James Holland is a retired Texas Ranger who is credited with eliciting 93 confessions from serial killer Samuel Little. [1] The Los Angeles Times profiled Holland in 2019, calling him a "serial killer whisperer". [2] Ranger Holland was also profiled on 60 Minutes in the 2019 episode "The Ranger and the Serial Killer".
Holland grew up outside Chicago in the town of Polo, Illinois, where his family renovated The Peek Home Orphanage to accommodate their seven children. [3] Holland graduated from University of Louisville in 1993. According to the International Homicide Investigators Association, Holland joined the Texas Department of Public Safety in 1995 as a highway patrol trooper. He was named a lieutenant in 1995 and later served as a security detail for then-Texas Governor George W. Bush, and provided security during his campaign for President. [4]
Holland's career is punctuated by high-profile homicide investigations and serial killer discoveries. [5] [ failed verification ] He is credited with eliciting 93 confessions from Samuel Little, which have been painstakingly matched up to 60 cold cases [6] and counting. The FBI named Little the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history, thanks to Holland's work in the interrogation room. [7]
He is recognized as a subject-matter expert in interview techniques and regularly speaks to investigative agencies across the country. [8]
Holland has also appeared on episodes of 48 Hours "The Murder of Jackie Vandagriff" (2020) [9] and "The Plot to Kill Jamie Faith" (2022). [10] Holland's investigative work and interrogation tactics to solve the murder of Jackie Vandagriff were highlighted by CBS News, [11] who also interviewed detectives with the Grapevine Police Department who praised Holland's role in the case.
James Holland’s aggressive interrogation techniques are the subject of a six-part podcast called “Smoke Screen: Just Say You’re Sorry.” [12] Released in 2023, it examines the confession of Larry Driskill, in which Driskill said he committed a murder while saying he had no memory of doing so. [13]
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful information, particularly information related to suspected crime. Interrogation may involve a diverse array of techniques, ranging from developing a rapport with the subject to torture.
Pedro Alonso López, also known as The Monster of the Andes, is a Colombian serial killer, child rapist, and fugitive who murdered a minimum of 110 people, mostly young women and girls, from 1969 to 1980. López claimed to have murdered over 300 people. He is considered by many as one of the most prolific serial killers and rapists in history.
Henry Lee Lucas, also known as The Confession Killer, was an American convicted murderer. Lucas was convicted of murdering his mother in 1960 and two others in 1983. He rose to infamy as a claimed serial killer while incarcerated for these crimes when he falsely confessed to approximately six hundred other murders to Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials. Many unsolved cases were closed based on the confessions and the murders officially attributed to Lucas. Lucas was convicted of murdering eleven people and condemned to death for a single case with a then-unidentified victim, later identified as Debra Jackson.
A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or retained material evidence, or fresh activities of a suspect. New technological methods developed after the crime was committed can be used on the surviving evidence to analyse causes, often with conclusive results.
Ottis Elwood Toole was an American serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas, Toole made confessions which resulted in murder convictions, and which he later recanted. The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes for which Toole had offered corroborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as Hugh Aynesworth suggested, both were merely compliant interviewees whom police used to clear unsolved murders from the books.
A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogation techniques. When some degree of coercion is involved, studies have found that subjects with highly sophisticated intelligence or manipulated by their so-called "friends" are more likely to make such confessions. Young people are particularly vulnerable to confessing, especially when stressed, tired, or traumatized, and have a significantly higher rate of false confessions than adults. Hundreds of innocent people have been convicted, imprisoned, and sometimes sentenced to death after confessing to crimes they did not commit—but years later, have been exonerated. It was not until several shocking false confession cases were publicized in the late 1980s, combined with the introduction of DNA evidence, that the extent of wrongful convictions began to emerge—and how often false confessions played a role in these.
Gwendolyn Gail Graham and Catherine May Wood are American serial killers convicted of killing five elderly women in Walker, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids, in 1987. They committed their crimes in the Alpine Manor nursing home, where they both worked as nurse's aides.
Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch is a fictional character created by American author Michael Connelly. Bosch debuted as the lead character in the 1992 novel The Black Echo, the first in a best-selling police procedural series now numbering 24 novels.
Diane Fanning is an American crime writer and author who writes nonfiction and mystery novels.
Richard Jason Ofshe is an American sociologist and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his expert testimony relating to coercion in small groups, confessions, and interrogations.
"Three Men and Adena" is the fifth episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on March 3, 1993. The episode was written by executive producer Tom Fontana and directed by Martin Campbell. In the episode, Pembleton and Bayliss have a 12-hour limit to elicit a confession from Risley Tucker for the murder of 11-year-old Adena Watson. The episode takes place almost entirely within the confines of the police interrogation room with the three actors.
Mr. Big is a covert investigation procedure used by undercover police to elicit confessions from suspects in cold cases. Police officers create a fictitious grey area or criminal organization and then seduce the suspect into joining it. They build a relationship with the suspect, gain their confidence, and then enlist their help in a succession of criminal acts for which they are paid. Once the suspect has become enmeshed in the criminal gang, they are persuaded to divulge information about their criminal history, usually as a prerequisite for being accepted as a member of the organization.
Debra Louise Jackson, informally known as "Orange Socks" when unidentified, was an American murder victim who went unidentified for nearly 40 years before being identified through a DNA match with her surviving sister in 2019. Her murder is believed to have taken place on October 30 or 31, 1979 in Georgetown, Texas. Her body was found naked except for the pair of orange socks from which the nickname was derived. She had been strangled and was believed to have died only hours before the discovery.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people, nearly all women, between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.
The rape and murder of Angie Dodge occurred in Idaho Falls, Idaho on June 13, 1996. The true perpetrator was apprehended in May 2019, nearly 23 years after the crime was committed.
Bill Clutter is an American private investigator, wrongful conviction advocate, and author. He is the co-founder of the Illinois Innocence Project and founder of the national wrongful conviction organization Investigating Innocence. His work on the Donaldson v. Central Illinois Public Service Company case led him to write the book Coal Tar: How Corrupt Politics and Corporate Greed Are Killing America's Children, which is the story of an epidemic of neuroblastoma in Taylorville, IL caused by exposure to coal tar.
Vickie Dawn Carson Jackson is an American serial killer who killed at least 10 patients at the Nocona General Hospital in Nocona, Texas between 2000 and 2001, using the muscle paralytic drug mivacurium. Despite protesting her innocence, she was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Leon David Dorsey IV, also known as Pistol Pete, was an American serial killer who shot and killed two Blockbuster store employees and a Korean store clerk in Texas over several months in 1994. He confessed and was later given a death sentence. He was executed at the Huntsville Unit on August 12, 2008.