Five Strange Confessions: From Hot Mics to The "Confession Killer"
In this episode we dive into five of the strangest and most unforgettable confessions in criminal history. While confessions can bring closure to grieving families, they are not always what they seem. We explore the astonishing statistics behind false confessions and how they can mislead justice.
Timestamps & Key Topics:
[00:00:00] Confessions in True Crime: The power and danger of confessions, including the high rate of false confessions among minors.
[00:03:49] Case 1: Robert Durst and the Hot Mic Confession.
[00:15:47] Case 2: Henry Lee Lucas, the Confession Killer.
[00:23:07] Case 3: Laverne Pavlin's False Confession.
[00:33:43] Case 4: The Facebook Live Confession of Earl Valentine.
[00:39:27] Case 5: Mark "Chopper" Read's Deathbed Confession.
[00:45:51] Final Thoughts & Outro.
The Power of Confessions
According to the Innocence Project, nearly 30% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence involved false confessions. This number is even more alarming for juveniles, as 69% of those aged 12 to 15 who were falsely convicted had made a false confession. Research shows that jurors convict people who have confessed more than 70% of the time, even if the confession is proven false.
Case 1: Robert Durst
Robert Durst, heir to a New York real estate fortune, was suspected in three suspicious deaths: his wife Kathie Durst, his best friend Susan Berman, and his neighbor Morris Black. He became the subject of the HBO documentary series,
The Jinx. In a stunning turn of events, a hot mic captured Durst muttering, "What the heck did I do? Killing them all, of course," which became an infamous confession. He was arrested the night before the finale of the series aired and was later convicted of first-degree murder for Susan Berman's death.
Case 2: Henry Lee Lucas
Known as the "Confession Killer," Henry Lee Lucas confessed to hundreds of murders he didn't commit. After being arrested for illegal firearm possession, he began confessing to dozens, and then hundreds, of unsolved murders across the country. Law enforcement created the "Lucas Task Force" and closed more than 200 cold cases based on his confessions. However, a journalist later exposed that Lucas couldn't have committed many of the crimes due to conflicting timelines. The false confessions misled families who were desperately seeking closure, and the real killers remained free.
Case 3: Laverne Pavlinac
Laverne Pavlinac fabricated a story and confessed to a murder she didn't commit to frame her abusive boyfriend, John. She hoped it would send him to prison and free her from their volatile relationship. Despite John denying any involvement, Laverne's detailed confession led to both of them being convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. While they were in jail, the real killer, Keith Hunter Jesperson, later known as the
Happy Face Killer, continued his killing spree.
Case 4: Earl Valentine
After shooting his ex-wife Keisha and their son Earl Jr., Earl Valentine went live on Facebook to confess to the crime. He stated, "I just killed my wife. I don't feel any remorse for what I did". This real-time confession went viral before being removed, raising urgent questions about technology and domestic violence. Keisha survived, but their son Earl Jr. died from his injuries after calling 911.
Case 5: Mark "Chopper" Read
Mark "Chopper" Read was a notorious Australian gangster, author, and comedian who was never convicted of murder. However, just 16 days before his death from liver cancer, he gave a final interview and confessed to killing four men. Despite his history of exaggeration, police reviewed his claims. To this day, questions remain about the sincerity of his deathbed confession, with many believing it was his last act of showmanship.
Five Strange Confessions
Mandy: [00:00:00] Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms of Mysteries podcast, a True Crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa.
Melissa: Hi Mandy. How are you?
Mandy: Um, to be quite honest, I am exhausted. How are you?
Melissa: I hate to agree with you, but I'm going to agree with you. yeah.
We are back from Crime Con.
Yay.
Mandy: Yay. We've been back for a couple days, but I,
Melissa: Doesn't matter. Doesn't count.
Mandy: 48 hours yet. I feel like I have not caught back up to anything,
but yet I was
thrown right into everything.
Melissa: exactly, I was up till two o'clock last night and I was like, why can I not sleep? And then it, I guess it could be the time change, but I don't think that's it either. I just feel tired, but
like, like a kid
where I'm like overly
tired and I can't
Mandy: exactly that. Yeah. So we, uh, had a significant flight delay when we were returning home from Colorado. I think our flight ended up being delayed like five hours, like by the end of it. [00:01:00] And, uh, we didn't even get in until like the middle of the night and I ended up, Being up until like 3:00 AM that night and then finally going to sleep, woke up and it was my son's 16th birthday the very next day.
And so, yeah, so I had to get up and put on that happy face as if I had not been delayed five hours and traveling and up late and
everything else. So, uh, yeah. So today I feel like I'm still a little behind, but maybe starting to catch up a little bit.
Melissa: I'm not quite there, but maybe, maybe later. I did a lot of driving this morning, so I, um, yes, I should be better later, but I am very much looking forward to this episode. Mandy, this is a little out of the ordinary, but this is what our
Thursday episodes are, right? A little bit
Mandy: Outta the ordinary.
