The Rope by Alex Tresniowski

Author:Alex Tresniowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2021-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22 Nobody Seen Me Do It

December 4, 1910

Freehold, New Jersey

Police officers and beat reporters had a name for it—“the third degree.” It was, in the kindest possible interpretation, an interrogation technique. A way for investigators to get information out of reluctant suspects—a tactic, along the lines of good cop/bad cop, or building rapport with a prisoner. If deliberate questioning didn’t work, the third degree was a way to ratchet up the pressure, often severely.

To administer the third degree meant to either physically beat a prisoner, or psychologically browbeat him. Which of these two was used depended on the character of the interrogator, and on the perceived moral or mental weakness of the suspect. Both were meant to obliterate a prisoner’s defiance and shatter his will, leading, finally, to a confession.

In the early 1900s, third-degree tactics were commonly used in police departments across the country. They were also illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court handed down an 1896 ruling in the case of Wilson v. United States, which involved a man accused of murder and interrogated in front of a threatening mob until he gave a confession. “The true test of the admissibility in evidence of the confession of a person on trial for the commission of a crime,” the Supreme Court ruled, “is that it was made freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement.” Several other similar rulings continued to invalidate confessions that were coerced through the use of the third degree.

And yet, the practice was far from abandoned.

On December 4, 1910, the three detectives entered Tom Williams’s cell around 9:00 a.m. and showed him their badges. Williams knew Thomas Broderick from around Asbury Park, but he didn’t recognize the two other men. They explained why they were there, and said they wanted to run Williams through the events of November 9, the day Marie Smith went missing, one more time. Williams agreed to talk.

The questioning went on for hours. Broderick stayed back and let the detectives take the lead. B. F. Johnson stood over Williams and described precisely how he believed Williams had killed Marie Smith. How Williams had lurked on the edges of the woods on the north side of Third Avenue, waiting for Marie, and then snatched her and attacked her and murdered her, and carried her body deeper into the woods, to the spot where she was found, before making his escape along Brickyard Road. How Williams had gone into hiding until his arrest four days later. There was no doubt in Johnson’s voice—this is how it had happened.

We have many witnesses to verify this claim, Johnson told Williams. We have a complete case against you. The story you told has been proven false. There is no chance for you to escape all of this.

Yet Williams, as he had at every step, denied he had anything to do with the crime.

The questioning went on. All three men aggressively challenged Williams’s story, over and over, crowding him in the small jail cell. The interview stretched into its sixth hour.

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