FALSE CONFESSION BAFFLES EXPERTS, LOCAL RESIDENTS

CROTHERSVILLE, Ind. -- Some were shocked and others relieved, but most
everyone in Charles "Chuckie" Hickman's hometown shared a single question
yesterday: Why would he falsely confess to murder? Police officers, the
Jackson County prosecutor and Hickman's attorney offered no solid answers
as to why Hickman, a 21-year-old high school dropout, said that he had been
involved in the death of 10-year-old Katlyn "Katie" Collman. Katie
disappeared Jan. 25, and her body was found five days later in a creek 20
miles north of Crothersville, her hometown. Jackson County Prosecutor
Stephen Pierson said it took nine weeks and tens of thousands of taxpayer
dollars to try to chase down Hickman's story -- that Katie was abducted to
scare her after she witnessed methamphetamine activity at an apartment
complex -- and determine that it was wrong. "Got me," Pierson said
yesterday at a press conference when asked for an explanation. Hickman's
court-appointed attorney, John Plummer III, said he also was at a loss,
although he said his client "never told the same story twice." After poring
over the 6,000 documents in the case, Plummer said he felt Hickman would
have had a solid defense had he gone to trial because there was no evidence
for the murder charge. Some residents of Crothersville said they felt the
same way. "I never thought the boy did it to start with," said Mary
Masters, 72, who lives two doors down from Hickman's trailer. Some are not
convinced Other were less confident. Chris Vojkufka, 32, said he was
surprised by the turn of events and was "not totally convinced" that
Hickman fabricated the entire story. Town Councilman Bill Nagle said he
didn't know what to think. "All along, the community had tied the crime to
the use of meth," he said. "I'm speechless." Several legal experts said
that false confessions are all too common and that Hickman's story bore
some of the classic signs. Steven Drizin, legal director of the Center on
Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, said false confessions are
typically linked to two factors: aggressive interview tactics by police and
a vulnerable suspect. Drizin said he had studied the Hickman case, and he
said there were several warning signs.

Among them: Hickman's statement that he might have accidentally bumped
Katie into the creek after she was abducted.

Drizin said that fits in with a common tactic used by interrogators called
"minimization," in which they offer an explanation for a crime, and then
ask the suspect if he or she might have committed it unintentionally.
Reports of Hickman's history of meth use. Drizin said that might have made
it more difficult for Hickman to deal with the stress of a police
interview. And, he said, mental lapses from drug abuse are an easy way for
police to explain why a suspect can't remember details of a crime. Police
"want the truth" Sgt. Jerry Goodin of the Indiana State Police said it
would have been counterproductive to the investigation to urge Hickman to
tell lies. "All we're looking for is the truth," he said, adding that any
suggestion of police coercion would be "completely false and completely
erroneous." Police interrogated Hickman multiple times.

Goodin said he was unsure which of the conversations, if any, were recorded.

FBI investigators conducted some of the interviews, he said, and their
policy is to not record the talks. Pierson said each interview with Hickman
lasted 15 to 20 minutes.

He said some officers doubted Hickman's story but felt obligated to pursue
it because of the confession. The existence of interview tapes plays a key
role in determining whether a suspect is prodded by police, said Richard
Leo, a professor of criminology at the University of California at Irvine.
Leo, a national expert on false confessions, called Hickman's case a
tragedy. He said research shows that eight out of 10 false confessions
produce a guilty verdict at trial.

Of those that don't go to trial, many result in a guilty plea and prison
time because the defendant becomes convinced that he or she will be found
guilty anyway. A third legal expert, Steve Russell of Indiana University,
applauded the investigators in Katie's murder case for continuing their
search after Hickman's confession. "It is no great trick to get even people
of normal intelligence to admit to something they didn't do," he said in a
written statement about the case. Plummer, Hickman's lawyer, said he knew
of nothing to suggest that police had coerced his client.