“I’ve only come across one case where someone was convicted of murder without a body, and the person later showed up alive,” Anna says.
The judge nods. “Far as I know that’s all there’s been so far. Charlie Somethinganother, wasn’t it?”
“Charles Hudspeth,” she says. “In 1886 he was convicted and even executed for killing his lover’s husband. The husband was later discovered to be alive—living in another state.”
“My question for your young legal mind is,” the judge says to Anna, “is one innocent defendant convicted and executed worth two-hundred and ninety-nine guilty ones getting what they deserve, or is it worth two-hundred and ninety-nine murderers getting away with it to save one innocent man?”
“Truth is if any of them kill again, then it’s not just one innocent being executed, is it?”
“True.”
“But . . .” she says, “our system is set up on the principle that it’s far better for the guilty to go free than the innocent to be convicted, and I agree with that. Even . . . when it’s my ex-husband.”
I take her hand and we sit in silence for a moment.
The girls are crawling through the plastic tunnel of the jungle gym, giggling and squealing occasionally with the purity of their pleasure, Johanna being very patient and careful with her little sister.
“I remember your case,” the judge says, referring to the trial of Acqwon Lewis for the murder of Angel Diaz.
I have to limit the number of people who know I’m looking into the case, but have no doubt at all that I’m safe in trusting the discretion of this wise, honorable old man.
“Followed it at the time,” he says, “even talked to Judge Carr about it while it was going on. He’s a friend of mine. We often ask each other’s advice—or did. I thought it was a thin case at the time. Still do. Can’t have charges that serious, a case that important determined by one witness. Especially a witness like him.”
“What do you mean—like him?” I ask.
“Juvenile delinquent on his way to becoming a career criminal. Shifting story. So many theatrics in his statements and testimony. I would’ve needed more.”
“The fact that the cellphone tower pings corroborated his story and that he knew where the victim’s car was wasn’t more enough?” Anna asks.
He shakes his head. “Not for me. Was for Judge Carr. But . . . wouldn’t have been for me. I just didn’t trust him. Not with so much on the line. Carr kept pointing out the cellphone evidence and the fact that he led the investigators to the car, but I don’t think even that was enough for him, ’cause he kept sayin’ over and over, but Harlan he confessed.”
“Who confessed?” I ask.
“Lewis,” he says. “The defendant. Acqwon. That’s what tipped it over for Judge Carr. It got thrown out. Was deemed inadmissible, but Judge Carr knew about it and listened to the recording. Without it I think he would have dismissed the case.”
10
“You confessed?” I say.
“Sir?”
It’s Saturday afternoon. I’m back in Confinement, squatting in the hallway in front of Qwon’s cell, talking to him through the open food tray slot in the door.
From somewhere down the hall, I hear Sergeant Troy Payne laugh. It’s a wicked, I-told-you-so cackle that bounces off all the hard cement and metal surfaces and reverberates through me.
I decide to lower my voice.
“Don’t sir me,” I say.
“I’m confused,” he says. “Sorry. I just don’t understand.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you confessed to killing Angel?” I say.
“Oh, that,” he says, as if relieved. “I thought you knew.”
“How would I know?”
“I don’t know what you know and don’t know about my case,” he says. “I thought you knew most everything before we spoke. Thought Aunt Ida and Katie told you.”
“Well, they didn’t,” I say.
I plan to talk to them next.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know. I’m sure they weren’t intentionally hiding it from you.”
“I’m not.”
“You think they told you everything about my case but that?”
He makes a good point. Of course they didn’t get to everything. Not even close.
“No,” I say, “but I bet it’s the biggest thing they left out.”
He shrugs. “I really can’t see either of them keeping it from you. I really can’t. Can you? They’re good people. You’ve known Ida longer than I have.”
“I’m sure they planned to get around to it eventually,” I say. “Would have to. And them being good people has nothing to do with the strategies they employ to try to get you out of here. But I’ll talk to them about that. Why don’t you tell me about killing Angel Diaz?”
“I didn’t.”
“Have you confessed to killing any other girls?” I ask.
He drops his head slightly. “No.”
“You said you did it but you really didn’t, is that it?”
“I know how it sounds, but yes, sir. That’s the truth of it. I lied. They got Justice to lie against me and they got me to lie against myself.”
“How’d they do that?”
“I was an eighteen-year-old kid. They held me for so long. Interrogated me all night. I was so scared, so . . . I just wanted to sleep, to see someone I knew, my family. I was so sad at losing Angel. I was messed up in the head. They knew what they were doing. Told me they had all this evidence against me and this witness. DNA, cellphone, fingerprints, a witness. Said I was going to get the electric chair. Unless . . . I just signed my name to the paper. If I did that I could see my family. I could leave that little room. I could eat and drink and sleep. I don’t know why I did it. I wouldn’t under normal circumstances, but . . . Let me tell you something. Just being in here, in this cell I’m in right now . . . It’s a reminder. How much of this do you think I can take, how much solitude, how much deprivation, before I’d say almost anything they wanted me to just to get out of here?”
