have a suit of clothes to change into. I had nowhere to go. I had absolutely nothing. So if it wasn't for, like, the generosity of, you know, a lot of these people helping us out and even, like, giving us a place to stay until, you know, crazy story. We ended up staying in an apartment in New York. You know, Peter Jackson, he and his wife Fran, they had this apartment in New York, and they're like, you know, that's how we ended up in New York. They're like, why don't you go and stay there in our apartment, you know, until you figure out what you're going to do, you know, what. What your next step's going to be. All that kind of stuff. Stuff. And then now it's the apartment that Taylor Swift lives in. She bought an apartment, and that's where she lives. You do feel a sense of pressure in that you want to show your appreciation and make people happy and all this kind of stuff, but at the same time, it's just. That's not my scene. That's not a thing that I enjoy. I don't like parties. I don't like, like, fancy dinners you know what? One time we went to that concert that they had in New York after Hurricane Sandy, and I mean, everybody was there. I remember Kanye west, the Rolling Stones, the who, Roger. Like, everybody's at this thing, right? And we're sitting there and we've been there for probably 30 minutes. And I was thinking, you know what? I've got part of a pizza in the fridge at home that I'm actually eating right now. And we got up and laying. Yeah, yeah, man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Lori Davis]

Hey, you enjoyed it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That makes you a real New Yorker, though. Yeah.

[Lori Davis]

Now, currently, you. You're working with the Innocence Project, correct?

[Damien Echols]

Yes, yes.

[Lori Davis]

Now, one of the things I learned, I. I've had many long conversations with Jason Flom, who also works with the Innocence Project, and the one thing that I learned from him about Death Row that stuck with me is that it is suspected that 1 out of 20 people on death row is innocent. Now.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Right.

[Lori Davis]

Like, did you know anyone else on Death row that you thought might have been innocent?

[Damien Echols]

Yeah, at least, you know, there were. There were at least two that were just straight out flat up innocent, you know, that had nothing to do with anything they were charged with at all. But there were other really weird cases. You know, for example, there was a guy that was on death row because his brother had committed a murder, and he was taking the fall for his brother because his brother was at home taking care of their mom and jeez.

[Marcus Parks]

It'S a whole thing.

[Damien Echols]

So, yeah, stuff like that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You also.

[Damien Echols]

People that are. They get out the. No, one of them got out. One of them, I believe, was executed after I. After I got out. Wow. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Geez.

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Damien Echols]

Beth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[G]

Elliot Kalin and I cannot wait to tell you all about the new podcast I'm hosting for Smartless Media. It's called Smartless Presents Clueless, a bite sized twice weekly game show with a different main game cliffhanger puzzle every single episode. And all this season, the contestant will always be Sean Hayes. That's the Clueless promise. Since you never know what the game will be, you won't want to miss a single episode. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[H]

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[Marcus Parks]

Well, I mean concerning your magic and you know, in this type of environment that you're talking about, like, you know, it's the type of magic that you write about and you talk about, you know, it was born in a very dark place, arguably, you know, one of the darkest places you can be. But it's a, it seems very radiant is a word I describe as, you know, it's very radiant. There's, you know, you talk about angels and those sorts of like other beings that you have regular communication with. Like why do you think that that sort of philosophy was born from such a dark place?

[Damien Echols]

Case I don't know. Well, I take that back. I. I think it's you've always had elements of society that want to keep people under their thumb. You know, that. That don't want you to be fully conscious. You know that. That basically want you to remain in slavery for. For your entire life. And they demonize things so that you don't look in places is where you'll find something that's going to bring you out of that, that's going to wake you up from that. But that's exactly what magic is. You know, I think one of the best descriptions I've ever heard of what you're doing whenever you are practicing this work was by Beethoven. And I'll mangle this. This isn't. I won't get it exactly right. But it was something along the lines of. He said that the greatest thing that we could possibly hope to do is approach divinity as closely as we can, gather its rays and disseminate them out to mankind. And different people are going to do that in different ways. You know, Beethoven obviously did it through his music. Other people may do it through writing. Other people may do it through visual art. Other people may do it through podcasts. Whatever it is, it's a way other people.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Other people do it. It's.

