This Side of the Line

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bear Brook – "This Side of the Line"

Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "This Side of the Line" from Season 2 of the critically acclaimed true crime podcast Bear Brook, hosted by Jason Moon of New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR), listeners are taken on an intense journey through the complexities of wrongful convictions. This episode explores the harrowing story of Jason Carroll, who is serving a life sentence for a murder he insists he did not commit. The only evidence against him is his own taped confession. Over three decades later, Carroll's case raises profound questions about the justice system and the reliability of confessions.

Background of False Confessions

The episode begins by contextualizing the phenomenon of false confessions, tracing their historical roots and highlighting significant cases that have shaped our understanding. Dr. Fabiana Alceste, a professor of psychology at Butler University, provides expert insights into the psychological mechanisms that can lead individuals to falsely admit to crimes they didn't commit.

Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:14:36]: "Shifting in your seat, looking away, mumbling, making too much eye contact, touching your face. These might be signs of anxiety, but none of these behaviors are reliable ways to tell if someone is lying."

Jason Carroll’s Case

Jason Carroll’s ordeal is the centerpiece of this episode. Convicted based solely on his confession, Carroll's case is scrutinized to uncover the interrogation techniques that may have coerced him into falsely admitting guilt. Despite inconsistencies between his confession and the forensic evidence, Carroll was convicted, raising doubts about the interrogation methods used.

Jason Moon [00:16:10]: "Here, Fabiana is describing a particular method of interrogation that's common in the United States, something called the Reed technique."

The Reed Technique Explained

Dr. Alceste delves into the Reed technique, a widely used interrogation method in the United States that employs a combination of maximization and minimization tactics. This approach aims to make suspects feel hopeless and more likely to confess, even if innocent.

Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:17:10]: "What's called the false evidence ploy. This is an interrogation tactic in which an interrogator will tell the suspect that there is an irrefutable, ironclad evidence of their guilt."

Parallel Case: Hugh Burton’s Wrongful Conviction

To illustrate the impact of false confessions, the episode recounts the story of Hugh Burton. At just 16 years old, Burton was wrongfully convicted of murdering his mother based on a coerced confession. His experience mirrors Carroll’s, highlighting systemic issues within interrogation practices.

Todd Bookman (Hugh Burton) [00:21:20]: "I didn't commit this crime. I didn't do anything to my mom."

Burton’s eventual exoneration in 2019 after over two decades in prison underscores the devastating consequences of flawed interrogation techniques.

Expert Analysis: Understanding False Confessions

Dr. Alceste provides a comprehensive analysis of why false confessions occur, emphasizing that they are not merely the result of individual interrogators acting in bad faith but are deeply rooted in systemic practices.

Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:14:36]: "False confessions aren't just someone breaking down and saying, I did it right. They're actually pretty often rich, detailed narratives."

Red Flags in Jason Carroll’s Interrogation

The episode identifies five critical red flags in Carroll’s interrogation that indicate the likelihood of a false confession:

1. Length of Interrogation

   • Carroll was interrogated for over 24 hours across four days, far exceeding the recommended duration for such procedures.

   Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:43:06]: "The longer the interrogation goes on, you see more and more false confessions."

2. Age of the Suspect

   • At 19, Carroll was legally an adult but still considered an adolescent with a developing brain, making him more susceptible to coercion.

3. Parental Involvement

   • Carroll’s mother aggressively participated in the interrogation, increasing the pressure on him to confess.

   Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:43:29]: "Karen made it even more stressful for Jason to deny and repeatedly communicated that confessing was the only good outcome."

4. Maximization Tactics

   • Use of the false evidence ploy and cutting off denials to create a sense of hopelessness.

   Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:45:25]: "So they say things like, the jury will tear you apart if you're not telling the truth."

5. Contamination

   • Detectives introduced new details about the crime during interrogation, which Carroll then incorporated into his confession.

   Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:46:50]: "The idea that a rape was the motive for the murder was not reported on in the news... and he never mentioned it before interrogations."

Impact on the Justice System

The podcast critically examines how false confessions can derail investigations and lead to irreversible miscarriages of justice. Confessions can unduly influence juries and even affect the interpretation of forensic evidence, as experts like fingerprint analysts may become biased upon learning about a confession.

Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:36:16]: "Confessions are so convincing, they can even spill over into influencing other forms of evidence, including forensic evidence."

Exoneration and Lessons Learned

Carroll’s case, much like Burton’s, illustrates the urgent need for systemic reforms. The episode advocates for measures such as fully recording interrogations to prevent coercion and ensure transparency.

Dr. Fabiana Alceste [00:54:38]: "The system, the culture that our detectives live in and are made to operate in, sets them up for this specific kind of failure of not being able to realize that there's an innocent person in front of them, because it is so guilt presumptive."

Conclusion

"This Side of the Line" serves as a powerful exploration of the factors leading to false confessions and wrongful convictions. Through detailed case studies and expert analysis, Bear Brook highlights the critical need for reform in interrogation practices to protect innocent individuals from enduring the nightmare of wrongful imprisonment.

Notable Quotes

• Dr. Fabiana Alceste on False Confessions:

  "[14:36] Jason Moon: Shifting in your seat, looking away, mumbling, making too much eye contact, touching your face. These might be signs of anxiety, but none of these behaviors are reliable ways to tell if someone is lying."