Melissa: Outta the ordinary.
so
I'm excited to get into it.
Mandy: Me too. So this
week we're gonna be talking about confessions. So these are the moments that really change everything in true crime because a confession can crack a case wide [00:02:00] open, and sometimes it can even steal a conviction. confessions can really give closure to grieving families. Sometimes these are really whispered confessions.
They're really hush hush. Sometimes people are really loud and proud about their confessions and sometimes people don't even mean to confess at all. They just let it slip out. But here is the other thing about confessions, as we know in true crime. Confessions are not always true. There are false confessions.
According to the Innocence Project. Nearly 30% of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence involved false confessions,
Melissa: That's a wild statistic.
That is
Mandy: is wild. Yeah, it truly is. And I've always been fascinated by wrongful convictions, but I guess I did not realize that it was that common.
Melissa: Yeah. I mean it does. They do need the DNA
evidence to do it, but that is wild.
Mandy: Yeah. And when you specifically break that down and look at the age group, between 12 to 15, 69% of those who had been, convicted actually falsely confess. So that's [00:03:00] really also stunning and kind of like a crazy, thing. But it also, it makes me sad too 'cause I'm like, oh my gosh. 'cause you can see how kids could be.
Like, maybe not necessarily coerced, but just confused into confessing to something. So when it comes to confessions, they are really powerful. This is what jurors will be listening to, and they in some cases will believe them. And research actually shows that jurors convict people who have confessed over 70% of the time, even if that confession has been proven false.
So today we are looking at five of the strangest, most unforgettable confessions in criminal history. There's some on this list that you'll probably recognize, like Robert Durst, who's the Millionaire, that kind of muttered a confession into a hot mic during HBO's. The Jinx, which we covered on Patreon years and years ago, I think, wasn't that one, like six parts or something?
Melissa: Yeah, and then they came back with more later that were fascinating
as well.
Mandy: Unbelievable. But there's also others like Henry Lee [00:04:00] Lucas, who's the drifter, who confessed to hundreds of murders that he didn't actually commit. but let's just go ahead and start with the first one, the story of Robert Durst and the hot mic Heard round the World.
Melissa: Robert Durst wasn't the kind of man anyone expected to hear. Confess, he was heir to a New York real estate fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and he grew up in privilege, but he lived much of his life as a strange, eccentric recluse. He was wealthy, secretive, and seemingly untouchable.
Behind him trailed three dead bodies as well as decades of suspicion. So the story begins with Kathy Durst, which is Robert's wife. Kathy was just 29 years old in 1982. She was a medical student, incredibly smart, and she was ambitious, as well as being described by friends as being full of life. On January 31st, 1982, while she was married to Robert Durst, she just vanished and her body was actually never found. of course, we all know with [00:05:00] True crime, the first person you look at is a spouse, and the police did just that, but without. Any evidence, and with Robert insisting that Kathie had simply left, there really wasn't a whole lot her family could do, but they never gave up hope in finding out what actually happened to Kathie and exactly how Robert played a part in her disappearance. The next death related to Robert Durst is that of Susan Berman. In December of 2000, Susan was found shot in the back of the head in her Los Angeles home. Susan was actually Robert's best friend from back in their days at UCLA and much like Robert, she really was a bit of an eccentric, but she was also the daughter of mobster Davy Berman.
Can you imagine just like living your
life and being like, no, my dad's a
Mandy: Yeah, like a real one.
Melissa: Terrifying or actually the opposite of terrifying. I guess
that would be like, you'd feel pretty good,
right?
Mandy: mean, I.
Melissa: Maybe.
Mandy: That's like one of those weird
situations where it's like comforting and terrifying at the
same [00:06:00] time.
Melissa: but by the year 2000, Susan was broke and prosecutors later argued that she was actually pressuring her old friend Robert for money.
And that's because allegedly she just knew too much. It was Susan that provided Robert with a phony alibi When Kathie disappeared, Investigators later found that Robert had recently given Susan $50,000, but investigators believe that that just wasn't enough. and she may have been blackmailing her friend Robert when it came to the death of his
wife, Kathy.
Mandy: Then there was Morris Black in 2001, just nine months after Susan's death. Robert was living in Galveston, Texas, but he didn't look like the Robert that his friends remembered. He was in disguise and his neighbor, 71-year-old Morris Black, ended up dead a. Eventually Robert admitted to killing Morris and Dismembering his body and then dumping it in Galveston Bay, but he claimed it was either an accident or self-defense, which like, I don't know how it can be either or.
[00:07:00] That's two very specifically different things,
Melissa: Uh, because he had a lot of
money and he had the best
attorneys.