“So all you did was sign a piece of paper?” I say.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why is there a recording of you confessing?”
“There’s not. I mean, they may have had me . . . maybe they made me read what they wrote on the paper, but . . . I don’t really remember doing that. I was so out of it, so . . . and for some reason none of this was in my trial. Haven’t thought about it in a long, long time.”
I nod.
“I swear I wasn’t trying to deceive you,” he says. “And I know they weren’t either.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“John, take a breath and slow down a bit,” Anna says.
Back in my office, about to call Ida, I call Anna first.
“I know what it looks like, but give them a chance to explain before you take their heads off.”
I sit back in my chair and take a deep breath.
She’s right. I can feel the anger and tension in my body. I’m worked up—a state that doesn’t serve me well.
I exhale slowly.
After a few moments, I can feel my heart rate decreasing, the tension in my body easing, the anger slowly dissipating.
“Thanks,” I say.
“I understand how you feel,” she says. “And if they lied to you and or if he’s guilty and you want to drop the case that’s fine. But give them a chance to respond first and stay calm even if you walk.”
“You’re right. Appreciate the reminder. I went from zero to sixty as soon as the judge said confession.”
“It’s understandable.”
I don’t respond, just continue to relax, focus on my breathing.
“You good?” she says.
“I am. Thanks. Thank you for—”
“No need to thank me. Call them and see what they say and call me back. But no matter what . . . don’t forget how often false confessions occur. Just keep it in mind. Walk away from the case today if you
want to. Fine by me. Just don’t forget.”
“I won’t. Call you back in a few. And thanks again.”
When I’m off the phone with Anna, I get another outside line from the control room and call Ida.
“You already solved it, ain’t you, boy?” she says.
“No, ma’am. Just getting started. Don’t even have all the information yet.”
“Oh. Well, that’s okay.”
“Speaking of all the information,” I say, “why didn’t y’all tell me Qwon confessed?”
There’s a long silence. Eventually she says, “Let me let you speak to Kathryn.”
“Hey, John,” Kathryn says in another moment. “How’s it going?”
“Not well,” I say.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“I just found out that Qwon confessed to killing Angel and that you and Ida kept it from me.”
“Oh.”
That’s all she says for a moment, and we fall into more silence.
“Ida wanted to,” she says finally. “She wanted to go ahead and get it out of the way, but . . . I wanted you to look into the case some first. I’m . . . it was a calculation on my part. Ida was against it, but went along with it since I was the one doin’ most of the talking. It’s my fault. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
“What else haven’t you told me?” I ask.
“So much,” she says, “but only because we haven’t gotten to it yet. I was going to tell you, this weekend in fact, when I gave you the copies of the case files.”
“You made me copies of—”
“Everything,” she says. “Everything we have. All the defense files, all the documents I’ve managed to get from my many FOIA requests. You’ll have everything we have. Everything. Not holding anything back.”
I don’t respond right away.
She says, “Please don’t quit on Qwon because of something stupid I did. He made a false confession. It happens all the time. He was a scared black kid. He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t had anything to drink. He was bullied and manipulated and coerced. Every civil right he had was violated. They threatened him with a loaded gun. Played Russian roulette on his forehead. Terrorized him. Tortured him. There’s a reason it wasn’t allowed in the trial. Think about it. I get that you’re mad at me. You have every right to be. But don’t blame Ida and don’t take it out on Qwon. Just ask yourself . . . what do you put more stock in, the coerced confession of a kid being tortured or three different polygraphs given by three different administrators at three different times?”
11
As usual I use some of my much accrued comp time to take off early so I can maximize my time with Johanna, and she and Taylor and Anna and I spend Saturday evening at the Dead Lakes Campground.
While Taylor and Joanna play on the swings and playground equipment, Anna and I grill hotdogs and talk about false confessions.
Previously a state park, the campground is not managed by the county. Beneath tall, old thick-bodied pines, the campground is a bowl that gently slopes down toward a small lake. Nature trails cut through the woods and edge of the swamp. On one side RV hookups and tent sites surround a small cinderblock building of restrooms and showers, while on the other picnic pavilions and built-in grills are situated near the kids’ playground area.
It’s a clear, cool evening growing colder with the sinking of the sun. Both girls have on coats, but are running and playing so much they are actually sweating a little.
The hotdogs on the grill smell better than they really are, but they’re the girls’ favorite and are befitting an evening picnic in a North Florida pine forest.
As a defense attorney, Anna knows a thing or three about false confessions and learned even more during her research this afternoon.
“I know you know they happen,” she says, “but you’d be shocked and disturbed at just how pervasive they really are. There have been something like three hundred and twenty post-conviction DNA exonerations in the US. Of those, thirty percent included incriminating statements, false confessions, and guilty pleas. Thirty percent.”
