From death row to the tattoo studio

Damien Echols has found his calling, said Miranda Siegel in New York magazine. At age 18, Echols, now 38, was sentenced to death after he and two other teenagers—the so-called West Memphis Three—were convicted of murdering three boys from their Arkansas hometown in a satanic ritual. The prosecution’s evidence was flimsy, and a celebrity-led campaign got them freed in 2011. In prison, Echols says, tattoos became a form of armor. So after his release, he headed to Manhattan’s renowned Sacred Tattoo parlor to get a new piece of body art. “This is the first place I started making friends,” he says. “Nobody asks about the case. Nobody cares.” Echols sometimes works as a tattooist at the studio, but despite being a talented painter, the only body art he can manage is a simple X. “If someone comes in and goes, ‘I really wanna get this portrait of my daughter done,’ I’m like, ‘Nah, you want an X.’ Or somebody says, ‘I really want this, like, field of roses.’ And I’ll say, ‘Nah, you want a field of X’s.’” When he’s giving a tattoo, Echols forgets about the years he wasted in prison. “It’s psychologically and emotionally soothing. You’re talking, you’re joking. You’re giving something out, but it’s an exchange.”

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