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MelissaCalusinski.com |
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False Confessions! How can this be? click here and read about them... |
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Just a Sample Below NEWS False confessions in family murdersJuly 11, 2010 Michael Crowe: The 14-year-old Crowe was charged with his sister's stabbing death in 1998 in California after a lengthy interrogation in which he made a confession of sorts €” a letter to his sister that began, "I'm so sorry that I can't even remember what I did to you." DNA testing led to his release before trial and connected another man to the crime. Kevin Fox: He was charged in the 2004 murder of his 3-year-old daughter, Riley, who had been bound and gagged with duct tape before her body was found in a Wilmington creek. NEWS Rushing to a false confessionJune 18, 2005 Kevin Fox on Friday added one more name--his own--to the lengthy roster of individuals who have confessed to a terrible crime they didn't commit. Fox was accused of the sexual assault and murder of his 3-year-old daughter, Riley. Her body was found a year ago in a creek about 4 miles from her Will County home after her father reported her missing. On Friday, prosecutors said DNA tests cleared him as a suspect in the girl's death. He was released from jail into the embrace of his wife. NEWS Illegal arrests yield false confessionsBy Ken Armstrong, Steve Mills and Maurice Possley, Tribune staff reporters | December 17, 2001 The gateway to a false confession is, in many cases, an illegal arrest--taking a person into custody on little or no evidence and subjecting him to high-pressure interrogation. The law forbids that tactic and leading interrogation experts condemn it, saying interrogation holds such power to produce confessions that police should employ it only after a suspect's guilt has been reasonably established through other investigation. But police in Cook County often violate that tenet and conduct the equivalent of street sweeps--picking people up on shreds of evidence and questioning them for hours or days in isolated rooms at police stations, according to the Tribune's investigation. NEWS What causes people to give false confessions?By Lisa Black and Steve Mills, Tribune reporters | July 11, 2010 After 14 hours of interrogation in a small, windowless room, Kevin Fox simply gave up. He knew he hadn't sexually assaulted or murdered his 3-year-old daughter, but police had rejected his requests for a lawyer and told him they would arrange for inmates to rape him in jail, according to court records. The distraught father later testified that detectives also screamed at him, showed him a picture of his daughter, bound and gagged with duct tape, and told him that his wife was planning to divorce him, the records show. NEWS False Confessions Don't Solve CrimesMay 24, 1999 Three murder cases have been dismissed in Cook County in the past two weeks, amid allegations of police brutality and coerced confessions. Sadly, it's not a new story: A number of other murder cases and death penalty convictions in Illinois recently have been undermined by similar allegations. Three more cases. Three more outrages. The latest to be dismissed involves Lanard Guider, 17 years old at the time of his 1997 arrest for murder. The heart of his case was a confession that he alleges Chicago police detectives beat out of him. On May 17, county prosecutors formally dropped murder charges against Ronald Jones, who had been sentenced to death in 1989 also largely on the basis of an allegedly coerced confession. NEWS Jury to hear Stacy Peterson's false alibi confessionBy Stacy St. Clair and Steve Schmadeke, Tribune reporters | June 25, 2010 On the eve of Drew Peterson's much-anticipated murder trial, a judge has ruled that a suburban pastor can testify about a counseling session in which Stacy Peterson alleged that her husband coaxed her into providing a false alibi for the weekend of his third wife's death, the Tribune has learned. However, the jury will not hear some details of an alleged 2002 incident in which Peterson allegedly broke into the home of his third wife, Kathleen Savio; held a knife to her throat; and threatened to kill her, according to sources and comments made by defense attorney Joel Brodsky in court Thursday. NEWS Ex-murder suspect sues police, alleges cops forced false confessionBy Lisa Black, Tribune reporter | December 1, 2010 A former Zion resident who spent five years in Lake County Jail charged with the murders of his 8-year-old daughter and her friend, filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging police violated his civil rights by using physical and psychological abuse to force him to falsely confess. Lake County prosecutors pursued the death penalty while Jerry Hobbs "languished in jail," despite DNA evidence discovered in 2007 — two years after the murders — that pointed to another suspect, according to the lawsuit. NEWS Ex-gang member: 'I'll never forget' detective who suffocated him into false confessionBy Matthew Walberg, Tribune reporter | June 10, 2010 A convicted burglar and longtime heroin addict said Thursday he confessed to a 1983 murder after he was beaten and suffocated by Chicago police detectives then under the command of Cmdr. Jon Burge. Gregory Banks, 46, who served a little more than seven years in prison until his conviction was thrown out because his confession had been coerced, erupted in anger as he recounted his arrest nearly three decades ago. The testimony came at Burge's trial in federal court on charges he lied to conceal the torture of Banks and other criminal suspects. NEWS 2 alleged false murder confessions for Waukegan police officerBy Dan Hinkel, Tribune reporter | September 25, 2010 Waukegan police Officer Domenic Cappelluti has made extra money sharing his expertise with police in departments across the country, teaching them how to interrogate suspects, investigate homicides and fight street gangs, according to the Web site that promotes his classes. His online biography portrays him as a seasoned police officer and a one-time ranking member of an elite investigative unit. What isn't advertised is his involvement with the interrogations of suspects who confessed to murders for which they are no longer charged. |
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