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#118 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Thomas Cogdell · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer.
0:05
Speaker 2: And I'm Steve Drissen.
0:07
Speaker 1: So far, we've told you the story of Robert Davis
0:09
Speaker 1: in Virginia and the Dixmore five in Chicago, two cases
0:13
Speaker 1: that show how the interrogation room works and how racial
0:16
Speaker 1: biases can script false confessions. Today's episode is about how
0:20
Speaker 1: interrogation tactics designed for seasoned adult criminals are often used
0:25
Speaker 1: on the most vulnerable among us. We're going to take
0:28
Speaker 1: you to Camden, Arkansas, where a twelve year old boy
0:33
Speaker 1: is left to fend for himself against grown ups who
0:36
Speaker 1: suspect him of murder. The interrogation tape is bad enough,
0:40
Speaker 1: but the worst parts happened off camera. This is the
0:44
Speaker 1: story of Thomas.
0:45
Speaker 2: Cogdal I do a lot of searches online to try
0:59
Speaker 2: to keep up to date about cases involving false confessions
1:03
Speaker 2: and juveniles, and this case came on my radar screen.
1:07
Speaker 2: When I saw these interrogation tapes, I was absolutely floored.
1:11
Speaker 2: You know, Robert Davis was eighteen, he was well over
1:16
Speaker 2: six feet tall. But Thomas Cogdell, he was a boy.
1:21
Speaker 2: He hadn't started shaving yet.
1:23
Speaker 1: This is the first video I had seen where adult
1:25
Speaker 1: tactics were being used on someone as young as Thomas
1:28
Speaker 1: twelve years old. I'm a mom. I've got kids not
1:30
Speaker 1: much younger than Thomas, and the way the cops railroaded
1:34
Speaker 1: this child, it brings me to tears when I hear this.
1:37
Speaker 2: You have two boys, I have three boys. I remember
1:40
Speaker 2: what my boys were like when they were twelve years old,
1:43
Speaker 2: and they reminded me very much of Thomas.
1:45
Speaker 1: Cogdele and that the climax of this interrogation they turn
1:49
Speaker 1: off the camera, that's when the heat really gets turned up.
1:52
Speaker 2: What happened off camera? I wanted to know what happened.
2:00
Speaker 1: Thomas's story starts in Camden, Arkansas, a small town about
2:04
Speaker 1: twelve thousand people one hundred miles south of Little Rock.
2:08
Speaker 1: Now Camden's a beautiful place, but like too many smaller towns,
2:12
Speaker 1: modernity has been hard for Camden. Once upon a time,
2:16
Speaker 1: it was home to a naval ammunition depot that employed
2:18
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and it was even known for
2:20
Speaker 1: being the home of the man who invented gray Pet
2:23
Speaker 1: soft drinks, which were really popular in the fifties and sixties,
2:27
Speaker 1: but gray Pet fizzled out and the ammunition depot closed
2:30
Speaker 1: at the end of the Cold War, and ever since
2:32
Speaker 1: the late eighties early nineties, Camden's been losing jobs, residents,
2:37
Speaker 1: and morale. Now, at the beginning of the summer in
2:40
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, Thomas and his family had moved
2:44
Speaker 1: into a tidy, little gray house on Waco Street. They
2:47
Speaker 1: live there, just the three of them. It's Thomas who's twelve,
2:51
Speaker 1: his eleven year old sister Kayley, and their mom, Melody Jones.
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Speaker 1: Let me tell you a little about Thomas. He's one
2:58
Speaker 1: of those whiz kids. It's the kind of kid who
3:01
Speaker 1: racks up all a's in school and then comes home
3:03
Speaker 1: and dives straight into a book. He's well mannered, polite, quiet,
3:08
Speaker 1: small for his age, with these chubby cheeks that made
3:10
Speaker 1: him look even younger than his age. And at twelve,
3:14
Speaker 1: he still spoke with a lisp, this really childlike lisp
3:17
Speaker 1: that was incredibly endearing. Now, in many ways, Thomas shouldered
3:22
Speaker 1: a lot of the responsibility around the house. Melody was
3:26
Speaker 1: on Social Security disability because of mental illness, and the
3:29
Speaker 1: family got by on her monthly check and food stamps.
3:33
Speaker 1: Thomas had a sister who was eleven, Kaylee. She was
3:36
Speaker 1: as immature in some ways as Thomas was mature. She
3:40
Speaker 1: wasn't as good as he was at reading, so he'd
3:41
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time helping her learn her words
3:44
Speaker 1: and remembered. They were new on the block, which unfortunately
3:47
Speaker 1: meant that Kaylee was in for some bullying. But when
3:50
Speaker 1: other kids would pick on her, Thomas would literally launch
3:54
Speaker 1: himself at them, chubby cheeks and all. He was the
3:56
Speaker 1: big brother, it was his responsibility he felt to defend.
4:00
Speaker 2: The two of them got along well for the most part,
4:03
Speaker 2: but like all children, they had their spats, and it
4:06
Speaker 2: usually occurred when Kaylee would interrupt something that Thomas was
4:10
Speaker 2: working on or listening to, or video game he was playing,
4:13
Speaker 2: and that would frustrate him. But that happens in every family.
