Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - False Confessions: Henry Lee Lucas

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

In the mid-1980s, serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to nearly 600 murders. While most of those confessions were subsequently disproven, his case led to larger questions about United States interrogation methods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. episode includes discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Convicted serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas, sat in a stuffy interrogation room. A team of investigators gathered around him. They knew that Lucas had killed

dozens, maybe hundreds of times, but now he was cooperating with them, helping them close old cases. The lead detective didn't know why Lucas was so compliant, but that wasn't his mystery to solve. He just needed to know he could close his homicide case, a woman who had been murdered in her own bed. Lucas seemed amenable to taking credit, but the detective wanted to be sure the confession was legitimate. So he set up a little test. The detective handed Lucas a crime scene photo and invited him to examine it. For several long seconds, the killer studied the details in the picture, the rumpled bed sheets, the decor, the discarded pair of glasses on the murdered woman's bedside table. Once Lucas was finished with the photo, the detective pulled out another.

It featured a group of smiling men and women posing for the camera. He asked Lucas if he could identify the victim. Once again, Lucas studied the photo intent. Finally, he pointed at the correct woman and declared that he'd killed her. Gladly, the detective took the snapshot back. There was no way Lucas could have recognized the victim from the crime scene photo. He had to have seen her alive right before he killed her. As the detective returned the photo to his evidence file,

he failed to note that in the group picture, the victim was the only woman wearing glasses. He'd just been duped by one of Henry Lee Lucas's many false confessions. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers, a powercast original. Today, instead of looking at the life of a specific murderer, we're exploring an issue that plagues many homicide investigations, false confessions. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can listen to this episode for free on Spotify. You can also find the entire serial killers catalog there. Just open the app and type serial killers in the search bar. We love hearing from you about episodes. So let us know how we're

doing, what you like, but could be better. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. Like we said, this episode is a little different. We want to explore the issue of false confessions. That's a pretty broad topic. So to do that, we're going to look at one serial killer in particular, Henry Lee Lucas. After he was convicted for two murders, he confessed to over 600 more. But all of these confessions were lies. If you want to hear more about Lucas's life, alleged crimes, and psychology, we recommend you listen to our earlier episodes on him, titled The Confession Killer.

But in today's one part episode, we're going to focus on what might have led Lucas to take credit for murders he never committed. What makes someone falsely confess? How do police interrogation methods influence our criminal justice system as a whole? We're also going to talk about what kind of steps people can take to decrease their own chances of making a false confession. On August 23rd, 1982, 15-year-old Frida Becky Powell went missing. Later that year, her former landlord, 82-year-old Kate Rich, disappeared as well. The women had one particularly suspicious factor in common. Both were connected to 45-year-old Henry Lee Lucas.

A former convict, Lucas had already served 10 years in prison for murdering his own mother. Following his release, Lucas had groomed the underage Powell since she was 10 years old. They'd lived together in Rich's house for four days before he was evicted for stealing. When the two women went missing four months later, he was the number one. one suspect. The problem was that no bodies had been found at that point, nor was there any physical evidence concretely linking Lucas to the alleged murders. Since the police were limited in what they could arrest him for, they detained 46-year-old Lucas in June 1983 on charges of illegal weapons possession. They could only hope that while they held him, he'd do or say

something to help break the case open. And to make him more talkative, they apply. They quite a bit of pressure. The lead investigator, Sheriff Bill F. Conway, questioned Lucas repeatedly. For hours, he grilled Lucas, refusing to relent no matter how distressed he became. Lucas informed his jailers that he was addicted to caffeine and nicotine, but they refused to give him cigarettes or coffee. Vanessa's going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not.

not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. While many people might joke that they can't live without a cup of coffee, physical and psychological addictions are very real and can have intense side effects, even in the absence of a biological dependency. According to researchers with the Laguna Treatment Hospital, physical effects of stimulant withdrawal can include anxiety, depression, and in some extreme cases, hallucinations.

