The Case of False Confessions - Dixmoor 5

📻 Episode #358
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 May 15, 2023

◆ EPISODE PROFILE

About This Episode

So their theory is that a wandering necrophiliac comes across the body and defiles it?

The Case

So their theory is that a wandering necrophiliac comes across the body and defiles it?

Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin tell the story of how five Chicago teens were wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of their classmate - and how prosecutors tried to explain away the DNA that proved them innocent. This case happened during the early 1990s, when the media was saturated with misleading stories about youth of color committing violent crimes in groups. This "superpredator" narrative drove the wrongful prosecution of the so-called Central Park Five “wolfpack” -- but it didn’t stop there.

We are releasing this updated episode to share the news that, in 2021, Illinois passed a law banning police from lying to children during interrogations. If this law had been in place back in 1991, the Dixmoor 5 would never have been wrongfully convicted.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts

Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.

00:03:35
“Speaker 1: didn't stop there. Today, we're going to tell you about Speaker 1: a group of teenage boys whose false confessions transformed them Speaker 1: into Chicago's own wolf pack. They're known as the Dixmore Five. Speaker 2: Now Chicago may be called the second city comes to Speaker 2: false confessions. We don't take a back seat to anybody,”

00:15:48
“Speaker 2: very effective way to get confessions from multiple suspects. Speaker 1: In this case, the dominoes are falling and each one Speaker 1: of them eventually agrees to a story in which James Speaker 1: Harden is the one who actually places the gun inside Speaker 1: Kateresa's mouth and pulls the trigger. It's no coincidence that”

00:26:26
“Speaker 1: to get an update on the state's investigation and to Speaker 1: ask the judge is today the day of exoneration? And Speaker 1: for six long months we were disappointed. I remember coming Speaker 1: home after those court dates and crying with frustration that Speaker 1: I was able to go home, but Robert Taylor, our clients,”

Listen to the Episode

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🔊 How You Can Help

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← #357 Jennifer Del Prete #359 Jeff Titus →

Also on the podcast: #115 False Confessions - Origin Story · #116 False Confessions - Robert Davis · #117 False Confessions - Dixmoor 5