4 ms·

Kind of sickening how he builds up his ego and tells him he loves him. Seems like that kind of treatment could potentially skew the accuracy of the confession.

Kind of sickening how he builds up his ego and tells him he loves him. Seems like that kind of treatment could potentially skew the accuracy of the confession. “Hmm, I like being loved and praised and fed milkshakes here in prison, I’m going to keep talking, even if it isn’t true!”

maxerickson 7y ago
So do you think the 53 cases they have linked to his confessions are all wrong then? Bringing closure to the people involved in those deaths is worth being nice to a serial killer.
S_A_P 7y ago
You are dealing with the darkest depths of humanity to get these confessions. Sure as hell beats using torture and duress to extract this info. I’m not sure how someone would be able to convincingly lie about multiple murders if they were lying. Most details aren’t public. I have not had any close family become victims of a violent crime so I don’t know how important the confession is to these families, but it seems to mean a lot to many of them.
adrianmonk 7y ago
I agree that it could, but I feel like this might be one of those situations where you just have to choose between very imperfect alternatives. If you use techniques like this, you might get wrong information. If you don't, you might get no information at all. Maybe sometimes it's better to get very unreliable information and try to confirm it independently, the classic example being if they say something only the killer would know like where the body is buried.
daveFNbuck 7y ago
There's nothing you can do that won't potentially skew what a person says. They've managed to verify at least 57 confessions so far, so that seems like a pretty good result even if the other 57 are fabricated. Personally, I'm not bothered by building up the serial killer's ego. The important thing about imprisonment is that he's prevented from killing more people.
pessimizer 7y ago
Very few details about the confirmations of the confessions here, and a lot of insistence that Little has a "photographic memory" a pseudoscientific claim which implies we shouldn't question whether these confessions are real. There is a mutual relationship here: Little gets company, attention, and praise, police get to wipe 57 cases off their books that they have no intention of ever trying in a court, and this particular investigator gets lionized. edit: > After the confessions came the painstaking work — confirming killings. There won’t be time to prosecute Little for all the deaths, but authorities believe they can sufficiently tie him to a homicide to consider the case solved. This is the entirety of the content detailing the confirmations that I can find in the article.
- adventured 7y ago
  They also noted this, without saying how they confirmed them: > By his count, Holland and his team have confirmed 57 of Little’s 93 confessions, not including 21 in Southern California That's a definitive statement. I agree that it would have been nice if the article had included a bit more regarding how they were confirmed (assuming it's reasonable to release such information - even if vague - at this point, as it may not be).
- maxerickson 7y ago
  It's so weird to be deeply cynical about the detective's obviously cynical relationship with the killer.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    This ranger is teaching his techniques to police officers. These techniques may be useful for serial killers (although we don't know, there's no research) but we know these interrogation techniques have caused many miscarriages of justice.

maxerickson 7y ago

So do you think the 53 cases they have linked to his confessions are all wrong then? Bringing closure to the people involved in those deaths is worth being nice to a serial killer.

S_A_P 7y ago

You are dealing with the darkest depths of humanity to get these confessions. Sure as hell beats using torture and duress to extract this info. I’m not sure how someone would be able to convincingly lie about multiple murders if they were lying. Most details aren’t public. I have not had any close family become victims of a violent crime so I don’t know how important the confession is to these families, but it seems to mean a lot to many of them.

adrianmonk 7y ago

I agree that it could, but I feel like this might be one of those situations where you just have to choose between very imperfect alternatives. If you use techniques like this, you might get wrong information. If you don't, you might get no information at all. Maybe sometimes it's better to get very unreliable information and try to confirm it independently, the classic example being if they say something only the killer would know like where the body is buried.

daveFNbuck 7y ago

There's nothing you can do that won't potentially skew what a person says. They've managed to verify at least 57 confessions so far, so that seems like a pretty good result even if the other 57 are fabricated. Personally, I'm not bothered by building up the serial killer's ego. The important thing about imprisonment is that he's prevented from killing more people.

pessimizer 7y ago

Very few details about the confirmations of the confessions here, and a lot of insistence that Little has a "photographic memory" a pseudoscientific claim which implies we shouldn't question whether these confessions are real. There is a mutual relationship here: Little gets company, attention, and praise, police get to wipe 57 cases off their books that they have no intention of ever trying in a court, and this particular investigator gets lionized. edit: > After the confessions came the painstaking work — confirming killings. There won’t be time to prosecute Little for all the deaths, but authorities believe they can sufficiently tie him to a homicide to consider the case solved. This is the entirety of the content detailing the confirmations that I can find in the article.

adventured 7y ago
They also noted this, without saying how they confirmed them: > By his count, Holland and his team have confirmed 57 of Little’s 93 confessions, not including 21 in Southern California That's a definitive statement. I agree that it would have been nice if the article had included a bit more regarding how they were confirmed (assuming it's reasonable to release such information - even if vague - at this point, as it may not be).
maxerickson 7y ago
It's so weird to be deeply cynical about the detective's obviously cynical relationship with the killer.
- DanBC 7y ago
  This ranger is teaching his techniques to police officers. These techniques may be useful for serial killers (although we don't know, there's no research) but we know these interrogation techniques have caused many miscarriages of justice.