In such a muddled state, a person might have a hard time distinguishing fiction from reality and may be susceptible to suggestion. Five days after Lucas was arrested, he agreed to talk to Sheriff Conway again. At the start of their session, he handed the investigator a note that read, I have tried to get help for so long,

and no one will believe me. I have killed for the past 10 years. and no one will believe me. I cannot go on doing this. I also killed the only girl I ever loved. It was the break the police had been looking for. And once Lucas started talking, he didn't stop. He detailed how in the summer of 1982, he and 15-year-old Powell had gotten into a fight, which had escalated into physical violence. He'd stabbed her to death, had sex with her corpse and then chopped her body into pieces that he spread across a vacant field. He thought he'd gotten away with it until he heard rumors that the former landlord Kate Rich

was inquiring about Powell. Fearful that the old woman would draw suspicion onto him, he decided that she had to be silenced. One day, Lucas offered to give Rich a ride to her regular church service, but instead of driving her to the house of worship, he took Rich to a deserted road, stabbed her, and once more had sex with the corpse. Later, he tried to burn the body to destroy the evidence. Not only did Lucas describe in detail how and why he'd murdered Powell and Rich. He also told the police exactly where to find what remained of Rich's corpse. When investigators went to the site on June 16th, they found charred human bones, exactly as Lucas had described. Following his confessions, the state charged Lucas with the murders.

But his days in prison awaiting trial were very different from his time prior to the confessions. He had access to as many cigarettes and cups of coffee as he wanted. This change may have had a profound effect on Lucas, considering his low IQ and history of mental illness. He knew that he'd faced the music soon. But he may have not fully understood the consequences looming on the horizon. Instead, it was almost like the police were rewarding him for confessing. Hannah K. Scott and Mark Cogburn, who studied behavior modification techniques, noted a difference between positive reinforcement or rewarding good behavior and negative reinforcement,

punishing bad behavior. They observed that positive reinforcement was significantly more effective at changing the way a person acts than negative reinforcement. This meant that for someone like Lucas, The rewards he gained from confessing would offset the losses he'd face in being sent back to prison. In addition, both kinds of reinforcement work best when applied immediately following the behavior in question. If someone is rewarded or punished within hours or days, it will be more powerful than if weeks or years pass between the action and its consequence.

Lucas got his perks, like cigarettes and coffee, right after he confessed. but he had to wait months to see if his admission would lead to a guilty verdict. By the time he faced any negative consequences, it was too late for him to subconsciously link the cause and the effect. That led Lucas to one natural conclusion. It was beneficial to confess to crimes. And while he waited for his court date, 47-year-old Lucas began sharing details of other murders he'd committed, virtually unprompted.

Later, while on the stand during the Kate Rich murder trial, Lucas announced that he'd killed her, and quote, I've got 100 more out there somewhere. The shocking pronouncement immediately made headlines, and it wasn't just the press that was paying attention. Crime scene investigators from all over the country poured into Texas to question Lucas about their open cases. Potentially hundreds of missing persons cases and unsolved murders

promised to finally reach a resolution thanks to Lucas' help. Soon, Lucas had confessed to more than 75 murders. Most were victims that the police weren't even aware of. Young men and women who had never been reported missing. Bodies that had never been found. But this made some critics wonder if he was inventing crimes and the police were straining to fit his confessions to any and all open investigations.

Still, these criticisms did nothing. to stop detectives from interviewing him. By the fall of 1983, officials had closed up to 81 cases, based solely on Lucas's testimony. From August 19th to 30, 1984, he traveled throughout California, taking credit for an additional 19 open murder cases. Many of these admissions brought new charges and new penalties. By the mid-80s, Lucas had racked up five life sentences, plus an additional 200-teenths 10 years in prison. Although there was rarely any physical evidence proving that he'd been involved

in the homicides, the confessions were seen as irrefutable. But as time went on, his accounts only grew wilder. He'd claimed he'd been inducted into a Florida-based satanic cult called the Hand of Death. In service to the Devil, Lucas said he'd performed contract killings, cut out his victims' hearts, drank their blood, and ritualistically burned their bodies on unholy altars. His number of confessed kills climbed above 600. He also took credit for some of history's most infamous deaths, like Jimmy Hoffa. He also claimed he was involved in the Jonestown Massacre and that he'd supplied cult leader Jim Jones with the poison he used in the mass suicide.