• Jason Carroll on His Interrogation Experience:

  "[00:25:20] Jason Moon: I need to stop for a second."

• Hugh Burton Reflecting on His Conviction:

  "[00:21:51] Jason Moon: And the police have. Yes. Okay."

Overall Impact

Praised by Stephen King as “the best true crime podcasts I've ever heard. Brilliant, involving, hypnotic,” and lauded by The New Yorker for its “ambition, complexity, and thoughtful tone,” Bear Brook continues to set a high standard in true crime storytelling. "This Side of the Line" not only narrates a disturbing tale of wrongful conviction but also educates listeners on the psychological and procedural intricacies that make such injustices possible, urging a reevaluation of current practices to prevent future miscarriages of justice.

Transcript

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[Jason Moon]

True Crime Story I could point out how Jason's statements were so inconsistent with the undisputed forensic evidence in this case.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

That it was more probable that he.

[Jason Moon]

Was guessing in response to interrogation questions than he had any actual knowledge. In fact, looking at these inconsistencies, it is shocking that Jason was ever even a credible suspect, let alone convicted. I do remember being yelled and screamed at, and anytime I'd answered the wrong way like nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I remember being so wiped out I tried to go to sleep under the table they wouldn't let me. But ultimately did you find, were you convinced that Jason was guilty of the crime? Oh, yeah.

[Todd Bookman]

He admitted to, if I recall correctly.

[Jason Moon]

Admitting to stabbing her at least once. This is a horrible crime. I mean that's.

[Todd Bookman]

You know.

[Jason Moon]

Why would you say that if you didn't do it? The first known wrongful conviction in the United States was based on a false confession. Actually two false confessions. One from each of the two CO defendants. They were farmers in Vermont in 1812. Jesse and Stephen Bourne. They didn't like their brother in law. Thought he was lazy, freeloading off the family. So when the brother in law disappeared, the Bourne brothers were easy suspects. Witnesses said they'd heard the Bourne brothers threatened to kill the brother in law. The brother in law's personal items were found in the Bourne's cellar. Bones were found buried in their field. The Bourne brothers were arrested. A jailhouse informant said one of the brothers confessed to him. Then Jesse and Stephen Bourne themselves both confessed in detail. They described murdering their brother in law with a club, burying his body, then excavating and moving the remains twice. Stephen Bourne was scheduled to be executed on January 28, 1820. Then the brother in law arrived in town alive. The signs were all there. The bones in the field were dog bones. The jailhouse informant had every incentive to lie about his cellmate. The confessions from the Bourne brothers didn't match with known facts. But confessions are uniquely powerful as evidence goes. And so for a very long time, it took something like this to exonerate someone who had falsely confessed to murder. A miracle. The victim come back to life because of this. For a long time, the known examples of false confessions were very few. From 1820 when the Bourne Brothers were set free, to 1989 when Jason Carroll was arrested, just 61 people in the US had been exonerated after falsely confessing. That's 61 known false confessions in 169 years. Then another miracle, DNA testing. In 1989, for the first time, a DNA test proved someone's innocence after they were convicted and freed them from prison. Three years later, a group of lawyers founded the Innocence Project, a group devoted to doing more of the same. A flood of exonerations followed over the last three decades. That flood has helped expose all kinds of problems in the criminal justice system, like the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, police using junk forensic science like bite mark or hair analysis, prosecutorial misconduct, and false confessions. Since 1989, nearly 400 people have been exonerated after they falsely confessed to crimes they didn't commit. That's almost 400 known false confessions in just 34 years. Some of those people had been sentenced to death. More than half of all of them were black. The same year all that began 1989, Jason Carroll was confessing to murder. Jason's case sits on a bright red line separating what we used to believe from what we now know about false confessions. And from today's side of that line, the story sounds different. This is Bear Brook Season 2 A True Crime Story. I'm Jason Moon. My uncontrollable movements called TD tardive dyskinesia felt embarrassing. I felt like disconnecting. I asked my doctor about treating my TD and learned about Ingrezac, a prescription medicine clinically proven for reducing TD in adults. That's always one capsule once daily and number one prescribed. People taking in can stay on most mental health meds in can cause depression.

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[Todd Bookman]

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[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

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[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

People really have a hard time understanding. Why would you confess to something that you didn't commit? Why would you confess to something as horrible as a rape or a murder if you didn't actually do that?

[Jason Moon]

Dr. Fabiana Alceste has devoted her career to researching and understanding the answers to that question. She's a professor of psychology at Butler University.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Being wrongfully accused and convicted of a crime that you did not commit on the basis of your own false confession is just about the worst thing that can happen to someone.

[Jason Moon]

I called Fabiana to see what she would make of Jason Carroll's case. I wanted to know what she hears when she listens to the confession tapes. I'll spare you the suspense. There are no simple answers here. But there is so much that we've learned. What was once just a rhetorical question? Why would you confess to a murder you didn't commit? Today, it's actually been answered, thanks to decades of scientific research and the lived experiences of hundreds of exonerees who falsely confessed. For the last six episodes, I've told you about the ways Jason's case was argued over, as it happened, with the knowledge and ideas people had at the time. Call it another true crime storytelling choice. I wanted you to hear the arguments the way Tony and Jason's juries heard them. Now, let's run the clock forward 30 years. Let's take a journey into a modern understanding of confession evidence. Fabiana's first lesson for this journey. This is not the land of intuition, hunches, and gut feelings about the way people act or how they sound during a confession. It will not help us here.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

It's very, very difficult for anyone to distinguish between true and false confessions.

