Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me Richard McLean-Smith, where for the weeks in

between episodes we look at stories and ideas that for one reason or other didn't make

it into the previous show.

Last week's episode, appearing as being, recounted the complex story of five young men

and one young woman from Iceland, who in the 1970s were convicted for their involvement

in the apparent murder of two men, Guthmunder and Geffenner-Einessen.

All six individuals confessed to being responsible for the killings to one degree or another, but

were later exonerated in 2018 when it was ruled that their confessions were likely to

have been false.

It has long been one of the most misleading arguments in the history of criminology that

no innocent person would admit to being responsible for a crime that they didn't commit.

It's an idea that many of us still cling to.

That wouldn't be so bad perhaps if it wasn't an idea that law enforcement professionals

and in many cases judges and juries have historically believed also.

Though there are undoubtedly cases of criminal investigators forcing confessions out of suspects

or even deliberately pinning crimes on innocent individuals, what is perhaps most alarming

about many cases of false confession is that the interrogators are completely unaware

that it is their actions that have helped to manufacture them.

In 1692, in the village of Salem, in Massachusetts, 76-year-old Anne Foster, a widow from the nearby

town of Andover confessed that the devil appeared to her in the shape of a bird and that she

had the gift of striking people down with mere thoughts alone.

Despite being interrogated and tortured continuously for days, Foster had steadfastly

...