Given how dramatic these accounts became, more investigators started to nurse doubts about his stories. While it seemed incomprehensible that a man would admit to crimes he hadn't committed, it was equally unbelievable that he'd been so prolific for so long. On April 14, 1985, an expose in the Dallas Times Herald, alleged that Lucas had lied in most or even all of his confessions. One of the reporters, Hugh Ainsworth, pointed to inconsistencies in Lucas's testimony and even claimed that the police had intentionally fed him information to spur the admissions. Troubled by these allegations, Dallas Detective Linda Irwin tried to see for herself if she could coerce a false confession.

She invented a completely fictional victim and a murder and asked Lucas if he'd been involved in the homicide. He quickly agreed that he'd... killed the imaginary victim. In the wake of these revelations, Lucas publicly announced that all but three of his confessions were lies. While he still maintained that he killed his mother, Becky Powell, and Kate Rich, he revealed that the rest were exaggerations, or even that the police had coerced him. In 1986, the Texas Attorney General commissioned an independent investigation into his alleged crimes. As the task force dug, they found more and more evidence that undermine Lucas's

confessions. For example, on April 10, 1977, Lucas allegedly murdered 69-year-old Kirby Reeves in Texas, but payroll record suggested he was actually working in Pennsylvania that day. Likewise, on March 20, 1979, Lucas supposedly killed 31-year-old Elaine Tolet in Oklahoma, but hospital records prove he was in West Virginia at the time. In light of this new information, Lucas was exonerated of numerous crimes, including the murder of a Jane Doe, which the media had dubbed Orange Sox. Lucas had previously admitted to killing Orange Sox and was sentenced to death for the crime. But the media circus around Lucas's recantations only raised more questions.

How could law enforcement officials explain? this to the families of victims who believed the killer had been caught. Had any of Lucas's confessions been real? And if not, did that mean that dozens of real serial killers were still on the loose? And the biggest question of all, what could possibly drive a person to confess to a crime he or she did not commit? Up next, we'll look at tactics police used to encourage guilty suspects to confess and how those same tactics can manipulate the innocent. This is Euphoria Calvin Klein, the new elixir collection, featuring three perfume intense scents, inspired by a unique orchid accord, paired with vanilla, each with its own

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It's nothing you would expect. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast now streaming and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Now back to the story. In 1983, Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the murders of 15-year-old Becky Powell and 82-year-old Kate Rich. He spent the next three years taking credit for hundreds of other homicides, only to later recant those confessions in 1985. After some digging, investigators were able to prove that Lucas couldn't possibly have committed some of the crimes he'd been found guilty of.

Since then, Lucas has been an enduring source of fascination for crime buffs and investigators alike. His behavior seems to defy any rational explanation. Why would any innocent person ever willingly confess to something they didn't do? How could they ignore the consequences of a person? prison sentence or even execution. Cognitive ability is a major factor in these sorts of false confessions. Samuel Gross of the National Registry of Exonerations and researcher Morris Posley noted that people under the age of 18 and those with developmental disabilities are

disproportionately more likely to confess to a crime they didn't commit. Gross and Posley maintain a database of every criminal exoneration in the United States since, 1989 and have noticed certain trends among the falsely convicted. About 7% of exonerated neurotypical adults gave a false confession. But among the developmentally disabled, the number was 73%, and about half of all innocent minors convicted of crimes confessed. It's clear that people with inhibited judgment are more likely to falsely say they're guilty. Henry Lee Lucas had an IQ of 87, which is about the average of a seven-year-old. He also suffered from lifelong brain trauma, most likely caused by his abusive mother in childhood.

