Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 5 Convicted Murderers Who Confessed Under Interrogation

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy and veteran homicide detective Fil Waters recap the top 5 convicted murderers who confessed while under interrogation by law enforcement.GUEST:Fil WatersCheck Out Kindred Spirits Investigations! https://kindredspiritsinvestigations.comLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. They say confession is good for the soul, and really it is, but when it comes to the interrogation room, a confession will get you in a lot of legal trouble. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy and welcome to this latest edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast where we are taking a look at some of the top interrogations and confessions that were captured on video. And there are a lot of them out there. When you cover criminal cases, you see a lot of police interrogations that end up in being confessions, really. And joining me

to talk about this is Phil Waters. He is a veteran homicide detective who worked homicide cases for 23 years with the Houston Police Department. He also has done many interrogations and interviews. He teaches interrogation techniques. So he is somebody who knows a lot about this. He is also the founder of Kindred Spirits Investigations. Phil, welcome back to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Angela. Good to be here again. Well, let's take a look at some of these clip of some of the confessions that we're going to discuss. The first one is from Chris Watts. And all of these cases are disturbing. This one is particularly disturbing because Watts confessed to murdering his family in August of 2018. This happened in Colorado. He admitted to straggling his pregnant wife burying her

body in an oil field and then smothering their two young daughters, four-year-old Bella and three-year-old Celeste. The confession came after Watts failed a polygraph test, according to the FBI agent who interviewed him. Watts was having an affair with a coworker and apparently wanted a fresh start. So let's look at a little bit of the interrogation, the interview, where Watts ended up confessing. So, Phil, what did you make of what was saying? So, Phil, what did you make of what Watts was saying? He's saying he had just this rage. It's just unbelievable to me. somebody could not only kill their wife who's pregnant, but also these two little girls, one of whom was begging for her life.

Angela, I will tell you that the one thing that I know is a certainty is that anyone, anyone, you, me, Sam, anyone is capable of any act under the right set of circumstances. So about the time that I thought that I'd seen something, I'd seen, you know, something I'd never seen before, we wouldn't see it again, then something else comes around. And that's kind of like this case with Watts. For most people, of course, can't imagine what would drive this guy to do something like this to his family. And this is always a big question, right? Whether it's mothers killing their children or fathers killing their children. In Phanticide is a weird, a whole weird topic. But in this interview, first let me say,

that just the interview itself, the setup, is horrible. It's fortunate that Watts, whatever semblance of conscious that he had left is what broke him into telling the story, making the admission about what happened. And then they got his father in there and so forth and so on. But this is a horrible setup. This table in the room needs to be out of there. They've got the person they're interviewing, facing, his back is facing the camera. So those detectives sitting there on either side of that table, I'm kind of kind of watch what he's doing. They don't have any concept about his body language or anything he's doing. He's using the table as a crutch, so forth and so on. So the fact that he is offering this admission and then eventually it goes

into a full-blown confession, to me, is fantastic. I mean, the guy obviously wanted to tell this story, and then he manipulates it, you know, to satisfy his own craziness. But he's walking his way into this thing. And once he starts talking about it, once he makes that first little admission, then that's where, as the interviewer, that's where you want that, that's where you want to get that person to. Because once they make that first admission, then you can start expanding on that and they become more comfortable in talking more about what they've already admitted to. And then, in my experience, once you get to that point, you can't hardly shut them up. Interesting. Well, let's take a look at the next clip. And this one involves then 16 year old boy. His name was Brendan Dassey.

And a lot of people will know this tape and this case from a Netflix documentary called Making a Murderer. I actually, full disclosure, covered this case from the very beginning. A young woman, she was 25, named Teresa Hallbuck, went missing on Halloween of 2005. One of her last stops, she was a freelance photographer. She would go out and photograph vehicles for the AutoTrader magazine. One of her last stops was at the home of a man named Stephen Avery, who had been exonerated. of a wrongful rape conviction a couple of years prior. And so she goes to his house and then she's never heard from again.

Stephen Avery is arrested and charged with her murder after her burned remains are found in a burn pit behind his garage. About five months later, his 16-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, is brought in for questioning after his mother and investigators believed he knew more than he was saying because he had been at the bonfire that night. So let's look at a little bit of the confession of Brendan Dassey. What happens next? Remember, we already know, but we need to hear it from you. It's okay. It's not your fault. What happens next? Does he ask you?

He does, doesn't he? We know him. He asks you, doesn't he? What does he ask you? Tell us how he said it. That if he wanted me to have, to get some . Yeah, okay. And then what happens next? They said that if I wanted to, I can go get some, but not right now. Come on, be honest. You went back in that room.

Don't let us down, Brandon. We know you were back there. there. Let's get it all out today. This will be all over with. Yes, if you want some, right? That's what you told us. If you want some place, where do you tell him? I said I wasn't aged and so he took me back there and showed me so. What did he show you? What did he show you? Her naked body. Is she alive? Yeah.

