How Rockers helped the West Memphis Three

At a recent Friday night in Memphis, 75 people gathered on the roof of the hotel overlooking the Mississippi River for a party thrown by Eddie Vedder. As the guests of honor - Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, who had just been released after spending 18 years in prison - arrived, they were attacked by friends and supporters for hugs and photos. Vedder crowds gathered for a champagne toast - and then, joined by the Dixie Chicks 'Natalie Maines, grabbed a guitar and sang Neil Young's "Rockin' in the free world."

It was the end of a nightmare for almost two decades for the West Memphis Three - Echols, Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. - who, as teenagers were convicted of killing three of eight pups, whose bodies were found in a creek in Arkansas in 1993. Misskelley, diagnosed as mentally retarded, confessed to the killings at a questionable 12-hour interrogation, and trial evidence consistently ignored in favor of adolescence. " Instead, prosecutors focus on their reputations and tastes outcast dark: They listened to Metallica records, read books by Stephen King and Echols dabbled in Wicca - proof, the state claimed that adolescents children killed in a satanic cult ritual. All three were convicted of murder. Echols, the alleged ringleader, was sent to death row.