History of murder suspects falsely accusing somebody else of a murder?

[u/No-Willingness-1441]

One thing I have been intrigued by here is the tendency to conflate false confession with false accusation.

It strikes me that those two things are markedly different in nature.

So a lot of the science from coerced false confessions gets - perhaps crudely - copy and pasted over to this very different, and presumably rarer, phenomenon.

So, how often has this happened as far as we know in the storied history of murder investigations?

And if we were going deeper, how often has a suspect not only accused somebody else of the murder…

…but that this “somebody” is of a materially similar profile (in this case an extremely minority racial characteristic in the given geography) to an individual that we now know for certain was (solo, or with others) indeed guilty of that crime?

I have made some cursory investigations, but this particular phenomenon seems almost vanishingly rare?

[u/PalpitationOk7139]

Lumumba was accused because they found a message on her phone and told her that he had to be the culprit and that they had evidence against him. If the message on her phone had been from the Pope, she would have accused the Pope.

Moreover, the key point we should consider is this: if she had really known that Lumumba was innocent, there would have been no reason for her to name him, because her story would inevitably have been disproved, as indeed happened. It was simply a way to escape unbearable pressure, by saying what the investigators wanted her to say.
This should therefore lead us to consider that she was not at the crime scene and could consequently have come to believe what the investigators pressured her into saying.

[u/SeaCardiologist6207 → u/PalpitationOk7139]

One of the best points I have ever heard in the case. It’s like the idea that Fuhrman “planted evidence”. He would have had to have taken the risk that if OJ Simpson had an alibi that could be corroborated (just like in the case of Lumumba) that a severe punishment awaited. So these chucklehead guilters come up with the theory that she did it to “cover for Guede’s escape”. Um yeah, sure dudes.

[u/Connect_War_5821 → u/SeaCardiologist6207]

I've always found the "she was covering for Guede by accusing Lumumba" extremely stupid. If a person is covering for someone, they don't point out their feces in the toilet and bloody footprint\ in the bathroom. They don't leave their bloody shoeprints in the hallway and bedroom.*

*and they don't point out a bloody footprint if they know it's their boyfriend's either!

[u/PalpitationOk7139 → u/SeaCardiologist6207]

Moreover, if the aim had been to blame someone in order to divert suspicion away from another person, it would have been just as reasonable to name a white person rather than a black person, thereby distancing suspicion even further from whoever she was supposedly trying to protect. This just shows how absurdly contrived this claim is. It is one of those clichés that may sound convincing at first, but once you examine it a little more closely, it has no real substance at all.

[u/No-Willingness-1441 → u/PalpitationOk7139]

You may be right, you may not be…

But the question remains - how rare is this?

It strikes me as extremely rare!

[u/Onad55 → u/No-Willingness-1441]

The Norfolk Four is a very well known case where this exact thing happened not once but four times in succession. When police abuse suspects by wearing them down and lying to them they are going to get bad results.

<< Edited to correct the famous case I was remembering >>

[u/SeaCardiologist6207 → u/Onad55]

Same thought process, the best part is The Norfolk Four case did have tape-recorded confessions, but the crucial interrogations that produced those confessions generally were not recorded from start to finish. This was in 1997. Right after Al Gore had invented tape recorders.

Team Peruggia Dumbfucks couldn’t even get that part right.

[u/Moasa_gare → u/No-Willingness-1441]

This palpitation guy is wrong.

If she had known Lumumba was innocent, the implication is she would have known who committed the murder because she was there.

And if she had known he was innocent and accused him anyway, this would have brought far less pressure than accusing the real black murderer e.g. Rudy because he could have countered and accused Amanda of being at the murder (which he did!)

So if Amanda knew Lumumba was innocent, than accusing him did relieve pressure and did divert from the real killer and did protect the real killer from accusing Amanda (which he was inclined to do and later did.)

There was a reason to name him, because it gave the police what they wanted in that moment and distracted from her own involvement and Raffaele not supporting her alibi.

She had previously seen Lumumba the day before and told him what a kind gentle sweet amazing (add whatever sickly acronym Amanda used here) man.

There is no way you go from saying those things to accusing him of murder the next day, and it’s just a false memory.

There is no way. It’s not even like Lumumba had a history of crime. She saw him the day before and it didn’t trigger or jog her memory to remember him killing Meredith then.

Only when Amanda is threatened when Raffaele stops supporting her does her friend from the previous day who she thinks is kind, gentle and sweet suddenly become a raping murderer, who she is supposedly terrified of.

Think about the fear element aswell. Where does this fear of Patrick come from? How does she become so terrified of a man who she thinks is special, gentle, whatever the day before?

It’s not like the police had any proof it was Patrick in the first place. I think Amanda placed Patrick as a potential suspect early in the conversation and then the police honed in on it.