[Damien Echols]

But that's what you're doing when you're. You're practicing magic and you're doing the exact same thing that all the prophets in the Old Testament talk about in, like, this veiled language, you know, like in the book of Enoch and the prophet Ezekiel, you know, where they're talking about, like, approaching the throne of God and all this sort of Jacob's ladder, you know, that's what. When you're talking about these. The levels of magic where you start off with the elements and then you move up through the planets and then the astrological work and the fixed stars, all of that, what you're doing is step by step, ascending. In the Bible, they use the metaphor of Jacob's ladder. You know, Jacob goes to sleep and he sees this ladder that ascends from earth to heaven. And there's these angels that are constantly coming up and going down, ascending and descending. Like, that's like a metaphor for this work, climbing one rung at a time from each element to each planet, to each astrological sign, to each fixed star, until you reach, like, the throne of. Of God and. And bathe in that divine energy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Have you gotten there?

[Marcus Parks]

What's that?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like.

[Damien Echols]

Those are things that I used to talk about a lot, and I stopped doing it. I won't say any names, but I did a podcast one time where I was talking. This was a huge podcast and it's supposed to be about spirituality and all this kind of stuff. And the guy asked me pretty much something along the same lines of what you're. What you just asked. And I said, so you fixed it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Then.

[Damien Echols]

I started talking about some things, and I could tell by looking at his face, like, he was like, this guy is fucked up. That podcast never aired. He completely shelved it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, we're putting this out? Yeah, yeah, we're putting this the fuck out.

[Lori Davis]

Maybe twice.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I actually wonder if, like. Cause I do. I believe that partially what we are going to face in the next couple of years is it's going to be difficult for people that are of our persuasion to handle. Kind of, definitely both the messaging and the temperament and just the straight vibes are going to be off for the next couple of years. What do you think is a good way to give people advice about finding that strength and peace, peace within during an extremely turbulent time?

[Damien Echols]

All you can do is stop worrying about what other people are doing and find something to pour yourself into heart and soul that is going to make you a better person. And by better person, I mean, like, more physically fit, smarter, you know, a little more emotionally mature. Like, if you just pour your energy into something that you love, whatever it is, whether it's yoga, martial arts, ceremonial magic, whatever, hiking, whatever the hell it is, if you pour yourself into it and strive to the best of your ability to get, you know, 1% better at it every single day, then you're going to find that you don't fall into those angsty traps that swallow most people up nearly as much as, you know, most other people do. That's. That's one of the things about, like, you know, ceremonial magic. The. The things you realize, like, one day you. You think, wow, I don't get pissed off nearly as much as I used to, and if I do, it passes a lot quicker. Or, you know what? I don't fall into those random bouts of angsty depression that I used to, like when I was a teenager, in my early 20s, like that. It's like it just stopped. Like, you realize, looking back in hindsight, you know, you don't always realize the changes that are occurring in yourself when you're going through them. But when you look back in hindsight, you realize, you know, wow, something was really happening there. That's the only thing that I tell people is usually people who. I'm very wary of, people who want to save the world. Usually those are people who aren't doing a lot of internal work. Work. What I usually advise for people who are just miserable, you know, due to external situations, circumstances, whatever it is, is find something that you love and pour yourself into it with everything you have, and you'll find that the world gets, like, 90% better.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And I also feel that to my fellow magicians or people who want to do this and do this type of work, is that what you don't know is that according to. Especially people like Gerda Jeef and these other things is that you can turn doing your laundry into a meditative exercise that benefits you spiritually, physically. Like, there's a thing about it. It's how you do things.

[Damien Echols]

Yes, exactly. You know, that's. That's the thing about, like, martial arts. And one of the things that I love so much about karate is, like, when you're. When you're practicing, you are building, like, a kind of discipline that theoretically and hopefully will eventually start to leak over into every other aspect of your life. Like, you will approach doing your laundry with the same level of clarity and commitment and dedication as you do whenever you go into class to practice.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's time to kick Stains his ass. I gotta go in there and kick the shit out of my wife's panties. That's what I do.

[Marcus Parks]

So as far as what's going on with y'all now, like, y'all have had a huge year. You've had a big. You've had a really, like, a huge hurdle has finally been crossed as far as finally clearing your name. Like, tell us about this ruling that occurred in April this year.