Is she talking? Yeah. What's she saying? What's she saying? What's she saying? I know it's hard, but you gotta tell us what did she say? No. The video will never go away unless you can talk to us about it.

go ahead what did she say she's asking steering why you would do something like that does she say anything to you she see does she see you yeah does she say something to you no Phil what are your thoughts on what we just watched Brendan Dassey is discussing going to this trailer and being kind of led into a bedroom but the investigators are kind of, in some ways, they're kind of pushing him a little bit. Well, Brendan Dassey, I had watched the show. I was very familiar with him and kind of the whole show and the whole case as it was represented. And Brandon Dassey, you've got to remember at the time he's 16 years old. This setting again, a bad setup. I mean, they've got him sitting on a love seat. I mean, like they're trying to make him feel as comfortable as possible, which I can

kind of understand, but that's really not what you want to do to a person that you are interviewing regarding a murder, a homicide. And given his age at the time, and I think that many times detectives get myopic in the room, I think they get tunnel vision in the room, they think that they kind of miss some of the signs that aren't deception and that they are being given some false information. I can say that I've honestly, I've never, I've never taken a a false confession. I've always been able to recognize what I've been told something that I knew was just not true. So in Brandon Dassey's case, when you listen to the leading questions offered by the detective, and there is a moment in this investigation where, in this interview where

Dassey pauses, and we call that a pregnant pause, and that's something that you don't want to let go on terribly long. You don't want them to be sitting there thinking. And that's what Brendan is doing. And then he comes up with this answer. I think the question was regarding what was going on with the woman in the bedroom. And he wanted him to describe what he saw and so forth and so on. Did she speak to you? Yes. What did she say? And that kind of thing. And Brandon pauses for a while in terms of the interview room. And then he comes up with an answer. My impression of Brendan at that point is, is that he is thinking about the answer that he thinks this detective wants to hear. And so he comes up with the answer, you know, that, yeah, I was in the room.

Yeah, she spoke to me. Why are you doing this? Or how can you, you know, whatever his answer was. And it was almost like what you would think or what you would read about in a police story or in a television. vision show or, you know, it was just kind of a canned response is what my impression was. And so I think that, and I think you certainly can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think since that time, Dassey has recanted all of this, right? Do I remember that? He did. He testified at trial and recanted, and he and his attorneys have maintained that it was a false confession. It's been very

controversial. Prosecutors say maybe parts of it were not the truth, but they still believe he was a party to this crime. Well, that may be true. That may be very true. He may be a party to it, but in terms of that interview and what he said, I'm not sure that that confession wasn't something that he made up to satisfy the leading questions of the detective. Let's move on now to our next case. It involves Dylan Roof, another very disturbing case. Dylan Roof was a white supremacist who went to a church in Charleston, South Carolina back in 2015. He was actually welcomed into this church. It was a predominantly African American church called a manual African Methodist Episcopalian Church. And he went in there, was welcomed in, sat down for a prayer group of sorts.

And then Dillon Roof started shooting people. He killed nine people, including the pastor and wounded a tent. There was a manhunt for him. He was found a short time later in North Carolina. So let's look at a little bit of his police interview. Well, can you tell us about what happened last night? Yeah, I mean, I just, I went to that church in Charleston, and, uh, you know, I, I, uh, you know, I, I, uh, you know, I did it. We did what?

Really? I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's tough sometimes to say it. It's not that I don't want to say it because I don't want to make myself seem guilty. I just don't really like saying it. Sometimes we have to face those things, the realities. We don't want to put any words in your mouth. That's why Agent Stansbury is asking him.

what it exactly is that you think you did do well i did i kill well i guess i mean i don't really know well what's what well i mean i don't know how many people or anything like that say you did you shoot on yes what kind of gun did you use a glock 45 phil dillon roof they knew who they were looking for they knew he had done it they knew that he killed these people they it they it this was not a secret. This was not a whodunit. So why do you need a confession? Well, I tell you, you always, always, and this is what I instruct to detectives, is that you always go for the confession, always, no matter whether it's a smoking gun, no matter if you've got all sorts of, you've got a lock type case with DNA and forensic evidence and physical evidence and all like

this up. It's always, always important to get the confession. So, and it is, to use the term it is icing on the cake. You want to put the bow tie on that tuxedo because there is nothing more powerful in a trial than the video of an interview where the defendant is confessing to what they did. And it is very, very hard. Unless the interview is conducted in such a manner, that gives the defense a chance to start to criticize the way the interview was conducted. At the end, most of the time, those interviews are so powerful that they are, it is very, very hard for a defense attorney to overcome the defendant in his own words or her words, describing what they did.

