The West Memphis Three HBO Paradise Lost Purgatory: Victims Parents Plea For No Oscar, Call Film Cruel Hoax

Beverly Hills, CA- Following an announcement that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences  is considering the HBO documentary Paradise Lost III : Purgatory, as one of 15 submissions being considered for an Oscar in the documentary category branch of AMPAS, chaired by Rob Epstein-  Todd and Diana Moore took action.

The Moores are the parents of James Michael Moore, one of three eight your old victims murdered on May 3, 1993 along with Chris Byers and Stevie Branch.  Within days of an exclusive series on the murders appearing on www.blinkoncrime.com which included the discovery of potential new evidence;  the nearly 18 year old case that resulted in 9 previous convictions of three suspects took a radical turn.

On August 19th  Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Charles Jason Baldwin pled guilty to the murders of all 3 children via an Alford plea and were immediately released from jail as convicted murders on parole.

Paradise Lost III produced by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky follows it’s predecessors I and II,  released in 1996 after the initial convictions of the West Memphis 3.

Berlinger is a member of AMPAS,  and has produced several unreleased documentaries of Hollywood A- listers including Charlize Theron, Hugh Jackman, Oprah Winfrey and Cameron Diaz.

Click below to read impassioned and unedited letter sent to Chairman Epstein. (more…)