105
People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened
(www.psychologicalscience.org)
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.
2024-11-11
I remember a brutal child murder case from the 1980s where the police had no leads. The public pressure was enormous because stuff like this doesn't usually happen here at all.
Oddly enough, more than 10 people turned themselves in claiming to have done it. I really don't get what makes people do that.
Eventually one of them was charged for it, but I'm not sure he actually did it. He was a mentally challenged guy, and the only reason he stood out from the others was that he confirmed some details that the others didn't. There was no physical evidence, and I think that if he had done it, there would be, because he was too dumb to get rid of it. He even had an alibi.
It's very likely that his memory was formed from the questioning, or that he was just parroting the authority, like most mentally patients do.