Marc Perrusquia’s mid-90s mass-market disaster, The Blood of Innocents, got the West Memphis Three case all wrong, and in grand fashion, when the Memphis Commercial Appeal alleged “investigative” reporter and co-authors decided to regurgitate wholesale the State of Arkansas’ now infamous satanic fiction — a fiction that not only resulted in the wrongful incarceration of three teens, but left the murders of three other boys unsolved to this day.

We thought there was nothing left to say about failed true-crime author and journalist Marc Perrusquia (see our recent feature, “Literally Cursed: Reviewing Marc Perrusquia’s Frightening Two-Decade Obsession with Damien Echols“) but as Mara Leveritt reports, a member of Damien Echols’ team has also responded to Perrusquia’s disturbing recent article at the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Writes Leveritt:

Lonnie Soury, a media advisor who is part of Echols’ legal team, responded to that article with a letter to the Commercial Appeal that Soury says has not, to his knowledge, been published. Soury provided me with a copy of his letter, which he titled “Finding Answers to an Uncomfortable Truth.” In that he wrote:

“The uncomfortable truth is that the reporter refuses to admit that he and others contributed to the hysteria that led directly to Damien’s death sentence.” However, Soury continued, “Rather than delve into the reasons why three innocent men were imprisoned while the perpetrator of the crime has been allowed to remain in the community, the reporter finds it far more comfortable to blame Damien Echols once again for contributing now to his admittedly wrongful conviction.”

Perrusquia ended his article with questions:

“So, what are we to make of Echols? If he is indeed innocent, as evidence now suggests, Arkansas authorities need to toss out last year’s Alford plea and pay Echols and his co-defendants the millions they deserve. That said, however, it is hard to understand him. For whatever reasons, he diverted valuable attention that might have resolved the murders of three little boys years ago. And for all his newfound articulation, he fails to answer the most critical of questions: Who is he?”

Soury responded:

“I would ask it another way. Who are we? Who are we as a society to allow thousands of men and women to rot in prison wrongfully convicted? Who are we as journalists to blame the victim rather than those responsible for putting him behind bars? Who are we as police, prosecutors, judges, and a community to allow these three men to spend half their lives in prison and be forced to accept a plea deal to get out?”

Read the entire post, as well as the entire letter from Soury, at Mara Leveritt’s website.