Original Article How do false confessions occur? Dennis Wagner The Arizona Republic Oct. 3, 2004 12:00 AM Sometimes murder suspects give false confessions and go to prison or are executed. Other times, they are exonerated. Either way, the average citizen is left wondering: How can those who are innocent admit to crimes they didn't commit? advertisement An answer emerges from the interrogation of Robert Louis Armstrong, a 51-year-old machinist who was charged with murder and targeted for lethal injection by prosecutors. After more than a year behind bars, Armstrong was released in August - his admission of guilt contradicted by an alibi. But, as similar cases are exposed nationwide by modern crime forensics, the impact reaches beyond a few defendants. False confessions undermine America's justice system. They allow real perpetrators to get away with murder, perhaps to kill again. They squander tax dollars. They leave survivors with empty justice. All of that happened in the Armstrong case. According to a 167-page interview transcript, Armstrong didn't have a clue why Maricopa County sheriff's deputies picked him up June 9, 2003. He didn't know they were investigating a triple-homicide that occurred five years earlier. He wasn't aware that they already had interviewed an acquaintance, Peggy Sue Brown, who claimed Armstrong and her ex-boyfriend, David "Red" Majors, were the killers. He'd never met Ronald Hutchison, Dewey Peters and Crystal Allison - victims who were gunned down as they drank beer and enjoyed a bonfire in the Agua Fria River bottom of west Phoenix. Armstrong made it clear he wanted to cooperate. Through 31 pages, he blithely answered questions about his life, voluntarily disclosing his problems with drugs and alcohol. Then detective Kim Seagraves announced that witnesses and evidence placed Armstrong in the sandy river wash near Camelback Road on Easter Sunday, 1998. Armstrong said he had never been to the area and was with his mother in Portland, Ore., that weekend. "My investigation clearly shows beyond any reasonable doubt that you were present when something bad happened," Seagraves said. "I was? How?" Armstrong asked. " . . . I wasn't there, I swear to God I wasn't there." The alibi Detectives claimed to have rental and work records disproving his alibi. They said Armstrong's math was wrong - he must have been in Oregon a year later - in 1999. They said he was in denial, repressing the horror and guilt. Seagraves: "Were you so under the influence that perhaps you don't remember what happened?" Armstrong: "That must be it...." Seagraves: "OK, Well, let's start by this. Um, do you have blackouts?" Armstrong: "Yeah." Finally, Seagraves told Armstrong he was suspected in a homicide with Majors. "A murder?" Armstrong blurted. "He murdered someone when I was with him? I don't think so. I would have known about that." Seagraves produced photographs of the victims, who suffered grisly wounds. "I'm a good citizen," Armstrong pleaded. "I haven't done anything wrong. I don't go around killing people." Detectives suggested that Majors was the evil one. Armstrong needed to confess, they said, or Majors would put the blame on him. They proposed a "truth verification" exam that would measure micro-tremors in Armstrong's voice. He agreed to the test, then expressed shock when detectives announced that he had flunked. Detectives hammered away until Armstrong allowed that it was possible he was involved. Then he began to cry. "I swear to God, I don't remember." The tipster Investigators had been led to Armstrong by a daisy-chain of events, beginning with a Silent Witness call about a man named "Red" who mentioned the killings while playing pool at a Phoenix bar. Detectives couldn't find Majors, but they located his ex-girlfriend in jail on a probation violation. Brown, 34, had a history of drug abuse and was taking medication for bipolar disorder and manic depression. A videotape of the interview shows that Brown initiated talk of gunplay, and mentioned the Agua Fria River hangout, before Seagraves explained the purpose of her questioning. When Seagraves asked, "Do you know what this is about?" Brown answered, "I think I do. ... When the bodies were found." She started weeping then asked, "How did you find me?" Brown spilled her story amid sobs: She went to the riverbed with Armstrong and Majors. They met some people. There was a dispute, gunfire. Brown described one of the victims. She mentioned two firearms. She explained why the killings occurred. More than a year later, as Seagraves replays the video for a reporter, she recalls being 100 percent convinced. Yet, somehow, the story fell apart. Armstrong's defense team obtained Greyhound bus records showing he was in Oregon during Easter 1998. Confronted with that evidence, Brown admitted lying. Then she turned on the deputies, claiming in a sworn statement that she was pressured into a false confession. "I resisted as long as I could, but this last interrogation tactic, wherein I became the murderer, scared me so badly that I was willing to lie to save myself," the statement says. "I was told where it happened, when it happened, how it happened, weapons involved, a very specific description. "I was actually taken to the scene of the homicides, a cross was pointed out . . . and much other detail was provided to me." Seagraves, now a sergeant, says Brown was videotaped before detectives provided details of the crime. She is not apologetic about her work, but admits bewilderment. "This is a haunting case," Seagraves says. "As investigators, we want to do the right thing. We don't want people to come in and give us false information. ... Even if Peggy were to come clean at