Death Row on a Lie: Bob Motta on the Wrongful Yogurt Shop Convictions in Austin
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
In this second segment of Hidden Killers Live, Bob Motta reacts to the most painful revelation of the press conference: the state’s admission that Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen were innocent all along. Convicted in 2001 and 2002 on the basis of confessions extracted after 18‑ and 5‑hour interrogations, these men served years behind bars — one on death row — for crimes they didn’t commit.
Bob takes us inside the mechanics of coerced confessions. He explains how long hours, suggestion, minimization, and tunnel vision can make innocent people say anything to end an interrogation. He also lays out why juries still believe these confessions, even when no physical evidence supports them, and why prosecutors keep pushing cases that DNA has already undermined.
This isn’t just about one bad case in Austin. It’s about a system that prioritizes “solved” over “proven” — and the lives ruined when that shortcut becomes policy.
#YogurtShopMurders #FalseConfessions #WrongfulConviction #BobMotta #HiddenKillersLive #MichaelScott #RobertSpringsteen #JusticeReform #CoercedConfession #TrueCrimePodcast
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske, Stacey Cole, and Todd Michaels. |
| 0:09.1 | The Innocence Project says nearly a third of DNA exonerations involve false confessions. |
| 0:16.4 | I mean, this is obviously kind of a new thing we're coming about. |
| 0:19.0 | Now, with the DNA technology that exists |
| 0:20.9 | and looking back at these older cases Bob I want to ask you I mean as a defense attorney how |
| 0:25.8 | difficult is it to to take on a case or or handle this when when you are taking on a client that |
| 0:35.4 | gave a false confession that's coming to you saying, |
| 0:37.6 | look, they pushed me. |
| 0:39.5 | They made me say this. |
| 0:41.3 | This is not what I really wanted to say. |
| 0:44.2 | But now it's on the record. |
| 0:45.8 | And now you got that mountain to climb up as you're trying to defend someone's innocence. |
| 0:52.0 | It's not optimal. |
| 0:53.5 | It's not an optimal situation, obviously. |
| 0:56.0 | It's one of those situations where, you know, the first thing you're going to do if you have a confession, if your client has made a statement, you got to look at the other evidence, right? |
| 1:07.0 | So in this particular case, you had two guys that had made statements, and one was Michael Scott and the other was Robert Springsteen. |
| 1:14.1 | Those were the two guys who ultimately were convicted. |
| 1:18.1 | Okay. |
| 1:18.4 | So these guys were actually wrongfully convicted. |
| 1:21.4 | Maurice Pearson, this force well-born, who were the two other kids out of the four, they never actually ended up going to trial and getting convicted. |
| 1:31.1 | So the charges were dropped on both of them at some point. |
| 1:33.7 | But these two guys, so initially all you have is their confessions against one another that are not consistent at all, |
... |
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