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Police pressured him to confess to a murder that never happened

When he couldn’t find his elderly dad, Tom Perez called the police in Fontana, California. What followed was a ‘disturbing’ 17-hour interrogation and accusations of murder.

We obtained some interrogation videos and spent weeks poring through records and interviews, many of which have not been made public because of a protective order, to try to ascertain what led to what one expert in policing called “one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen.” Crime scene investigators took photographs of what they thought was blood evidence, and a cadaver dog named Jet brought by a sheriff’s volunteer alerted to the possible scent of human remains in an upstairs bedroom, police reports show. “They formed that belief based on a bias of their investigation without reviewing all the facts or stepping back and really assessing what they actually had,” said Noble, who says he has been an expert witness in criminal and civil legal matters involving police procedure, misconduct and corruption.

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