History Main / FalseConfession

* [[{{Ptitlewo6dni8e}} Dorothy L. Sayers]]' MontagueEgg story, "Murder at Pentecost"

* Inverted in a murder case in an episode of ''DetectiveConan''. The arrest was a ploy to get the killer to retrieve the murder weapon he hid (That no one else knew about) after the case is supposedly solved and get caught red handed.

* The reason that Eddie Brock (Venom) hated SpiderMan was because after Eddie broke journalistic ethics to apprehend someone who had confessed to being the serial killer Sin Eater, Spiderman caught the real Sin Eater, revealing Brock's catch to be a false confessor.
* SinCity has two rather tragic examples. [[spoiler: Both John Hartigan and Marv are framed for crimes they didn't commit but in both cases, they confess to the charges to protect loved ones.]]

---> "I'm the Zodiac Killer."
---> "Okay, so how did you kill your victims?"
---> "With a gun... no, wait -- a hammer!"

* One episode of ''{{Columbo}}'' ended with a friend of the killer confessing. As the killer is dying of a brain tumor (and in fact, as a result of the tumor doesn't even remember that she's the killer), Columbo, who knows the truth and that the victim deserved it, gently points out that in the hands of a good defense attorney the evidence will show that the friend didn't do it. The man agrees, but says it will probably take a good six months of so before he'll go to trial, by which time the woman will be dead.

* [[spoiler: Subverted]] in ''Literature/MurderAtTheVicarage'', where [[spoiler: the people who initially confessed to the crime were actually the ones who did it.]]

* A variation is used in the ''MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Party of One": Pinkie Pie, suspecting her friends are hiding something from her, forces Spike to tell her ''exactly'' what she wants to hear: that they're avoiding her because they don't want to be friends anymore. In this case, it's obvious that isn't ''really'' the case, and a stressed-out Spike is just parroting back her own words to make her stop pressuring him.

A major crime has been committed and a killer is on the loose. Luckily for the police, someone has confessed. Unluckily for the police, the person making the confession didn't commit the crime. Sometimes the police will see through the confession and instantly know that the person is lying. Other times, unfortunately, they will buy into the guy's story, derailing their investigation (at least temporarily). In some cases, even after the person's confession is shown to be false, some of the detectives will still go with it.

* In ''{{Watchmen}}'', Night Owl and Silk Specter discuss a "supervillain" who would compulsively confess to all sorts of crimes because he [[FetishFuel wanted to be beaten up by a superhero]].

The possible reasons for the false confession are many. In real life, this usually happens after the police arrest somebody on weak or circumstantial evidence. Then comes PerpSweating of varying levels of awefulness, particularly LyingToThePerp and JackBauerInterrogationTechnique; obvious {{Profiling}}; maybe a healthy dash of ConvictedByPublicOpinion, in a high profile case. Panicking (or, sadly, making a perfectly rational decision), the suspect decides they're going to be falsely convicted anyway, and it's better to minimize the damage by swallowing their dignity and going for a false plea-bargain.

Of course, that's too depressing for ([[TearJerker most]]) fiction. In fact, in TV Land, false confessors usually turn themselves in voluntarily. Perhaps the character is confessing because he [[MamaDidntRaiseNoCriminal knows or thinks one of his loved ones is really the criminal]] Perhaps the character is mentally ill and is willing to confess to just about anything the police tell him to confess to. Perhaps the character just wants the publicity. And maybe, just maybe, the character actually thinks he committed the crime.

A major crime has been committed and a killer is on the loose. Luckily for the police, someone has come forward confessing to the crime. Unluckily for the police, the person making the confession didn't commit the crime. Sometimes the police will see through the confession and instantly know that the person is lying. Other times, unfortunately, they will buy into the guy's story, derailing their investigation (at least temporarily). In some cases, even after the person's confession is shown to be false, some of the detectives will still go with it.

The possible reasons for the false confession are many. Perhaps the character is confessing because he [[MamaDidntRaiseNoCriminal knows or thinks one of his loved ones is really the criminal]] and is covering. Perhaps the character is mentally ill and is willing to confess to just about anything the police tell him to confess to. Perhaps the character just wants the publicity. And maybe, just maybe, the character actually thinks he committed the crime.

* ''LawAndOrder'' had several of these.

* ''NewTricks'' had a man come in and confess to the killings of numerous dogs. The man has been the prime suspect in that crime for years and is also confessing to a string of new dog killings. However, by that time the detectives have determined that hew did not do it and easily trick him into confessing to parts of the crime that did not happen. He wants publicity for his anti-animal views

* The reason that Eddie Brock hated Spiderman was because after Eddie broke journalistic ethics to apprehend someone who had confessed to being the serial killer Sin Eater, Spiderman caught the real Sin Eater, revealing Brock's catch to be a false confessor.

* ''FromHell'', apart from the dozens of letters from "Jack" (with different hasndwritings), the appendix accounts a few false confessions.
* The reason that Eddie Brock hated spiderman was because after Eddie broke journalistic ethics to apprehend someone who had confessed to being the serial killer Sin Eater, Spiderman caught the real Sin Eater, revealing Brock's catch to be a false confessor.

* From David Fincher's Zodiac:

---> "With a gun.. no, wait --a hammer!"

* A man named Robert Hubert confessed to starting the Great Fire of London in 1666 by throwing a fire bomb through a bakery window. It was shown during his trial that he was out of the country until two days after the start of the fire, that he was never near the bakery in question in any case, the bakery had no windows, and that Hubert himself was a cripple who was physically incapable of throwing a bomb. Despite all this, Hubert was found guilty and hung for the crime.

* One episode of ''{{Columbo}'' ended with a friend of the killer confessing. As the killer is dying of a brain tumor (and in fact, as a result of the tumor doesn't even remember that she's the killer), Columbo, who knows the truth and that the victim deserved it, gently points out that in the hands of a good defense attorney the evidence will show that the friend didn't do it. The man agrees, but says it will probably take a good six months of so before he'll go to trial, by which time the woman will be dead