4:17
Speaker 1: So let's fast forward to the morning of August seventh,
4:20
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. It was Monday morning, but school
4:23
Speaker 1: was out, so the kids had stayed up really late
4:25
Speaker 1: the night before. Kayley had gone to bed at about
4:28
Speaker 1: two point thirty in the morning, and Thomas had stayed
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Speaker 1: up even later than her until about five am, eating
4:34
Speaker 1: em and m's and reading a spooky children's book in
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Speaker 1: his room.
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Speaker 2: He fell asleep with the book still open to the
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Speaker 2: page that he had left it at.
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Speaker 1: And then the morning comes at about eleven forty five
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Speaker 1: or so, both Melody and Thomas are awake. Melody later
4:49
Speaker 1: said she went to check the mail that morning found
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Speaker 1: a letter for Kaylee, who was still in her bedroom.
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Speaker 1: Melody asks Thomas to come with her to surprise Kaylee
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Speaker 1: with her letter, but they're met with a horrible Kaylee's
5:01
Speaker 1: in the bedroom. Her hands are tightly bound with a
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Speaker 1: red dog leash, and her feet are loosely bound with
5:09
Speaker 1: a cloth measuring tape, the kind of thing you'd use
5:12
Speaker 1: to measure out and cut fabric. And there's a plastic
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Speaker 1: bag over her head. Melody removed the bag and it
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Speaker 1: was immediately clear Kayley was dead. Melody's screamed. She screams
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Speaker 1: so loudly that the neighbors hear her. She becomes hysterical.
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Speaker 1: Thomas has the presence of mind to call nine one one.
5:30
Speaker 1: An ambulance arrives. The neighbors are gathering outside everybody's concern,
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Speaker 1: but no one's being brought out to that ambulance for treatment. Slowly,
5:39
Speaker 1: word is beginning to spread among the neighbors that kayleie
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Speaker 1: Cogdal had been found dead.
5:45
Speaker 2: When police arrived at a crime scene, they look for
5:48
Speaker 2: evidence of forced entry, and they didn't see any evidence
5:52
Speaker 2: of forced entry. That means that either somebody in the
5:56
Speaker 2: home had let the murderer in, or that the murder
6:00
Speaker 2: had been committed by somebody who was in the home
6:02
Speaker 2: at the time of the crime.
6:04
Speaker 1: Kayley had not been sexually assaulted. Instead, she'd been smothered
6:08
Speaker 1: to death. The absence of any sexual attack meant that
6:11
Speaker 1: both Thomas and his mother, Melody were suspects. Now. At
6:15
Speaker 1: this point in the investigation, police had thought the time
6:18
Speaker 1: of death was about six to eight hours before the
6:21
Speaker 1: body had been discovered. Working back from eleven forty five,
6:25
Speaker 1: that would have placed the murder around three forty five
6:28
Speaker 1: to five forty five in the.
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Speaker 2: Morning, and because Thomas had said that he was awake,
6:32
Speaker 2: still reading a book at the time, suspicion began to
6:35
Speaker 2: focus on him.
6:37
Speaker 1: The police bring both Melody and Thomas in for questioning
6:40
Speaker 1: later in the day, and it's melodies turn to go first.
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Speaker 1: The mom Now, she's questioned at about four thirty pm
6:47
Speaker 1: for about an hour, and long story short, she denies
6:50
Speaker 1: doing anything to Kayley, and in fact spends most of
6:53
Speaker 1: that interview answering questions about Thomas. At the end of
6:57
Speaker 1: that interview, the end of the hour, she gives the
6:59
Speaker 1: police permier to question Thomas. Now, this is interesting and problematic, right,
7:04
Speaker 1: I mean, Melody's a suspect as well as Thomas, and
7:07
Speaker 1: she's the one who is giving the police consent to
7:09
Speaker 1: question her son, the other suspect.
7:12
Speaker 2: It's totally inappropriate.
7:13
Speaker 1: But the police relied on that consent that they'd gotten
7:17
Speaker 1: from Melody, from Thomas's mom, plowed ahead with questioning Thomas
7:20
Speaker 1: all by himself, no lawyer, no parent, no nothing, starting
7:25
Speaker 1: at about five thirty PM.
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Speaker 2: So Thomas, a twelve year old boy who had never
7:29
Speaker 2: had any contact with law enforcement, is left to fend
7:33
Speaker 2: for himself against seasoned homicide detectives.
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Speaker 1: All of the beginning of Thomas's interrogation is captured on videotape,
7:41
Speaker 1: And when you watch this tape, you see a small
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Speaker 1: boy sitting in a chair at a table in a
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Speaker 1: small room with no windows, no clock. Thomas is about
7:50
Speaker 1: to undergo about five hours of questioning at age twelve,
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Speaker 1: by himself. Now, the first segment of this tape runs
7:58
Speaker 1: from about five thirty in the afternoon to sixty five,
8:01
Speaker 1: and it's hard to watch.
