The West Memphis 3 have been freed.

JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) — Three men convicted of killing three 8-year-old Cub Scouts and dumping their bodies in an Arkansas ditch changed their pleas Friday, resolving a yearslong effort to win their freedom.

Under a plea bargain, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were being freed immediately. The boys’ families were notified about the pact ahead of time but were not asked to approve it.

The defendants, known by their supporters as the West Memphis 3, agreed to a legal maneuver that lets them maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors have enough evidence against them.

“I am innocent of these charges but I am entering an Alford guilty plea,” Echols told the judge. Baldwin and Miskelley also reasserted their innocence.

“Although I am innocent, this plea is in my best interest,” Misskelley said.

The three were credited with time served, and Echols is being freed from Arkansas’ death row. They were placed on 10 years’ probation and if they re-offend they could be sent back to prison for 21 years, Prosecutor Scott Ellington said.

The key to this is the tainted confession of Jesse Miskelley, who reportedly has an IQ of about 70, and was obviously manipulated, threatened, and trapped by unethical investigators. Another key is the state’s reliance on an untrained quack as an “expert” witness on satanic ritual abuse, a red hot scare in the early 90s, especially in the Bible Belt.