These interrogations will send a chill down your spine. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be looking at the most unsettling police interrogations in which suspects acted in a disturbing manner or made troubling confessions.
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00:00 "Did anybody try to stop him?"
00:02 "Can't stop him."
00:03 "It sounds like somebody had to stop him."
00:05 "I did."
00:06 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the most unsettling police interrogations
00:11 in which suspects acted in a disturbing manner or made troubling confessions.
00:15 "I hate her for that, but she was a nice person."
00:18 Jared Murray.
00:20 For most, taking another person's life is an unimaginable act with severe consequences.
00:26 So it's pretty spine-chilling when a murderer discusses it like just another mundane activity.
00:31 "Okay, and what do you remember telling me?"
00:32 "In summation, that I'm guilty, yes."
00:35 "Of what?"
00:36 "Of murder."
00:37 Back in 2012, Jared Murray was a freshman at Oklahoma's East Central University.
00:42 On December 5th, he fatally shot another student solely for the thrill.
00:47 "I went down to his dorm room and asked if I could be given a ride to Walmart in exchange
00:52 for $20 gas money.
00:54 We pulled into the parking lot, then I pulled the weapon on him."
00:57 During his interrogation, Murray wastes no time in taking responsibility for his actions.
01:02 This should be a good thing, but his abject lack of remorse and matter-of-fact descriptions
01:07 of the violent act are deeply disturbing, to say the least.
01:10 "Why did all of a sudden you decide that you need to go to Asher?"
01:14 "Because I was planning to take him out into the country and kill him."
01:20 Murray states that he would like the death sentence, but in reality,
01:23 he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remanded to a mental health facility.
01:28 "Why did you do it?"
01:29 "If I'm pressed to answer…"
01:30 Richard Cottingham
01:32 Dubbed the "torso killer," Richard Cottingham terrorized New York and New Jersey between
01:37 1967 and 1980, claiming the lives of at least 18 women.
01:42 He was arrested in 1980 and sentenced to life imprisonment for multiple murders in both states.
01:47 "Bringing him in and reading him the Miranda rights and using investigative techniques
01:52 that people have used forever was clearly not going to work with him."
01:55 Since then, even more grisly details of his crimes have emerged.
01:59 In this 2014 interrogation, Cottingham bluntly admits to committing murders in
02:04 other states like Florida, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.
02:07 "Florida, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey."
02:15 When questioned about his true victim count, Cottingham delivers a chilling response
02:20 and callously laughs it off.
02:22 "Do you have a number in your head that you think? Did you ever sit back and think about it?"
02:27 "It's sad to say I couldn't count that high."
02:32 He also downplays his actions, seemingly shifting the blame to his victims.
02:38 Cottingham has since pleaded guilty to more murders,
02:41 and will spend the rest of his natural life behind bars.
02:44 "It was a game. It was being able to get away with it."
02:48 Nicole Poole Franklin
02:49 On December 9, 2019, in Des Moines, Iowa, a boy and a girl were struck by a car.
02:55 Initially, these incidents seemed unrelated. However,
02:58 they were eventually linked to one woman, Nicole Poole Franklin.
03:02 Franklin admitted responsibility for both hit-and-run incidents.
03:06 But what made her actions even more troubling was the motivation behind them.
03:10 "She left. I ran over her."
03:12 "You ran over her on accident?"
03:16 Speaking with two detectives, Franklin confessed to intentionally hitting the girl
03:20 because she perceived her to be Mexican and believed she was taking away people's jobs.
03:25 This admission transformed the case from a simple hit-and-run into a federal hate crime.
03:37 "When you went over the curb, did you accelerate? Did you step on gas?"
03:46 "Yeah."
03:46 Consequently, Franklin was sentenced to 25 years in Iowa for attempted murder
03:52 and received a concurrent 25-year federal sentence for hate crime charges.
03:56 "I really fear that if she had not been stopped at that point, that
04:01 there may have been other victims."