[Jason Moon]

There's one study that illustrates this so powerfully, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It's from 2005. Psychologists videotaped a group of incarcerated men confessing to the crimes they actually committed. Then they videotaped them confessing to crimes they did not commit. Could anyone tell the difference? They played the tapes for a group of about 60 police officers and another group of about 60 college students. Both groups felt confident they could tell the difference. Both groups were wrong. Overall, their accuracy rate was no better than if they had guessed at random. The police officers in the study had an average of 11 years of experience. Many of them had been trained in so Called deception detection. But it didn't matter. Laypeople, trained detectives, you and me, as much as we might think we'd know a false confession if we heard one, we're probably wrong.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

It's very hard to reliably tell when people are telling the truth versus when people are lying Using the kinds of behavioral cues that are kind of in the general zeitgeist. So if I asked you, how do you know when someone is lying? What kinds of things would you tell me to look for?

[Jason Moon]

Shifting in your seat, looking away, mumbling, making too much eye contact, touching your face. These might be signs of anxiety, but none of these behaviors are reliable ways to tell if someone is lying.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

But unfortunately, these are the kinds of signs that police officers have been trained to look for for a very long time. And they're often told in these trainings that these are scientifically proven ways to identify liars when they are just unequivocally not. And in fact, a lot of scientific evidence shows that this is not the way to identify liars and truth tellers.

[Jason Moon]

By the way, Fabiana says there is a better way to catch liars. Have them tell the story backwards. People have trouble with the mental effort required to build a false story in reverse. So false confessions are really hard to spot. We can't rely on our senses or intuition to hear them. But why do they happen in the first place? Fabiana says the answer is not in the confession. It's in the interrogation.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Interrogations are not conversations. Right. The interrogation is basically a monologue by the interrogator until the very end, where you finally have the suspect verbalize and write their confession.

[Jason Moon]

Here, Fabiana is describing a particular method of interrogation that's common in the United States, Something called the Reed technique. The roots of the Reed technique go back to the 1950s. It's named after the police officer who originally developed it, John Reed. He has since died. But today, the Reed company continues to hone the technique and to teach it to all kinds of law enforcement agencies around the world. The Reed technique uses a two pronged approach. Make it hard for the suspect to deny guilt, and make it easy for them to confess it. False confession. Researchers like Dr. Fabiana Alceste call this maximization and minimization. You might think of it like the carrot and the stick in Reid. The interrogator tells the suspect up front that the evidence already points to them. The interrogator might do this even if it's not true.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

What's called the false evidence ploy. This is an interrogation tactic in which an interrogator will tell the suspect that there is a irrefutable, ironclad evidence of their guilt, like DNA, fingerprints, an eyewitness, CCTV footage, you name it, even though this is actually false.

[Jason Moon]

That's totally legal in the US by the way. And that's the first stick. We already know you're guilty. Then the interrogator cuts off any denials. Another stick, another.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

You kind of put your hand up and you say, well, hold on a second, let me finish. Because this is really important and you don't actually let them verbalize their denial.

[Jason Moon]

The sticks or maximization are meant to make the suspect feel hopeless, like denying their involvement is a total dead end. They already know it's me. They won't even let me say I didn't do it. And they say they've got proof. Now come the carrots minimization.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

So these could be things like blaming the victim, saying that anyone in the suspect's shoes would have done the exact same thing, saying that the crime was committed on the spur of the moment rather than being planned. The interrogator might be using a kinder tone. Maybe sometimes they're even whispering all of these excuses to. To the suspect, telling them, hey, I understand. I would have done the same thing. You were just trying to protect your family.

[Jason Moon]

Carrots can also be implied, like, hey, if you tell the truth, it'll be better for everyone, which to a suspect might sound like they'll get a lighter sentence. Even if that's not true, if you imagine the suspect is truly guilty, it's not hard to see how this might work. The suspect feels the jig is up. And anyways, even the cops are saying, it's not that bad what I did, I'll confess and make things easier on myself. The carrots and the sticks of the Reed technique do work. The Reed Company once reportedly claimed their technique yields a confession 80% of the time. The problem, according to the research, is that it can work on guilty people and innocent ones. In research settings, when these tactics are used during an interrogation, the rate of true confessions goes up, but so does the rate of false confessions. The Reid company responds to these critiques by saying that when false confessions happen, it's usually because an interrogator has. Has strayed outside the parameters of the Reid technique. But Fabiana and other experts on false confession say the Reid technique puts innocent people at risk, especially when you combine it with other risk factors, like younger suspects. Children and adolescents are hugely overrepresented in the pool of proven false confessions. Same goes for people with intellectual disabilities. The length of interrogations is another risk factor. According to one study, most interrogations last between 30 minutes and two hours. The Reid technique cautions against going for more than four hours. One study of 125 proven false confessions found the average length of those interrogations was over 16 hours. So the Reid technique. Young or mentally disabled suspects, long interrogations. The research shows these things all make false confessions more likely. But it can still be hard to wrap your mind around. Surveys show most of us still think we would never falsely confess. Maybe the research isn't enough to convince us. Maybe we need to hear from someone who lived it, Like Hugh Burton. Have you ever gone back and watched the taped confession you gave?

