If you are familiar with the case of the West Memphis Three, this book needs no introduction. If you’re not, I’ll give a quick recap: On May 5, 1993, three young boys were found murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. Investigators, influenced by the satanic panic of the 1980s and early 1990s, were sure the murders must have been committed by a satanic cult and focused on a couple of teenagers who liked wearing black. After getting an acquaintance with an I.Q. of 72 to confess and implicate himself and the black-clad pair, all three were convicted. They were finally released in 2011—after close to 20 years in prison—on an unusual plea that required them to plead guilty while maintaining innocence.
Damien Echols, the “ringleader” (according to the prosecutors who saw a satanist behind every bush), spent his two decades locked up on death row. The events are detailed in his prior memoir (which I reviewed two years ago), so anyone who has read it or much about the case in general would be aware that he married while on death row. Yours for Eternity gives an epistolary look on how Lorri Davis, a landscape architect living in New York, got to know the man on death row—a long distance relationship that progressed to her moving to Arkansas to be closer and then the aforementioned marriage.
The letters do not just give a cute portrait of two people who had to get to know each other solely through written words, especially in the early years of their love story. Long-time followers of the case will also get some background on legal events, such as the journey to the Alford plea, as well as things I hope nobody reading this will need to use, such as how to smuggle things into prison (just FYI, Lorri was only smuggling fresh fruit to her husband, a tough item to come by on death row). It was a stunner how much providers of prison phone calls can charge—large long-distance bills would be expected, but there are a surprising number of service fees that add up.
The letters included in this book were carefully culled out of thousands, and I actually needed to remind myself of this frequently. Some of the letters were very intimate and made me feel like a voyeur or trespasser. However, that also made me think: if you are not allowed to touch the person you love, writing is the only way to display how you feel—and if you’re kept apart long enough, knowing that guards can read everything you send, your privacy boundaries will adjust accordingly. In other words, neither Damien nor Lorri feels any reader is violating their privacy by picking up the book.