Mandy: Yes. Incredibly, a jury actually acquitted him of murder, so that is now three people who are gone. There's three suspicious deaths and just one man at the center of it all. In 2010, Robert Durst saw Andrew Rey's movie, all Good Things, which was a dramatization of his life.
The movie starred Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst. But instead of hiding from the attention, Robert reached out to Andrew Jarecki and offered to do a documentary with him.
Melissa: That's wild because the doc, if I remember correctly, the movie doesn't, it's not like they use the name Robert Durst, but it's very, very similar. Uh, it's when you know the story, you know that they're similar enough, but he could have just let the whole thing go. Just been like, no one's gonna put this together.
No one's gonna think twice,
but he could
not do that.
Mandy: Nope. So he actually handed over boxes of personal papers to Andrew as well as giving hours [00:08:00] upon hours of interviews. It really seemed like he was convinced that he'd be able to tell his story on his own terms and. And this decision would ultimately prove to be his downfall, the HBO series, the Jinx.
aired in 2015 and over the course of six episodes, it explored Kathie's disappearance as well as Susan's murder and Morris Black's killing when all was said and done. Robert actually sat for 20 hours of interviews, some of which really were quite bizarre and candid at times, and he denied and admitted in kind of these like strange half truths, different things throughout this documentary, but then came the discovery that really changed everything.
Melissa: So before the Jinx, all the way back in 2000, after Susan Berman was murdered, Los Angeles Police received an anonymous letter directing them to go to Susan's house. It contained one chilling word, it just said cadaver, but on the address for the envelope, it was. Made out to Beverly Hills and Beverly was [00:09:00] misspelled as B-E-V-E-R-L-E-Y. That's really all they had to go on at this point. But while digging through these letters that Robert had written to Susan, Andrew and his team found a handwritten letter that Robert had written to Susan. It had the same handwriting and even more shocking, it spelled Beverly with that LEY, just like the cadaver letter. So I love in the documentary how they're like going over what they found and like, did we find what we think we found? You know, like they're trying to figure out what to do with it. But Andrew ultimately confronts Robert with these two notes and Robert sits down and he's just frozen. And he finally admits after looking at the note basically said that, yeah, this letter to the police is only one the killer could have written like it says cadaver. The thought behind him sending this letter is even though he killed Susan, that was his friend and he didn't want her body just sitting there forever. If that was the end of the documentary, just Robert, basically [00:10:00] confirming that, yeah, that would be the killer.
Had to have done that. that would've been really incredible. It was really a stunning moment. But that's not all. What happened next would be what became infamous. So after this confrontation about the letter with Andrew, Robert just stands up, he excuses himself to the restroom and walks away. He clearly did not realize that his microphone was still on, and he was alone and rambling in a way that only Robert Durst could do, and that's when he muttered.
What the heck did I do? Killing them all, of course. And it was chilling
to say the least.
Mandy: So the editor of The Jinx, who's Shelby Siegel, was the first to notice this recording during post-production, and she later recalled when he said killed them all. Of course. They all kind of were just like, there's no way. It felt impossible that that's what he was saying. Yeah. So the production team really debated on what to actually do with this footage.
So the version of the Jinx that was [00:11:00] aired spliced the line where he said, killed them all, of course, right after him saying, what did I do? But in reality, they, those two statements were actually separated by other rambling comments that he was making.
But still, um, the message was clear and obviously that's what happens. I feel like in. Production, like stuff like you don't say any of that on a hot mic. That's crazy. Um, so Andrew and his team reached out to the police with this information as well as the identical handwriting on those letters from Robert to Susan and the cadaver letter, and the prosecutors took the bathroom.
Confession seriously. On March 14th, 2015, the night before the finale of the Jinx aired, as we said, it was six parts. So the night before part six came out, FBI agents arrested Robert Durst in New Orleans in his hotel room, they found $42,000 in cash, a fake id, a latex mask, and two handguns. It wasn't until 2021 that Robert Durst finally faced trial for Susan Berman's [00:12:00] murder.
For 14 days he testified and for the first time he fully admitted that he wrote that cadaver note. He told the jury It's very difficult to believe to accept that I wrote the letter and did not kill Susan Berman. Jurors later said that the admission mattered more than what he had said in the bathroom.
One juror said that hearing him say that was like his mask had just slipped off. They said he couldn't believe that he actually admitted it. On September 17th, 2021, Robert Durst was convicted of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison. He died in custody in January of 2022. We have more confessions to get into after a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsors.
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Mandy: Oh right, the sweater story. You bought one for your mother-in-law and ended up keeping one for yourself, didn't you?
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Melissa: And now back to the episode.
Marker
Melissa: So before the break, we were discussing the hot mic moment of Robert Durst, And now we'll get into a few more confessions, uh, some you might not have even heard of. The second one we're getting into is the case of Henry Lee Lucas.
