Scenes of a Crime

A baby boy dies in upstate New York; his father, a hulking ex–football player, is charged with crushing the infant’s skull. The man’s conviction hinges on the results of a ten-hour police grilling that may have pushed the suspect into a false confession—a notion that gains traction once contradictory evidence comes to light. Grover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh’s look into this possible miscarriage of justice is more than just an all-angles case study. By using the actual interrogation footage, it indicts a law-enforcement technique that may not benefit the cops, the alleged criminals or the justice system overall.