Original subtitles

Sure.

CLAIRE: So, go ahead.

- Oh, just go ahead, and...? - CLAIRE: Yeah. Sure.

The way memory works is basically to play back,

so to speak, but not in a video recorder sense,

to report to someone else what it is

that we have seen or heard or who we saw.

Now you say, "Well, why wouldn't it

just be as simple as pushing a little switch

and playing back a tape like a VCR?

Well, because playback is not really accurate.

What we really do is construct.

You have some puzzle pieces, you put them down on the table,

but there are a lot of gaps.

(OVER VIDEO) Well, memory abhors these gaps.

You don't want an incomplete puzzle.

So basically from inferences, from assumptions,

from incorporation of information

from other people,

these pieces are literally created

and they fill in the gaps.

I knew I wasn't going to make a film

about the whole case because it was too big.

ROBERT SHOMER: The next time around when somebody asks you,

what did you see or what do you remember seeing,

all the pieces are there.

The ones you saw, the ones you created.

We were trying to make a documentary

about false confession.

JOE SAWYER: I think the country is learning that confessions

aren't what we thought they were or what we wanted them to be.

Right. Yeah.

And it should bother us

that there are guys in prison

who are there wrongly and you are one of them.

CLAIRE: There are some hurdles to that,

which is convincing a viewer

that these are false confessions to begin with.

You know, having that question,

how does a person confess to a crime they didn't commit?

Why not ask the person who confessed?

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

♪ (SOFT GLOOMY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

PAUL JOHNSON: When I started this case,

I came up with about 2000 separate tips.

And so we needed to look into them.

So in 1999,

we started working on the Maurice Pierce tip.

There's things that were just unresolved about Maurice.

And when Maurice got arrested back in 1991

at the mall with the gun,

roughly ten days after the murders,

sometime during the night,

Hector Polanco brought Maurice

to an interview room to interview him.

At the beginning of the recording,

it says something like,

"Let's go over what we've been talking about."

JOHNSON: That interview,

which probably started around midnight,

goes on till the day shift starts coming in.

John Jones, the main person assigned to the case,

Polanco comes out and says, "Okay, this is Maurice.

He's acknowledging some involvement

in the yogurt shop case."

So John Jones takes a separate written statement

from Maurice Pierce.

♪ (MUSIC TURNS OMINOUS) ♪

JOHNSON: When I was looking at this case,

I saw that statement that John Jones took.

And when I was digging through

the rest of the evidence, I find this recording.

And I listened to the recording of what Maurice Pierce had said

just before John Jones took Maurice's statement.

And it's not the same.

JOHNSON: His written story involves only meeting with Forrest

in the parking lot of Northcross Mall.

But in that recording,

the story involves... the creek people.

JOHNSON: It involves him being in his car with Forrest

over in an apartment complex

where right down from that parking lot is a place

in the creek where people hang out.

And we just call them the creek people

because they hang out at the creek.

KEVIN PARLIN: It was just a spot to get away

from everybody, to hide.

Uh, it was a place we could do

our illegal underage drinking and not get caught.

That was the... the hangout, and that's... that's what we did.

You know, 15, 16, what... what... However old I was at, uh...

We did way too much drinking... (CHUCKLES) ...for our age.

But that was where we were hanging out that night.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

JOHNSON: John Jones justifies not thinking

Maurice is a suspect

because even Hector Polanco couldn't get him to confess.

And Polanco can get people to confess

even if they're innocent.

Maurice doesn't confess himself on the tape,

but he does say Forrest told him

very specific things that were happening

during the commission of the crime.

JOHNSON: And he doesn't say those things to John Jones

when Jones is taking a statement.

Evidently, John Jones never knew the story

that Maurice told to Hector Polanco.

And Hector Polanco never bothered

to look at this written statement

and see that it's different than the story he had heard.

Any time you get somebody telling a story,

and they tell one story,

and then they tell another story,

you don't stop and get... Until you get it resolved

why their stories are different.

You know, Hector Polanco had, at some point,

kind of gotten a bad reputation.

And I'm not sure Jones even cared

what Maurice told Hector Polanco.