A piece by M. Brower and B. Price in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychology, noted that damage to the frontal lobe can trigger criminal aggression and poor impulse control. Some researchers have concluded that Lucas's brain damage made him into a serial cancer. killer. But these same injuries might have also increased the likelihood that he would exaggerate his homicidal tendencies. Journalist Nan Cuba and serial killer expert Dr. Joel Norris contended that frontal and temporal lobe abnormalities could trigger schizophrenia or hallucinations. In short, Lucas might have imagined he was a killer and then reported those delusions to police as fact. Given how muddy Lucas's case was, we can't say with any certainty whether his brain injury

made him a serial killer, a serial liar, or some combination of the two. As for suspects who don't suffer from cognitive impairment, the best way to understand their false confessions is to put yourself in their minds. Imagine that you're being held in a police station. You've been accused of murder, A murder you didn't commit, but no matter how emphatically you insist on your innocence, the police don't believe you. You're locked in an interrogation room for hours. You're not allowed to speak to your friends or family or anyone at all except for the detectives. You don't even have a window. You can feel your heart racing and sweat beads on your forehead.

You begin to feel like you're all alone in the world. This is a pretty common reaction. Saul Kassin, professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, noted that isolation can increase your stress levels. Before the questioning can even begin, your fight or flight response is triggered and you're desperate to get out of that room. A detective walks into your cell. She announces that the police know all about what you did. They found your fingerprints at the crime scene. Your alleged accomplices have all named you.

And even though you know that's impossible, you start to wonder if maybe the police really do have a case against you. Social psychologist Richard J. O'Shee and Professor of Psychology and Criminology, Richard A. Leo, noted that these kinds of aggressive accusations are particularly effective against innocent suspects. While a guilty criminal may expect such a line of questioning, an ordinary, not guilty person will be caught off guard, shocked, and confused. You may forget key details about your alibi, or contradict yourself as you scramble to answer the interrogator's questions. All the while, you realize that you're only making yourself look guiltier while you struggle to keep your own story straight. By now, your stress levels are unimaginable, and the detective warns that things can only go downhill from here. Your refusal to cooperate

with police could compound your sentence. If you admit your guilt, though, prosecutors might go easier on you. Your survival instincts kick in. You'll do anything to get out of the interrogation room, even agree to the untrue things the police are saying about you. So, without even realizing why you're saying it, you agree that the accusations are true. And just like that, you've made a false confession. In the United States, there are limited regulations on what police are allowed to say or do during suspect interrogation. Ninety-six's Miranda v. Arizona ruling forbids the use of torture or physical violence, but permits many other questionable practices. For example, suspects may be held in isolation indefinitely while the police debrief them repeatedly.

interrogators are also allowed to say things that aren't true. They can claim that they found damning evidence placing a person at the scene of the crime. They can invent witnesses or accomplices who have accused the suspect. They can even imply that if the accused doesn't confess, they could be charged with a more serious violation. All of these tactics are designed to make the suspect drop their defenses. Once their will is broken, they're willing to say anything to get back. back on the cop's good side. They may even take responsibility for a crime they didn't commit. Attorney Ave Mastigyei noted on the criminal defense lawyer website, quote,

crazily enough, people that are innocent may be more likely to falsely confess on the mistaken belief that they can confess and the interrogation and then get everything sorted out later. In all fairness, these sorts of methods aren't designed to force false confessions, They're intended to pressure the guilty into admitting what they did. But even guilty criminals can be manipulated into lying under these conditions. Icelandic researchers Jan Friedrich Seagerson and Gieslie H. Gujarnsen explored the rates of false confessions in Iceland's prisons. They came to an alarming conclusion. 12% of the incarcerated men they spoke to claimed that they'd confessed to a crime they hadn't committed.

To be clear, these men all confessed to crimes other than the one for which they were already serving time. These men weren't opportunists looking to get out of their sentence. Instead, these prisoners alleged that after they'd been convicted and incarcerated, police had pressured them to admit to additional crimes of which they were innocent. So perhaps a criminal who is already serving time will be more amenable to confessing that a person whose freedom is at stake. And while these confessions may add only a little time to the convict sentence, they benefit police greatly. They're able to close minor cases and improve their stats.

