Damien Echols, author of Life After Death, shared his incredible story with the Wentworth community on September 12.
Echols, along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr, were teenagers when they were arrested in 1993 for the murders of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas. Baldwin and Misskelley were
sentenced to life in prison, while Echols was sentenced to death.
In 2011, following a decision regarding newly produced DNA evidence, the three were released. Echols appeared at Wentworth as part of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences’ summer reading event. He addressed his 18 years spent on death row, the role a series of documentaries played in his release, and what he learned about himself while in prison.
He also shared his uneasiness with technology (“The only thing I use is Twitter”) and his belief that Wentworth students can do anything they set their minds to doing.
“They have the ability to create the life that they want to create,” Echols said.
“They don’t have to accept the life that’s handed to them or be passive when it comes to the reality in which they exist. They can make the world the way that they want it to be.”
–Greg Abazorius