I get the impression he wouldn't have

trusted anything Polanco said anyhow.

If I had been investigating,

I think anybody would have wanted to know

if he's telling you a different story

than he just told somebody else.

And, you know, they wired Maurice up,

they say something like "Forrest didn't know

what he was talking about, had no idea what was going on."

And they also interviewed

Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott

because they were along in the car.

MARGARET BROWN:

No.

Okay.

MARGARET:

I'm just like...

(CHUCKLES)

MARGARET:

Okay. Um...

You're assuming some things there that...

MARGARET:

Well, nobody called him Mace.

MARGARET:

(SIGHS) Uh...

I... I... Yeah. I'm trying to think how to...

Well, I... I... so for...

For Maurice and... And bringing my name up,

I mean, I... you know, of course...

I... because I doubt that he...

really knew any of our names,

uh, back then...

Um... And then obviously... Yet my name is Mac

and that's pretty much the only name I went...

I didn't go by Mace.

I don't know where that came from,

but, um, we were easy targets.

People knew we hung out down there

and him not knowing my name

or names of some of the other people down there...

you know, but, you know, there's a group of people...

Tho... those were the one... Uh, it's a deflection...

I don't...

Yeah.

Maurice's story has always been, Forrest took his gun,

and Forrest probably did it.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JOHNSON: But I thought it was more likely

that Maurice was actually the one doing the murders.

I thought it was a bit suspicious.

We had these conflicting statements,

the one of the recording that I had already heard,

and then the one that he had written out in 1991.

And I wanted to get...

whatever he claimed the truth to be... right now.

So I talked to him at his house.

♪ (GRIPPING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JOHNSON: So, in addition to Forrest,

he says he was with Michael Scott

and Robert Springsteen that night.

I ended up contacting each of them by phone,

and I asked them, just, "What did you do that day?"

And they each told me a story,

and they all involved the other three people,

and they were all different things

about what they did.

I could not clear them. I could not take their alibi.

Their alibis were each other, and they were all different.

But they each talked about going to San Antonio

the night after the murders happened.

They were all together in that stolen Pathfinder.

And each one of them remembered

stopping somewhere along the way and buying a newspaper

and as they're driving, somebody reading the article

about the yogurt shop murders.

Teenagers in a stolen car, driving to see some girlfriend,

stopping to get the Sunday paper in the first place,

is kind of suspicious to me.

So we started working

to find out everything we could about these guys.

John Jones described them as dudes without dates

who would hang out at Northcross Mall

and, you know, watching girls, basically.

I thought it was weird that they all four

were hanging out in the first place.

I mean, they might have known each other,

but I never thought of them hanging out.

KEVIN: I didn't know them as a group.

I wouldn't have made those connections ever.

Not until I met Forrest later

that I knew he had hung out with Maurice.

Forrest, he was just kind of a quiet guy.

He liked to work, he liked to work on cars.

Anything you needed, he would help.

AMANDA STATHAM: He always came off as a sweet guy.

Really non-assuming, just a nice dude.

BEVERLY LOWRY: He was the only one

who had a stable home environment,

but he was a follower

and the person he followed was Maurice.

MAC LUDIN: We thought we were the coolest kids

in the neighborhood.

Maurice and his guys thought

they were the coolest kids in the neighborhood.

And yeah, we did not like each other.

BEVERLY: Maurice Pierce was

always thought of as the ringleader.

He always had access to a car.

Didn't he have, like... It was an old police car.

- It had the spotlight on it? - Yeah.

Yeah. I thought it was real cool.

AMANDA: He was like a grifter.

He's the kind of guy that would steal someone's dog,

wait a while,

and then return it to him for a fucking reward.

Just no moral...

-anything, like... -I was afraid of him.

- Yeah, he was creepy. - Now, I'm afraid of nobody...

- Yeah. - but I was a little afraid of him.

BEVERLY: Then there were

Michael Scott and Rob Springsteen.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BEVERLY: They had broken family lives.

They were kids who wanted to be special in some way,

and the only way they could manage it

was to be bad.

AMANDA: I met Michael Scott my first year of high school.