[Todd Bookman]

Absolutely. You know, it's still hard to watch it without breaking down. You're looking. I can hear the officer's voice in the back. And it takes me right back to that room. 1989. And it takes me right back to the. How terrified I was. And I can see the fear in my eyes as I'm looking at my 16 year old self. Okay, but what you're telling us now is the truth. Yes, it is. And I've treated you fairly. Yes, you have.

[Jason Moon]

And the police have. Yes. Okay.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Anything else you want to tell us?

[Jason Moon]

1989. The same year Jason Carroll confessed. One evening, a 16 year old Hugh came home to his family's apartment in the Bronx and noticed his mom's car wasn't in their driveway. Then he went inside and I came in.

[Todd Bookman]

Now I'm taking my things off. I'm walking towards the back of the apartment, towards the bedrooms. I noticed that my parents bedroom was open, the door was open. I went into the room, I looked, and that's where I made the discovery. I'd found my mom.

[Jason Moon]

His mom, Keziah Burton, was lying dead in her bed. She'd been stabbed in the neck.

[Todd Bookman]

Immediately called the police. I'm screaming, crying. I couldn't stay in the house any longer, so I ran outside.

[Jason Moon]

The police arrived. Hugh answered some questions about what he saw, where he was that day. Hugh's father was away in Jamaica visiting Hugh's grandmother. So Hugh went to stay with his godmother. A few days later, police called Hugh's godmother. They wanted Hugh to come take a polygraph test.

[Todd Bookman]

I was only able to sleep 10, 15 minutes at a time. And I'm just waking up, staring at the ceiling. If I try to eat something, as I eat it, it's coming back up. I'm drained. I didn't even want to get out of the bed. My godmother said, well, they just want to do the same questions they asked you that day. They just want to ask you the same thing again. They just want a polygraph test. And I didn't, you know, I'd never heard of it before. I don't know what a polygraph test is. All right, so let's go. If it'll help you find out who did this to my mom, then. All right, so by the time I get to the precinct, I'm already a mess. I'm already drained.

[Jason Moon]

Hugh went into a room alone with the police. No lawyer, no parents.

[Todd Bookman]

What started as a simple interview, maybe about an hour and a half, two hours into that, it turned accusatory. And they told me that they had evidence that led them to believe that I was the one who had committed this crime.

[Jason Moon]

Hugh was 16. He just found his own mother murdered in their home. And now the police were telling him they knew he did it stick.

[Todd Bookman]

I started crying immediately because I still couldn't process that. I just left my mom sitting on a couch and went to school. Only to come back and find her murdered in my parents bedroom. I don't know. You know, I don't know up from down. And in the middle of that, you tell me that. We know that you're the one responsible for it. You did this. The more I told them I didn't, the more they told me you did. And you know this is the only way that this is going to work for you. We know that you know you didn't mean to do this. We knew that this was an accident. But you need to tell us the truth. I'm still telling them no. I didn't commit this crime. I didn't commit this crime. I didn't do anything to my mom.

[Jason Moon]

Hugh was telling the truth. He did not murder his own mother. But at the time, the detectives were following a hunch, a theory of the case that later turned out to be based on a mistake. When police first spoke to Hugh the day of the murder, he told them he went to school as normal. But when the police checked with his teacher, she incorrectly said her attendance records show showed Hugh was absent that day. So it looked like Hugh was lying.

[Todd Bookman]

The theory was that I owed a local drug dealer money and I tried to pay with my mom's car and I left the keys for this drug dealer and he's the one who took the car.

[Jason Moon]

The interrogators believed Hugh's mother confronted him about the car. They figured Hugh was high on cocaine. The argument escalated and. And in a rage, Hugh accidentally killed his mother. After hours of telling 16 year old Hugh Burton they know he's guilty and cutting him off. When he denies it, the interrogators have succeeded in pushing him to the point of despair. The sticks, the maximization, it's worked.

[Todd Bookman]

They continued with this over and over and over again. And in my 16 year old mind, it seemed like an eternity. I felt that I could not leave. Although no one told me, you can't leave. I was made to feel as if I could not get up and walk out of the interrogation room.

[Jason Moon]

Now, the carrot minimization.

[Todd Bookman]

They then began to tell me that, look, just tell us that you committed this crime because again, we know this was an accident and if you do, we'll take you to family court where your dad can come and pick you up and you can put all of this behind you. So when they started to suggest that this is the only way, that this is going to work because you're going to go to jail for this one way or not, when they started talking that language, now your mind says, okay, well, you have to trust them. It's interesting when the people that you look at as authority figures, you know, you're taught to respect them and you get to a point where you're almost trying to do the best that you can to make sure that you appease them and that it's done right. Even with my confession, after we're going over it and over and over it, in my mind, I'm saying I have to do it right if I want to just go to family court and see my dad. That's the, the only way that I'm going to be released is by doing this thing that they're asking me to do properly. You believe that you're helping your accusers help you.

