a fascinating case study about why you should NEVER talk to the police…
“troopers interviewed Sierra in his home in Queens and he initially denied knowing Evelyn Colon, police said. But then he admitted he not only knew her but they dated, lived together and she was having his baby, police said.”
“He told troopers that he last saw her when he left the apartment in Jersey City and that when he came home, she was gone, court papers say. He said he moved out soon after and returned to his father’s home, police said. She had threatened to leave him and he figured she’d gone home to her mother, police said. He had told her not to go and checked a few times at her mother’s house but no
one answered, he said.”
“He couldn’t explain why he tried so little to make contact with Evelyn Colon and their child, police said.”
you see, when u talk to the police…
you START HAVING TO EXPLAIN SHIT.
all this could have been avoided had he just exercised his 6th admendment rights.
just say: “LAWYER.”
everything you say, WILL be used against you. it will not be used, FOR YOU.
i don’t mean to mock people who talk to cops: they’re scared…
they think they can explain things away.
they’re so inexperienced, they haven’t really figured out that they don’t have to talk to anyone.
the more you talk, the more you lie, the more you have to keep lying and explaining shit.
Looks to me like an argument for telling people they should talk to the police. I mean, I’m not saying there aren’t arguments against, but “You might be a murderer who’ll then go to jail” is a positive outcome for society.
I agree that its pretty odd to cite the case of a murderer who managed to incriminate himself as a “let this be a lesson to us all” scenario. But the proposition that one should not talk to the police is sound. The fifth amendment (not sixth amendment, OP) right against self-incrimination is one of the most powerful tools a potential criminal defendant has.
I think it might have been on this very board that someone pointed me toward a lecture by Professor James Duane on why you should never talk to the police. Most of his lecture is the reasons why even innocent people should decline to talk to the police.
In the fictional world, I often find myself “siding” with the killers (in the interest of good drama). About half the episodes of The Closer and many Law & Order episodes would not even get to trial if the killers would just SHUT UP. it’s as lazy writing as the typical Perry Mason to have the killer trap themselves in an easily avoided lie, or just confess outright.
In the real world, while the desirable and easier action would be to simply not kill somenone, when you know you are the killer, it is in your own best interests to shut up. Don’t try to talk your way out of it. The police already suspect you. Not talking, or lawyering up, isn’t going to change that.
Plus, not talking when you didn’t do the deed protects you from lazy, incompetent, or outright crooked police and prosecutors who just want to close the case and claim victory.
True crime shows, too, show people talking for hours until they incriminate themselves into arrest. Just once I’d like to see the entire interrogation to find out how they get from a friendly conversation straight through Miranda warning to damning evidence.
That didn’t work out all that well for John & Patsy Ramsey. Mind you, that’s not to say had they “cooperated” from the get go, they’d not have been arrested and put on trial promptly either.
This is more a case study of the perils of disposing of your victim in three separate suitcases, which increases the odds of discovery.
It’s much smarter to pack the remains into a single jumbo-sized piece of luggage and head for the nearest landfill, of which there should be plenty to choose around Jersey City.
*it may not be too late for a smart attorney to mount a convincing defense on the grounds that suicide can’t be ruled out.
That’s because you’re on the other side of the thin blue line from us. Frankly, in some departments, it wouldn’t matter if you had killed someone. You’d never get arrested.
