Damien Echols was born in 1974 and grew up in Mississippi, Tennessee, Maryland, Oregon, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. When he was 18, Damien and two other young men were wrongfully convicted of murder, eventually becoming known as the West Memphis Three. Having received a death sentence, Damien spent almost two decades on death row, until he was released in 2011. While in prison, Damien was ordained into the Rinzai Zen Buddhist tradition. He is the subject of Paradise Lost, a three-part documentary series produced by HBO, and West of Memphis, a documentary produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. Damien is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Life After Death and Yours For Eternity (with his wife Lorri Davis).