So Sigerson and Gugensen's findings suggest that police aren't above targeting vulnerable people to falsely confess. People like Henry Lee Lucas. By the late 80s, Lucas had been exonerated of many crimes, but was still a top suspect in more than a dozen other homicides. Even the most skeptical officials were confident that he'd committed at least three murders, that of his mother, his former landlord Kate Rich, and his underage girlfriend, Becky Powell. Those relatively modest assumptions were turned on their head in 1994. That was when a very much alive Becky Powell contacted attorney Vic Fizzell. The 27-year-old claimed that she'd faked her own death.

and for the past decade had been living under the name Phyllis Wilcox. In the media frenzy that followed her revelation, the woman provided alibis for many of Lucas's crimes, demonstrating that he couldn't possibly be the monster the police had made him out to be. The only problem? These were all lies. Fissel investigated further and found that Wilcox was actually a fan of Henry Lee Lucas.

She'd exchanged several correspondences with the conflict, and had even fallen in love with him. In their letters, they detail their plans for her to pose as Becky Powell and try to exonerate him. It seems that it's not only the falsely accused who will lie to police and complicate homicide investigations. Strangers with no apparent connection to the case will invent narratives as well.

And police, press, and ordinary citizens should all be careful not to believe everything that they hear. Thanks to twists and turns like these, we may never know the true extent of Lucas's crimes. Neither will the investigators who elicited the false confessions in the first place, which leads us to wonder if the police ever really believed the lies. Were they Lucas's willing accomplices in invention, or just ordinary dupes? Social psychologist Richard J. O'Shee and Professor Richard A. Leo clarified in their paper the social psychology of police interrogation. Most homicide investigators don't actually want to send

an innocent person to prison, but they're as human as anyone else and can misinterpret evidence or put undue weight on an incorrect gut instinct. They explained, too often interrogators appear to give no thought to the possibility that the confession they've extracted could be false. Generally, police in America are not trained how to avoid causing false confessions, how to recognize different types of false confessions, or how to identify the telltale characteristics of false confessions. Best case scenario, if a person takes credit for a crime they didn't commit, the police might question the confession,

if they uncover new evidence or have another good reason to do so. Worst case scenario, the police know the suspect is lying. But go along with it anyway, just to close the case. It's an odd situation to contemplate. The job of a detective is to uncover the truth about crimes. A false confession is anathema to a proper investigation. And yet, we know that it has happened hundreds of times. In Lucas's case, Attorney General Jim Maddox complained,

we have found information that would lead us to believe that some officials cleared cases just to get them off the books. And they went to extreme lengths to do just that. Investigators were accused of leaving case files in the room with Lucas, so he could review the details and then later work the information into his confessions. In some cases, he was even granted access to confidential information to add credibility to his admissions. When he didn't know a specific detail, he was an excellent bluffer.

He tended to give multiple answers to a single, question. For example, if a detective asked Lucas where a murder took place, his answer might be something like, maybe I killed her in the woods or in a field or in a barn. So long as one of those responses was correct, police treated this as proof that Lucas had intimate knowledge of the crime. Their methods ensured that later investigators could never determine just how much Lucas really knew firsthand. On one occasion, Lucas was shown a crime scene. photo of a woman's bedroom where she'd been killed. He later correctly identified the victim in a group photo. When asked how he knew which woman had been murdered, he pointed out that he'd seen

glasses in the women's bedroom, and she was the only glasses wearer in the picture. Every time police accepted a confession from Lucas, he was further encouraged to give police whatever answers they wanted. Like we mentioned earlier, positive reinforcement was a powerful motivator. Each confession might add years to his sentence, but in exchange he got perks like cigarettes and better meals. And then there was the media. They splashed his face across front pages with each new shocking revelation.