So if Robert Durst gave away too little, Henry Lee Lucas gave away far too much. Henry Lee Lucas was [00:16:00] born in 1936 in a one room cabin in Blacksburg, Virginia. His father Anderson had lost both his legs in a railroad accident and made a meager living crafting footstools. His mother Viola, was an abusive sex worker who drank heavily and beat Henry regularly. She actually forced him to watch her with clients. She also dressed him as a girl until he was six years old and sometimes she just sent him to school. Barefoot and filthy. Henry's childhood injuries only added to the misery. At the age of 10, he actually lost an eye to infection. After a fight with his brother, he dropped outta school by sixth grade. He was illiterate and neglected, and he later said, all I remember of my childhood is beatings, hunger and pain. By the time he was a teenager, Henry was drifting and committing petty crimes. Life really seemed kind of destined for violence, and that violence began in 1960. Henry actually stabbed his mother to death after an argument. She had struck him with a broom and he retaliated with a [00:17:00] knife He confessed to this murder.
He pled guilty to second degree murder, and he was sentenced to 20 years, and he served just 15 years before being paroled in 1975. But after his release, Henry had no stability and no real skills, whether social or professional, Henry drifted across the country doing odd jobs, drinking heavily, and committing thefts. He eventually landed in Texas living with his teenage girlfriend, Becky Powell, and their landlord named Kate Rich. Both women would become his only confirmed murder victims besides his mother. In 1983, Henry was arrested for illegal firearm possession in Texas and while he was in custody, he began to talk.
He admitted killing both his girlfriend, Becky, and their landlord Kate. But he didn't stop there. He confessed to more, dozens more murders, and then hundreds.
Mandy: Henry boasted that he killed people all over the country and that there were bodies everywhere. The [00:18:00] Texas Rangers were completely stunned because who would confess to crimes that they weren't actually a part of. So they began to think that they could actually have America's most prolific serial killer on their hands, and that's when law enforcement set up what became known as the Lucas Task Force.
Police departments from across the country flocked to Texas to question Henry about their cold cases. And Henry, who was often sitting with a strawberry milkshake in hand would just nod as detectives presented crime scene details. He seemed like he knew it all. He would describe women's clothing the way that their bodies were left, and even murder weapons.
He allegedly used. Officers would scribble down notes, and of course, they were relieved to finally have these cases closed. By 1985, more than 200 unsolved murders had been attributed to Henry and they were officially closed. The media called him the confession killer. Some reports suggested he had killed as many as 600 people.
He became kind of [00:19:00] a twisted celebrity of sorts. He appeared in headlines and documentaries, but then. Came the doubts. There were some people who weren't really so sure about this whole story. One person was a journalist named Hugh Ainsworth of the Dallas Times Herald, who began investigating how one man could have killed over 600 people all over the country.
Hugh decided to compare Henry's confessions to known timelines, and in one case, Henry claimed he killed a woman in Texas on a day when prison records showed he was actually in Florida In another, he claimed a California murder when timecard showed he was working at a mushroom farm in Maryland.
Melissa: So it was impossible unless Henry had been teleporting, he just couldn't have committed these crimes. Hugh and a fellow reporter, Jim Henderson, published a damning article in April of 1985 proving Henry couldn't have killed many of the people he claimed. They concluded that Henry was lying and law enforcement that were eager to close the cold [00:20:00] cases had just fallen for it. Henry himself eventually stated, I made the confession to show law enforcement doesn't do its
job. Highly
doubt it, Henry.
I highly doubt that was your motivation. So of course the question remains, why did Henry confess? Well, for him, part of it was likely for attention. He grew up as this invisible kid who was abused and powerless.
But now there's these police officers and reporters and even FBI agents that were hanging onto his every word when he was out to speak to them. He was treated to fast food and milkshakes, cigarettes, and of course freedom from his cell. The other part of this may have been people pleasing. Henry seemed eager to give investigators what they wanted, and a lot of times he was just parroting back details that they fed to him.
And sometimes they would even leave files on the table and leave the room where Henry could easily just look at the crime scene photos. So he was able to look at them and then confess. And of course, if he made mistakes, they would just [00:21:00] correct him. One Texas Ranger later admitted that it was like a circus.
He said, quote, we wanted to believe him, and he wanted to give us something to believe. But of course, the real tragedy wasn't just the false confessions and the bruised egos of all those law enforcement officers who actually fell for it. It was the families who believed them. For the parents of missing daughters, Henry's words had offered closure.
this killed me. Some of them even thanked
Henry for telling them
how their loved ones died. Unreal. But years later, DNA evidence proved that Henry hadn't been involved at all. There was one family member that said, quote, we thought we had closure. Then we found out it was all a lie. We lost her
twice, quote.
Mandy: So eventually Henry was convicted of 11 murders, but experts agree only three. That would be the murder of his mother, Becky Powell and Kate Rich. Those are the only ones that can be definitively linked to him. In 1984, he was sentenced to [00:22:00] death for the murder of an unidentified woman, nicknamed orange socks.