04:05 Damien Arguello
04:06 A domestic dispute between Damien Arguello and his wife Crystal took a tragic turn when
04:11 he fatally stabbed their young son, Raven. Arguello was arrested shortly after, and interrogated by
04:16 two detectives of the Aurora, Colorado, Police Department. The first thing Arguello does during
04:21 the session is ask for a cigarette. "Can I have a cigarette? Please?"
04:26 "Give us a little time to talk to you a little bit. Yeah, we won't get you a cigarette,
04:30 I promise you." When this is brushed off by one of the detectives, he withdraws and barely says
04:35 anything. However, once his request for a cigarette is granted, Arguello immediately
04:40 opens up, admitting to resenting his wife and stabbing her in the heat of their argument.
04:45 "F--- me."
04:45 Arguello would later plead guilty to first-degree murder for both deaths,
04:50 earning himself a life sentence.
04:52 "I don't know why."
04:53 "Okay."
04:55 Spencer Spielman
05:00 "And she started getting a really weird feeling."
05:03 On October 13, 2016, Patricia Dresser was found deceased in her Greenfield, Indiana, home.
05:09 The following day, Spencer Spielman, a handyman Dresser had previously hired,
05:14 was arrested when he was pulled over while driving her car. At the outset of his interrogation,
05:19 Spielman vehemently denies any involvement in Dresser's death.
05:22 "Tell me why you think you're here."
05:24 "Honestly, I have no idea."
05:27 Sensing they've hit a wall, the detectives try a different approach. They pause the interrogation
05:32 and take Spielman outside for a cigarette break. Upon returning to the room, the wall apparently
05:38 comes down.
05:38 "I'm ready to tell y'all what happened."
05:40 Spielman confesses to struggling with Dresser, and then mimes how he had taken her life.
05:45 "A few minutes later, she just came up, freaking the f--- out,
05:49 hitting me, and trying to scratch at me and s---. And I just…"
05:57 He was found guilty of murder and robbery, and ultimately sentenced to 55 years in prison.
06:02 Zachary Littleton
06:04 In October 2009, 25-year-old Samira Watkins was reported missing by her sister
06:09 after visiting her boyfriend Zachary Littleton.
06:12 "You know her as Sammy?"
06:14 "Yeah."
06:14 "Okay. But you've had some dealings with her, you've talked to her."
06:20 "Yeah, she's been over to the house, like, maybe four or five times."
06:24 Afterwards, Littleton, a U.S. Navy officer, was questioned by the authorities,
06:29 and claimed he hadn't seen Watkins on the night of her disappearance.
06:32 "I mean, I didn't do it. I didn't do anything. I'm not responsible for her being missing."
06:37 At some point in the interrogation, Littleton refers to Watkins in the past tense,
06:42 even though her status was still unknown at the time.
06:44 "I hate her for it. She was a nice person."
06:47 Days later, her body washed up close to the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.
06:52 It was eventually revealed that Littleton, who was married to another woman,
06:56 had impregnated Watkins, and apparently murdered her when she refused to terminate the pregnancy.
07:01 He was imprisoned for life as a result.
07:03 Na Trong
07:05 When an infant suddenly died in Worcester, Massachusetts in 2008,
07:09 his teenage mother, Na Trong, quickly became the prime suspect.
07:13 Trong endured a disturbing two-hour interrogation without any adult or lawyer present.
07:18 "You told me what happened. His face was in the mattress. Oh,
07:20 right down here. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we're gonna go now."
07:23 Throughout the taped session, the clearly distressed teen sits opposite two detectives
07:28 who push her to her wits' end, despite the absence of any incriminating physical evidence.
07:33 "And now Kyle's in your care, and he mysteriously dies.
07:36 You're a liar. You just got the worst luck in the world."
07:43 Eventually, Trong buckles under pressure and confesses to smothering her child.
07:48 That, unfortunately, landed her in jail for nearly three years.
07:52 "I did not kill him."
07:54 "Okay, so a perfectly healthy boy just, what, held his breath?"
07:58 In 2011, however, the case was dismissed after a judge determined that the cops had employed,
08:03 quote, "deception, trickery, and implied promises to extract the confession."
