The Confession

In 1995, Daniel Taylor was convicted of a double murder in Chicago in what seemed to be a clear-cut case: he gave police a signed confession. But now his supporters — including Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions and a Chicago Tribune columnist — are insisting he is innocent. They are asking that Taylor, who is serving life in prison without parole, be freed.

They have a compelling argument: there is strong evidence that Taylor was actually in police custody when the 1992 murders took place. He had been picked up on a disorderly conduct charge, it seems, and was being held in a North Side jail — and he was only released on bond two hours after the killings.

But what about his confession? Why would an innocent man sign a statement saying he had committed murder? As it turns out, Taylor’s case is a fairly typical story: a frightened young person manipulated by police into making statements whose significance he did not understand. If the past few years have taught us anything it’s that false confessions are not only possible, but they also happen more often than anyone would think.

*****

The room was inert, sterile - like all interrogation chambers. Mentally, you scratch the walls, desperate for something to hang on to, but instead find yourself sliding downwards with nothing to break your fall, slipping in a room of ice. The time for humanity and compassion has passed. To be here is to have reached the end of your rope.

"Your name!" demanded the tense, uniformed voice.

"I refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me."

The interrogator leaned back in his chair disgusted. He looked to the men behind the mirror to make the next move.

Dr. Silverberg was not happy to have been called in. Two sex crazed teenage daughters and a temperamental wife had him questioning his vocation as a psychiatrist. He had no answer for that age old adage. "Doctor, heal thyself first." But he buried these doubts for the sake of a paycheck and his community standing. A meaningful life eluded him thus far.

Captain Bridges wasn't much happier. A high profile death meant the higher ups would be breathing down his neck for answers. He missed the old days when he could smoke indoors.

"What do you think, doc?"

"It's obvious. Look at him. He's squirming inside like a repressed volcano. He's at war with himself."

"So how do we break him?"

"What kind of forensics do you have?"

"Not a shred. And unless something breaks we'd have a hard time making a circumstantial case." Bridges raised his eyebrow. "Looks like it's up to you at this point."

Silverberg's mind was still latched to his crumbling household. Now he has to do the police's job too? Where does it ever end?

Sitting across from the sweating suspect reassured the good doctor of his superiority. He'd been briefed on the facts as they knew them. The suspect's sister had been drowned in her pool, held underwater until dead. Her brother - who currently resided in the opposite chair - stood to inherit 3.2 million dollars. They'd been estranged for years and he was openly bitter at having been disinherited. The lawsuit the brother filed was thrown out in a summary judgment.

"Joel, my name is Dr. Silverberg. As you know, you're under no obligation to speak to me. I'm simply here to ensure your welfare in this situation. Do you understand me?"

Joel Keaton had reached the end of his rope long before he'd hit the dead end of the interrogation room. He simply couldn't take it anymore shuffling from one hated job to the next while his sister lived her worry-free life. Comes a time when a man can no longer force one more bitter pill down his throat. He has to feel alive. Certain realities must be faced. Joel, living in this dark universe, kept his head down, hoping he'd never have to face the person across the table.

"I want to tell you a story, Joel. It's about a murderer who got away with it. In court he'd been acquitted and could never be tried again for that crime." Joel couldn't help be interested in the story, his twitching hands pausing. "But it was barely a year after that the man committed suicide. That's an actual fact, I can give you his name. Do you want to know why?"

"No..."

Got him! He's talking! "Because he'd been sentenced to life in prison." Joel looked up in confusion. Victory number two. "He was never going to escape the truth. He was doomed to live a lie until he died. He couldn't serve his time and be free. He'd lost all hope."

Joel had always thought of psychiatrists as con men. "Your tricks won't work on me."

"This is no trick. I've studied the human mind my entire life. I can recount case after case just like this. If you've got anything to say, now's the time to say it."

"I've got nothing to say."

"So be it," adjourned the doctor, leaving the room. Joel felt the walls closing in.

Bridges was doubtful to his returning colleague. "Didn't make much headway in there."

"On the contrary. I got him to speak and make eye contact. He's hanging on by his fingernails. He knows if he doesn't get out of that room soon he's going to break."

"Goddam, I hope you're right. You better know your shit."

"Do you have any idea of his IQ?"

"We found an online profile where he claimed an IQ of 142."

"I thought as much. He has contempt for me. Like a lot of amateur psychologists he thinks he can outsmart everyone else. Probably knows just enough to be dangerous. I think I can work him on this, Nash. His rational mind is fighting him too hard. I can use his intelligence against him."

"What exactly do you plan to do?"

"First, we leave him alone in there for a while, let his mind play tricks on him. Those weren't just stories I was telling him. He recognized the ring of truth. You know as much as I do about the desire to confess."