[Damien Echols]

Well, that was one of the reasons I wanted Lori to do this is because I. Here's the thing. I. I pay very, very little attention to my case at all. Like, I can tell you almost nothing that's going on at any given period of time. Just because I found that the more I paid attention to that stuff and the more that I focused on the details of what was happening and what could be happening next and when is this going to happen and when's the timeframe for that? The more I paid attention to that, the more it pulled me out of, like, that monastic kind of life and made me focus on the things that made me miserable again. So Lori really does handle, like, 95, 98% of everything going on in the case, and that's why I wanted her to be here so that she could. I knew you were going to ask that question, and I was going to have no answer to it.

[Lori Davis]

That's amazing. Thank you, Lord, for all that you do.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So please explain because we want to know. Because I know that we. We tried to. I'm going to. I'm not even going to try to expl Explain what the Alfred plea is and all that stuff, because it's a. Feel like it's one of these things. So it's like, does this change that?

[F]

We don't know yet. It. I mean, that will be. I mean, once we get the testing done and we're feeling.

[Marcus Parks]

First of all, tell us what the. What the testing is and what. What, you guys finally got over the line?

[Lori Davis]

I have no idea.

[F]

Yeah. So let me start with just the. Even a little bit of backstory. So we. Because it's been. I mean, it's. It's been. It's. It's been a long, hard road to get here. So we asked for. To test evidence in 2019 because of a new technique called MVAC. And so. But there's a lot of new techniques that are. That are even around now. So anyway, we. One thing after another, and we ended up. It just was. I mean, dealing with Arkansas was a nightmare. And we ended up. Finally, they told us that the evidence had been lost, stolen, or burnt up in a fire.

[Marcus Parks]

And the evidence was a shoelace. Correct. From the crime scene.

[F]

It was. Yes. All of the. All the laces that tied the victim. So that would have. There were. Let's see, how many sets. Sets of shoelaces. That would have been Six. Six. So we ended up having to sue the state in order to get access to the evidence to see if they had it, and it turns out they did. So then we had to sue. Then we had to go to court to ask if we can test the evidence. And that's why we ended up in the Supreme Court, which that. I mean, all of this took what we. We got that rule ruling last April, this past April. So that would have been from 2019 to 2024. That's how long it took.

[Marcus Parks]

Wow.

[F]

To do this.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Damn.

[F]

Yeah. And. And then people. I know people have been getting. Because that was huge when that Supreme Court handed down that ruling, but that wasn't. That was just the beginning. That's telling. And we've been so truly blessed with what's going on in Arkansas right now, because the prosecutor is actually working with this wonderful prosecutor named Sonia Fonticello, and.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, it's a prosecutor who actually wants to find the people who committed the crime. What a fucking novel idea.

[Damien Echols]

Yeah, exactly.

[F]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Honestly, the. Casey Anthony's got nothing going on. She can maybe help to get in.

[F]

There and have her search so, but it's, but now it's taken, taken, it's, and people don't understand why it's been taking so long. They're like, well, you, you know, they said you could test it. Just why don't you test it? But our lawyer, Steve Braga, who has just been, he's, he's just been, he's the most amazing lawyer. And it dam, it was Damien who sued the state and took this to court. Jason, and Jason Baldwin and Jesse, Ms. Kelly were not a part of that law lawsuit. So we knew at some point they were going to have to come on board. So in the last, for the last few months, what we've been doing is coordinating with their legal teams so that we all have an agreed upon order with the prosecutor. We haven't, we're not there yet. We're close. We're thinking it's, we're probably going to have an agreed upon order. And this means all the evidence is going to be tested, tested and all of the techniques we're going to use, what labs we're going to use down to what scientists we're going to use. So it is going to be a very, very tight order. And we've been working with the Innocence Project to get recommendations and other experts across the, I mean, really, the best people have come aboard to help us. Couldn't have a better team. And finally everyone's, we're moving toward an agreement. Probably we'll have it in December. They're thinking we'll probably start testing in January and we'll probably have results. They're thinking earliest could be late February. So this is amazing. And I can't discuss all of the evidence that we're going to be testing. I can say that the ligatures are part of it and hairs, but there's also going to be other, other things tested.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's going to be, that's in what a journey. Keep in mind of this is crazy. It's what, 30 years now is this.