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Speaker 2: It's brutal. It literally gutted me and caused me to cry.
8:08
Speaker 1: Exactly I mean. At first, Thomas keeps his cool. You
8:10
Speaker 1: can see the honor Roll student in him, trying to
8:13
Speaker 1: be the big man who helps the police. He calls
8:16
Speaker 1: his interrogators sir. He answers them quickly and politely. The
8:20
Speaker 1: only way you can tell he's nervous is by the
8:23
Speaker 1: way he's wringing his hands over and over again, almost
8:26
Speaker 1: non stop. But it gets awful, and it gets awful quickly.
8:31
Speaker 1: The police start out by telling Thomas that he has
8:35
Speaker 1: to choose between incriminating himself and incriminating his own mother.
8:42
Speaker 3: In the bottom line on me is nobody broke in
8:45
Speaker 3: that house last night. There's no indication of any break here.
8:49
Speaker 3: So your sister died and there was only two people
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Speaker 3: in the house that could have killed him. Okay, that's
8:58
Speaker 3: the only way he can.
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Speaker 1: Make boy, understand you or your mother. That's the only
9:05
Speaker 1: way it can be, boy, There ain't no other way.
9:08
Speaker 1: And again, did your mother kill her? Not that I
9:14
Speaker 1: know of. They say, why would you kill your sister?
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Speaker 1: And he says, I wouldn't, but they've continued to press
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Speaker 1: you had to have killed her, because if your mother didn't,
9:24
Speaker 1: that just leaves you that she had.
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Speaker 2: If your mother didn't, I just leave she. Thomas begins
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Speaker 2: to cry, actually wail, and the sound of his high
9:34
Speaker 2: pitch wailing is what caused me the greatest distressed because
9:38
Speaker 2: it sounded almost like the way an animal would sound,
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Speaker 2: a baby animal if their foot were caught in a
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Speaker 2: bear trap or an animal trot. One of the detectives
10:09
Speaker 2: says to him, why are you crying, Thomas, And Thomas says,
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Speaker 2: because you're accusing me of something I didn't do. He
10:36
Speaker 2: had the presence of mind to articulate exactly what he
10:40
Speaker 2: was feeling.
10:41
Speaker 1: Is unbelievable from a twelve year old little and a
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Speaker 1: twelve year old who had just gone through this this
10:45
Speaker 1: level of trauma. I mean to be that self aware.
10:47
Speaker 1: I'm crying because you're accusing me of something I didn't do.
10:50
Speaker 2: And the detective he's not yelling, he's not screaming, but
10:53
Speaker 2: he's pressing the point it had to be you, boy.
11:01
Speaker 1: So Thomas right is a smart kid. He's an Honoraal student,
11:04
Speaker 1: and you can see his mind starts spinning. He's trying
11:07
Speaker 1: to figure a way out of this horrific situation, and
11:10
Speaker 1: he asks the officers, is there any way I can
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Speaker 1: prove to you that I didn't do this?
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Speaker 2: In no way want to okay, personally okay, A moment
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Speaker 2: he woke me up.
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Speaker 1: Ahead my lap, and his idea for proving his own
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Speaker 1: innocence is this heartbreakingly childlike idea. He fell asleep that
11:30
Speaker 1: night at five am with a book in his lap,
11:33
Speaker 1: and he tells the officers that if he had woken
11:36
Speaker 1: up and killed his sister, the book would have fallen
11:39
Speaker 1: off his lap and be on the floor of his bedroom.
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Speaker 1: And he says, go back and look in my bedroom.
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Speaker 1: You'll see that there's no book on the floor, which
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Speaker 1: proves I didn't do this. The officers reject this theory, right,
11:50
Speaker 1: and instead they tell Thomas he had no choice but
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Speaker 1: to confess. You're going to have to tell us everything.
11:58
Speaker 1: Thomas keeps denying his guilt as the pressure is turned
12:01
Speaker 1: up dozens of times over and over. He tells him
12:05
Speaker 1: he didn't kill his sister, and of course it's the
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Speaker 1: officer's job to cut through those denials to make him
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Speaker 1: believe the case against him is rock solid to bring
12:14
Speaker 1: him down to that point of hopelessness. So they lie
12:17
Speaker 1: to twelve year old Thomas. They lie, They say to him,
12:20
Speaker 1: their investigation is going to find his fingerprints on the
12:25
Speaker 1: plastic bag that was over Kaylee's head, and his fingerprints
12:29
Speaker 1: are going to be at a certain angle that somehow
12:31
Speaker 1: indicates that he had held the bag over his sister's head.
12:35
Speaker 2: And then they offer inducements to get him to confess. Thomas,
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Speaker 2: you're twelve years old. If you confess, we're here to
12:43
Speaker 2: help you and your mother, You've got to be flat
12:45
Speaker 2: honest with us so that we can help you. You're
12:48
Speaker 2: going to need some help to get rid of this guilt.
12:51
Speaker 4: We're here to help you and your.
