Southeastern professor to interview Damien Echols
Tuesday, February 27, 2024 
by: Tonya Lowentritt
IT’S IN THE DNA - Southeastern Louisiana University Assistant Professor of Creative Writing David Armand will interview Damien Echols and his wife Lorri Davis on Wednesday, March 6. They will discuss the couple’s ongoing efforts to obtain DNA testing from a 1993 murder that led to Echols’ wrongful conviction and sentencing to death row, where he spent 18 years before finally being released.
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University Assistant Professor of Creative Writing
David Armand will interview Damien Echols and his wife Lorri Davis on Wednesday, March
6. Scheduled at 10 a.m. in Pottle Auditorium, the free event is sponsored by the College
of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Southeastern’s English and Sociology and
Criminal Justice departments, and the Student Government Association.
Echols is an American writer best known as one of the West Memphis Three, a group
of teenagers convicted of a triple murder. Upon his release from death row in 2011
under an Alford plea, Echols authored several autobiographies and spiritual books.
He has been featured in multiple books, documentaries, and podcasts about his spiritual
works and the West Memphis Three case.
“We are very honored that Damien and Lorri are taking time out of their busy
schedules to speak with our community about issues relating to the criminal justice
system, as well as the importance of writing and the profound impact it can have on
our lives,” Armand said.
Armand will ask about the couple’s ongoing efforts to obtain DNA testing from
a 1993 murder that led to Echols’ wrongful conviction and sentencing to death row,
where he spent 18 years before finally being released.
Davis met Echols in 1996, and they were married at Tucker Maximum Security Unit
in Tucker, Ark., in 1999. A landscape architect by training, she worked in England
and New York City until relocating to Little Rock in 1998. For more than a decade,
Davis spearheaded a full-time effort towards Echols’s release from prison, which encompassed
all aspects of the legal case and forensic investigation. She was instrumental in
raising funds for the defense and served as producer (with Echols) of West of Memphis. With Echols, she is the author of Yours for Eternity. Davis and Echols reside in New Orleans.