He was like, you know, T-shirt and jeans and long hair,

like, sort of pothead dude.

His mother didn't live too far away,

and she was working during the day,

so I'd skip school and go smoke dope at his mom's house.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

AMANDA: And then there was Robert.

Robert was creepy.

- SARAH STATHAM: Creepy as fuck. - AMANDA: Creepy as fuck.

Really just outlier of the outliers.

Really...

I'd sell him mushrooms.

- Did you? - Yeah.

He looked like somebody, like,

that would try to show you his dick in a parking lot.

(CHUCKLES) Yes! He did.

- (SNORTS) Sorry. But he did. - He did.

BEVERLY: It is hard to make the leap

to see them carrying something like this off.

Now, there's a thing about what kind of...

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

appearance people make

and who could commit this murder.

It's really dangerous to get off

into who could commit a crime,

any kind of crime, but particularly, a murder.

♪ (FOREBODING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(WATER TRICKLING)

JOHNSON: Our plan was to talk to people

that were in the creek that night

to see if they confirmed seeing Maurice up there,

seeing his car, seeing him do some things

that he had told Hector Polanco he had done.

So we brought them in one at a time.

RON LARA:

-MAC LUDIN: -LARA:

MAC:

When I got the phone call to...

"Hey, can you... can you help us out with this?"

You know, "We know you were in the area.

Maybe you had seen something,"

and you know, me being, "Well, yeah, sure.

I'll... Whatever I can do to help, I'll come down."

My first thought is, "What took you so long

and why did you not question us?"

We were local young punk kids.

We hung out in that area all the time.

LARA:

KEVIN: (CHUCKLES)

LARA:

KEVIN: (SCOFFS)

-LARA: -CREEK PERSON 1:

-LARA: -CREEK PERSON 1:

-LARA: -CREEK PERSON 1:

LARA:

CREEK PERSON 2:

LARA:

CREEK PERSON 3:

LARA:

CREEK PERSON 3:

-LARA: -CREEK PERSON 3:

Since we were able to kind of confirm

the story Maurice told Polanco,

we moved on to Forrest Welborn.

LARA: I'll be back with you in about 15 minutes.

(DOOR CREAKING)

(FORREST GRUNTS)

LARA:

FORREST WELBORN:

LARA:

FORREST:

LARA: Okay.

-FORREST: -LARA:

FORREST:

-LARA: -FORREST:

APD OFFICER:

FORREST:

- (DOOR CREAKING) - (INDISTINCT CHATTER)

♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JOHNSON: I always hoped this case would be solved.

And sometimes you never know if it's going to be solved

until you actually solve it.

I never had the feeling we were on the right track

until after Michael Scott's first day of interview.

LARA:

MICHAEL SCOTT:

LARA:

- MICHAEL: Yeah. - LARA:

LARA:

MICHAEL:

LARA:

-MICHAEL: -LARA: Mm-hmm.

APD OFFICER:

MICHAEL:

(TAPE WHIRRING)

LARA:

-MICHAEL: -LARA:

-LARA: -MICHAEL:

-MICHAEL: -LARA:

MICHAEL:

-LARA: -MICHAEL:

JOHNSON:

MICHAEL:

LARA:

-MICHAEL: -LARA:

-MICHAEL: -LARA:

MICHAEL:

-LARA: -MICHAEL:

-LARA: -MICHAEL:

-LARA: -MICHAEL:

-LARA: -MICHAEL: Yes.

-MICHAEL: -LARA:

MICHAEL:

-JOHNSON: -LARA:

MICHAEL:

JOHNSON: As soon as we got the investigator

starting to write up his confession,

we sent some investigators to West Virginia

to try to talk to Robert Springsteen.

He had gone back to West Virginia

like two or three weeks after the murders

to live with his mother.

So we went and talked to him

at the local police department there.

♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

LARA:

LARA:

LARA:

-ROB SPRINGSTEEN: -LARA:

LARA:

LARA:

LARA:

-ROBERT: -LARA:

-ROBERT: -LARA:

-ROBERT: -LARA:

(SIGHS)

You didn't.