He would go on to later recant that confession. Much like hundreds of other cases, the case relied almost entirely on his own words. In 1998, Texas Governor George W. Bush commuted Henry's death sentence to life in prison, and this was due to a lack of evidence. It was actually the only death sentence that Bush ever commuted as his, during his time as governor.
But ultimately, it didn't matter. In 2001, Henry died of heart failure At the age of 64, of course, the scandal of Henry Lucas' Confessions exposed deep flaws in American law enforcement cases were closed prematurely, which meant that real killers had gone free, and families had been misled. There are still investigations into Lucas's false confessions.
To this day, modern DNA testing has exonerated him from at least 20 murders, but for dozens more, the real killers may never be found. The Netflix [00:23:00] documentary, the Confession Killer that came out in 2019, laid out the full scale of this whole fiasco former Texas Ranger. Phil Ryan summed it up best when he said it was a nightmare, a circus that would not leave town.
Henry Lee Lucas wanted to be remembered as America's most prolific serial killer, but instead, he is remembered as a liar whose false confessions damaged the very system that was meant to protect us all.
Melissa: Unreal. So this third case is one that I had no idea about. I told Mandy a little about this in Denver because I just could not believe it. This is so shocking to me. So this is the case of Laverne Pavlin. So the case of Laverne proves exactly why false confessions are so incredibly dangerous on January 21st, 1990. Hikers near the Columbia River. Gorge in Oregon stumbled upon the body of 23-year-old Tanya Bennett. Tanya had been strangled and her purse was missing. Her jeans had been cut with the fly removed. Outside of this [00:24:00] though, investigators had almost nothing to go on, but that's when they got a call. Someone called in with information that seemed to crack the case wide open. Unfortunately, this information was a lie and what came out of it derailed justice in a way that few cases ever have. But before we get into what went wrong, let's talk a little about Tanya. Tanya was remembered as being the heart of her family. She was born in 1966 and she was the middle of three sisters. She was incredibly determined and was the only one in her family to ever graduate high school. Tanya also loved music, especially Madonna, and she loved reading. Her family said you'd always find her with a book in her hand. Her sister later said that she was a compassionate person who really loved everyone. Tanya was someone who wanted independence, but she had a very trusting nature. Unfortunately, that trust put her in the path of a man who would later be revealed as one of America's most notorious serial killers. So [00:25:00] at the same time of Tanya's murder in Portland, Oregon, There was a 57-year-old woman named Laverne Pavlin. Laverne had endured decades of personal tragedy. Her first husband left her for another woman, and then her second husband died suddenly, but that wasn't the end of it.
Her son actually died at a very young age due to medical complications. By 1990, She was in a volatile, abusive relationship with 39-year-old John sas Naves. was a farm hand who was nearly 20 years her junior. Laverne's daughters described John as being both violent and controlling. One daughter later said that after Laverne met John, she was just never the same. Laverne felt trapped and desperate, and she felt she only had one way out. She thought if she could tie John to Tanya's murder, maybe he would go to prison
and she would finally be
free of
him.
Mandy: Wild. So that's when in early 1990, Laverne called the police anonymously. So remember, police didn't have much of anything [00:26:00] to go on in Tanya's murder. And so Laverne claimed that she had. Overheard John at a bar bragging about killing a young woman named Tanya. After hearing this, detectives were intrigued, but they were still skeptical, so they began watching the couple, but Laverne wasn't happy to just wait.
So she escalated this even further. She told the police that she had found a purse In the trunk of her car with a scrap of denim inside. She suggested that it belonged to the victim. But when investigators failed to connect these items to Tanya, they ended up confronting her about it instead of backing down.
Laverne actually doubled down. She went as far as to implicate herself in the crime.
Yeah, so in a taped statement, Laverne allegedly told detectives that she asked John. Why is she dead? And he said, because I choked her. So Laverne claims that she then said, we need to take her to a hospital. We need to report this John.
And [00:27:00] he said, no, I'll go to the pen. I'll go to death row. I. But Laverne continued on with this. She wouldn't let up at this point. She started pressuring John in recorded conversations. She was just trying to coax him into confirming her story. So she would say things on a tapped line, such as You killed her, John, you know, you did.
And John would reply. I don't remember going to no gorge dumping, no body for God's sake, basically saying absolutely not. I did not do anything like that, but unfortunately with nothing tangible to go on, the police still believed Laverne. So investigators ended up installing listening devices in Laverne's home, and they recorded arguments in which Laverne continued to push John's involvement, but he never confessed.
However, he did fail a polygraph test and for police that was enough, which as we know in many stories, polygraphs are not reliable
and should never be used to make an actual arrest or decision. Like I you, we've talked about this many times, but both [00:28:00] John and Laverne were arrested and charged with Tanya's murder.