08:08 Trong later sued the city of Worcester and received a $2.1 million settlement.
08:13 "The only way to leave was to tell them what they wanted to hear.
08:17 So I just told them that I did it."
08:20 Michael Hernandez. In 2004, a heinous crime unfolded at Southwood Middle School in Palmetto
08:27 Bay, Florida, involving two teenagers. On February 3rd, Michael Hernandez fatally attacked his friend
08:32 Jaime Goff with a knife he had brought onto school premises.
08:35 "Why did you choose Jaime, your friend?"
08:38 "He was the easiest out of anybody because he would have followed me because we're such
08:43 good friends."
08:43 Hernandez was taken into custody that same day, and in a recorded interrogation,
08:48 he detailed the crime in a very matter-of-fact manner, expressing zero remorse or regret for it.
08:54 "I said no, he's gonna go first."
08:56 "Okay, and any particular reason why?"
08:58 "I wanted to get Armory killed first."
09:01 As Hernandez recounts the incident, he seems to revel in the memory of it,
09:05 almost as if expecting some form of commendation from the interrogator.
09:09 "Do you know what you did is wrong?"
09:13 "Yes, I do."
09:14 Despite being a teenager at the time, Hernandez was tried as an adult and sent to prison for life,
09:20 where he died in 2021.
09:22 Cynthia CdeBaca
09:24 An entire family was plunged into turmoil in 2014 by the shooting death of Gerard
09:30 Estaccio at the hands of his mother-in-law, Cynthia CdeBaca. CdeBaca had lived with the
09:34 family for years and cited Estaccio's alleged violent behavior as her motivation.
09:39 "Kill when?"
09:40 "Today. We're gonna ask you some questions. We're gonna ask you some questions."
09:45 On February 11th, CdeBaca fired 15 shots at her son-in-law, pausing twice to reload her weapon.
09:52 When questioned about the incident, CdeBaca immediately expressed her
09:55 disdain for Estaccio before devolving into a fit of laughter.
09:59 "What did you think of him?"
10:03 Soon after, she confessed to shooting him and, perhaps most shockingly,
10:07 celebrated upon learning of his death.
10:09 "Is he alive? He's not? Oh, good, good, good, good, good, good. Oh, thank you."
10:16 It's horrifying, bewildering, and heartbreaking all at once. At the age of 66,
10:22 CdeBaca was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 50 years to life.
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10:41 Michael Bever
10:44 On July 22, 2015, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, brothers Michael and Robert Bever murdered
10:50 five members of their family and severely injured another.
10:53 "I went to my desk, and I had to look at something to this guy to lower, but went up behind him,
11:00 grabbed him, and slipped with him."
11:02 "Really? What did he use?"
11:04 "Homeless lunch, red knife."
11:05 This was to be the first step of their bizarre plot to kill at least 50 people
11:10 across various locations. Fortunately, they were apprehended before executing any more violence.
11:15 "And then my mom came in, and she started yelling, 'Call the police, get dad.'
11:19 And they came up and started attacking her."
11:21 Michael Bever, the younger brother, revealed their sinister intentions to authorities when
11:26 he was questioned. He also disclosed that they had accumulated tons of weapons and ammunition
11:31 through online purchases.
11:32 "So was the plan to use the knives at first on the family?"
11:38 "Yes, that's right."
11:39 "Because the guns weren't going to be here until later on?"
11:41 "Yeah, and the guns would be too loud."
11:43 Even more troubling was his mention of being inspired by other serial killers,
11:47 as well as the 1999 tragedy in Columbine.
11:51 "Everyone thinks society is pointless, and so we're going to kill people."
11:55 "And also he wanted to, like, beat, um, beat the kill, like, amount of other famous
12:02 people like Columbine inmate."
12:04 Both brothers were eventually found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
12:09 Which of these taped interrogations unnerved you the most? Let us know in the comments below.
12:13 "You don't feel bad about it?"
12:14 "No."
12:15 "Would you do it again?"
12:16 "Yes."
12:18 [Music]