this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
114 points (99.1% liked)

science

15035 readers
246 users here now

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

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

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.