And then in this case, you might be able to even avoid a trial because there was just so much evidence that he ended up pleading guilty to the state murder charges. and then also federal hate crimes charges. Correct. And again, you know, this is a bad setup here, the big table and all this stuff. But I'm just really shocked at some of the way these interviews are set up. And it's fortunate that they got confessions. But, wow.

Phil is not a fan of tables. I will remember that. Would you, and you know what drives me crazy too sometimes is the fact that you have a camera in the room, as we did in the Chris Watts interrogation, yet the camera is not on the guy's face. I want to see facial expression. Well, exactly. And in that particular case, he should have been turned around because what he's doing and we're seeing all this stuff going on. And we really don't, we really can't see what he's doing. And that's important for a jury to see what he's doing because then the detective gets on the stand. I've done it hundreds of times. And you're explaining kind of what's on the video because they will play the entire interview. I've sat there and listened to, and I kid you not, a six hour interview played in the court. room. And I'm sitting there on the stand and I'm like, oh, gosh, I know when I get tired of hearing myself talk, I was in that room way too long, but, you know, times on our side. But yeah, I mean,

that's, and that the interview process is important from the beginning. And that is when you set up that room. And if you ever see any of the interviews that I've conducted, and they're all over the internet, but the table is strategically placed. Everything in that room is strategically placed. The table is placed in a way that gives the detective something to put his stuff on, right? And then once we start that thing, we got a chair with no wheels on it sitting off of the table because we don't want our interviewee. We don't want our suspect using the table as a crutch like Watts did. And that puts them in a position and they have to stay where we want them to stay. I've had, you know, guys that have, they want to, they want to reposition the chair

because they don't like being against that wall sitting out there in no man's land. So they'll try to reposition it. And all you have to do is just simply say, no, no, I want you to, you know, turn it back like you had it. Just be very nice about it. And they will understand that you're in control of that interview. So nothing in that interview room is, is just for show. It's all purposeful.

And those tables have got to be out of the way. And the wheels on the detectives chair. Those are paramount because it gives the interviewer mobility and you can move in and out and so forth. So, yeah, the setup is very, very important from the beginning. Our next interview at Confession is from Anthony Tote. He was convicted this year, actually, at trial of murdering his wife and three children. In December of 2019, Tote was a physical therapist, and he was actually being investigated for health care fraud related to his business. When agents went to his home to serve a federal warrant, they found Tote living in his home with the decomposing

bodies of his wife Megan and their three children, Alec, Tyler, and Zoe. So let's look at a little bit of his confession. More and more watched, more and more again and understanding that there is more than this life here, a higher, um, um, global consciousness. And then we started researching and researching and then we started finding more about the world, just coming to the end, the apocalypse again and that a family's never separated and enslaved and it's a better to avoid this to all go together okay you mean die together that's correct okay okay so people my wife's been chronically ill for a while this really appealed to her and because it appealed to me also because she wouldn't be in any pain found it wouldn't be separated either would be no more sorrow no more heart

breaking, no more anything. It would be a salvation in everlasting life. Okay? Mm-hmm. So we kept doing research, kept doing research, kept doing research, reading up things, meditating, and decided that, yeah, this should be a thing, this should be what we should do. Okay?

We had sat down and talked with the boys and Zoe just on different things about, you know, death and the way the, you know, what we should do. what would happen if mommy died, you know, how would you feel? What happened when a daddy died? What would you feel? And because listen to responses was like, we don't want you to die. We want to die with you. Phil, you have a guy here saying they had some type of death pact, yet he doesn't go through with it. So your thoughts on this confession. Well, this is the first time I have even heard of this guy. So it was interesting, having not seen this before, that I looked at a lot of the interview, not just the clip, but, a lot of the interview. And again, I know I keep harping on this, but this setup here is horrible. They get this guy sitting here with his handcuffs on. I mean, that's like the first thing you want to do is get those cuffs off and so forth and so on. Fortunately for this guy,

he strikes me as a person who he is inherently evil. And whatever his story here is, listen to this Death Pact and all this other stuff. Of course, he is the only one that doesn't go through with it. And I don't know what the talks test showed and so forth on the family. But he's already got this story together. I mean, he knows he's going to get caught. I mean, he leaves the bodies in there while they're decomposing, which I just, I can't even imagine. But people do this kind of things.

had a couple that did it. And I, wow, you know, you ate and slept and here you go, right? So I think he was, he concocted a story and then he's trying to sell it. And of course, it's not going to work. But he does confess and whatever his reasons are, you don't ever have to prove motive. You only have to get them to talk about it. Well, Phil Waters, a veteran homicide detective, founder of Kindred Spirits Investigations and all around good guy and interview technique, teacher, instructor. Thank you so much for coming on and for offering your time and your expertise. Thank you so much for asking me back. Appreciate it. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. It is produced by Sam Goldberg and Logan Harris. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. Alyssa Fisher handles our bookings and Kiera Bronson does our social media. You can download and listen to Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever.

else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Janette Levy, and we'll see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.