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Speaker 3: Mother, Okay, But you've got to be flat honest with
12:55
Speaker 3: us so we can help you. Okay. Return.
13:00
Speaker 2: Oh, it's the help theme again versus punishment. We're here
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Speaker 2: to help you, that's what we want to do, Temas.
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Speaker 1: And it's at this point during the interrogation that the
13:09
Speaker 1: officers introduce their theory of the crime. In other words,
13:13
Speaker 1: they start telling Thomas what it is they want him
13:16
Speaker 1: to say. Could it have been an accident? They asked Thomas,
13:20
Speaker 1: even though the crime is scene obviously indicates that what
13:22
Speaker 1: happened to Kayley was was clearly no accident, and Thomas,
13:26
Speaker 1: who's crying and scared out of his mind, says, this
13:29
Speaker 1: possibility and I don't, well, it's a possibility. It could
13:35
Speaker 1: have been an accident. And I don't remember it.
13:39
Speaker 2: Do you remember tomorrow?
13:40
Speaker 4: You knows.
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Speaker 1: This goes on, Okay, it goes on for more than
13:44
Speaker 1: an hour, and by the end it culminates in this
13:48
Speaker 1: horrible ten minute segment where Thomas is left alone. The
13:52
Speaker 1: officers step out of the room, but the camera is
13:54
Speaker 1: still running, and he starts rocking back and forth in
13:58
Speaker 1: his seat and muttering to himself. It's like halfway distinguishable gibberish.
14:05
Speaker 2: Nobody came, so I didn't do it?
14:11
Speaker 1: Why she wanted to do it? Why mom wouldn't do this.
14:21
Speaker 1: She loves her daughter, doesn't she? She loves me. I
14:25
Speaker 1: didn't do it, that's the bottom line. But they don't
14:28
Speaker 1: believe me. Help. I'm scared.
14:39
Speaker 2: We've seen cases where people are reduced to a place
14:43
Speaker 2: where they're crawled up in a fetal position on the
14:46
Speaker 2: floor from these tactics, and they're working their magic on Thomas.
14:51
Speaker 1: I mean it's so hard to watch. This is psychological torture,
14:55
Speaker 1: and this moment, the emotional breakdown of Thomas, this is
14:59
Speaker 1: the moment when police decide to turn off the video camera.
15:06
Speaker 2: There's no excuse for that. I think what they began
15:11
Speaker 2: to realize was that this was awful what they were
15:15
Speaker 2: recording on tape, and Thomas had reached a place where
15:18
Speaker 2: he was having a breakdown and he still would not
15:22
Speaker 2: confess to this crime. So they needed some time to
15:25
Speaker 2: try to work on him outside of the interrogation room
15:29
Speaker 2: with the.
15:30
Speaker 1: Camera off exactly, and outside of this camera which was
15:33
Speaker 1: recording this trail of emotional destruction that would turn off
15:37
Speaker 1: any judge, any jury, any listener in America. So they
15:57
Speaker 1: turned off the camera for what they later called a
15:59
Speaker 1: break questioning r a break that ended up lasting about
16:02
Speaker 1: three and a half hours. Now, it's perfectly legal for
16:06
Speaker 1: them to turn off the camera, right That's the thing
16:08
Speaker 1: there was, and in fact, there still is no law
16:13
Speaker 1: in Arkansas requiring interrogations to be recorded in full.
16:17
Speaker 2: We need to have the truth, the whole truth, and
16:20
Speaker 2: nothing but the truth of what happens in the interrogation room.
16:24
Speaker 2: We can't allow law enforcement officers to have the discretion
16:29
Speaker 2: on when depressed the stop button.
16:34
Speaker 1: Later, when the state was prosecuting this case, it said
16:36
Speaker 1: that all that happened during this break was that the
16:38
Speaker 1: deputy prosecutor sat with Thomas while he had something to eat, right,
16:43
Speaker 1: And during that break, while he was eating, the prosecutor
16:46
Speaker 1: said that Thomas just spontaneously decided to blurt out a
16:51
Speaker 1: confession to killing his sister. Right, not being questioned, not
16:54
Speaker 1: being pressured, not being manipulated, not being lied to. He
16:57
Speaker 1: just blurts it out in the middle of eating this hamburger.
17:00
Speaker 2: And this is a common refrain that we hear from
17:03
Speaker 2: law enforcement officers, the spontaneous confession. And why is it common? Well,
17:09
Speaker 2: if someone blurts out at confession without any prompting or
17:12
Speaker 2: persuasion by the police, police officers don't need to read
17:16
Speaker 2: them their miranda rights.
17:18
Speaker 1: It's not until ten twenty pm that officers turn the
17:21
Speaker 1: video camera back on. We're back now in the same
17:24
Speaker 1: interrogation room with Thomas sitting in the same seat as
17:28
Speaker 1: in the earlier session. But what we now see and
17:32
Speaker 1: hear is a very different Thomas Coddle.
