Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

The Psychology of False Confession: Case Examples 235
After the polygraph examination Reilly was told that he had a deceptive outcome.
This was followed by more than six hours of interrogation, during which
time Reilly was subtly persuaded that he murdered his mother, even though
he had no recollection of having done so.
Following the polygraph examination Reilly still insisted that he did not kill
his mother. The interrogator, who was also the polygraph examiner, presented
Reilly with different scenarios (‘theme development’) of what he thought might
have happened on the night of the murder. His basic premise seemed to be that
Reilly had mental problems and as a result he could not remember killing his
mother. The ‘theme development’ (see Chapter 1) included such statements as
‘what happened here was a mercy thing’...‘something happened between you
and your mother last night and one thing led to another and some way you
accidentally hurt her seriously’ . . . ‘your mother flew off the handle and went
for you or something and you had to protect yourself’ (pp. 65–67).
Reilly’s confidence in his memory began to weaken: ‘now there is doubt in my
mind. Maybe I did do it’ (p. 66). Reilly vacillated for a while, saying ‘I believe I
did it’, then expressed doubts that he did do it. He then stated ‘the polygraph
thing didn’t come out right. It looked like I’ve done it’. The interrogator asks
‘Well, what’s it look like now?’. Reilly answered ‘It really looks like I did it’. The
interrogator asked ‘You did it?’. Reilly replied ‘Yes’.
The interrogation continued with different themes and scenarios being presented
to Reilly to assist with his recollections about specific details. Reilly
eventually gave a confession statement, declaring himself as his mother’s killer.
The confession was written down by a police friend of his. In it he stated among
other things ‘I remember slashing once at my mother’s throat with a straight
razor I used for model airplanes. This was on the living room table. I also remember
jumping on my mother’s legs’. Reilly also stated that he thought he
might have raped his mother, but this was discounted by the interrogator as
there had been no physical evidence of rape.
Reilly told the police officer who was writing out the confession three times
to make sure that he mentioned in the statement the fact that he was not really
sure of what he is saying. The officer promised to do so, but did not keep his
promise. The officer was subsequently to allege that Reilly had made a verbal
admission (i.e. ‘I killed her’) immediately prior to his written confession
statement. There was no record of this having been said from the tape recording
of the interview, although the officer insisted in court that it had been
said and tape recorded. There were some differences between what the officer
had written down in the confession statement and what Reilly was trying
to say.
What is evident from Reilly’s interrogation is that he was never completely
sure that he had murdered his mother. He clearly came to doubt his own recollection,
largely, it seems, because of the persistence of the interrogators that the
polygraph is infallible and that he had a temporary mental block about what
had really happened on the night of the murder. Reilly seems to have become
very confused by the polygraph results and by the interrogators’ repeated and
suggestive questioning, which made him very unsure about his own memory of
events on the evening of the murder.