[Jason Moon]

Hugh started to play along with the detective's questions. And remember, the police already had a theory of what happened here. And so they asked Hugh questions based on that theory. And this is really important because it helps explain one of the most puzzling parts of false confessions. Here's Fabiana again.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

False confessions aren't just someone breaking down and saying, I did it right. They're actually pretty often rich, detailed narratives. They have statements of motive, they have apologies, they have timelines. They make references to the thoughts and feelings of the confessor, of the victim, of the things going on around them when they were committing the crime. They sound like stories that come from a person's Memory. And so if we know for an absolute fact that someone is innocent, how is it possible that they could give such a detailed confession with real facts about the crime? And the answer to that question is contamination.

[Jason Moon]

Contamination. Basically, when ideas or facts are leaked from the interrogator to the suspect, it's usually unintentional. And even though interrogators are trained to avoid it, that can be hard to do, especially over a long interrogation.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

The more frustrated you get or the more convinced that you might become of the suspect's guilt, kind of, the less careful you might be, because you're like, well, I know that this person did this. Why would I care about leaking information to them? Because they already have all the information because they did it.

[Jason Moon]

Embedded in the questions from interrogators are often details about the crime and an implied narrative about how the police think it happened.

[Todd Bookman]

And they said, okay, so you were on drugs. So then what did you do because your mom was stabbed. So did you go into the kitchen and. And then didn't you go get a knife after that? Yes, I went into the kitchen. So my answer is yes or no to things, is them putting the story together and having me remember this. They fed me a story, and I agreed, and I agreed, and I agreed, and they kept going over it. So let's back from the top. So what happened? So you woke up that morning and you were still high? Yeah, I was still high. And after you do it a few times, now they're not saying anything. It's just you. Now the training wheel's off, and you can just roll and do this story yourself.

[Jason Moon]

Contamination in interrogations can be hard to detect, especially when the interrogation itself is. Is not recorded. That happens a lot in proven false confessions like Hughes. The tape recorder isn't turned on until the end the interrogation. The contamination is not captured, but the confession is. And so that's all the jury hears.

[Todd Bookman]

So when Willow was arguing with me, I went in, I got a knife from the kitchen. I came back into the room where she was at, and she noticed knife in my hand. And she asked me what was I doing with it and said, was I gonna kill her? And I said, and if I was, she went to smack me. And I moved. And as I moved, I went. I stabbed him on the Internet.

[Jason Moon]

What was that like, hearing the verdict from these jurors? I mean, you must have been in disbelief.

[Todd Bookman]

No, I collapsed my legs, gave. I was. I was 18. And we stood up, and they read. They read the verdict. And as guilty, second degree murder, I Dropped. I'm crying and screaming, I didn't kill my mom. I didn't kill my mom. First time I seen my father crying, you know, and I can remember the judge dismissing the jury. And I'm crying. I'm looking at them. They have all of the bailiffs and stuff around in the court, around me. And I'm asking the jury, just to show you I'm still a kid when I'm 18. I'm asking them, where are they going? Where are y'all going? Like, what about me? What about. Like, what about. You can't leave. What about me? This is not. You know, I never forgot that. I couldn't believe that someone would actually think that I could harm my mom. I. The shock of that, like, you actually believe that. It was a lot. That day was a lot.

[Jason Moon]

The jury saw Hugh Burton's videotaped confession and they believed it, because why wouldn't they?

[Todd Bookman]

Who in their mind and go back in the time capsule of 1989, who says that they killed their mother if they didn't?

[Jason Moon]

Hugh Burton spent 20 years and eight months in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was released on parole and then finally exonerated in 2019, when he was 46 years old. Hugh and a team of innocence lawyers uncovered serious misconduct by the police and prosecutors in his case. The teacher who said Hugh was not at school the day of the murder, she later called police and told them she was wrong. She just looked at the wrong date in her records. Hugh was at school that day. Prosecutors had that information, but never turned it over to Hugh's defense attorneys, a serious violation of their constitutional duty. Hugh and his lawyers also uncovered the detectives who interrogated him had extracted false confessions in another investigation just three months before Hugh's arrest. But even with what the jury heard at trial, there were plenty of signs. Hugh recanted his confession and told everyone it was coerced. Hugh said in his confession he stabbed his mother once. She'd been stabbed twice. There was no medical or physical evidence that Hugh was high on cocaine or that he'd been involved in a struggle. There were even signs, obvious in retrospect, that Hugh's confession was contaminated. Hugh's story about the murder was littered with police jargon, things most 16 year olds would never say. Hugh said he was stimulated on cocaine, that he was associating with a friend, and that he proceeded up a road. But these warning signs were nothing compared to the power of Hugh's confession.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Confessions seem uniquely positioned as the thing that overpowers all the other factors that you could think of that you could look at and say, these things don't seem right. The confession overpowers all of those things. There's some research that shows that confession evidence can be more powerful than DNA that exonerates the confessor.

[Jason Moon]

Confessions are so convincing, they can even spill over into influencing other forms of evidence, including forensic evidence.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

You would think that the science is the science, and it would be really difficult to bias a scientist who is examining some kind of forensic evidence, like, let's say, a fingerprint. But actually, what we see in the studies that researchers in this field have conducted is that if a fingerprint examiner knows that there was a confession in the case, they're more likely to say that that person's fingerprint is a match to the fingerprint that they found at the scene.