[Damien Echols]

But keep in mind also this is one of those things, like, you know, even when the DNA testing does come back, like say it comes back in February, you know, people that haven't spent most of their lives tangled up in the, the legal system don't realize, like, how slowly this all moves. I mean, keep in mind that when the first round of DNA testing was done back, the, the testing that got us out of prison, you know, they found out that the DNA at the crime scene did not match me, Jason or Jesse. I sat in prison for another three years after we knew that. So that. That's kind of how slowly this stuff moves.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, especially to. For them to tell themselves they're wrong, because I don't think the government doesn't. He don't like it.

[Marcus Parks]

Isn't that the whole point of the Alfred plea is for everybody to just sort of say, like, no one has to be wrong.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Damien Echols]

Yes.

[Lori Davis]

Do you have. Obviously you can't reveal anything, but do you have a good idea who you think might have been responsible for this crime?

[Damien Echols]

Everybody kind of has their own ideas. This was one of the things my lawyer told.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, my God. Do the two of you have different ideas?

[Damien Echols]

Whoa.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you guys bother.

[Marcus Parks]

You fight over dinner about who actually did it?

[Damien Echols]

This was one of the things that my lawyer even said, like, you know, I asked him before we came on, like, is there anything I can't talk about? And he's like, don't go on saying, you know, who you think.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You don't.

[Lori Davis]

Definitely don't have to give any names. But, like, do you think.

[Damien Echols]

You know, I've always had a really. I've had a sneak in suspicion about someone that was very, very shady and that I don't think anyone else has ever looked at this person before.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Is it possible that we're going to end up. It's just going to. Whoever it is is probably at this point, they might be dead.

[Damien Echols]

I think they're still alive.

[F]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Okay.

[Marcus Parks]

Got it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Got it. Good.

[Lori Davis]

Wow.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hopefully they're scared. Hopefully they know it's coming. Because it's like we go through, especially a crime of that nature, the fact that there was as little. There definitely was evidence. But as you've alluded to, which is why we didn't go hardcore into the details of your case, because largely our audience is very well aware. And it is just, you know, the, the. The crime scene itself was so insane and so, so horrible. Like, just the idea that three children ostensibly would have done it as Wild.

[Damien Echols]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's what I mean about how, like, I found that the thing that kept me from going insane was building a world for myself where I was focusing on something, you know, like, other than the case. Because, you know, like I said, I sat there for three years after the first round of DNA testing showed that it didn't match us. You know, if I would have been focused every day on, okay, the DNA wasn't mine, they're going to let me go home now. Right. Like, I would have lost my mind in that three years if I would have focused on.

[Henry Zabrowski]

On that with you and the other guys, are you. Are you sort of, like. How do you put it? Like, are you friends with the guys, like, that you were like, with, like. Or is it one of those things where you're just still kind of connected, like, in terms of, like, your relationship?

[Damien Echols]

I think it's more that. I think it's more the latter, like, just being connected. You know, Keep in mind that I didn't even. Like, when we were in prison, they didn't even let us see each other. So. Yeah, you know, you're talking about someone, like, when I was a teenager, Jason Baldwin was my best friend, but, you know, I didn't even see him for 20 years while I was 18 years and 76 days. You know, it's. It wasn't like we were hanging out and having conversations and, you know, he was 16 years old when he went to prison. When he came out, he was a. An adult. You know, he's not the same person that he was. You know, I always think if you're friends with the same people that you were friends with when you're 16, that you are when you're 50, which is what I'm about to be, something's probably went wrong in your life. Probably not a lot of growth happening there or something, but, you know, for the most part, it's like, we're probably just connected by the case. Like, I don't even know where Jesse is now, honestly. You know, he just. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I didn't know if you guys all got together and played pool or. But then I figured, like, why would you want to review. Why would you want to go back.

[Damien Echols]

Kick it about the good old days? Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Also, what are we going to really do about these satanic cults? I really want. I think it's time we can really crack down on them, because you and I can infiltrate these people. They think that we're a part of them.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Damien Lori, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been an absolute pleasure to have both of you.

[Damien Echols]

Thank you guys so much for having us.

[Lori Davis]

This has been.

