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Adam John Walsh was an American child who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida on July 27, 1981. His severed head was found two weeks later in a drainage canal alongside Highway 60 / Yeehaw Junction in rural Indian River County, Florida. His death garnered national interest and was made into the 1983 television film Adam, seen by 38 million people in its original airing.
Henry Lee Lucas was an American convicted serial killer. Lucas was convicted of murdering his mother in 1960 and two others in 1983. He rose to infamy while incarcerated for these crimes when he falsely confessed to approximately 600 other murders to Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials. Many unsolved cases were closed based on the confessions and officially attributed the murders to Lucas, and he was considered the most prolific serial killer in history. Lucas was convicted of murdering 11 people and condemned to death for a single case with a then-unidentified victim, later identified as Debra Jackson. An investigation by the Dallas Times-Herald newspaper showed that many of the murders Lucas confessed to were flatly impossible for him to have committed. While the Rangers defended their work, a follow-up investigation by the Attorney General of Texas concluded Lucas was a fabulist who had falsely confessed. Lucas' death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1998. Lucas himself later recanted everything, with the exception of his confession to murdering his mother, as a hoax. He died of congestive heart failure in 2001.
Ottis Elwood Toole was an American drifter and serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas, Toole made confessions which he later recanted, which resulted in murder convictions. 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 who police used to clear unsolved murders from the books.
Sture Ragnar Bergwall, also known as Thomas Quick from 1993–2002, is a Swedish man previously believed to have been a serial killer, having confessed to more than 30 murders while detained in a mental institution for personality disorders. Between 1994 and 2001, Quick was convicted of eight of these murders. However, he withdrew all of his confessions in 2008, as a result, his murder convictions were quashed, the final one in July 2013, and he was released from hospital. The episode raised issues about how murder convictions could have been obtained on such weak evidence, and has been called the largest miscarriage of justice in Swedish history. Journalists Hannes Råstam and Dan Josefsson published TV documentaries and books about the murder cases; they claimed that bad therapy led to false confessions. Dan Josefsson claims that a "cult"-like group led by psychologist Margit Norell manipulated the police and talked Sture Bergwall into false confessions.
Michael Stone is a British man who was convicted of the 1996 murders of Lin and Megan Russell and the attempted murder of Josie Russell, and who is a suspected serial killer. He was sentenced to three life sentences with a tariff of 25 years for the Russell killings.
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.
Lindow Woman and Lindow I are the names given to the partial remains of a female bog body, discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss, near Wilmslow in Cheshire, England, on 13 May 1983 by commercial peat-cutters. The remains were largely a skull fragment, which was missing its jaw, but with soft tissue and hair attached. The remains were subsequently dated to the Roman period. The remains became more technically known as Lindow I after the discovery of other remains in the same bog, which were identified as Lindow Man or Lindow II in 1984 and Lindow III in 1987.
Keith Hunter Jesperson is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and authorities. Many of his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was Jesperson's preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.
Lee Chun-jae is a South Korean serial killer known for committing the Hwaseong serial murders. Between 1986 and 1994, Lee murdered 15 women and young girls in addition to numerous sexual assaults predominantly in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi and surrounding areas. The serial murders, which remained unsolved for 30 years, are considered to be the most infamous in South Korea's modern history. They are often compared to those committed by the Zodiac Killer in the United States, and served as the inspiration for the 2003 film Memories of Murder.
William George Heirens was an American criminal and possible serial killer who confessed to three murders. He was subsequently controversially convicted of the crimes in 1946. Heirens was called the Lipstick Killer after a notorious message scrawled in lipstick at a crime scene. At the time of his death, Heirens was reputedly Illinois' longest-serving prisoner, having spent 65 years in prison.
A deathbed confession is an admittance or confession when someone is nearing death, or on their "death bed". This confession may help alleviate any guilt, regrets, secrets, or sins the dying person may have had in their life. These confessions can occur because the dying want to live the last moments of their life free of any secrets they have been holding in for a portion—or entirety—of their life. Or, if religious, the person may perhaps believe they will be forgiven by a higher power before they die, allowing them entrance to a better place, such as Heaven, after death. A deathbed confession can be given to anyone, but a family member is usually with their loved one during this time. Doctors and nurses may also hear a deathbed confession because they are often present in a person’s last moments.
Confession, released in the United States as The Deadliest Sin, is a 1955 British drama film directed by Ken Hughes and starring Sydney Chaplin, Audrey Dalton and John Bentley.
The Texas Killing Fields is a 25-acre patch of land in League City, Texas situated a mile from Interstate Highway 45 and approximately 26 miles southeast of Houston.
Anthony and Nathaniel Cook are American serial killer brothers who committed a series of at least 9 rapes and murders of mostly couples in Toledo, Ohio area between 1973 and 1981. Their guilt was established in the late 1990s thanks to DNA profiling, after which both brothers were convicted and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 women between 1970 and 2005. In 2014 he was convicted of the murders of Linda Alford, Guadalupe Duarte Apodaca, and Audrey Nelson Everett, and in 2018 for the murder of Denise Christie Brothers. 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.
Edward "Eddie" Walton was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering five people across five states between 1896 and 1908, eventually being hanged for the murder of Beulah Martin in 1908.
Leandro Basílio Rodrigues, known as The Guarulhos Maniac, is a Brazilian serial killer who raped and strangled at least five women in Guarulhos between 2007 and 2008, raping their bodies post-mortem. For his known crimes, he was sentenced to 111 years imprisonment, but he could be possibly be responsible for at least 4 more murders.
Asbury Respus was an American serial killer who confessed to at least eight murders throughout North Carolina and Virginia in the early 20th century. Respus was not a suspect in most of the murders he committed until he gave a lengthy confession during his trial for the murder of 9-year-old Vera Leonard, the murder for which he would be executed. Respus's victim profile was particularly unique in that his victims were not of a particular age or racial group, as four were white, four were black, two were children, and one was over 80 years old. Respus was executed in the electric chair at the Central Prison in Raleigh in 1932.
Nicholas Lee Wiley, known as The Syracuse Serial Killer, is an American serial killer and sex offender who killed at least three women in Syracuse, New York between April and May 2004. After his arrest, he confessed to a total of seven murders to which have never been confirmed. For his known crimes, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Mortimer, Caroline (16 July 2015). "91-year-old confesses to the murder of Soho sex worker – in 1946" . The Independent . Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ward, Victoria (16 July 2015). "Man 'confesses to 1946 killing', marking longest gap between a crime and a confession". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 23 July 2015.