For many, the term “false confession” brings up visions of cops scaring people in custody to say they committed crimes when in fact they did not. But today I am writing about entirely different false confessions—where people contact law enforcement and confess, voluntarily, to crimes they did not commit.
Max’s Serial Killer, Serial Liar Levi Bellfield: A Faking It Special tells the story of a British man serving two life-without-parole sentences for multiple murders who later confessed to also murdering Lin and Megan Russell, a mother and daughter.
Michael Stone had already been convicted for the women’s 1996 murders, along with the attempted murder of Josie Russell, who is Lin’s daughter and Megan’s sister. However, Stone’s lawyers announced that Levi Bellfield wrote a statement in 2022 admitting to the Russell murders.
According to Stone’s lawyer, this admission was followed by a statement of culpability to a prison psychologist in 2023. The Criminal Cases Review Commission, a United Kingdom governmental agency tasked with reviewing possible miscarriages of justice in criminal courts, then announced it would evaluate the merits of Stone’s conviction.
But there are various concerns regarding the truthfulness of Bellfield’s confession. Colin Sutton, the detective who investigated Bellfield’s known crimes, remarked that the confession could simply be Bellfield “playing mind games.”
Finding fibs
The approximately 45-minute documentary analyzes Bellfield’s confession. Without much lead-in, the audience meets Dawn Archer, a linguistics professor cast as “the listener,” and Kerry Daynes, a forensic psychology specialist who serves as “the profiler.”
Archer gives insight into Bellfield’s confession, and she points out a very keen observation: Bellfield wrote that he held the murder weapon in his right hand; however, he is left-handed. Her analysis was interesting, and I hoped for more of the same insight.
Next, Daynes discussed Bellfield’s background and how that might affect his actions. She briefly touched on the confession, but most of her analysis was more surface-level, noting obvious potential contributing factors, like Bellfield being in prison without the possibility of parole. Again, I was hopeful she would provide more of a technical assessment, but there was still plenty of run time to fit that in.
My hopes started dissipating when the third expert, “the watcher,” gave his opinions. Cliff Lansley, a body language specialist, illuminated how Bellfield had lied about his crimes for more than 20 years. Lansey analyzed snippets from police interrogations showing Bellfield physically manifesting his deception. The observations were significant and showed a potential pattern, but those situations were when Bellfield was interrogated previously. I was still left wondering whether Bellfield’s current uncoerced confession was truly a lie.
False confessions without coercion
Serial Liar, Serial Killer ultimately never provides that closure. Sure, it offers some food for thought as to the truth of Bellfield’s confession, but there isn’t much concrete to stand on at the end of the day. Interestingly, the audience isn’t privy to much information regarding Stone’s conviction for the Russell murders or any other hard evidence that would contrast Bellfield’s confession.
Which leaves the question open: Do people really confess to crimes they didn’t commit in the absence of law enforcement coercion?
Hopefully more information on the Stone case review will further gauge whether Bellfield did just that. Nevertheless, Bellfield wouldn’t be the first or the last to freely and voluntarily admit to something he didn’t really do.
Indeed, Henry Lee Lucas, a Texas man convicted of killing his mother and two others, is perhaps best known for confessing to approximately 600 other deaths. Known as the “Confession Killer,” Lucas was convicted and given a death sentence as well as multiple life sentences for his confessed crimes.
After his confession spree began, an investigation by the Dallas Times-Herald found it would have been impossible for Lucas to have committed many of the murders he claimed. Jim Mattox, the Texas attorney general, conducted a further investigation, concluding that Lucas falsely confessed.
Additionally, Mattox found that law enforcement “did nothing to bring an end to this hoax.” Instead, he asserted that some officials cleared the cases “just to get them off the books.”
In some situations, Lucas recanted. In others, he held firm to his admissions. Nevertheless, his death sentence was commuted to life.
Why lie?
I understand some people don’t have anything to live for and would rather die than spend the rest of their lives in a cage. Still, it’s challenging to wrap my head around why someone would purposefully put themselves in more legal peril than necessary.
This isn’t a fact pattern where a person agrees to take the fall in advance for someone else in exchange for some kind of benefit. That’s much different than an individual with no connection to the criminal taking the blame after the fact.
But maybe there’s some benefit in Bellfield’s brain, if we assume he did in fact lie. As Daynes discussed in Serial Liar, Serial Killer, Bellfield’s confession could be an example of offense paralleling behavior. Bellfield is in prison for life without the possibility of parole. He’ll never offend on the outside again. Hence, he claims he committed other crimes outside of the prison “for kicks.” Daynes explained that Bellfield’s false confession was a way to involve himself in the fantasy of having committed more crimes.
A life sentence without parole can change someone’s perspective. You’re already doing the time, so what’s a little more going to hurt? At some point, the concept of “time” becomes irrelevant, after all. For example, Lucas was willing to receive the death penalty as opposed to life in prison for the supplemental notoriety of adding to his list of victims.
Quite a bit of the documentary involves Bellfield’s former girlfriend, who was integral in his investigation and arrest. According to her, he was not a very nice person, to say the least.
Why would someone in Bellfield’s position lie about committing a crime they didn’t commit in the absence of coercion? Maybe the most obvious answer is the truth. Maybe some people are just mean.
Adam Banner
Adam R. Banner is the founder and lead attorney of the Oklahoma Legal Group, a criminal defense law firm in Oklahoma City. His practice focuses solely on state and federal criminal defense. He represents the accused against allegations of sex crimes, violent crimes, drug crimes and white-collar crimes.
The study of law isn’t for everyone, yet its practice and procedure seem to permeate pop culture at an increasing rate. This column is about the intersection of law and pop culture in an attempt to separate the real from the ridiculous.
This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.