So imagine that backfiring in a big, huge way
Melissa: Yeah,
Mandy: At the trial, Laverne's detailed confession convinced the jurors she claimed to have helped hold Tanya down as John strangled her, and then helped him dump the body for his part. John maintained his innocence, but with laverne's words on tape and in court.
The jury believed her over him. What a nightmare situation for this guy,
Melissa: But wouldn't what? It makes total sense that you would believe him. 'cause who on earth
would say, I
actually did these things
and neither of you did it like
That It's not like they were, the police weren't pressuring
her. She was pressuring the police.
Mandy: Right.
But both John and Laverne were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, and while they sat there in prison, the real killer continued hunting. I.
Melissa: Keith Hunter Jesperson was a six foot six Canadian-born, long-haul [00:29:00] trucker, and if you recognize that name, it would be because he would later become known as the Happy Face Killer. Keith had actually met Tanya Bennett in a Portland bar. He then lur her to his home, assaulted her, and strangled her, and he later dumped her body at the Gorge. After her murder, Keith continued killing women across multiple states from Washington, California, Florida, Wyoming, and Oregon. And he was able to keep killing after Tanya's murder because police of course believed they already had their killers behind bars. But then in 1995, Keith's girlfriend named Julie Winningham was found dead, and that's when investigators finally closed in on him and Keith finally confessed.
But. Not just to Julie's murder, but to Tanya Bennetts and at least seven others. Keith later said, I wanted to get those two people out of prison, allegedly referring to Laverne and
John. I don't believe that for a
second, I
don't think he cared. he
He, was. He was like, [00:30:00] thanks for doing time
for me. But prosecutor Jim McIntyre later said, quote, the greatest human tragedy is that Laverne derailed the investigation in 1990. In over four years, Keith. Keith Jesperson killed more women in November, 1995. After serving four years in prison for a crime they did not commit. Laverne and
John were released.
Mandy: Laverne told reporters that she had confessed because she felt trapped in her relationship. Her daughters believed both desperation and years of tragedy are what led her to fabricate the story. One daughter said she was in a bad place in her life desperate people do desperate things.
Laverne died in 2003 at the age of 70. John lived quietly after his release and was really scarred by the years that he lost. But Keith Jesperson, the true, happy face killer, remains in prison serving multiple life sentences. This case is a devastating example of how false [00:31:00] confessions can mislead justice And in this case, it wasn't a confession that had been coerced by the police. It was actually just volunteered. Even when John denied involvement and even when the evidence was thin, the jurors still latched onto Laverne's words and while they sat in prison, Keith was free to strangle more women.
And we have more to get into after one last break to hear a word from this week's sponsors. I.
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Melissa: And now back to the [00:33:00] episode. So before the break, we discussed two more confessions, the second of which still blows my mind that you would confess to a crime you weren't a part of
to get someone else in trouble
to break up with them. Just wild. But this one is a little different.
So you may have heard of this one, but back on September 6th, 2016, in the small town of Nole, North Carolina, just after 1:30 AM a door crashed open inside the single story home of Keisha Valentine, her world, that of her teenage son would chatter in just seconds. Keisha Valentine was a mother, daughter and a survivor. she had left her ex-husband Earl after years of abuse and moved to Nole just nine months earlier to start fresh. Friends described her as being strong but tired. A woman that was determined to create a safe home for her son. She had sought protection from the courts and been granted a restraining order, but it had expired just weeks before that September morning. [00:34:00] Her son, Earl Junior was 15 and he was just her pride and joy. He loved basketball and he was protective of his mother and just beginning high school to friends.
He was funny, gentle, and responsible, the kind of kid who was just quick to help others. But on the morning of September 6th, 2016, Earl Senior kicked in Keisha's door. He stormed down the hallway and forced to open her bedroom. Keisha tried to hold the door shut, bracing her body against it. but it wasn't enough. Earl forced his way in and shot her five times the shots. Woke up her son Earl Jr. And he brushed out of his room to confront his father, Trying desperately to protect his mom. Earl pointed the gun at his own child and fired into his chest. Earl Junior collapsed, but he wasn't done fighting.
He pulled himself to a phone and dialed nine one one. He said, my
dad just shot me and my mom
and shortly after he lost consciousness. Unfortunately, he
would not survive.
Mandy: As Earl Flood the [00:35:00] scene, he did something almost unthinkable. He pulled out his phone and went live on Facebook and the world then became his confessional. He started off by saying, what's up, everybody? And then he goes on to say, I just killed my wife. I don't feel any remorse for what I did. She lied on me, had warrants taken out on me.
She drug me all the way down to nothing. I loved my wife, but she deserved what she had coming. So he then stares into the camera as he's driving and his face is lit up just by the glow of his phone screen and whatever lights are on his dash. And he says. I've been very sick for months, and this is something I could not help.