"Ok, yeah, so how you gonna make him confess?"

Silverberg smiled. "By getting him to confess."

Joel couldn't hide the flash of anger in his eyes at having been left alone in the room. His plan was to show no emotion but he knew the doctor was playing games and it irked him even more those games were actually working. "Can you tell me about your sister, Joel?"

Joel answered a defiant "no".

"You were always afraid she was better than you."

Joel's head jerked upwards, ready to strike. He gathered himself at the last minute. "I told you no games!"

Emotion at last! "The police already have a motive with the cash inheritance. Your personal feelings are immaterial to the case. But that's what I'm here to talk about. Your acrimony is no secret."

"Then you already know. I hated her."

The dam had its first crack. And from that crack would lead to its entire destruction. "Hate is a strong word."

Joel really did need to confess. He knew that even before going in. "You have no idea what she was like. Always digging, digging, digging into my life. She had to stick her nose into everything! You have any idea how infuriating that is? I wanted to kill her!"

"Stalking victims express that same sort of rage. She didn't respect your boundaries. She was obsessed and out-of-control. Is that it?"

"She was never going to stop! Can't you see that? I couldn't take another minute of her looking over my shoulder, commenting on everything I did. She was a maniac. I'm glad she's dead."

"Those are very understandable feelings. I could see how you'd want her dead."

The doctor locked eyes with Joel, urging him into the light. Joel felt himself swaying, swooning with the temptation to be free, remembering the doctor's words of hope. But hope had long passed Joel. Silverberg continued. "Just tell me how you felt, Joel. Then I can leave this room and have you discharged. The police have no hard evidence against you even without you having an alibi. Otherwise, this could drag on for hours."

"It wasn't fair! All she had to do was stay the fuck out of my life. I hated her. I could live with everything else but that damn busybody would never leave me alone. I wanted her dead! Do you understand me? I wanted her fucking dead!" Joel fairly foamed at the mouth.

"OK, now we have it." The doctor wiped off glasses in finality. "I'll talk to Captain Bridges and have you sent home."

"What? That's it?"

"All done." Silverberg stood up, walked over and opened the door.

"Wait!"

"Joel, my job is done. I've got a wife waiting on me at home. I've got my own headaches to take care of. You don't want to talk. I get that. You're on your own."

"But you don't understand! I had to do it! I had to stop her! She was driving me out of my mind!"

"Had to do what, Joel? Are you saying you killed her? I thought you said you didn't want to play games." Silverberg's hand never left the doorknob.

"Yes, I killed her! It's all my fault!"

The doctor still held the stance of wanting to go home. "Killed her how, Joel? You're trying my patience."

"I put my hands around her fucking neck and strangled her under that water. She deserved it! She deserved every fucking second if it. She never deserved that money more than I. The world's a better place without her."

"Whatever you say, Joel." The doctor closed the door and rejoined Captain Bridges. Joel stood up staring at the door.

Back behind the mirror entered a beaming doctor. "There you go: on a silver platter.He just thought he knew as much as I do." Dinner was going to taste very special tonight! Dr. Silverberg also had a couple of new ideas for his out-of-control daughters. Life was looking up.

"That was good work, Micah, but there is one little hiccup. The girl wasn't strangled. She was pressed down by her shoulders. We only reported she'd been strangled as a ruse to the public."

Silverberg was shaken. "What are you saying? He made a false confession? But how?"

"You tell me."

"Oh, dear Lord." The color drained from the doctor's face. "I got him to confess his guilt over his feelings and now he thinks he's just as guilty as the one who did it. Oh hell, I'm sorry, Nash. His brain is so crisscrossed right now he probably does believe he did it."

"I'll have my men go over it with him again, step by step just to be sure. Who knows. Maybe he still did do it."

"No, no..." moped the doctor. "I got him confused. I was too cocky. Maybe I was just too intent on showing him who was really smarter."

"Happens to the best of us," offered a disingenuous Captain Bridges. Doctor Micah Silverberg slowly drove his miserable self not to his house but to a long night's bar.

In repeated statements, Joel Keaton insisted he'd strangled his sister to death. He never did get the facts right, his confession useless. The D.A. could see no reason to file a case, leaving the probate court free to grant Joel the entire 3.2 million dollars.

*****

CODA: Barely a year later, Joel Keaton committed suicide. He'd thought himself clever with his carefully staged false confession, the false story planted in the paper giving him the idea. The vanity of such an act played right into his hands. Micah Silverberg - now a divorced drunk - read the suicide story and realized too late he should have stuck to his instincts.

Joel knew he had to confess, thinking the partial confession of his feelings would suffice to set him free. Instead, it placed him in solitary confinement - for life.