Stranger Things 4 Eddie Munson, played by actor Joseph Quinn, quickly became everyone’s favorite new character. The lovable, misunderstood metal head is not some archetype. He’s based on a real person named Damien Echols. One of three metal heads accused of murdering three 8-year old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas back in 1993.
True Crime aficionados may recognize the parallels with the case of the West Memphis Three.
Munson is a long-haired, Dungeons and Dragons playing, metal fan and a drug dealer – a social outcast in every sense of the term. Add in the effects of the Satanic Panic of the 1980’s and the fact that Munson is the Dungeon Master of the Hellfire Club and it’s no surprise when he’s accused of murder. Sounds a lot like Damien Echols.
Stranger Things Creators, Matt And Ross Duffer Confirmed, “Something we really wanted to get into this year was the Satanic Panic.”
“So that brought us back to the Paradise Lost documentary series with the [West] Memphis Three, and it brought us back to Damien Echols,” Ross said. “We really wanted that character who’s a metalhead, he’s into Dungeons & Dragons, he’s ultimately a true nerd at heart. But from an outsider’s point of view, they may go, ‘This is someone that is scary…”
In Stranger Things 4 Eddie Munson Wasn’t “Someone Scary”
As we see in his heartwarming moment with Chrissy Cunningham, looks, or more accurately, societal stigmas, can be deceiving and dangerous. As was the case with his real-life counterpart Damien Echols.
On May 6, 1993, three little boys were found dead in a drainage ditch. Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore. Within a year, three teens were paying the price.
The disgrace of a trial focused more on Echols’ interests in metal music, paganism and Stephen King books than on any actual evidence connecting him to the victims or the location of their bodies.
It was the very definition of Satanic Panic. The whole town became convinced these murders were a ritualistic sacrifice of some kind. There was no logic to any of it. These teens listened to Iron Maiden so surely they sacrificed children, right? Nothing at the scene suggested a ritual took place. Mass hysteria, social biases, probably even a deliberate cover up. There were “witnesses” perjuring themselves (who later recanted, claiming the police coerced them to lie). It was a complete shit-show.
Jason Baldwin (16) and Jessie Misskelley (17) were sentenced to life in prison; Damien Echols was given a death sentence.
It took years of battling, even after new DNA evidence emerged in 2007
Circuit Court Judge David Burnett stood by the obviously wrong conviction and denied retrial request.
In 2010, a re-examination was ordered by the Arkansas Supreme Court. And wouldn’t you know it, the new DNA evidence did exonerate the three.
Judge David Laser vacated the previous convictions and ordered a new trial. In August of 2011, all three men entered an Alford plea – a rare plea that still allows defendants to maintain their innocence even though conviction is possible. Their new sentence became “time served” making them free to leave.
They spent 18-years in prison for murders they didn’t commit, before finally being released.
Three 8-year old boys lost their lives and three teenage boys had their youths stolen from them. The real monster responsible still hasn’t been held accountable for any of it.
As Matt Duffer has said of the Echols-based character in Stranger Things 4 Eddie Munson, “What’s sad about his narrative is that the people who get to know him love him, and the people who don’t have judged him horribly. Just because of the way he dresses and just because of his interests.”
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