“And that’s just the ones we know of,” I say. “Wonder how high the actual number really is?”
“Exactly. Scary thing is . . . most were in homicide cases and many of the innocent people did time on death row.”
Nearly everyone says there’s no way they’d confess to a crime they didn’t commit, no matter what. But nearly everyone has a breaking point, and the circumstances under which false confessions are obtained are exceptionally good at finding it.
There are many reasons for false confessions, and the more vulnerable the person being interviewed, the more likely they are to occur. Juveniles and those with a low IQ or mental handicap are particularly susceptible to the common factors like duress, coercion, fear of or actual violence, and ignorance of the law. Other factors include intoxication, diminished capacity, threat of a harsher sentence, and something as simple as a misunderstanding of the situation.
The interrogation techniques of law enforcement officers play a particularly large part in false confessions. The impact of psychologically breaking someone down over extended periods of time—sometime as much as twenty-four hours or more—cannot be overstated.
At a certain point interviewees will do just about anything to end the interview and get out of the small room they’ve been trapped in for so long under such duress.
One of the primary reasons innocent people give false confessions is they believe the investigation will prove their innocence and they’ll be vindicated, but of course, ironically in most cases, their confession is the very thing that brings the investigation to an end.
As Anna prepares our picnic, grilling the hotdogs and warming the buns, pulling out containers of onions and relish, condiments and chips, I’m keeping an eye on the girls, who are edging farther and farther away from us toward the lake.
“Johanna, Taylor,” I say. “Come back up this way.”
Taking her solemn duties as big sister seriously, Johanna takes Taylor by the hand and they walk back toward us.
“You better keep a very close eye on them,” Anna says in mock seriousness.
I smile. A recent headline in Backpack Verse that had come to locals’ attention was: A Kindly Old Man Swears Bigfoot Lurks at this Florida Campground. The story beneath the headline says a seventy-five-year-old from Rochester Hills, Michigan, an avid bird lover whose name was changed for privacy, claims he saw Bigfoot at the Dead Lakes Recreational Campground in Wewahitchka, Florida.
In the article, the elderly man stated, “I was walking near the campgrounds that surround the lakes in the area, peering into the trees, listening for telltale bird calls. I must have been out there for about a half hour, maybe more, when I saw something huge pass between the small gap between two massive willow trees, not far from the water’s edge. Whatever it was moved fast, but even so I could tell that it was massive in size, and covered in dense, brown hair.”
I’ve heard many locals say they know what it was—a certain wooly member of a notoriously unwashed family in town, especially because the elderly gentleman from Rochester Hills, Michigan went on to say, “The closer I got, I realized there was a pungent odor lingering in the air. It was awful, truth be told. It reminded me of some vile combination of a wet, dirty dog and the smell of rotten meat. I fought the urge to gag.”
“I’m surprised you let us bring them here at all,” I say. “Considering the risk involved.”
She glances over at the girls, then at me, gives me a sweet little smile, then returns to her preparations.
“Given what you know about the prevalence of false confessions,” she says, “why did you react the way you did when you found out Qwon had confessed?”
“My reaction or overreaction wasn’t as much about his confession as them lying to me,” I say.
She nods. “I certainly understand that. But you can see why they did it. And in the same situation you might have
done the same.”
I nod and smile. “I just might have.”
“From what I’ve seen and heard of Qwon’s case, I’d say he’s a perfect candidate for a false confession—a black kid with no lawyer and no guardian under interrogation for nearly twenty-four hours.”
“You’re probably right,” I say. “And if we survive this visit to Sasquatch’s hunting ground, we’ll try to find out for sure.”
12
We are putting the girls to bed when Ida and Kathryn show up to bring the case file.
“Come on in,” I say.
“We can just leave these with you,” Kathryn says.
“No. Come in. I’d like to talk to y’all some more and we’re almost done with the bedtime rituals. Have a seat in the living room and give us just a few more minutes. Would you like something to drink?”
When we finish with the girls, we join Ida and Kathryn in the living room, baby monitor in hand.
“Y’all are such good parents,” Kathryn says.
“Make such a sweet little family,” Ida adds.
“I really regret not having kids,” Kathryn says. “Don’t regret much, but I really regret that.”
“Dedicated near ’bout her whole life to finding justice for Qwon and Angel,” Ida says.
“Lot of good it’s done him,” Kathryn says, adding as she looks at me, “Sorry again I didn’t mention his confession. I have no excuse.”
“I understand,” I say.
Anna sits with them while I fix drinks for us—wine for Anna and Kathryn, tea for me and Ida.
I rejoin them in the living room, pass out the drinks, and take a seat by Anna on the dual reclining love seat across from Kathryn and Ida on the couch.
After a few moments of catching up and small talk, Kathryn hands me the thick file folder that’s been sitting on the coffee table in front of her.
Blood Betrayal (John Jordan Mysteries Book 14) Page 7