On July 8, 1997, Bill Bosko returned to his home in Norfolk, Virginia, after a week at sea to find his wife murdered in their bedroom. A few hours later, Bosko’s neighbor, Danial Williams was asked to answer questions at the police station. And after eight hours there, Williams confessed to the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko.
Five months later, because of inconsistent physical evidence, the Norfolk police became convinced that Williams did not act alone and turned their attention to Joseph Dick, Williams’ roommate. Dick confessed as well. He later pled guilty, testified against two other co-defendants, named five more accomplices who were never tried, and publicly apologized to the victim’s family. “I know I shouldn’t have done it,” Dick said just before the judge gave him a double life sentence. “I have got no idea what went through my mind that night — and my soul.”
Dick now says that all of that is untrue, and he has a team of lawyers who believe him. In 2005, the Innocence Project filed a petition on behalf of Williams, Dick, and the other two members of the group called the “Norfolk Four.” They petitioned Virginia Governor Tim Kaine for clemency on the basis of new physical evidence, and in August 2009, the outgoing governor issued conditional pardons, which set the men free but forced them to be on parole for the next 20 years. It was a decision that Kaine struggled with, and he granted conditional pardons because he said the men failed to fully prove their innocence. “They’re asking for a whole series of confessions … to all be discarded,” Kaine said on a radio show in the fall of 2008. “That is a huge request.”
We know that false confessions do happen on a fairly regular basis. Because of advances in DNA evidence, the Innocence Project has been able to exonerate more than 200 people who had been wrongly convicted, 49 of whom had confessed to the crime we now know they didn’t commit. In a survey of 1,000 college students, four percent of those who had been interrogated by police said they gave a false confession.
But Why?
Read more at Psychological Science
The student’s false confessions were probably to distract from something they did not want to confess. Confessing a small amount/a lie and making a bit deal about it can distract from real confessions, I think.
But the “Norfolk Four”? Not a clue, they probably just really want out of prison.
Why oh why confess to something you didn’t do? Unless as someone said they did falsely confess in the first place to get a ‘get out of jail free’ card?
I don’t get it.
There are apparently people who are pathological liars; nearly everything they say is a lie. Dick’s little speech at the trial, his naming of so many other accomplices, and that ridiculous gang title, ‘The Norfolk Four’, all strike me as sounding like the characteristics of a pathological liar; they exaggerate things that are ridiculous and construct a little fantasy world around themselves. It’ not that uncommon to lie about something even as serious as murder. There were people who pretended to be Jack the Ripper!
“Sign the confession!” they’d shout while rapping your knuckles with a night stick.
“I can’t! You’ve hurt my writing hand!”
But really I think there are many reasons why someone might confess. They might be confessing to a smaller crime than one they actually did that happened at the same time so the court rules that they have a solid alibi. I saw that in a film. Someone might think they actually did it, some people might like the attention of being guilty but not have the balls to commit the crime themselves, some people I expect just can’t help but say the wrong thing and make things harder for themselves. Like when you have a dream, and everything goes wrong. That’s YOUR subconscious decidedly making your conscious have a rough time.
“You are in my nightmare realm now, day brain!”
As a criminologist I’ve often read into the unrealiability of eye witness evidence, how it can easily be lead, changed and generally become corrupt as a result of later events, but this is the first time I’ve been introduced to the idea of false memories. A fascinating area of study, thankyou for bringing it to my attention!
Recently I’ve been trying to help am old friend with problems relating to drink and voices in the head. It has caused me to examine the way I dealt with many issues through my life including some strange ideas that I have come to believe from time to time over the years.
Having spent a just a couple of weeks in prison for not paying minor motoring fines on three ocasions in my younger days; I remember how, after comming out of prison the last time some 16 years ago, I genuinely believed that I was so useless that I was convinced that I would be incapable of living a decent, law abiding life that I would most likely spend most of my life in jail for offences that I would be unable to avoid committing.
I know this may sound like a silly idea, it does to me now, but at the time it was I believed.
Our minds can and do often deceive us.
There is a similar situation in Arkansas, USA, three men known as the West Memphis Three, blamed for killing 3 young boys. All were falsely imprisoned 16 years ago, based on a false confession from one of them.
Damien Echols, one of the men has been on death row for the entire time. Lawyers and supporters are fighting for a new case!
Its so tragic, they need all the support they can get!!