17:36
Speaker 2: Right, Cole H, I am to actually feel good and
17:41
Speaker 2: good and you know, it's like a completely different person
17:45
Speaker 2: in that interrogation room. He is calm, he is cool,
17:49
Speaker 2: he is collected. He seems to be eager to want
17:52
Speaker 2: to help police officers. And it's as if someone presses
17:56
Speaker 2: the play button and he starts telling a story that
18:00
Speaker 2: involves and implicates him in his sister's death.
18:03
Speaker 1: Exactly. He's almost cheerful while he's reciting the story, one
18:07
Speaker 1: that sounds really rehearsed and practiced. He tells a story
18:11
Speaker 1: in which Kaylee had been in her bed, apparently sleeping,
18:14
Speaker 1: and Thomas had tied her hands and feet to slower down.
18:18
Speaker 1: He says when she got out of bed, he didn't
18:21
Speaker 1: mean to hurt her, and then he described putting a
18:24
Speaker 1: plastic bag over her head, leaving the room, then going
18:28
Speaker 1: back and loosening it so that air could get in there.
18:32
Speaker 1: But even this story, right, this confession to being involved
18:36
Speaker 1: in the death of his sister, it develops inconsistencies. The
18:39
Speaker 1: police have him go through it a second time, and
18:42
Speaker 1: this time they have him take out the part where
18:45
Speaker 1: it was an accident. On the second go round, Thomas
18:48
Speaker 1: said he put two bags on Kaylee's head because the
18:52
Speaker 1: first one had a hole in it, and he said
18:55
Speaker 1: he held the bags there until she started twitching. In
18:58
Speaker 1: this account, he says he tied her up after she
19:01
Speaker 1: was smothered.
19:02
Speaker 3: You shit bags and one more bags?
19:05
Speaker 2: Why did you used to because the other one had
19:07
Speaker 2: a hole in it? Okay, so she's charged.
19:10
Speaker 4: You've gone. You've got these things to tie.
19:13
Speaker 2: Her wrists and to tie her legs, and you.
19:17
Speaker 3: Do that for fear that she's gonna wake up and
19:19
Speaker 3: come hurt you.
19:21
Speaker 2: That's what you're telling us. Then what do you do?
19:25
Speaker 4: And I turn onto TV as I said, leave home
19:30
Speaker 4: and go back to me, and then I false lea.
19:34
Speaker 1: And it's this story, this concession, that leads to Thomas's
19:38
Speaker 1: arrest and being charged in juvenile court with his own
19:42
Speaker 1: sister's murder.
19:44
Speaker 2: But it's still not quite the end of the story,
19:47
Speaker 2: because as soon as Thomas gives this strangely calm confession,
19:52
Speaker 2: the police bring in his mother, Melody.
19:54
Speaker 1: They're probably hoping that Thomas is gonna confess to his
19:57
Speaker 1: mom and then they'll have another piece of evidence that
19:58
Speaker 1: they can use against Tom. But what does Thomas say, Well,
20:03
Speaker 1: he leans over and he whispers to his mother something
20:07
Speaker 1: that he's obviously trying to say without the camera picking
20:10
Speaker 1: it up. Thomas whispers to his mom not to worry,
20:14
Speaker 1: just go along with it. He didn't really do it
20:18
Speaker 1: and they won't find his fingerprints on the bag. The
20:22
Speaker 1: interrogators want to know what he whispered to his mother,
20:25
Speaker 1: so they ask her when they have her alone again,
20:27
Speaker 1: what did he whisper to you?
20:30
Speaker 2: Did he go along with what he said because he said.
20:34
Speaker 3: He didn't do it and that y'all wouldn't find his fingerprints?
20:39
Speaker 1: What does he mean? Thomas knows his fingerprints aren't on
20:45
Speaker 1: the bags that were found over his sister's head because
20:48
Speaker 1: he never touched those bags. He believes that the absence
20:51
Speaker 1: of his fingerprints will prove his confession false and set
20:54
Speaker 1: him free. And then he appears to think that, having
20:59
Speaker 1: done as he was told, after having confessed to the
21:03
Speaker 1: murder of his own sister, he's going to walk out
21:06
Speaker 1: of that room and go to his cousin's house. Instead,
21:10
Speaker 1: police come back in place Thomas under arrest and charge
21:14
Speaker 1: him with the murder of his own sister.
21:20
Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about Thomas's confession. One
21:23
Speaker 2: of the best ways to measure the reliability of a
21:27
Speaker 2: confession is to look at the evidence that corroborates it,
21:30
Speaker 2: and in Thomas's case, there was no corroboration linking Thomas
21:34
Speaker 2: to this crime. They took that cloth measuring tape and
21:39
Speaker 2: they sent it to the lab for DNA testing. Thomas's
21:42
Speaker 2: DNA wasn't on that cloth measuring tape. Instead, another male's
21:47
Speaker 2: DNA was on that tape. And the story didn't account
21:49
Speaker 2: for other findings that the medical examiner had made. Caylee
21:53
Speaker 2: had bruising on her forehead, suggesting that there was some
21:57
Speaker 2: beating or some kind of a struggle before she had
21:59
Speaker 2: been killed, and Thomas's confession said nothing about a beating
22:03
Speaker 2: or a struggle.