So I don't know if I'm gonna make it where I'm going, but if I don't, I wish you all a good life. This video spread like wildfire before the Facebook moderators were actually able to find it and remove it, and by that time, clips had been reposted to YouTube and Twitter, and it had racked up millions of [00:36:00] views.
This was really the first time the entire world became an unwilling witness to a real time murder confession. Norlina Police Chief Taylor Bartholomew reached Earl by phone not long after the attack. He later recalled the conversation as being cold and callous. he said that Earl was calm but aggressive, and all he wanted to know was whether or not Keisha was dead.
The police chief warned him that the police would not let him escape, and Earl just responded back with threats and said that he planned to kill Keisha's parents next and then himself.
Melissa: Wow. As all of this was going on, Keisha was clinging to life despite five bullet wounds. She survived emergency surgery. Unfortunately, her son did not fare as well. He died shortly after arriving at the hospital. Over the next 36 hours, one of the largest manhunts in this region's history took place. Local police were joined by the FBI Fugitive Task Force in US [00:37:00] Marshals. Earl's Black SUV was spotted in Richmond, Virginia. Then later heading south into South Carolina. Tips were pouring in, and of course, social media buzzed with sightings. It seemed that everyone was on edge, both waiting and watching. On September 7th, 2016, just one day after the attack, Marshall surrounded a days in motel in Columbia, South Carolina, which was just about 280 miles from Norlina. Earl's vehicle was outside and he was inside a room alone. As officers closed in, they heard a gunshot. Earl had taken his own life with a bullet to the head Chief Bartholomew summed it up by saying, quote, he died alone.
At the end of the day, he is a coward. The Valentine case really affected more than just North Carolinians. It raised urgent questions about the limits of restraining orders as Keisha had just expired just a few weeks before. Advocates also pointed out how dangerous that window of time can be for [00:38:00] survivors of domestic violence. It also forced conversations about technology. Facebook Live had launched globally only months before, and already it was being used to broadcast violence in real time. Despite Facebook, of course, removing the video quickly, it had been downloaded and shared endlessly. So for Keisha survival meant not only a physical recovery, but unimaginable grief. She had lost her son, her protector, and the boy who gave his last breath to call for help for the community of Norlina, admit, grappling with how a man could kill his child, confess it to the world, and still seem so
devoid of remorse.
Mandy: Wow. That one is actually just so, I mean, it's. Awful and terrible, but it reminded me of another case that, um, I don't know if you remember, and it's been a while now, but it was like a Facebook Live one, but the guy actually like, uh, live streamed his wife's. Yes, yes. It, yeah, I just, oh my gosh. Those ki kind of things are just crazy when you [00:39:00] think about, I don't know, just people having like new technology to like be.
Sick with. Yes, exactly. It's just so awful. So terrible. So the last case that we have for you guys this week, is the case of Mark Chopper Reed, and he is a deathbed, confess. Confessor, if you will.
Yeah. Confess your in Australia, this one name really looms large in the world of crime. His name is Mark Brandon.
Or he as he goes by chopper, uh, Reed, and he was part gangster, part storyteller, and part cultural icon. He spent 23 years in prison for violent crimes such as armed robbery, kidnapping, and assault, but he was never actually convicted of murder. But in the final weeks of his life, he finally decided to, uh, confess everything that he had ever actually done.
So Mark Reed was actually born in 1954 in Melbourne, Victoria, and from a young age, he was drawn to violence. He [00:40:00] claimed to have joined a gang at just 15 and committed his first stabbing by the age of 16 In prison. His bad reputation only grew. He was known for brutality and just for doing whatever it took to survive.
In one infamous incident in, the pen prison, he had both of his ears cut off by a fellow inmate. That's not even the craziest part.
Melissa: Nope.
Mandy: This was done at his own request and he hoped that this would result in him being transferred to a mental health ward.
Melissa: I'm sorry. I can think of a million ways and this is the only time where
calling women crazy would actually
be very helpful. In general, that's like a default I don't appreciate, but in this case, yeah, I feel like we
would have one up on old Mark.
Mandy: Yeah, so this, mutilation of his ears, uh, that's what actually gave him the nickname of Chopper. But of course, giving him a cute little nickname like Chopper is just two [00:41:00] kinds.
So we're just gonna use his real name, which was Mark. And Mark wasn't just a criminal, he became a quasi celebrity. After his release in 1998, he reinvented himself as an author and a comedian, which
no, absolutely not. His books, which were a mix of autobiography and tall tales, sold more than 300,000 copies, and he also performed standup routines about his life of crime.
Melissa: Uh,
Mandy: I can't.
Melissa: no.
Mandy: In 2000, Eric Bana starred in the award-winning film Chopper, which was based on Mark's books, and it really just cemented his place as kind of both a criminal and an infamous figure. It makes me so angry that anyone who's like has a criminal past like this is even able to get a platform and like get it, collect an audience of people, like, I feel like you should not have access to the public or have any type of like fame or anything like that.
