I have just downloaded the final piece of the Memphis 3 documentary,Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory. This is the final hurdle in the chronicle that was the child killing scandal that hit the USA 19 years ago this year.
I remember when I watched the first documentary, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills; taking away from it, the shock of the photos of dead innocent children on the screen and the clear lack of evidence to put these three teenagers behind bars, I was left with rolling credits, loud Metallica music and a feeling that the next one would be just as good and leave me even more angry with the American justice system.
So I quickly sought out and found the second installment, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations. This time I wasn't really left feeling in anyway different, has I had imagined would be the case. The law was wrong, innocent people were being tortured in what could be called the most unlawful injustice in years and three boys were still dead.
But, and I know this isn't something many people would have an issue with, I had a problem with the portrayal the film makers brought about. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, albeit it very talented men behind a camera like to play the conductor of the orchestra as well.
Without strictly pointing the finger, they very much point their camera in the direction of one man- the erratic, strange and volatile John Mark Byers. This man couldn't have played into the documentary makers hands any better than if he actually went into supposed detail about what "probably happened" before the little boys were eventually murdered (think Joe O' Reilly, when he liked to give people a tour of the home he shared with his wife before she was brutally murdered one morning- he was later found guilty of the crime).
Byers, in the first film, brings the camera and filmmakers with him to the crime scene, imagines what it is his step son went through in that cold, desolate and lonely place and then describes the pain he would inflict on the killers- if they were to ever get out of prison.
In the second film, Byers is more alone and more vocal then ever before. We read on screen that his wife, Melissa had passed away the year before filming had taken place- her death was still undetermined but they had confirmed at the time that it was drug related, which was apparently no surprise to her second husband.
We are told there are numerous explanations for Byers no longer having his own teeth- three scenarios are told- all by Byers during the filming and he that doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest. And the audience are met with more personalities of Byers than anyone could due comfortable with.
Quiet and unassuming one moment, to impassioned, religious and tortured the next. He spoke calmly to the specialist dealing with his lie detector test and yet had no problem getting up close and personal out the courthouse with the supports of the West Memphis 3. His behaviour was not something that could be safely put into one category and for that he was the dream candidate for the answer in whodunnit film making.
Most of the evidence in the initial case is moot at this point when it is now heavily criticised for it's lack of moral foundation in the first plea, the lawyers themselves had been paid by Berlinger and Sinofsky for their part in the first film. Making their integrity on screen seem that bit more blurry now.
But all that aside, the second film left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt the film makers agenda was two fold. Paint the, rightful, picture of innocence to the fallen and more worryingly use their powers to set blame down.
Granted I too feel that there is something "not quite right" about Byers, I am not about to fuel his ego by allowing him to star in his own film, and I am certainly not going to accuse the man of something no one can be sure of.
The worst part of this story is the glaring fact that there can be no happy ending. Dozens of lives have been destroyed and three little boys were murdered before they could even learn to live.
The final installment of the documentary has just been released and with the remnant cheers of the crowds in Arkansas welcoming home the three men who's lives were ruined forever when they were arrested for a crime they did not commit the problem in Paradise Lost is still hanging over the audience all the same.
Who is the killer.