22:04
Speaker 1: There's such a lack of corroboration of Thomas's story and
22:08
Speaker 1: the psychological tactics that were used to extract this story,
22:11
Speaker 1: including fact feeding, including threats and promises. This confession bears
22:17
Speaker 1: so many red flags. But let's talk for a minute though,
22:19
Speaker 1: about that three and a half hour period when the
22:22
Speaker 1: video camera was turned off. I mean, you look at
22:24
Speaker 1: this and it just stinks to high heaven when they
22:27
Speaker 1: press that stop button and then somehow Lo and Behold
22:29
Speaker 1: come back with a confession and a completely different child.
22:34
Speaker 1: What happened during that time. How did Thomas turn from
22:37
Speaker 1: this panicked child having an emotional breakdown to a cool, calm, confident,
22:44
Speaker 1: confessed murderer.
22:46
Speaker 2: To hear it from Thomas, this was no spontaneous outburst
22:50
Speaker 2: suggesting that he was guilty the whole time. This was
22:54
Speaker 2: part of an interrogation process that actually was ramped up
22:59
Speaker 2: during that three and a half hour period.
23:01
Speaker 1: Thomas has said that the interrogation continued after he had
23:04
Speaker 1: that emotional breakdown and was taken out of the room
23:07
Speaker 1: that off camera, the police had continued telling him that
23:10
Speaker 1: it was either going to be you or your mother,
23:13
Speaker 1: and that he needed to stand up and be a
23:15
Speaker 1: man and admit what he did and if he did
23:18
Speaker 1: then he'd be able to go home. Right That's why
23:21
Speaker 1: he later thought he was going to be able to
23:23
Speaker 1: go back to his cousin's house after confessing to the
23:25
Speaker 1: murder of his own sister. And Thomas also told his
23:29
Speaker 1: court appointed psychologist that they told him that if he
23:32
Speaker 1: didn't confess, he a twelve year old, would be charged
23:37
Speaker 1: as an adult and could get the death penalty.
23:40
Speaker 2: Or his mother could get the death penalty if he
23:43
Speaker 2: didn't confess, because there are only two people who could
23:46
Speaker 2: have been guilty of this crime, Thomas or his mother.
23:50
Speaker 1: So we have these two different stories of what happened
23:53
Speaker 1: during this three and a half hour period. Off camera,
23:56
Speaker 1: the prosecutor says Thomas is eating and he spontaneously confesses.
23:59
Speaker 1: But to Thomas has a story of continuing pressure, continuing manipulation,
24:03
Speaker 1: all occurring off camera. So how do we weigh those
24:06
Speaker 1: two accounts well. During Thomas's break in questioning Melody, the
24:12
Speaker 1: mom is reinterviewed a second time on video camera, and
24:17
Speaker 1: during that second interview of Melody, you can hear a loud,
24:21
Speaker 1: deep male voice yell Thomas, I'm not going to ask
24:25
Speaker 1: you again. Thomas is being questioned. That much is really clear,
24:32
Speaker 1: and he's being yelled at. That horrible process that we
24:35
Speaker 1: saw earlier is still happening just off camera.
24:41
Speaker 2: Thomas is convicted despite the heroic efforts of a very
24:46
Speaker 2: good attorney who Laura and I met for the first
24:48
Speaker 2: time in this case. Thomas's attorney was a public defender
24:52
Speaker 2: named Dorsey Corbin.
24:55
Speaker 4: My name is Dorsey Corbin, and I represented Thomas Cogdaal
24:58
Speaker 4: from seven months after he was charged with murder until
25:02
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court handed down its opinion on May six,
25:06
Speaker 4: twenty ten.
25:07
Speaker 2: She had challenged the confession aggressively before trial and lost,
25:12
Speaker 2: and she had tried this case very effectively.
25:16
Speaker 1: Confessions are one of the most powerful forms of evidence,
25:18
Speaker 1: and it can be incredibly hard to unwind these cases.
25:21
Speaker 1: After the fact, eighty one percent of false confessors who
25:24
Speaker 1: took their case to trial were convicted even though they
25:27
Speaker 1: were factually innocence of these crimes.
25:30
Speaker 4: Okay, can I talk about things that don't make sense
25:32
Speaker 4: in this whole case. The police, they originally thought that
25:36
Speaker 4: Kaylee must have died somewhere between two thirty or three thirty,
25:40
Speaker 4: and that was the time frame that Thomas used in
25:44
Speaker 4: his confession. Lividity is the process which after death, your
25:49
Speaker 4: blood settles because of basically gravity. So if you're laying
25:53
Speaker 4: on your back, you're going to have red marks on
25:56
Speaker 4: the back where the blood settles. The medical exammeinter tests
26:00
Speaker 4: that lividity stops after six to eight hours. However, the
26:04
Speaker 4: pictures taken at the crime scene at twelve oh two
26:07
Speaker 4: pm in the afternoon and at one fifty in the
26:10
Speaker 4: afternoon showed continuing lividity, the time of death being six
26:16
Speaker 4: to eight hours before two pm. In the afternoon, is
26:21
Speaker 4: well after the time Thomas had gone to sleep, and
26:24
Speaker 4: the police never made him change that part of his story.
