Crime, Murder

When You're Accused Of Killing Your Parents...

How do police get innocent people to confess to crimes they haven't committed?

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Businessman in handcuffs in courtroomTalk about turning your life around.  In 1988, Martin Tankleff, then 17 years old, was charged with the murder of his parents in the swank Long Island suburb of Belle Terre.

After finding their bodies in the home where he and his parents lived, he immediately called 911, but when police arrived, instead of being consoled for having lost his parents, he became suspect No. 1 and was whisked away for interrogation and arrest.

After hours of questioning without an attorney present, Marty gave a full confession.

Marty was convicted in 1990 based on the strength of his confession alone.  There were no forensics pinning him to the murder, no motive, no witnesses.  According to the lead detective handling the case, K. James McCready, now retired, Marty’s original story of innocence didn’t add up.  There were inconsistencies with the evidence, the detective said — blood found on Marty, blood found at the scene, Marty’s too placid reaction to the murders.

Once police got the confession they were looking for, their investigation stopped. They’d believed they had their man.

The problem was Marty insisted the confession was untrue. He refuted it moments after it was made and refused to sign it.  Yet, in spite of his assertions of innocence and the testimony he gave at trial, he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive 25-year terms.

It took 17 years in jail and a steady stream of motions by Marty, supported by his remaining family, help from the Innocence Project and celebrities like James Gandolfini, before an appellate court overturned the case and Marty was freed.  He was awarded $3.4 million in a wrongful imprisonment suit and moved on to get both a college and law degree.

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How did police get under Marty’s skin to confess to such a crime?  Surely he should have understood the import such a confession would have on his freedom.

First, Marty was only 17 at the time.  He had no criminal history and therefore no experience with interrogation techniques.  He was questioned at a point when anyone would be at his most psychologically vulnerable.  He had just found his parents’ brutalized bodies in pools of blood.  He was put in a claustrophobic “interview” room without windows, photos, clocks, or any reminders of the outside world.  Interview rooms, used in precincts around the country, are designed to be impersonal and lifeless.  The interviewee develops a sense of being in a timeless space where the only people connecting him to the outside are his interrogators; give them what they want, and get out. Otherwise anything can happen.

According to Marty, he was yelled at and even pushed against the wall by detectives claiming they knew he’d murdered his parents.  But worst in the long train of questioning was the lie delivered to him by the Dt. McCready.  Marty knew his dad wasn’t yet dead at the scene and that he had been taken to the hospital in a coma.  McCready got an idea of how to make Marty talk.  After hours of questioning, he left the interrogation and pretended to call the hospital.  When he returned, he told Marty that his dad had been awakened from his coma through an injection of adrenaline and had told police that Marty was the attacker.  All of this was a lie.

In subsequent interviews, McCready said he didn’t regret it.  “It’s completely legal,” he told one interviewer, and while this may be technically true (remember, cops can and will lie to you), lying to suspects can often lead to what happened here — a false confession.  All Marty felt at the moment he confessed was a desperation to get out of that room.  He believed that if he told cops what they wanted, they’d let him go.

Even after Marty was released and won a settlement with the state, Dt. McCready still told interviewers that he believed Marty was the killer.  Yet he ignored information which would have led him to other suspects such as one of the deceased’s business partners, who owed Marty’s dad over $500,000 and had a heated argument with Marty’s dad at a poker game the night before the murders.  Admissions were made by known felons who claimed to have burglarized the house the night of the murders.  None of this was developed or, if it was, revealed to defense counsel prior to trial.

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It’s tough for police, once they have a suspect arrested, a solid theory of the case, and a full confession to rethink their approach.  As Dt. McCready said in an interview, “I wouldn’t take a confession from an innocent man.” Yet it happens often.

Data from the Innocence Project shows that up to 2/3 of exonerations nationwide (corroborated through the use of DNA) involved false confessions

As for Marty Tankleff, now in his mid 40s, he recently became a lawyer.  He passed the New York bar exam just last week.  He hopes to continue looking for the true killers of his parents, but will also assist those who have been falsely accused of crimes and convicted.

Toni Messina has been practicing criminal defense law since 1990, although during law school she spent one summer as an intern in a large Boston law firm and realized quickly it wasn’t for her. Prior to attending law school, she worked as a journalist from Rome, Italy, reporting stories of international interest for CBS News and NPR. She keeps sane by balancing her law practice with a family of three children, playing in a BossaNova band, and dancing flamenco. She can be reached by email at tonimessinalw@gmail.com or tonimessinalaw.com, and you can also follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.

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