[F]

It's been a pleasure.

[Damien Echols]

It's been fun.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, dude. And honestly. So anything you want anybody to look up just in terms of. You want to lay out your Patreon? Because you're doing. What are you doing on the Patreon? Just so that people know, I do.

[Damien Echols]

Live streams, and honestly, I do a little bit of. Mostly what I try to do is help people focus on things that are going to make them happier, feel better, and a huge part of that is ceremonial Magic. You know, I try to help. There's been people on there that have been with me for years, that we talk about their practices. I only do live streams on there because I like interacting with people. You know, I don't just like doing videos. I like, you know, the back and forth, the conversation. So it's everything from martial arts to ceremonial magic, magic to philosophy. You know, anything that's going to make you a better, wiser, stronger person.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Awesome. No feet.

[Damien Echols]

No. Who? What feet?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No feet.

[Marcus Parks]

He's alluding to the possibility of you selling pictures of your feet for sexual masturbation purposes.

[Damien Echols]

I don't think anybody wants to see my feet, man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You'd be surprised.

[Lori Davis]

If you want, we can talk.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know some guys. You ever heard of prison feet?

[Damien Echols]

No.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're gonna love it.

[Damien Echols]

Somebody told me one time that my feet look like the halfway transition point in that movie the Howling. Whenever there's.

[Lori Davis]

I'm so turned on right now.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Oh, dear.

[Marcus Parks]

And before we go, like, please tell us the names of your books that you've written on magic and the books you've written about your time in prison. They're fantastic. Fantastic.

[Damien Echols]

If you're interested in the prison stuff, you know, my life story in general. There was. The first one was called Life After Death. Then there was another one that is just a book of mine and Lori's correspondence, like our letters while I was in prison, and it's called Yours For Eternity.

[Lori Davis]

Do you still write letters or you moved on to email?

[Damien Echols]

We. We've moved on to texting each other. Memes for the most true love.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's what marriages.

[Damien Echols]

The magic books would be High Magic Angels and Archangels. A Magician's Guide and Ritual.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dude, you are a wonderful resource, and thank you so much, Lori, for being here, too. Like, this really has been this. It's. We've been trying to do this a long time, so I'm glad we got to do it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Damien Echols]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You truly are an inspiration to people everywhere. So thank you for what you do and for speaking out.

[Damien Echols]

Thank you guys so much for everything. Everything.

[Lori Davis]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hail sweet Satan. This is great. From your grave. Wow. Yep. Wow. What an incredible interview.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Lori Davis]

I mean, it was. I. I feel like a smarter person.

[Marcus Parks]

He's.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He's a very inspirational person. It's good to be around him.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It's an absolutely harrowing story, but it's. It's extremely inspirational at the same time. I mean, for a man to find peace like that, I mean, the strength that it must take to find something like that. Is incredible.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't have it. I would die in there. Go to Patreon so go to patreon.com podcast and love to watch us talk and to see us live. You could go see our live stream every Tuesday at 6pm PST.

[Lori Davis]

That's right. Live baby. We're coming to Brooklyn next week. I can't wait. King's Theater. One of the coolest venues in America. It's going to be a amazing. That's going to be December 7th at the in Brooklyn at the King's Theater. Come hang out with us.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep.

[Marcus Parks]

And Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, Detroit, Toronto. We're coming to all your cities next year. So go to lastpodcast on the left.com to see when those shows are and how Geen fuckers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hail Satan, you pieces of shit. And remember, Satan's not gonna fuck you like that.

[Lori Davis]

Nope, he's not going to Eye contact.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep.

[Lori Davis]

Hail Damien.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[G]

I'm Elliot Kalin and I cannot wait to tell you all about the new podcast I'm hosting for Smartless Media. It's called Smartless Presents Clueless, a bite sized twice weekly game show with a different main game and cliffhanger puzzle every single episode. And all this season, the contestant will always be Sean Hayes. That's the Clueless promise. Since you never know what the game will be, you won't want to miss a single episode. Episode. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ashley Flowers]

If you've got a thirst to put the world on notice, sprite's for you. Whether you're shooting a masterpiece on your phone, filling notebooks with sketches, or turning your bedroom into the booth, keep going. Obey your thirst, Sprite.