[Jason Moon]

Fabiana says this goes for other forensic experts, too. Like medical examiners, if they know a confession exists, it can influence their interpretation of the evidence. Confessions can also derail good police work. Once there's a confession, there's a tendency for the investigation to come to a halt. We found the guy, he confessed. What's left to do? Six days after Hugh's confession, police pulled over a man driving Hugh's mother's car. This man lived downstairs from Hugh's family. He had a violent criminal history. He was driving the victim's car. But police already had their guy, someone who had confessed. The man who was driving Hugh's mother's car died before Hugh's trial. No one besides Hugh was ever convicted for Keziah Burton's murder.

[Todd Bookman]

For many years, I would ask myself, sitting inside there, like, very angry with myself, like, how did you allow them to trick you like that? I was very upset, especially in my early 20s. One of those things that, you know, you can't put that kind of pain into words. You're screaming at the top of your lungs that you know you didn't do something. And it's almost as if the world can't hear you.

[Jason Moon]

Once Hugh was exonerated, the world did hear him. He spoke out in interviews, like this one. He says it was partly a way to begin healing and partly because he feels a duty to tell all of us this can happen. This does happen. Today, Hugh continues to speak out and to move on with his life. In prison, he picked up long distance running as a way to cope with the pain. In 2019, he ran the New York City Marathon as a free man. The experience of exonerees like Hugh Burton and the research of psychologists like Dr. Fabiana Alceste, have opened a new world of understanding about how and why false confessions happen. In fact, according to the legal clinic that helped exonerate Hughes, his case marked the first time a court ruled that new understandings about false confessions can constitute newly discovered evidence of actual innocence. After the break, we bring those new understandings to Jason Carroll's case. Behind every BP Fill Up Thousands of.

[Todd Bookman]

People across America go to work every day. People producing energy offshore, people turning it.

[Jason Moon]

Into products at our refinery, people doing.

[Todd Bookman]

R and D to make products that.

[Jason Moon]

Are better for your engine, people trading.

[Todd Bookman]

And shipping fuels to their destinations, and the people who help you at one of BP's growing family of retail stations.

[Jason Moon]

They're part of the more than 300,000 jobs BP supports across the country. Learn more at bp.com investinginamerica I'm sure you can relate to being in a bad relationship and feeling like there's something better out there. No, I'm not talking about your dating life. I'm talking about your home Internet. Right now with US Cellular, you can get fast home Internet for just $39.99 a month when bundled with a wireless plan. And it comes with a three year price lock guarantee so you don't have to worry about it changing on you after the honeymoon phase. So break up with your old expensive cable Internet and get us cellular. Make the switch today. Terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details.

[Todd Bookman]

Don't miss the Hulu original docu series Devil in the the Follow Ruby Frankie My wife created a YouTube channel. Thumbs up.

[Jason Moon]

Subscribe, but only what we wanted to show. I'm still recording a three part series.

[Todd Bookman]

Of that she said the children were demonically possessed.

[Jason Moon]

Get out. That blew the powder keg.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Ruby crossed a line to psychotic 911 emergency.

[Jason Moon]

Open the door.

[Todd Bookman]

Hulu Steppel in the Family the Fall of Ruby Frankie all episodes now streaming on Hulu.

[Jason Moon]

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[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

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[Jason Moon]

Claim based on fecal malodor versus the leading regular clumping litter. Strongest litter ever is based on odor control. Febreze is used under license from the Procter and Gamble Company or its affiliates. I asked Dr. Fabiana Alceste to Review the confessions in Jason's case, the only real evidence against him. Here's what she five red flags in Jason's interrogations Five things that the research shows makes a false confession more likely. The first red flag the length of Jason's interrogations Over four days. Police interrogated Jason for a long time. Just how long depends on how you count it. Police actively questioned Jason for at least 13 and a half hours over four days. Five hours the first day, about six hours the second day, and then more sporadically in the following two days. But if you count up all the time that Jason was with police as part of the overall psychological burden he was under, the number is 24 hours over four days.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

The longer the interrogation goes on, you see more and more false confessions.

[Jason Moon]

The second red flag Jason's age.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Jason was 19 at this time, but so legally he wasn't a minor, but we still would classify him as an adolescent. He's still a person at this point in time where his brain has not fully developed.

[Jason Moon]

Of all people in the US Who've been exonerated after falsely confessing to murder, their median age at the time they were interrogated was 20 years old. Red Flag 3 Jason's mom, Karen Carroll. Fabiana says Karen's aggressive involvement in Lammy's interrogation of Jason supercharged the carrots and sticks. Karen made it even more stressful for Jason to deny and repeatedly communicated that confessing was the only good outcome. Karen says, the longer you hold off telling the truth, the harder it's going to be and the worse it's going to be on yourself. You still have a chance to save your ass, my dear. I don't want to see you go to prison, Jason says. I don't want to go to prison either, Mom. Karen says, then tell us every goddamn thing you know. Every God, no. Remember when Jason appealed his conviction to the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 1994, the judges ruled that if Jason's mom had been acting as a police officer, the confession would have been thrown out. But because they said Karen wasn't a police officer in that room, her conduct wasn't relevant to them. Since the state constitution doesn't have anything to say about the way relatives question each other. But to a psychologist looking at whether Karen's involvement made a false confession more likely, it definitely is relevant. Red Flag 4 Maximization Tactics the Sticks Jason's second interrogation especially, is full of them.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

So they say things like, the jury will tear you apart if you're not telling the truth. Here they repeatedly tell him that he's not telling them the whole truth and that he's holding out on them and that they know that for sure.

