The Battle at the Mall star court, which brought terror and destruction to Hawkins caused the series’ leads to break up for the first time. How could it be otherwise? the creators of the series prepared a new epic fight against a supernatural threat, that has kept viewers glued to the screen since its premiere on May 27.
Netflix’s star series has broken all the platform’s records since its premiere in 2016, with more than 65 awards and 175 nominations, including those for the Emmy Awards, lhe Golden Globes, the Grammys, the SAG, DGA, PGA, WGA, BAFTA, a Peabody Award, AFI Program of the Year, the awards People’s Choice Awards or the Teen Choice Awards.
And at the moment, it seems that it is still very much alive despite being in its fourth season. The third amassed 40.7 million family accounts in its first four days on the service, more than any other Netflix movie or series in that period, and 64 million households in its first four weeks on Netflix.
Even though all the monsters of the series are imaginary, there is much truth in it. On the one hand, the music, chosen in an exquisite way and that recovers mythical themes of the 80s; and on the other hand, it takes the viewer back to the time, where esotericism greatly influenced people’s behavior and that sometimes ended tragically. One of these episodes is Damien Echols, who spent 18 years on death row for a satanic ritual in which three children died savagely despite the fact that their involvement could never be proven. The case, known as the West Memphis (Arkansas) murders, lands in the series via Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), inspired by Schols, leader of the club West Memphis Three.
Eddie is a lover of Rock metal, a drug trafficker misunderstood, regarded as a monster by athletes from the institute of hawkins and has a particular rivalry with Jason Carver (Mason Dye), the team captain of basketball.
However, that doesn’t stop him from befriending Jason’s girlfriend, the cheerleader. Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien), when she asks for drugs to end her nightmares. Eddie is accused of murdering Chrissy after Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) killed her in her trailer. Jason angers an angry mob to track him down, convinced that he is the leader of a satanic cult.
The plot is a nod to “satanic panic” of real life that took over the US in the 1980s and 1990s, where groups that worshiped the devil and committed terrible sacrifices and abuses of young children multiplied. The geek Netflix account confirmed the relationship between the fictional character and the real one.
STRANGER THINGS 4’s Hellfire Club storyline — and especially the character Eddie Munson — were inspired by the documentary series PARADISE LOST.
Eddie is loosely modeled after writer and artist Damien Echols, who was a member of the West Memphis Three. pic.twitter.com/nyUnvZ5B8x
—Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) May 28, 2022
What exactly happened at the West Memphis Three?
In 1993, three eight-year-olds, Michael Moore, Steven Branch Y Christopher Byers, were found dead near a creek in West Memphis. their bodies were mutilated Y tied up with their own shoelaces.
Investigators quickly determined that it was a crime related to a satanic cult and focused on Echols, 18, who I used to practice Ouija board I had long hair, I read books Stephen King and he liked heavy metal. The agents knew that he had dropped out of school because he was a usual in police station for theft and robbery. He also had a history of mental health problems and depression.
Despite being found guilty by both agents and the media before the trial took place, Echols actively and passively denied any involvement in such heinous crime.
Despite this, he was arrested along with his friend Jason Baldwin, 17, who also denied the facts. The problem was that fear and police pressure led 16-year-old Jessie Misskelley to frame them. He told the agents that was with them when they committed the crimes but that she did not participate. Misskelley was questioned for 12 hours and without the presence of a lawyer despite being a minor. Yes statement it was full of contradictionsincluding the statement that sexually abused childrensomething that had not happened.
Despite circumstantial evidence, Echols and Baldwin they were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1994. Baldwin was sentenced to life in prison while Echols received the death penalty as the leader of the group.
In 2007, DNA tests, a technology that was not available when the crimes were committed, showed that there was no physical evidence that would link any of the three to the crime. The case attracted media attention in the United States and popular figures such as Johnny Depp, or the leader of Pearl Jam, Eddie VedderThey came out publicly to ask for their release.
Do you remember my beloved Eddie Munson? Well, here you have Damien Echols and all the sindio of the Satanic Panic that Stranger Things drinks from 😍 https://t.co/4wteJCrlfO
— 🌙⚗️✨Sére Skuld🔥🧙♀️🎙️ (@Sere_Skuld) June 2, 2022
It was not until 2011 when Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were released after the prosecutors recognized that during the trial there was not enough evidence to convict them. Echols published his memoir “Life After Death” a year later. In 2014 he co-wrote with his wife, Lorri Davis, whom he met in prison, the book “Yours for Eternity: A Love Story on Death Row.”
18 years in prison and isolation
Despite knowing himself innocent, Echols had to living day to day for 18 years in a small cell, away from his friends, his family, from your house. In the dark, not knowing what time it was, without interacting with other humans, knowing that every day he was closer to being executed for a crime he did not commit.
As he himself would describe, his life on death row was spent in an 8 by 10 room, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For the first 10 years he had contact with other people, but as the years went by, They kept the inmates away and he ended up alone in his cell, in which there was only one window and hardly any light entered.
His endless hours in the cell were spent thinking “you have to make time” because his companions ended up going crazy and took their own lives. A prisoner is cut his neck with a razor blade and covered himself with a blanket so that no one would realize what he had done and give him time to bleed out before being discovered. Another claimed that the devil was with him and he beat his head to pieces inside the cell,
But Echols’s life was not just lonely and sad. It was also pain due to violent beatings that the guards gave him every time he went to court to claim his freedom.
The only resource left to him was magic, but not traditional magic but rituals and practices to strengthen spirituality. As he himself would define, “It is the Western path to enlightenment.” “[Estamos] wandering aimlessly, that’s what we do throughout life. We don’t remember where we came from, where we’re going, or why we’re supposed to go there. Magic makes you remember some of these things and gives meaning to life’‘ he explained.
The magic that Echols practiced consisted of meditation, visualization and breathing techniques, as well as ceremonies and rituals, all for the purpose of achieving spiritual growth that would help him manage physical and emotional stress for so long.
And today that spirituality continues to play a fundamental role in his life because adjusting back to real life was not easy. He was 18 years old when he was locked up and got out 18 years later. He half a life later.
“I hadn’t realized that I had lost things like the facial recognition ability, voice recognition ability, my eyesight was destroyed. The mental, physical and emotional price that I have paid has been very high,” he explained. And post-traumatic stress. He does not remember anything of the first two years in prison, which were a trauma for that innocent young man. He currently lives in New York City with his wife,
The triple satanic crime that inspired the fourth season of “Stranger Things”