He relished the attention, bragging that his celebrity proved he really was someone important. Lucas also got to travel to his alleged crime scenes to walk local police officers through the murders. Given the choice between rotting away, way behind bars or traveling the country, staying in hotels and eating restaurant food. It was a no-brainer. But Lucas was inconsistent, even after he recanted.

One day he'd cooperate with the police. The next, he'd claimed that all of his admissions had been coerced. He even hired a defense investigator, Brad Shelladie, to prove his innocence. Then he turned around and gave even more false confessions. It's possible that he was. was an expert manipulator, playing the system to get attention and then backing out once the reality of life in prison became too frightening. He craved attention, media coverage, and physical comforts like cigarettes and coffee, and he said what he needed in order to get them. Yesterday he was a serial

killer. Today, he's an innocent man. Tomorrow, he'll be what he has to be to get what he wants. Even Sheldie complained, You see, they got to the point where he didn't have to wear prison clothes. He got all the artistic materials he wanted, all the cigarettes he wanted, cable TV in his cell. As Henry said to me, they treated me like a king. Why would I want to change things? But it's possible Lucas's motives weren't quite so cut and dry, or so self-serving. The brain damage he suffered as a child probably drove him.

him to behave erratically. He was also known to have self-harming tendencies and tried to kill himself on several occasions. Lucas once even told Chelody that he falsely confessed to multiple murders and an attempt at legal suicide. In essence, he wanted to die, and the death penalty could help him do that. Later, after the self-destructive episode passed, he desperately campaigned to have the ruling commuted, and he proved he couldn't have committed the murder for which he'd been sentenced, that of the Jane Doe known as Orange Sox. Although capital punishment is highly controversial, even its supporters would agree that the execution of an innocent man would be a miscarriage of justice.

While governor of Texas, George W. Bush issued the only death row pardon of his entire term on June 27, 1998. He commuted 62-year-old Henry Lee Lucas's sentencing. to life in prison. Lucas's brief but wrongful tenure on death row shows just how dangerous false confessions can be to the integrity of the criminal justice system. False confessions mean innocent people are imprisoned while the guilty go free. Many see this as a threat to the foundation of democracy itself. Next, we'll look at the widespread impacts of false confessions and explore how a suspect can predict. can protect themselves. Now the conclusion of our story.

In the 1980s and 90s, serial killer Henry Lee Lucas admitted to close to 600 murders, many of which are now believed to be false confessions. And he's not alone. It's estimated that more than one in ten convicts admits to a crime they didn't commit. Of course, it's difficult to get unbiased data about false confessions. Someone dishonest enough to lie about committing a crime might also be dishonest about their innocence, especially since the latter is more beneficial to them. Yet if they really did wrongfully take credit for a crime, the implications could shake the criminal justice system to its core. As researcher Richard A. Leo argued, these false confessions could undermine the foundations of

America's democracy itself. In criminal proceedings, the accused are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But evidence shows that jurors tend to be highly biased against a defendant who's already confessed to the crime. Roughly four out of five people who falsely confessed to a crime are convicted or agree to a plea bargain. Because of this, several rights activists have argued that coerced confessions are a major threat to individual liberty. Leo further explained that game theory plays into these questioning tactics. All suspects, when interrogated, have to ask, will cooperating with police help or harm their chances of going free? And interrogation techniques are designed to impede a suspect's ability to accurately assess their risk.

The rules of the game are tipped in favor of the police. If detectives lie about evidence they've found or witnesses they've identified, the suspect can't evaluate how strong their case actually is. add impeded judgment to the mix, say, from a low IQ or mental illness, and the suspect is likely to make a decision that isn't to their own benefit. These sorts of manipulations are dangerous. In fact, the United States Supreme Court has said that a traditional police interrogation exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals.

But new technology has helped the problem somewhat, According to the Innocence Project, as of 2020, 367 wrongfully convicted people have been exonerated thanks to DNA evidence. 41 of those people, or 11%, pled guilty to crimes they did not commit. But in cases where DNA evidence doesn't exist, all we can go on is the confessors' claims to innocence. The question then becomes, how can the criminal justice system be reformed? to reduce the rate of false confessions, while still allowing the police to interrogate and identify the guilty. The answer may lie in video recordings.

