Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maine also on hand to see three men plead guilty and walk free. By Gil Kaufman Eddie Vedder (file) Photo: Getty Images Eighteen years after they were sent to prison for the murders of three 8-year-old Cub Scouts in 1993, the men known as the West Memphis 3 were unexpectedly freed from jail Friday (August 19) when their lawyers reached an unusual deal with prosecutors. With such celebrity supporters as Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder and the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines on hand to watch the proceedings, Damien Echols (36), Jason Baldwin (34) and Jessie Misskelley Jr. (36) were set free thanks to a legal maneuver called an “Alford Plea” in which the three men pleaded guilty while still maintaining their innocence as they acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them. “The gag order has been lifted, so now I can tell you, I’m sitting in a holding room at the courthouse about to see three men walk free!” Maines tweeted Friday afternoon. “Beautiful things went down in Arkansas today. Beautiful beautiful things … The WM3 will now and forever be the WMFree!” The three, all teenagers at the time of their arrest, were convicted of the murders in what officials called a satanic ritual. But evidence later showed that their DNA did not match the DNA found at the crime scene. Their case became a cause c