♪ (GRIPPING MUSIC BUILDING) ♪

MICHAEL:

JOHNSON: All the interviews with Michael Scott

and the interview with Robert Springsteen

were... voluntary interviews.

They were free to leave at any time.

ROBERT:

MICHAEL:

LARA:

MICHAEL:

LARA:

LARA:

-MICHAEL: -LARA:

MICHAEL:

-LARA: -MICHAEL:

LARA:

ROBERT:

LARA:

ROBERT:

MICHAEL:

LARA:

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

REPORTER 1: The Austin Police Department

and the Travis County DA's office

say their investigation has ended

in sweet success.

DICK ELLIS: Now, after nearly eight years,

police have arrested four suspects.

These are the words thousands here in Austin

have been waiting to hear for nearly eight years.

On December 6, 1991, we as a city lost our innocence.

Today, as a community, we can hopefully

finally begin the process of healing.

I have to tell you that I am extremely proud...

of the members of this police department.

These arrests culminate nearly eight years of hard work,

but it's an effort that won't end

until the jury comes back with the guilty verdict.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BARBARA AYRES-WILSON: This is not the end of what

we have been trying to do, but only the beginning.

It is also important that these four people

are allowed to have a fair and good trial.

PAM AYERS: We've all talked about it.

We felt like our lives were just now

beginning to get back to a somewhat normal state,

not like it was for so many years.

But, uh, now it's going to start all over again.

It's... We're going to start December 6, '91,

all over again.

MIKE HUCKABAY: If you could stop time

and get back to basics...

right after those girls were killed...

we come up with suspects, the four guys.

I go right back. I go right back.

Those guys that we got...

they did it. They did it.

It sounded good. I mean, I dug the shirt out.

All right. And then Huck and I were talking.

He goes, "Well, all I got is a confession."

I go, "That's it?"

"Yeah. From just two of 'em."

It's a confession. That's... that's like a two-legged stool.

It ain't going to stand. You need that third leg.

MARGARET:

Evidence.

ERIN MORIARTY: After eight years and no physical evidence

to tie any of the four men to the murders,

why did the Austin police focus on them?

As adults, all four have led quiet lives

with jobs and families.

Maurice Pierce's sister.

It's hard to talk about this, isn't it?

- Mm-hmm. - ERIN: Why? Tell me.

(SNIFFLES)

Because they've taken his life away.

ROBIN MOSS: Sometimes I think about the death penalty

and what... I can't believe...

I won't let myself believe he could possibly be convicted.

ERIN: How long have you been here now?

Two months.

Did you ever think you'd be in here?

No.

The only thing we ever had on Forrest was a party

to an aggravated robbery.

We didn't have a case to even suspect

that he had an intention to be a party to a murder.

MICHAEL:

ERIN: In a surprise move...

REPORTER 2: Any comment, Forrest?

ERIN: the judge lets Forrest go home on bail.

SPEAKER: It's okay.

Trying not to get too excited about not getting indicted

because I never know

what's going to happen in the future.

ERIN: Forrest Welborn was offered a deal,

and they would have left him alone

if he would testify against the other three guys.

And he said, "No, I'm not going to."

You know, "I'm not going to lie." That's what he goes.

"I'm not going to lie about something like that."

ERIN: A grand jury indicts

Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott,

and Maurice Pierce.

All three will be tried for first degree murder.

If convicted, Springsteen and Scott

face the death penalty.

STAFF MEMBER: My understanding is

that you all have contacted your own attorney.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

JOE: With a death penalty case,

there is always the tremendous burden

because a great deal depends on your representation.

Will he live? Will he die?

Will you do the job right? Will you make a mistake?

And with Robert,

because of the nature of his confession,

the statements he makes,

I had real doubt as to whether we could ever push

for a finding of not guilty...

-APD OFFICER: -(ROBERT SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

APD OFFICER:

ROBERT:

JOE: when it's the words of the accused himself

saying, "I did this."

And he's saying it into a video camera.

But I want you to, just for a moment,

imagine the stress he was under

when he was making that statement.