Melissa: Right. Well, I [00:42:00] agree with you, but it didn't happen that way. But Mark really leaned into his persona. He often claimed that he had just one code, that he never hurt women or children,
only other criminals.
He's. Yes, he's, that's what my next line is. He's violent, but only to those who deserved it, which is like a real Dexter, right? But how much of what he said was actually true. In 2013, Mark Reed was actually dying of liver cancer. He He was 58 years old, frail, and he knew the end was near. So just 16 days before his death, he sat down with Tara Brown of 60 Minutes Australia for one last interview. He told her. Four is all you're getting. That's it. And then he confessed to four murders. The first was Sammy or Sammy, the Turk Ozer Cam. Sammy was a gangster that Mark shot outside of Melbourne nightclub in 1987. At the time, he claimed self-defense and he was acquitted, but now he admitted it.
He said everyone swallowed it. I [00:43:00] couldn't understand it when I killed Sammy. That wasn't self-defense. That was. Outright murder. I love when
a criminal, a murderer is like, wow, guys,
why would you let me go on
that one? That's like, you are bad. That's terrible. And next was Desmond or Des Costello. He was a union figure and Mark gave very little detail, but named him as another man he killed. Third was Sid Collins, Who was the head of a motorcycle gang, mark claimed that he shot him with his own gun and buried him near a football ground in casino New South Wales. And lastly was Reginald Isaacs. He was a convicted child killer who Mark said he hanged in prison
in 1974.
Mandy: So of course the police hear all this, and they immediately start looking into and reviewing these claims. New South Wales investigators reopened the Sid Collins case and Victoria Police described the interview as being pretty amazing. Detective Inspector Cameron Lindsey, who's the one who led the Collins investigation, [00:44:00] told reporters quote, we've got a number of technology and equipment available to us.
There are things we can do to try to find buried bodies. But verifying Mark's words wasn't exactly easy. He did have a history of exaggeration, and he had once claimed that he killed 19 people, but then later denied that.
Melissa: We're saying he's a little dramatic and he had somebody cut off his
Mandy: Right.
Melissa: so he could go to the mental part of the hospital.
Mandy: In a 2013 New York Times interview, he said, quote, honestly, I haven't killed that many people. Probably about four or seven depending on how you look at it.
Melissa: How would the seven people look
Mandy: Right,
Melissa: three of us aren't actually
Mandy: right, exactly. How does that, I don't understand how that works.
but journalists who knew Mark Best believed parts of his confession.
Andrew Rule, who co-wrote a book with him, He said he thought he killed Sammy and Reginald and possibly the others, but he said with Chopper, you never know. He told the truth when it suited him, [00:45:00] and he lied when it suited him. So for many, the confession was his last act of kind of showmanship and just really a way to make sure that his legend would live on whatever legend he had.
Uh, but ultimately, chopper died on October 9th, 2013 in Royal Melbourne Hospital, and his funeral drew in both celebrities and other criminals. to this day, they really still don't know exactly how many victims there are. Um, and there are still questions as to how genuine this deathbed confession actually even was.
Some like to think it was just another performance. Some like to believe it was true. But either way, mark certainly ensured that even after he died, he would remain the center of attention in some people's lives.
Melissa: Okay. So of course we knew the jinx, right? And. Henry Lee Lucas, I kind of knew because I don't wanna get into it,
but my dad kind of knew somebody he
knew and there was Otis O'Toole, who I think he had a relationship [00:46:00] with, knew my dad as a kid. I
don't know. Let's get O, let's pass that.
Mandy: Okay.
Melissa: The Laverne one. The Laverne one.
blows my
mind.
Mandy: wild.
Melissa: I just can't, I mean, we've heard so many reasons, like people have blamed other people for doing things, but they don't put themselves in
it, and especially not in a
Mandy: She was so committed to it. She's like, I don't care. She's like, I want this guy to be taken down, even if it means I have to. Like, but like, what I, I feel like also it seems like one of those things where like you get into deep and then you're like, crap, how do I get outta this? Like now, like, why, what am I doing
Melissa: true.
Mandy: murder now?
Like, you know
Melissa: But at what point during that do you say, oh, this has backfired tremendously.
Um, and, and the whole thing with like all those families and Henry Lou Lucas, the same thing. All these families who are just looking for closure and somebody saying like, oh yeah, we did that. Meanwhile.
Somebody else is getting away with
murder and killing more people like the Happy Face Killer. So these are just, ugh, these, I don't know, [00:47:00] these are upsetting, But it goes back to how important confessions can be to jurors and how important they are, that they're
true confessions, that they're not
coerced, that they're not given pictures of a
crime scene or
anything else. So
Mandy: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right guys. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this Thursday's episode. We will be back next week, same time, same place. New story.
Melissa: Have a great week.
Mandy: Bye.