26:27
Speaker 4: He didn't do this in his sleep and somehow managed
26:30
Speaker 4: to leave no fingerprints, no DNA. It just didn't happen
26:36
Speaker 4: at the hands of Thomas. The judge had heard all
26:41
Speaker 4: of the evidence from the very beginning, but the.
26:45
Speaker 2: Power of the confession again was so strong that the
26:49
Speaker 2: juvenile court judge believed the confession.
26:51
Speaker 4: Very few people can understand how or why anyone would
26:57
Speaker 4: admit to a crime they didn't commit.
27:00
Speaker 1: So Thomas has sent off to a juvenile detention facility
27:03
Speaker 1: in Texarkana, where he was sentenced to stay there until
27:06
Speaker 1: his eighteenth birthday. Dorsey Corbin, meanwhile, his public defender, continued
27:12
Speaker 1: fighting his case. She took Thomas's case to the Arkansas
27:15
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals and argued about the confession there lost,
27:19
Speaker 1: and then she decided to take the case to the
27:21
Speaker 1: Arkansas Supreme Court. And that's when we got involved. When
27:35
Speaker 1: we first heard about Thomas's case, it was right when
27:38
Speaker 1: we were getting ready for Brendan Dassi's post conviction hearing
27:42
Speaker 1: in Manitoba, Wisconsin, and we reached out to Dorsey Corbin,
27:46
Speaker 1: and when she learned that the Arkansas Supreme Court had
27:48
Speaker 1: agreed to hear Thomas's case, she asked us to file
27:52
Speaker 1: an amicus brief. Write a brief from experts explaining the
27:56
Speaker 1: problem of false confessions and explaining how kids like Thomas
28:01
Speaker 1: are more likely to falsely confess than adults, believe it
28:05
Speaker 1: or not. When you're in the part of the appeals
28:07
Speaker 1: process called a direct appeal, you can't file it based
28:10
Speaker 1: on whether the confession is true or false. Instead, the
28:14
Speaker 1: only argument that you can make is whether the confession
28:16
Speaker 1: was coerced or forced, and whether there were any problems
28:20
Speaker 1: with the way in which police read the defendant his
28:24
Speaker 1: Miranda rights. These are the right to remain silent, the
28:26
Speaker 1: right to have a lawyer with you during questioning.
28:29
Speaker 2: The defendant has to knowingly and intelligently waive his Miranda rights.
28:34
Speaker 2: So if the suspect, because of his or her vulnerabilities,
28:37
Speaker 2: doesn't understand those rights, that's another way to attack the confession.
28:41
Speaker 1: What was Dorsey doing in this case? For Thomas? Here
28:44
Speaker 1: we have a twelve year old in the interrogation room
28:47
Speaker 1: who's being told that he has a constitutional right to
28:49
Speaker 1: silence and a lawyer, all these difficult concepts. They tell
28:53
Speaker 1: him he has these rights and then they ask him,
28:56
Speaker 1: do you agree to waive these rights?
28:59
Speaker 2: Well, you sign a waiver. And this is where inquisitiveness
29:04
Speaker 2: saved the day for Thomas. The detective asks him to
29:09
Speaker 2: sign a waiver, and Thomas said, what's a waiver? You know,
29:13
Speaker 2: a waiver is a legal term exactly. You know, every
29:17
Speaker 2: time you go bungee jumping, you have to sign a
29:21
Speaker 2: waiver to protect the business from getting sued.
29:25
Speaker 1: Here's Thomas about to go off the cliff, right, I
29:27
Speaker 1: mean a different kind of cliff.
29:29
Speaker 2: So the detective freezes and he's never been asked that question.
29:35
Speaker 1: He says, well, this simply states that what you were doing,
29:39
Speaker 1: you were doing of your own free will. That's not
29:42
Speaker 1: what a waiver means. That that's not what it means
29:44
Speaker 1: to give up your rights. This is the issue that
29:48
Speaker 1: Dorsey Corbyn, Thomas's lawyer, brought before the Arkansas Supreme Court,
29:52
Speaker 1: and it was the issue that we supported her with
29:55
Speaker 1: by writing an amicus brief that not only talks about
29:58
Speaker 1: how insane it is the twelve year olds like Thomas
30:01
Speaker 1: are allowed to waive their constitutional rights without any adult
30:04
Speaker 1: advising them, but that also highlighted all of the reasons
30:08
Speaker 1: why this confession we thought was not worth the tape
30:10
Speaker 1: it was recorded on, and it worked.
30:14
Speaker 2: The Arkansas Supreme Court held that the detective's explanation of
30:19
Speaker 2: what a waiver was was wrong, and that as a result,
30:22
Speaker 2: Thomas did not knowingly and intelligently wave his Miranda rights.
30:26
Speaker 2: The confession was out and the conviction was overturned.