The fear, the uncertainty,

the suddenness,

all contributed to Springsteen's statement.

APD OFFICER:

ROBERT:

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

CARLOS GARCIA: I've always tried to be very detached

so that when I would get a case in front of me,

I try and strip away any emotion and anything like that.

I mean, our job is to just study...

Figure out what the facts are.

With Michael, what I started with

was his written confession.

I started to read it, and I remember getting

maybe to about page three or four,

and it was too much for me.

It was overwhelming to read this horrific detail

of raping these girls and killing them.

I couldn't read it objectively.

My biased viewpoint at the time was

people don't confess to something they did not do.

I had to put that aside

just to objectively review this case.

So I put it away for about a month.

I mean, I learned everything I could

about the crime scenes.

I come back to it.

As I started to read it,

it was like, "Okay, wait a minute.

That didn't happen. That didn't happen.

That's totally inaccurate.

Why is he getting so many things wrong?"

This confession clearly does not match this crime scene.

Interrogation practice, there's a book. I have them all.

So this is Criminal Interrogations and Confessions,

fourth edition.

This is considered the bible of interrogation practice

in the United States.

Through extended research and years of experience, John Reed and Associates

has developed a nine-step interrogation process.

These guys are criticized by social psychologists,

because they're saying,

"Look, the method that they're teaching in here

can lead to false confessions."

Step number two and step number seven

are the most essential steps of the interrogation process.

Give the suspect psychological justification

for committing the crime.

Suggest to the suspect a good reason and a bad reason

so that we make it easy for them

to make that first admission of guilt.

CARLOS: Michael's biggest problem was

he trusted the police.

MICHAEL:

LARA:

MICHAEL:

CARLOS: He says, "Guys, either I don't remember

or two, I'm lying."

Well, there was a third option. What's the third option?

MARGARET:

Yes.

But he didn't consider it

because he doesn't believe they lie.

Even Springsteen said,

"Guys, I could've sworn I went to Rocky Horror Picture Show."

"Well, I guess I was wrong."

"No, actually you weren't. You were right.

They lied to you."

Which is what this guy say it's okay to do, is to lie.

That's the problem with this method.

The police are using techniques

they have no idea how powerful they are.

Because if you've got a subject that believes you

when you lie to them... "You're the authority figure.

I believe you're telling me the truth.

Why would you lie to me?"

That is what happened to Michael Scott,

but that's not all.

Reed would say they used some tactics from us,

but they did all the stuff we told them not to do.

-ROBERT MERRILL: -MICHAEL: I don't...

MERRILL:

CARLOS: Aside from the nine steps,

there's a couple of things it says.

It says, "Don't do these things, because if you do these things,

that could lead to a false confession.

You cannot threaten people.

Don't promise anything to people.

Do not feed false theories of memory."

First of all, you have to understand

about how memory works.

SHOMER: Memory abhors gaps.

You don't want an incomplete puzzle.

So basically from inferences, from assumptions,

from incorporation of information

from other people,

which you've come to believe is reasonable,

these pieces are literally created

and they fill in the gaps.

CARLOS: So, for example, they tell him,

"There's something in your mind, Michael,

that's called revivification."

APD OFFICER:

CARLOS: You can replay it if you want to.

We can extract it from your mind.

APD OFFICER:

He believes it, so it becomes this exercise

in trying to extract memories that he believes he has.

"Hey, Michael, you were telling me that you thought

the girls might have been tied up."

"You thought." The key word is "thought."

The jump from "you think they were tied up" to...

LARA:

It's a very subtle suggestion, but it's there nonetheless.

And so Mike starts to say, "Yeah, I think maybe shoelaces."

"Oh, come on, Mike, you know it wasn't shoelaces.

Come on, what was it?"

-MICHAEL: -LARA:

-LARA -MICHAEL:

He finally hits on one... One the one that it was correct.

"There you go, Mike. There you go."

MICHAEL:

LARA:

-MICHAEL: -LARA:

CARLOS: And so what happens?

He starts to commingle these memories.

Now the mind does not know which is false and what is not.

And that's the problem.

That's how you create false memories.

