Lorri Davis: Falling and Fighting for the Love of her Life

Last week we spoke with Damien Echols who was incarcerated on death row for more than 18 years for murders that he did not commit. It became crystal clear during that interview that the heroism of his story was as much to do with him as it was his wife, Lorri, the heroine of this truly incredible love story. Lorri was a successful architect working in New York when she saw the first Paradise Lost film (which documented the circus of Damien’s first trial) at the Museum of Modern Art in 1996. She was so overcome with emotion after seeing it that she sat down and wrote what would become the first of over three thousand letters that Lorri and Damien exchanged throughout his time in prison, which included 10 years in solitary confinement. Within two years Lorri had quit her job and moved to Arkansas where she married Damien and spent the next twelve years fighting for his release, as project manager of the extraordinary amount of efforts that were needed to give Damien the freedom that he so deserved. “The minute I saw him I just loved him. I just was so struck by seeing him in person. We had glass between us, I couldn't touch him. And it was so emotional and tough and painful because that's when you come in real contact with the suffering.”

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