30:33
Speaker 4: It angers me so much that police officers lie to children,
30:41
Speaker 4: isolate children, and do all the terrible things that they
30:45
Speaker 4: did to Thomas in this interrogation, and God only knows
30:50
Speaker 4: what they did to him for the three and a
30:53
Speaker 4: half hours that they didn't bother to put the tape on.
30:56
Speaker 1: Because he was an honor roll student, he wanted to
30:58
Speaker 1: make sure he understood this new he hadn't heard before waiver.
31:02
Speaker 1: That's what freed him. How many other Thomas Cogdals are
31:05
Speaker 1: there out there, children twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, who
31:10
Speaker 1: were interrogated in just this way, but who didn't have
31:13
Speaker 1: that moment of good fortune in a way to be
31:16
Speaker 1: able to ask what a word means, As.
31:18
Speaker 4: The captain of the police force said at the time
31:21
Speaker 4: of trial, had we known at the interview. What we
31:24
Speaker 4: know now, we would have conducted the interview differently. That
31:28
Speaker 4: speaks volumes. They focused in on Thomas, they had tunnel vision,
31:33
Speaker 4: and their sole goal was to get a confession out
31:36
Speaker 4: of a scared twelve year old boy. Congratulations, they did it.
31:43
Speaker 1: No one else has ever been charged with the murder
31:45
Speaker 1: of Kaylee Cogdal.
31:46
Speaker 4: Thomas deserves closure, and equally importantly, Thomas's sister deserves justice.
31:53
Speaker 1: Melody never confessed to this crime. And the bottom line
31:56
Speaker 1: is police and prosecutors made a judgment that there wasn't
31:59
Speaker 1: enough evidence pointing to an alternative suspect. We weren't there
32:03
Speaker 1: on the scene. We can't tell you what the evidence
32:05
Speaker 1: on the scene shoulder who had pointed to. But what
32:07
Speaker 1: we do know is that Thomas's confession is false. Two
32:11
Speaker 1: weeks or so after the Arkansas Supreme Court, throughout his conviction,
32:16
Speaker 1: Thomas was free living with his grandparents.
32:20
Speaker 4: When he was younger, his mother had taken Thomas and
32:25
Speaker 4: his sister to the Department of Human Services and basically said, here,
32:29
Speaker 4: take these kids. I can't deal with them anymore. I
32:32
Speaker 4: suspect that when Thomas came back he felt somewhat of
32:36
Speaker 4: a burden to be more of a caretaker for both
32:39
Speaker 4: his mother and for his sister after the murder.
32:45
Speaker 1: I think it was very.
32:46
Speaker 4: Important for Thomas to live with people who would take
32:49
Speaker 4: care of him, nurture him, and love him. He found
32:54
Speaker 4: that with his grandparents, and they were so very happy
32:59
Speaker 4: to have him their home.
33:01
Speaker 1: Despite the ordeal of trial and conviction, everything that Thomas
33:05
Speaker 1: went through after he was released, he still had dreams.
33:10
Speaker 1: He wants to be an astronomer, and he wants to
33:13
Speaker 1: go where people don't know him. Thomas, wherever you are,
33:17
Speaker 1: we wish you all the best.
33:18
Speaker 2: My friend and Dorsey, thank you so much for allowing
33:22
Speaker 2: us to play a role in this case.
33:24
Speaker 1: It's a great honor to be able to work with
33:27
Speaker 1: people like Dorsey to fight for the freedom of kids
33:30
Speaker 1: like Thomas. But there are larger questions here. What can
33:33
Speaker 1: we do to prevent these kinds of cases from happening again?
33:36
Speaker 1: What kinds of reforms are needed. One of the laws
33:39
Speaker 1: that Steve has been fighting for is a law requiring
33:42
Speaker 1: lawyers in the interrogation room for kids like Thomas, not
33:46
Speaker 1: allowing them to give up their rights to a lawyer,
33:49
Speaker 1: but rather insisting that they have someone there by their
33:52
Speaker 1: side to advise.
33:53
Speaker 2: Them, and they need help in understanding what the Mirianda
33:57
Speaker 2: warnings are and understanding what the consequence witz are of
34:01
Speaker 2: giving them up. That's why you need lawyers to be
34:05
Speaker 2: an advocate for that child in the interrogation room.
34:11
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Thomas Cogdell's story. Next week, we'll
34:15
Speaker 1: take you to a small farmtown in Nebraska that was
34:18
Speaker 1: racked by a double murder, a false confession, and a
34:21
Speaker 1: surprising twist that sounds like it's right out of a
34:23
Speaker 1: Tarantino movie. Until then, thanks for listening. Wrongful Conviction, False
34:31
Speaker 1: Confessions is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
34:35
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number One. Special thanks to our
34:39
Speaker 1: executive producer Jason Flamm and the team at Signal Company
34:42
Speaker 1: number one. Executive producer Kevin wardis Senior producer and Pope,
34:46
Speaker 1: and additional production and editing by Connor Hall. Our music
34:50
Speaker 1: was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow me on
34:53
Speaker 1: Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nyrider and you.
34:56
Speaker 2: Can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
35:00
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast
35:03
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