[Jason Moon]

And the fifth red flag contamination.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

So we do see the interrogators revealing key details to Jason. And then sometimes almost immediately after that, we see Jason incorporate those details, details into his story.

[Jason Moon]

We're going to spend some time on this red flag because Jason's knowledge of certain details about Sharon's murder was a big point of contention at his trials. Remember, the state argued Jason could only have known so much if he was actually involved. But Fabiana sees clear evidence that for at least some of those details, Jason likely learned them from the interrogators. Here's one example. During Jason's second interrogation, detectives ask him, why did Ken Johnson want his wife murdered? Jason says, I wasn't briefed on that. His mother pushes him for an answer. Then Jason says, because she knew something that Ken had done. And then a detective with the Bedford Police Department, Leo Morenci, jumps in and introduces a new idea.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

So he asks, what had he done? What had Ken done? Rape his daughter. And after that, Jason goes on to use this detail repeatedly. But he had never mentioned anything about Ken raping Lisa before Morenci brought that up.

[Jason Moon]

You might remember this was an early theory police had that Ken had sexually abused his own stepdaughter, Lisa, and that Sharon caught him doing it. But police later abandoned this theory because there's no evidence for it. Lisa herself denied it. Tony said he was in fact the father of the child. And Tony never mentions it as a motive in his interrogations. By the time of Tony and Jason's trials, prosecutors say the motive was Ken's gambling debts, not a rape. But once the idea is introduced to Jason, it sticks. It's now a part of his story from that point on. Here he is repeating this idea in his third interrogation.

[Todd Bookman]

Did he give you any explanation as.

[Jason Moon]

To why she was to be killed? He had told me that Johnson.

[Todd Bookman]

She had caught Johnson raping his daughter and doing some other very or I've.

[Jason Moon]

Heard about some very, very other criminal acts. Fabiana says it's important to trace the genealogy of each detail in a confession.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Is it something that the police had already thought that in their theory before they even questioned anyone? Is it a new theory that arose out of the questioning of one of the suspects or witnesses? Where does each thought and fact and detail come from? Who states it first? Is it actually true?

[Jason Moon]

The idea that a rape was the motive for the murder was not reported on in the news. So if that idea isn't true and it wasn't in the news, where else did Jason get it from, if not the detectives? And if that happened with this detail, couldn't it have happened with others? If you trace the origin of other important details in Jason's confession, you see a similar trajectory. Detectives introducing ideas. Jason incorporating those ideas into his story, like the murder weapon. Even after Jason has admitted to stabbing Sharon, he gives a handful of different answers about where the murder weapon is. He says he doesn't know. The detectives say that's wrong. He says he burned it in a fire. They say that's wrong. He says he threw it in a river. Wrong again. Finally, Detective Lammy introduces the idea that the knife is at Jason's house. It's at your house or you got it, he says. Then Karen introduces the idea of the specific knife. Is it a small brown pocket knife? Jason simply agrees with them. Or how about the amount Jason was paid? According to police, before anything was tape recorded, Jason said he was paid $500. Then Lammy says, I suspect that is not the accurate amount you got. Jason changes his answer to $2,000, then later to $5,000. There's Sharon's bra, which, remember, was cut open in the front with a knife. One of those supposedly hidden details that only the killer would know. But Jason makes no mention of the bra until his third interrogation, when the idea is first introduced by police. And then when Jason gets the answer wrong, he says the bra was unsnapped. Listen to the detectives give him multiple choice answers to try and help him match his story to the evidence.

[Todd Bookman]

How was the bra taken off?

[Jason Moon]

The bra, it was unsnapped.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Unsnapped, but torn.

[Jason Moon]

You recall torn, Unsnapped, Pulled over her head? To me, to me, the way it.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

Was going, it seemed like it was unsnapped.

[Jason Moon]

Snapped. In the front or the back?

[Todd Bookman]

In the back.

[Jason Moon]

From what it seems like he was reaching around her to the back. So not only does Jason not mention the bra until police specifically ask him about it. When he does incorporate the idea into his story, he does so in a way that gets the evidence wrong. There's even evidence that detectives were willing to show Jason pictures of the crime scene. It happens during the interrogation with his mother. Near the end of the tape, after Jason already said he stabbed Sharon, Lammy asks Jason about Sharon's rings. You might remember Sharon's rings were found lying on the ground at the construction site. Lammy says, who took the rings off her hand? You haven't told us anything. About that. Why didn't you tell us about that? Jason replies, because I didn't know of any rings being on her hands. Lammy says, well, they were on her hands. Who took them off? You were there. Think clearly. Think clearly. Now. They were found on the ground. Who took them off and why were they off? And then Lammie asks, presumably, of one of the other detectives, if they have a picture they can show Jason. And from that moment on, the rings are part of Jason's story. So, all right, but. So a jury could hear this and think, well, whatever. He gets some of the details wrong and the details change and they get more incriminating, not because it's what cops want to hear, but it's because it's the things that he doesn't want to say. So why isn't this evolution of details just a. A kind of slow, like, surrendering to the reality of what he's done? Why. Why can't we say that's what's happening here?

