Lorri Davis is an American Film producer and the wife of Damien Wayne Echols. Lorris’ husband, Damien Echols is an American writer and film producer. He is best known as a member of the West Memphis Three, a group of teenagers controversially accused of a triple murder. Upon his release from prison 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. Lorri Davis was key in getting Damien out.
Lorri Davis: Profile Summary
Full Name | Lorris Davis |
Famous as | Husband of Damien Echols |
Date of Birth | July 16, 1963 |
Age | 58 years |
Place of Birth | Charleston, West Virginia, United States |
Nationality | American |
Zodiac | Cancer |
Ethnicity | White |
Husband | Damien Echols |
Profession | Film producer |
Lorri Davis was a landscape architect but is now a film producer, known for West of Memphis (2012), Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011), and 48 Hours: Hard Evidence (2005). She has been married to Damien Wayne Echols since December 3, 1999.
Lorri Davis and her husband meet in 1996 after Lorris saw his documentary on TV and decided to write to him in prison. They began a romantic relationship and the two later got married in December 1999. They wrote to each other over 5,000 letters. Lorri’s husband was released from prison after evidence supported his innocence in 2011.
Damien Echols spent more than 18 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. Known as one of the West Memphis Three, he was convicted in 1994, along with two other misfit teenagers labeled “Satanists” for their interest in heavy metal music and black clothing, for the murder of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Ark. The documentary focused on the badly handled case, the lack of physical evidence and the nature of a small Southern town’s rush to judgment.
Lorri Davis was born and raised in West Virginia as I said earlier. She met Damien Echols in 1996 and they were married in a Buddhist ceremony at Tucker Maximum Security Unit in Tucker, Arkansas, in 1999. A landscape architect by training, she worked in England and New York City until relocating to Little Rock, Arkansas, 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 live in New York City.
This is how Lorri Davis Shared her story of how they met.
In the winter of 1996, I was a single woman living in New York, with a great career and a rented apartment in Park Slope that I loved. I was a landscape architect at an architectural firm, doing these amazing projects in the Hamptons and Connecticut. I was making a good salary and really loving my work. One day in February, a friend invited me to see the New York premiere of this documentary, “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.” It was in the MoMA New Directors/New Films program, and I saw Damien’s long-haired mug shot in the ad. I thought he was a girl. I was like, “I don’t want to go see some movie about this girl who murdered all these kids.”
In the theater when I saw Damien for the first time, I felt a kinship right away. Having grown up in a similar culture in West Virginia, I knew something horrible had gone wrong here on every level: the community, the case, the convictions. I thought, “There’s no way he could have committed this crime.” – Lorri Davis said
I kept thinking about him after the screening. A week later, I decided to write him.
I tried to be very polite, and I just said I had seen the film and that it made a big impression on me. I asked if he needed anything.
I kept thinking, Maybe he won’t write back.
About a week later, while my parents were visiting, I saw the letter. We were heading out, and there it was in my mailbox. I stuffed it in my bag and I carried it around all day. That night, I ripped it open; I was so surprised at the tone of his response. It was so gracious. “From the very beginning of this situation, I’ve felt that there had to be a purpose for all of this,” he told me. That was the line that really moved me. He didn’t write like a guy who’s on death row but like a Southern gentleman.
We wrote many letters for several months before the word “love” was ever written. I think it was Damien who wrote it first, but we both reached that point at the same time. We just glided into love.
My work started to suffer because my mind was somewhere else. I was writing letters all day. I’m very private, so I didn’t really talk about it very much to anyone. I told one close friend, “Do you remember that documentary? Well, I’ve contacted the young man in it.”- Lorri Davis shared
Damien and I talked on the phone for the first time about four months after we began writing. He called me out of the blue. I had heard him speak in the movie, but I was still shocked to hear his actual voice for the first time. We talked every day after that.
Eventually, I felt like I was living a double life. I didn’t tell my family for a long time. I told only a few close friends. Nobody tried to talk me out of it; people who know me know I’m pretty strong-willed and I know my own mind.
I never felt for anyone what I feel for Damien. I’d had relationships before, but this was different.- Lorri Davis shared.
Fact Check
We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right and needs corrections, Kindly contact us!