That could lead to a false confession.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

REPORTER: Good evening. Thanks for joining us.

Robert Springsteen's capital murder trial

is underway.

Evidence was introduced today in court.

There was a ring that one of the girls

was wearing, as well as a belt buckle.

The most difficult thing to see was

a crime scene photo of Amy Ayers.

It showed her lying face down inside the yogurt shop.

Family members looked away.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BOB AYERS: DA's office was telling us,

"Well, on such and such day,

they're going to show them crime scene photos."

And we just told him, "We're going to be there."

Usually, protocol is the parents aren't there.

I said, "Well, we will be."

There was 14 people on the jury.

If they got to sit there and take it,

well, I just figured we could too.

Not only did they strangle her,

they pistol-whipped her and they shot her twice.

That is a cold, cold person.

They could do that to a kid,

and they feel like part of that

is because Amy was trying to get away.

So then the thing is, was she first?

Was she last?

I mean, you know, all of that runs through your mind.

And I know worse things happen to people...

but they're not mine.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

SONORA THOMAS: I did go to the trials.

It was just a very strange experience

'cause I remember looking and thinking like,

"That just looks like a person."

You know, you have this image that,

like, somebody with horns is going to walk in.

And instead, this... this sort of homely-looking person walks in.

BOB: I looked at him and he looked at me

and there was nothing there. It was ice.

It was clear.

I'm telling you, his eyes were like ice.

And I just, I got... I had chills.

And that's the first time I saw the evil.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

MIKE LYNCH: I'm going to be reading from a journal

I kept during this capital murder trial.

I guess I kept it because I kind of wanted

some sort of history.

But more than that, it was kind of therapeutic.

"The yogurt shop case has created a level

of tension and scrutiny,

extreme even for a death penalty case."

There's gonna be graphic evidence.

It's gonna be stuff that you don't wanna hear.

There's gonna be things you don't want to look at.

There is not a shred of physical evidence

to connect Mr. Springsteen to have commissioned this crime.

The only evidence that was even close to saying,

"Well, maybe Michael did something,"

was one witness who came in saying,

"Yeah, he said words to the effect of 'I did it.'"

BARBARA: One of the days of going to court,

there was this young woman.

She had a big tattoo from shoulder to shoulder

and a strapless top on.

I was like, "Who is this girl?"

Mike Scott's friend had been this 13-year-old

kind of punk rock kid back in 1991, and she testified.

The way I remember it is Michael was pacing around

our living room and, you know, I was like,

"Dude, you can talk to me, like, I'm... I'm your friend."

And we're both staring out into the yard.

He goes, "I did it."

LARA:

AMANDA:

MIKE HALL: She said that Mike said to her,

"We raped 'em and we killed 'em,

blah, blah, blah, and it was just crazy,

blah, blah, blah."

She was a little, I would call, on the fringes.

But when she spoke on... On the stand,

she was articulate.

He confessed to her. That's powerful.

CARLOS: This is one girl eight years after the fact,

and they didn't have anything to match up.

What's the detail? "Did it." What do you mean?

"Oh, he said he did it." That... that's not much.

If you look at the evidence against these men,

the prosecution really didn't have anything.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

"The defense attempted to introduce expert testimony

from a memory expert concerning how memory works and how persuasion

and suggestion under some circumstances

can get people to remember things

they didn't actually experience.

The defense wanted the jury to hear

how a reasonably normal person could be convinced

through regular police interrogation

that he had committed a horrific act

despite being absolutely innocent.

However, the memory expert wanted to testify

to more than I thought the law allowed."

So I tried to find a point where he could be helpful

without going over the line.

I think, maybe, I felt like I wanted to give him more

but shouldn't under the law. So, I guess that bothered me.

ROBERT: How do you know it's a true confession

or a false confession?

You don't. That's why we have juries.

And juries have to make that judgment.

But juries should know how these things work.

They should know that there are certain techniques,

certain procedures that the police use

that increase the probability of false confessions.

They should know that.

MICHAEL: I did think for a while

that I had something to do with this crime.

It's weird, 'cause even now, y... one still questions himself,

"Did I have something to do with it?"