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

I think the hard part is that we can't say that that's what's not happening. We can't prove, just by analyzing what is going on in the interrogation. We can't prove that this is a false confession just by anything that he has said or that the interrogators have said. All we have are the red flags. All we have are the red flags and what they amount to and how they interact with each other. They provide a reason to be skeptical of these interrogation practices and the confessions that resulted from them.

[Jason Moon]

After all this, we're back to the original problem of false confessions. They are so hard to detect, even for the interrogator. Fabiana says they often do not realize they're planting the details of a false story.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

The majority of police officers and interrogators and detectives out there, when they're interrogating someone and they are getting a confession and they are contaminating and they are making this person rehearse the confession over and over again. It's because they really think that the person did it. And so that is not always the case. I can point to some very specific people and instances where there have been setups by the police and the police knew that they were taking a false confession. And I think that that is rare. I think that that is exception.

[Jason Moon]

Fabiana says the problem here is not about the intentions of individual interrogators. It's bigger than that. In 2012, the Attorney General for the state of Nebraska apologized and offered $500,000 in taxpayer money to a man who'd been wrongfully convicted. Darrell Parker had been coerced into a false confession in 1955 by a detective named John Reed. The most commonly used interrogation technique in the US Is named after a detective who extracted a false confession.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

The system, the culture that our detectives live in and are made to operate in, sets them up for this specific kind of failure of not being able to realize that there's an innocent person in front of them, because it is so guilt presumptive. It is such an accusatory and confirmatory process. And so I think that they're just doing what they have been trained to do. They are doing what their police departments have done for decades and decades and decades.

[Jason Moon]

This is why recording interrogations from start to finish is the number one recommendation from experts like Fabiana to avoid convictions based on false confessions. In total, about an hour and a half of Jason's interrogations were tape recorded. That's about 11% of the time Jason was questioned by police. None of this is to say we should never trust any confession. Confessions can have green flags as well as red ones.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

One thing that you should be looking for are details that can be independently corroborated that the police did not know about beforehand. So if a confession leads the police to new evidence, that's a good sign that this might be a true confession.

[Jason Moon]

For instance, if Jason had led police to the location of Sharon's shirt or her pocketbook, which were never found, it would have been strong evidence he was telling the truth. But Jason didn't. In fact, there's not a single verifiable fact that comes from Jason's confessions that police didn't already know about in advance. In criminal trials, the standard for convicting someone is. Is beyond a reasonable doubt. It's the highest burden of proof in our court system. It's also notoriously vague. What makes a doubt reasonable? And what if doubts that seemed unreasonable in the early 90s become reasonable 30 years later with new science? What do we do then? In the courts, new doubts are often not enough to undo a conviction. So what does it take? A new telling of the story. My main goal is to raise the concerns around this conviction to the extent that it would encourage the state to revisit the evidence. And we have been lucky with other past cases that almost in every case, we've been able to find something. A witness who's never talked before, just something. And that could happen. That could happen here, too. Or does it still take a miracle? What are you.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

I need to stop for a second.

[Jason Moon]

That's next time on Bear Brook Season 2 A True Crime Story Special thanks this episode to all of the scientists and lawyers whose work we relied on. They include Sol Kassen, Stephen Drizen, Thomas Griffith Grisso, Gislika Johnson, Richard Leo, Alison Redlich, Brandon Garrett, Emily West, Vanessa Materico, Jennifer Perillo, Christian Meisner, Rebecca Norwick, Katherine Keitel, William Crozier, Darren Strange, Sarah Appleby, Lisa Hazel, Kristen Jones, Timothy Luke, Johanna Hellgren, Aria Amram, the National Registry of Exonerations and of course, Fabiana Alceste. In 2022, 30 people in the US were exonerated after convictions based on false confessions. The median amount of time they spent incarcerated was 24 years. A true Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon. It's edited by Katie Culinary. Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno Booth photos and production help on this episode by Sarah Nathan. We had editing help from Lauren Chulgin, Daniela Allee, Sarah Plord, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian and Todd Bookman. Our news director is Dan Barrick. Our director of podcasts is Rebecca Lavoy. Fact Checking by Danya Suleiman Sarah Plord created our original artwork as well as our website bearbrookpodcast.com additional photography and videos by Gabby Lozada. Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon. Bear Brook is a production of the Document Team at New Hampshire Public Radio. Behind every BP Fill Up Thousands of.

[Todd Bookman]

People across America go to work every day. People producing energy offshore, people turning it.

[Jason Moon]

Into products at our refineries, people doing.

[Todd Bookman]

R and D to make products that.

[Jason Moon]

Are better for your engine, people trading.

[Todd Bookman]

And shipping fuels to their destinations, and the people who help you at one of BP's growing family of retail stations.

[Jason Moon]

They're part of the more than 300,000 jobs BP supports across the country.

[Todd Bookman]

Learn more at BP.com investinginamerica Hey everyone.

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste]

I'm Gypsy Rose Blanchard. So viewers will see in this season of Life After Lockup my struggles and mistakes I made, how I handled myself. I'm excited about motherhood. I get to share with my child the things that I didn't get to experience as a child. Myself and Ken and I grew as a couple. Seeing how we navigate parenthood, seeing how we navigate our relationship. It's going to be great.

[Jason Moon]

Gypsy Rose Life After Lockup New season.

[Todd Bookman]

Premieres Monday at 9 only on Lifetime.