this moment, she's lost all credibility. Did she guess correctly, or did she know?" Dj vu? The question has an eerie familiarity. In 1992, six monks, two nuns and a helper were massacred at a Buddhist temple amid the cotton fields west of Phoenix. Weeks into the probe, a young man named Michael McGraw called police from a Tucson mental hospital to claim that he and five buddies were guilty. Suspects were rounded up and interrogated for hours. Four of them confessed and were charged with murder. In jail, the Tucson men retracted their admissions and claimed they were coerced. Months passed before investigators ran ballistics tests on a rifle seized from West Valley teenagers. It was the murder weapon. Search warrants turned up loot from the temple. Two local boys, Jonathon Doody and Alex Garcia, admitted to the slayings. The so-called Tucson Four were released. Attorney M.E. "Buddy" Rake, who represented one of those men, now works for Armstrong. "It's kind of dj vu," he says. "You could change the names and you'd pretty much have the same case. ... Just an amazing coincidence. And a tragic one." Phoenix attorney Larry Hammond, who also represented a temple murder defendant in 1992, said there is one important difference today: Thanks to DNA evidence, the legal world is aware that false confessions occur with some frequency, and lead to wrongful convictions. No one knows how often that happens. But researchers at the Death Penalty Information Center say nearly one-quarter of all murder suspects exonerated by genetic tests had confessed to police. And juries convict defendants who make those admissions 73 percent of the time - even when incriminating statements are withdrawn and rebutted by evidence. Richard Ofshke, a University of California at Berkeley sociology professor and expert witness, says false confessions are a function of psychology. "Almost all the time, they are caused by police misconduct," he adds, "where someone is made to believe that if they continue denying responsibility they will receive the worst possible punishment." Because the law allows detectives to lie during interrogations, Ofshke says, they claim proof and witnesses that don't exist. Some suspects, especially the mentally disabled, become so confused they believe they are guilty. Others are convinced that they will be put to death or jailed for life unless they "cooperate." In the Buddhist temple case, Garcia eventually disclosed that he also helped kill a woman near Lake Pleasant in 1991. That vindicated yet another man who was in jail after giving a false confession, 47-year-old George Peterson. Peterson collected $1.2 million in damages from Maricopa County for his false arrest. The Tucson Four got $2.8 million. All of that occurred as then-Sheriff Tom Agnos was seeking re-election against a challenger, Joe Arpaio, who criticized the temple murder probe as "bizarre" and said it rated an F for being mishandled. After Arpaio won the election, he apologized to the Tucson men and demoted commanders who were blamed for the mess. "What happened was a sad day for law enforcement, and we're going to move forward and I hope everyone learns from it," he said at the time. "My philosophy is: I don't like confessions.... Make sure you've got corroborating evidence before you arrest somebody." Arpaio says the Armstrong case is entirely different - "apples and oranges" - because deputies had Peggy Sue Brown as an eyewitness. Hammond disagreed, noting that Michael McGraw also was supposed to be an eyewitness. "It's disappointing that really obvious lessons have not been learned," he said. 'I deserve to die' Most of the tactics used with Armstrong were standard. Seagraves and Detective Travis Anglin made false claims, offered a hope for leniency, pitted suspects against one another, employed fear. "If we didn't make people uncomfortable, we'd never get the truth," Seagraves explains. " . . . I know the technique used has been very successful." By the end, Armstrong was so confused that he prayed God would help him remember the crime. Anglin offered a series of scenarios, urging him to envision the events. Anglin: "Three people just died in your mind. Tell me what you saw." Armstrong: "Mmm, what I just saw in my mind is me standing there and (Majors) shootin' someone and, like you said, I just panicked and started shootin' everything. And then (inaudible) I said, 'Oh, my God, what have I done?' " Anglin: "Which one did you shoot first . . . the boy or the girl?" Armstrong: "Um, I thought it was a girl." Anglin: "OK, then you shot the guy? Who did you shoot after the guy?" Armstrong: (Inaudible.) Anglin: "Watch it in your mind again, five or six seconds, play it all over." Armstrong struggled. Anglin prodded: "Then you shot the girl? If she got shot last, that would be the way it went." Armstrong: "Mmm Hhh." Anglin: "OK. Now, this is the most important question . . . Are you sorry that it happened?" Armstrong (sobbing): "I'm sorry . . . I deserve to die." Detectives demanded a description of the vehicles, the guns, how many shots were fired. Armstrong had no answers. He said he was still confused. He wanted a lawyer. Seagraves said, "All right, um, Bob, you're being charged with, uh, three counts of first-degree murder. OK?" Armstrong is free now. Peggy Sue Brown faces felony counts for obstructing an investigation. At the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Seagraves and a half-dozen other deputies are pursuing new suspects: a secret band of West Valley toughs known for beer bashes, bonfires and violence in the river bottom. No arrests have been made. Reach the reporter at dennis. wagner@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8874.