Hello, I'm Keith Morrison.

Here at Dateline, we've encountered a strange phenomenon over and over again.

The false confession.

There is a science behind it, lots of supporting literature,

but it just seems so counterintuitive.

Our false confession is even real. Would you confess to murder if you didn't do it?

Would you believe the stories you're about to hear?

About events that spring time in a farmhouse in Nebraska in the dead of night.

It was late past midnight when the farmhouse loomed up in their headlight.

No sign of life.

Not to them anyway.

He hit the brakes.

This was the place.

They grabbed their weapons headed for the house.

A window unlocked.

Pay dirt.

The prairie takes on a sweet rolling pitch as it tucks into an Nebraska corner, an hour south of Omaha.

Here the rich, black topsoil has grown generations of solid and faithful Americans.

A tiny remnant of whom have platted themselves in and around a place called Murdoch.

The sort of place where heads turned when a stranger drives by.

And a family's name is carved in the local stone.

It was Easter Sunday afternoon, 2006, a big farm yard and bike every year, an Easter egg hunt.

...