Finally Free.

I will be the first to tell you that I'm not the type to bitch about current events. This situation, however, is much different.

As someone who has followed the injustice served to the West Memphis Three for the past five years or so, Friday afternoon's news of their release came as a shock, though it was a good one. As soon as the news came down, I checked every link I could find, reading the same lines over and over again, not even realizing as tears streamed down my face.

I was happy. I was absolutely and completely in shock, surprise, and glorified happiness. I have spent years doing what I can to tell people about the case, reading up on it myself, and knowing just how unjust what those three men went through for nearly two decades was. When I heard there was a deal on the table on Friday morning, I had goosebumps.

The connection that I felt to the case was not purely through research and understanding of the injustices done to Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. It was because I could see myself in their shoes. As a kid, I grew up listening to punk and metal music, wearing black, writing bad poetry, and allaround being a little bit scary. If the town I grew up in had been any smaller, and if something as horrific as those murders had taken place with the same police circumstances in West Memphis, I would have been typecast as the type of person to do something like that. If you did the same, it could have been you, too. That's why I read the news and could do nothing but cry. I was absolutely certain that these men would not have been absolved of their crimes until long after Damien was put to death. Then, it would have been treated as a "whoops!", as so many mistakes in the justice system seem to be these days.

While the plea deal was not perfect, it was what it took to get these three innocent men out of prison. And really, they will never live a 'normal' life, no matter how you look at it. They will forever be typecast as 'baby killers' to some, and their innocence will forever be questioned. They still have much work to do, both to get acclimated to life in the outside world, and to clear their names forever. At least now they are safe, and can all begin the healing process.

The story is not over now that the West Memphis Three are out of prison. www.wm3.org has all of the information on the case, the Paradise Lost documentaries, and what you can still do in order to help the men clear their names. There is still much work to be done. For more information, I would personally recommend checking out Devil's Knot by Mara Leveritt, it is one of the best books on the case I've read, and boasts much information.

While the West Memphis Three walk free, they will not be truly free until their names are cleared and the true murderer of those three boys is brought to justice.