LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin were convicted in 1994 for the murders of three little boys in West Memphis — but in the years since, many have become convinced they were innocent and themselves the victims of a gross miscarriage of justice.

In his search for exoneration, Echols has petitioned the state of Arkansas to get advanced DNA testing done on evidence that West Memphis police at one point said was lost. After more than five years of petitioning, that evidence has been sent off for new DNA testing.

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The evidence was recently sent to Bode Laboratories in Virginia for testing — but there’s a catch: the evidence may be destroyed in the process, a possibility the West Memphis Three are aware of.

“It was important to obtain their consent and make sure they understood that if we go forward with the retesting that this could be the end of the road as far as future retesting," Stidham said. "None of them hesitated at all.”

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