WEST MEMPHIS , Ark., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. country music star Natalie Maines is rallying support for three young men she believes were wrongly convicted of killing three 8-year-old boys in 1993.
Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, said she wants to raise awareness and money to help Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, who were convicted when they were teens of murdering three little boys in West Memphis, Ark., the Nashville Tennessean reported Tuesday.
"I encourage everyone to see the documentaries 'Paradise Lost' and 'Paradise Lost 2' for the whole history of the case," Maines said on her band's Web site. "I only discovered the films about six months ago, and when I finished 'Paradise Lost 2,' I immediately got online to make sure that these three wrongly convicted boys had been set free since the films were released. My heart sank when I learned that the boys were now men and were still in prison."
Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in jail, while Echols is on death row, however, the documentaries suggest -- and critics of how the case was handled have long argued -- their convictions were a miscarriage of justice.
