Jessie Misskelley, Jr.
In 1993 West Memphis, Arkansas police coerced a confession from Jessie Lloyd Misskelley, Jr., a mentally handicapped seventeen-year-old. He confessed to participating as an accessory in the brutal murder of three eight-year-old boys. Misskelley's statement to police was inconsistent with the facts of the case, was not supported by any evidence, and demonstrated that he lacked personal knowledge of the crime. Misskelley confessed that he witnessed the murders taking place around noon  when, in fact, the victims were all in school. They did not disappear until after approximately 5:30 p.m. Misskelley confessed that a brown rope had been used to bind the boys  when, in fact, shoelaces of various colors had been used. Numerous alibi witnesses testified that at the time the three children disappeared and for the next five hours (during which the murders probably occurred), Misskelley was at a wrestling competition in a town forty miles away from the crime scene. Despite the complete lack of any evidence of Misskelley's participation in the crime and despite his grossly incorrect confession, an Arkansas jury convicted Misskelley of one count of first degree murder and two counts of second degree murder. He is currently serving a life sentence. 

Douglas Warney
In 1996, Rochester, New York police elicited a confession from Douglas Warney to the brutal stabbing and murder of sixty-three-year-old William Beason. Warney, a mentally handicapped man who was suffering from AIDS-related dementia at the time of his interrogation, confessed to stabbing Beason fifteen or more times. The District Attorney initially charged Warney with capital murder, but reduced the charge to second degree murder after the New York media published several high profile stories criticizing his charging decision (even though the confession, if true, supported a capital charge). There was no physical evidence linking Warney to the brutal murder. Instead, virtually all of the physical evidence contradicted Warney's confession. Warney confessed that he stabbed Beason in the kitchen, but Beason was found stabbed in his bedroom. There was no blood in the kitchen. Warney confessed that he cut his finger during a struggle with Beason and wiped his hand in the bathroom. A medical examination shortly after Warney's arrest revealed no evidence of a cut, and laboratory tests showed that the blood in the bathroom did not come from Warney or Beason. The killer left a trail of blood at the scene, but none of the blood matched Warney's blood type. Warney confessed that he threw his bloody *466 clothes into a garbage can outside his apartment, but the garbage contained no bloody clothing. Warney confessed that he drove his brother's brown Chevy to the murder, but his brother had not owned a Chevy for six years and did not own a car at the time of the killing. Nevertheless, a jury convicted Warney of second degree murder, and the judge sentenced Warney to twenty-five years to life. 

Barry Lee Fairchild
In 1983, Pulaski County, Arkansas sheriffs extracted a confession from Barry Lee Fairchild, a mentally handicapped African-American, *467  to participating as an accessory in the abduction, rape and murder of Majorie Mason. There was no independent evidence connecting Fairchild to the crime; in fact, blood, hair and semen failed to positively link Fairchild to the crime. Fairchild maintained his innocence and insisted that he confessed only because Sheriff Tommy Robinson and Deputy Sheriff Larry Dill physically beat, assaulted, and threatened him. Fairchild's videotaped confession statement shows him looking away from the camera and responding to the prompting of others in the room. In 1990--seven years after Fairchild's conviction on capital murder charges--thirteen African-American men publicly disclosed that, like Fairchild, they too had been detained for questioning about the Mason murder and were tortured. One of these men, Michael Johnson, reported that he heard sheriffs in the next room torture Fairchild *468 into confessing. Two former Pulaski County Sheriff Deputies, Frank Gibson and Calvin Rollins, have admitted that physical assault and abuse were common interrogation tactics at the time of Fairchild's arrest. Nevertheless, all of Fairchild's legal appeals failed, and he was executed on August 31, 1995. 

Delbert Ward
In 1990, New York State Police interrogated Delbert Ward, a fifty-nine-year-old illiterate and mentally handicapped farmer. Ward eventually signed a confession admitting that he had murdered his brother, William, by putting his hand over William's nose and mouth. Ward reported that he had been intimidated *469 into confessing, and thereafter steadfastly maintained his innocence. When the Assistant Medical Examiner of Onondaga County, Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, filled out William Ward's death certificate and turned the body over to the funeral home, he did not believe that a homicide had occurred. However, immediately after learning of Delbert Ward's confession, Dr. Germaniuk re-classified William Ward's death as a homicide. 

There was no credible evidence linking Delbert Ward to his brother's death. Instead, the evidence supported the conclusion that William Ward died of natural causes, not of asphyxiation. Four common and telltale signs that should have been present if William Ward had died of asphyxia were not there: (1) William Ward's nose and mouth were free of trauma or blood; (2) there was no evidence of regurgitation; (3) there was no thinning of the blood; and (4) there was not a bluish or purple appearance to the skin. At the same time, William Ward's enlarged heart, clogged coronary and pulmonary arteries, and his fluid-filled lungs supplied clear evidence that he had died of natural disease. Nevertheless, at trial, Dr. Germaniuk testified for the prosecution that William Ward died of asphyxiation, while the forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht testified for the defense that William Ward died of natural causes. After almost *470 nine hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Ward of murdering his brother. Two days after the trial, the investigator who had elicited Ward's false confession "was reprimanded and ended up taking an early retirement in Florida." 

Jack Carmen
In 1975 Jack Carmen, a mentally retarded twenty-six-year-old, confessed to the kidnapping, rape and murder of a fourteen-year-old girl in Columbus, Ohio. Though there was no evidence against Carmen and three eyewitnesses placed him elsewhere at the time of murder, Carmen pled guilty to the crime to avoid the death penalty. Instead he was sentenced to life in prison. Two years later, an appellate court judge nullified Carmen's conviction, and he was subsequently acquitted in a jury trial. 

David Vasquez
In 1984, David Vasquez, who is also mentally retarded, confessed three times  and subsequently pled guilty to the murder of Carolyn Hamm, for which he was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. In Vasquez's case, the police also subsequently identified the true murderer, a serial killer, and Vasquez was released from prison after serving almost five years of his sentence. 

Johnny Lee Wilson
Vasquez was fortunate compared to Johnny Lee Wilson, another mentally retarded adult. In 1986, Aurora, Missouri police induced Wilson to confess to murder and arson. Wilson pled guilty to first degree murder to avoid the death penalty and instead was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of *480 parole for fifty years. Although in 1988 the true killer confessed and provided officials with details of the crime that only the perpetrator would know, Wilson was not released from prison until 1995--more than eight years after his conviction, when the Governor of Missouri pardoned him. 

William Kelley
In 1990 William Kelley, a mentally handicapped adult, confessed and then pled guilty to the murder of a twenty-five-year-old woman whose body was found in a landfill. He was sentenced to ten to twenty years in prison but was released two years later when the police in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania stumbled upon the true perpetrator, serial killer, who confessed to the crime. 

Christopher Smith and Ralph Jacobs
In 1991 Christopher Smith and Ralph Jacobs, also mentally handicapped adults, both falsely confessed, and pled guilty to, the murder of a New Castle, Indiana drug dealer. Smith was sentenced to thirty-eight years and Jacobs to eight. Both had served eighteen months in prison when police arrested the true killer, who was linked to the crime by physical evidence (unlike Smith and Jacobs) and eventually convicted.