(GRUNTS)

They really screwed me over.

The approach that I was taking from the beginning

with this false confession idea is that Mike was someone

who became convinced

that he had murdered these girls.

We talked to some experts who... who said this is...

This yo... This case with Michael Scott

is one of those cases

that will keep you up at night.

Um, because, uh, that is not how these interrogation techniques

should work, but they are powerful

and they do elicit results like this.

They also elicit a less interesting,

less psychologically interesting result,

which is that you will also get another kind

of false confession,

and that's just the confession to get the hell out of the room.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

ROBERT: Needless to say, I wouldn't ever do it again.

It was a really,

absolutely jackass, stupid thing to do,

but it was the only thing that I could think of

to do at that time.

The thing that kept

effectively running through my head was,

"Okay, these guys have got something

really screwed up somewhere.

I've got to get out of this room.

I've got to get to an attorney. I've got to talk to an attorney

and get all this stuff straightened out."

They kept telling me I could leave,

but they were sitting in front of the door.

ROBERT:

JOHNSON: When that has been brought up,

that the confessions were coerced,

so they're not true.

That's not how I authenticate a confession.

What determines if the confession is true

is that they reveal some information

that they would not have known otherwise

and there was no other way

for them to find out that information.

LARA:

LARA:

JOHNSON: He indicated the position of Amy's body.

Body position has never been out to anyone anywhere,

and nobody knows that unless they were there.

You couldn't even describe it to somebody else to act out.

In addition to that, each confession confirms things

from the other's confession.

APD OFFICER:

MICHAEL:

APD OFFICER:

-MICHAEL: -APD OFFICER:

APD OFFICER:

APD OFFICER::

-APD OFFICER:: -ROBERT:

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

JOHNSON: Okay, this is nothing like it used to be.

So this is the area, just inside the back door,

where there's shelves... and... the bodies

were kind of right next to the shelves.

This wall wasn't here. You know, all this has completely changed.

MICHAEL:

LARA:

MICHAEL:

CARLOS: But that's not how the fire started.

The fire did not start on these bodies.

That would have been practically impossible.

What APD knew in 1991

was that this fire started on the shelves.

Fire makes patterns when it burns.

So there's something called a V pattern.

Looks like that. So the fire burns here.

If it's next to a wall, you'll see a big old V.

And so this V pattern is on the wall of this freezer

and on this sidewall.

The fire investigator had told them back in 1991.

The fire started in the shel... On the shelves.

LARA:

CARLOS: Now, after all this interrogation,

Michael Scott makes the fire start on the girls.

Well, that does not fit.

Paul Johnson knows this.

So they went and got this ATF fire guy

to come and tell the jury

that the fire started on the girls.

Every time you get something, a confession,

that isn't quite like you thought it was...

you go back and see, could it be true?

MICHAEL:

APD OFFICER:

MICHAEL:

♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JOHNSON: So we went to our expert

and he came back with a report

that the fire not only could have,

but I think he would say

it definitely did start on the bodies.

And then as it increased

from where their bodies were,

caught the things on the shelves on fire.

Saying we changed it to match the confessions...

No. (SCOFFS)

We're just checking out, could it be true?

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

MIKE: "In addition to the factual issues for the jury,

there were several significant legal issues

for the court.

Foremost, the admissibility

of the defendant's own statement.

The more difficult question involved the admissibility

of the co-defendant's statements."

♪ (GRIPPING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MIKE: In this case, Springsteen was on trial.

Scott had taken the Fifth Amendment.

He hadn't had his trial yet.

He wasn't about to get on the stand

in Springsteen's case and answer any questions.

And the defense would say,

"I can't cross-examine Scott about this statement.

Therefore, it should not come in."

AMBER FARRELLY: You can't use these confessions against each other

because you have the Fifth Amendment right

to not incriminate yourself and not testify.

You have the Sixth Amendment right

to confrontation.

So if you accuse me of a crime,

then you have to come into court by God

and look me in the face and testify

about why you think I did this.

Robert had the right not to testify,

and we can't call Scott to the stand

because he has the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

So that's blatant consti... Blatant constitutional error.

