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The Case of Joe Berlinger
📻 Episode #95
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Apr 22, 2019
About This Episode
In the late 80’s and early 90’s, the US found itself wrapped up in the “Satanic Panic” - a general state of fear revolving around Satanism and satanic ritual, real or imagined. On May 5th, 1993, in West Memphis, AR, three 8-year-old boys—Steven Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers—were reported missing. Their lifeless bodies were…
The Case
In the late 80’s and early 90’s, the US found itself wrapped up in the “Satanic Panic” - a general state of fear revolving around Satanism and satanic ritual, real or imagined. On May 5th, 1993, in West Memphis, AR, three 8-year-old boys—Steven Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers—were reported missing. Their lifeless bodies were found the following day in a Robin Hood Hills creek, naked and hogtied. Christopher Byers had suffered lacerations, and his genitals had been mutilated. Details of the bizarre and brutal scene in Robin Hood Hills brought Satanic Panic to a fever pitch in the largely conservative Christian city of West Memphis. Coming off their first film success with Brother’s Keeper, documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky were tapped by HBO documentaries to head down to get the story. Joe Berlinger sits with Jason Flom and recalls his experience of the case, the moments that inspired his fight for criminal justice reform, and the films and events that have helped shape public opinion of wrongful convictions.
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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:08:41“Speaker 4: me a freak. They think, automatically, you're a Satanist. It Speaker 4: would take a Satanist to commit a crime like this. Speaker 4: Stick all those things together, and they didn't even look Speaker 4: for anybody or anything else. Speaker 1: So in this case, they focused on you. And then”
00:33:55“Speaker 6: Right when you first go to prison and you're not Speaker 6: going to death row, you go to what's called a Speaker 6: diagnostic unit, and that's where they evaluate you mentally and Speaker 6: physically to determine what your parent unit in the department Speaker 6: corrections will be. Because they have a myriad of prisons”
00:58:14“Speaker 5: a child, but there certainly can be finality to the experience, Speaker 5: and your healing process is predicated on knowing justice has Speaker 5: been served. And so we came along and upset the Speaker 5: apple cart by coming out with a film that's saying, hey, everything,”
Listen to the Episode
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Also on the podcast: #540 Joe Berlinger on the West Memphis 3