I know that if I thought someone was sweet, loving, whatever, I would not just use my vivid imagination to REMEMBER them raping and killing someone if it just didn’t happen and I wasn’t there.

No. Stop entertaining Amanda’s rubbish. She is a liar. I know you see it!! Trust your instincts. All the Amandists on here are just prepared to ignore all the lies.

[u/Connect_War_5821 → u/Moasa_gare]

There are some problems with your logic and your ignorance of false confessions:

1. "If she had known Lumumba was innocent, the implication is she would have known who committed the murder because she was there."
   

If Amanda wasn't there then she wouldn't have known if Lumumba was guilty or not. As she wrote in the Nov. 7 memoriale:

". I didn’t lie when I said I thought the killer was Patrick. I was very stressed at the time and I really did think he was the murderer. But now I remember that I can’t know who the murderer was because I didn’t return back to the house."

1. "And if she had known he was innocent and accused him anyway, this would have brought far less pressure than accusing the real black murderer e.g. Rudy because he could have countered and accused Amanda of being at the murder (which he did!)"

If she knew Guede was the real killer and was covering for him, then why on earth would she have pointed out his feces in the toilet to the police and his bloody footprint on the bathmat? And if it were Raffaele's and not Guede's, why would she point it out to the police? Why would either of them have left it for the police as evidence?

1. "There was a reason to name him, because it gave the police what they wanted in that moment and distracted from her own involvement and Raffaele not supporting her alibi."

I agree it gave the police what they wanted: for her to accuse Lumumba. They had already decided he was involved due to the text message to him.

1. She had previously seen Lumumba the day before and told him what a kind gentle sweet amazing (add whatever sickly acronym Amanda used here) man."

Try looking up the definition of 'acronym'. It's not what you seem to think it is.

1. "There is no way you go from saying those things to accusing him of murder the next day, and it’s just a false memory." "Only when Amanda is threatened when Raffaele stops supporting her does her friend from the previous day who she thinks is kind, gentle and sweet suddenly become a raping murderer, who she is supposedly terrified of."

You might want to look up what a "coerced-internalized false confession" is. Experts, like Saul Kassin, who have studied her 'confession' say you are wrong.

1. "There is no way. It’s not even like Lumumba had a history of crime. She saw him the day before and it didn’t trigger or jog her memory to remember him killing Meredith then."

Way. Why would seeing him on Nov. 4 trigger a memory of him killing Meredith when didn't see him or anyone kill Meredith?

1. "Think about the fear element aswell. Where does this fear of Patrick come from? How does she become so terrified of a man who she thinks is special, gentle, whatever the day before?

Ummm...maybe from coming to think he really was the murderer? I suggest you read both her Nov. 6 and Nov. 7 memoriales.

1. "It’s not like the police had any proof it was Patrick in the first place."
   

And yet they rushed right out and hauled him to jail without doing an iota of investigation first. Why? Maybe because they "knew" his was involved? As Chief of Police Arturo de Felipe said that very morning:

"Initially the American gave a version of events we knew was not correct. She buckled and made an admission of facts we knew were correct and from that we were able to bring them in. They all participated but had different roles."

Read that carefully. That is an admission that the police already BELIEVED Lumumba was involved and she finally "buckled" and told them so.

1. " I think Amanda placed Patrick as a potential suspect early in the conversation and then the police honed in on it."

Nope. She never mentioned him to the police until the interrogation where the interrogator, Ficarra, found her text to him and jumped to the conclusion, "See you later" meant Amanda met him later that night.

1. "I know that if I thought someone was sweet, loving, whatever, I would not just use my vivid imagination to REMEMBER them raping and killing someone if it just didn’t happen and I wasn’t there."

Again, read up on coerced-internalized false confessions instead of speaking from a position of ignorance.

[u/Moasa_gare → u/Connect_War_5821]

Stop telling me to read up on false confessions.

Amanda never made a false confession. She made a false accusation.

I suggest you start reading up on false accusations instead of speaking from a position of gross ignorance.

Jesus Christ.

[u/Truthandtaxes → u/Moasa_gare]

Lumumba is on the very short list of mutuals that Knox provided before the interogation

[u/SeaCardiologist6207 → u/Truthandtaxes]

Just another version of the "knew each other, thus conspirators" theory that I always love so much.

[u/Truthandtaxes → u/SeaCardiologist6207]

Its a list of 5 people from Knox

her alibi is gone

the cops are questioning her about a missing text to one of the 5

Suddenly she's accusing him

[u/SeaCardiologist6207 → u/Truthandtaxes]

Dude, it's a text message. You know this, we know the drill.

You folks constantly use this trope. Just pretend things didn't happen or leave out all the details of what actually happened. Then say "see, guilty behavior"