MIKE: So what I did was whittle everything out

that referred to anybody else

except what Scott was admitting that he did.

In the statement I allowed in,

there was absolutely no reference

to any other individual involved in this crime.

So it was just Scott saying,

"I did this and I did this, and I did that."

"After studying the law, I think I made

the soundest decision I could.

If it turns out to be wrong in the eyes of a higher court

looking back, then so be it."

JOE: I made no secret of telling the judge

that I thought the trial had been unfair

at virtually every turn.

When Mike Scott's redacted confession came in

on a Friday afternoon...

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

Robert leaned toward me and whispered,

"I'm a dead man, aren't I?"

And I said, "Yes, Robert, you are."

MIKE: Could the defendant please rise?

"We, the jury, find the defendant,

Robert Springsteen IV,

guilty of the offense of capital murder."

Signed by the foreperson of the jury.

And at this time, Mr. Springsteen,

the court sentences you to death.

It was one of the worst days of my life as a lawyer.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

BARBARA: It was awful.

You'd think it would be great. It was awful.

I was in the courtroom.

Me and my mother were trembling and shaking.

And crying, not because I like these people, I don't,

but... (HESITATES) he's going to die.

He's going... This man's going to die.

And now we have blood on our hands, too.

(CHUCKLES)

- No, not right now. - I'm sorry. (SOBS)

It's over.

REPORTER 1: Is this what you wanted, Barbara?

Well, we want some kind of ending.

(SOBS)

It's...

REPORTER 2: How do you feel?

Like it's a step in the right direction to bring these boys to justice.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC BUILDS) ♪

REPORTER 3: It took the Travis County jury

less than three hours today

to sentence Michael Scott to life in prison.

RONNIE EARLE: We asked the jury to consider the death penalty.

They heard the evidence and decided

that a life sentence was appropriate.

JOHNSON: When the verdicts came down, I was very happy.

Of course, the verdicts in a criminal case

has to be unanimous,

so there was nobody

among those 24 jurors that had any doubt

that these were the right suspects.

Maurice was the third one,

so we were going to try Maurice next.

But that never happened.

The Travis County District Attorney announced

he will not seek a murder trial

in the investigation of Maurice Pierce.

NEWSCASTER 1: What led District Attorney Ronnie Earl

to give up even before the trial began?

RONNIE: The evidence shows Maurice Pierce's guilt.

We just don't have enough to prove his guilt

beyond reasonable doubt.

JOHNSON: I didn't think we had enough evidence

to assure a conviction

because Maurice never confessed.

NEWSCASTER 2: Surrounded by his wife and ten-year-old daughter,

Maurice Pierce is free, no longer waiting

for his day in court.

"When I was detained and arrested,

I proclaimed that I was innocent

of all the charges that were filed against me,

and I am standing here today with that same proclamation."

REPORTER 1: Maurice Pierce, you're a free man.

- How do you feel to be out now? - MAURICE PIERCE: Happy.

NEWSCASTER 3: Austin police released a statement

emphasizing that Pierce was not exonerated

and that their investigation continues.

Remember, their initial investigation

focused on Maurice Pierce.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

AMBER: Their belief was that he was the ringleader,

the mastermind behind all of this.

The only reason Michael and Robert

come into play is because of Maurice Pierce.

He's the central focus of all of this.

JOHNSON: When he was released,

it was always with the intention

of we're going to still go after him.

We do not have the evidence to convict him right now.

But life is long.

JOHNSON: I think there's more evidence out there.

I believe that there are other people

that know very specific things about what happened

in and around the yogurt shop that night

that we have not developed yet.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

CARLOS: March of 2008,

we get a call from the judge's office

saying, "Hey, can you come and meet right now?"

When we got there,

prosecutors said, "We've been doing more DNA testing

and we have found a full profile."

Our evidence includes DNA from one male

whose identity is not yet known to us.

Questions.

The DNA doesn't belong to Michael.

It doesn't belong to Robert Springsteen.

It is not any one of these four boys.

So you have to then explain, where does it come from?

Well, it comes from the killer.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