The Innocence Project also writes that false confessions are considerably less common when interrogations are filmed. This is because such recordings can contextualize the admissions of guilt, showing how police might have coaxed such a statement. In addition, interrogators seem less likely to use coercive methods if they know they're being monitored. As of February 2020, 27 states in the USA legally require the police to record their interrogations. Civil rights activists are campaigning for more to adopt similar policies. In the meantime, we may just have to make our peace with the ambiguity.

Some confessions are faked and are not the smoking gun juries are often led to believe they are. Some cases will never be definitively solved, because even if the suspect does confess, we can't be 100% certain that their admission is true. Especially in cases as ambiguous as Henry Lee Lucas's. After his execution was commuted in 1998, he continued to maintain that he was innocent of most of the murders to which he'd confessed. He claimed that he'd converted to Christianity and was resolved to live a good and holy life from behind bars. It was impossible to track when he was lying and when he was telling the

truth. He probably didn't even know himself. The memory problems caused by his childhood head injury could have made it hard to separate his own recollections from the details police had fed him about crime scenes. In essence, his interrogations may have inadvertently brainwashed him into believing he was a prolific serial killer. Sixty-four-year-old Henry Lee Lucas. died in prison of heart failure on March 12, 2001. He'd spent 18 years incarcerated. It was a short sentence, even if he was only guilty of the three crimes he's generally accepted to have committed, the murders of his mother, Becky Powell and Kate Rich. With other alleged killers, it's hard to tell whether justice was served. Take, for example,

Paul Ingram, who in 1988 was accused of sexual. assault and the ritual murder of infants for satanic practices. Ingram confessed to all of the charges after hypnosis. An investigator later alleged that false memories had been implanted and demonstrated that some of his confessed crimes couldn't possibly have happened. Nevertheless, Ingram served his full 20-year sentence in prison. There's also the exonerated five, a group of teenagers who confessed to a brutal sexual assault in Central Park after coercive police questioning. Each spent years in prison before the real rapist came forward in 2002. And finally, alleged Swedish serial killer, Stura Berrival.

Between 1994 and 2001, he was convicted of eight murders. But investigators later deemed that he'd falsely confessed due to mental illness. He spent 20 years in a psychiatric facility before he was ultimately released in March 2014. Thanks to these sorts of false confessions and convictions, most legal advisors recommend that ordinary people say nothing in an interrogation setting. Even if you are totally innocent, you should never say anything to the police other than, I want a lawyer. In the United States, all suspects have the right to remain silent or to ask,

for an attorney. You probably recognize those phrases from the Miranda rights, which have been quoted on nearly every cop show or detective movie. Yet Audrey Hamilton of the American Psychological Association's Office of Public Affairs noted that innocent people are twice as likely to waive those rights as guilty people. This is probably an act of hubris. Innocent people believe the evidence will speak for itself. They have nothing to hide. They can just explain themselves to the police. and walk free. Instead, as we've shown, they can end up in coercive interrogations. According to U.S. law, as soon as you ask for a lawyer, police must cease questioning until you've had a chance to speak with your counsel. It's the best legal way to get yourself out of a stressful situation before your nerves can be turned against you. And it's not just about protecting yourself. If you can avoid making a false confession, you can also ensure the police will keep investigating and eventually find the real murderer.

Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back Thursday with a new episode. You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other parcast originals for free on Spotify. Not only does Spotify already have all of your favorite music, but now Spotify is making it easy for you to enjoy all of your favorite parcast originals like serial killers for free from your phone, desktop or smart speaker. To stream serial killers on Spotify, just open the app and type serial killers in the search bar. Several of you have asked how to help the show. And if you enjoy the show, the best way to help is to leave a five-star review.

And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and is a Parcast Studios original. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cuddler, sound design by Dick Schroeder, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, and Freddie Beckley. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Angela Jorgensen, with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson.

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