On the morning of January 21, 1998, 12-year-old Stephanie Ann Crowe was found dead on her bedroom floor. She had been brutally stabbed to death as her family slept soundly in their bedrooms down the hall.
Stephanie’s parents desperately called 911 for help. After police officers arrived at the scene, a cursory search of the Crowe home found no signs of forced entry. There was an unlocked sliding glass door in the parents’ room, but it was covered by aluminum vertical blinds. They would have made too much noise for someone to enter undetected, officers decided.
Join us at the quiet end for Confessions of Youth, the story of the murder of Stephanie Crowe and the false confessions that followed. On the morning when Stephanie’s body was found, detectives came to an early conclusion that her murder was an inside job. From that day forward, they worked to make the evidence fit their theory instead of letting the evidence develop their theory. This method of investigation, wrong for many good reasons, sent the Crowe family and two other families into a prolonged state of victimhood.
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Sources
Crowe v. County of San Diego, Order RE: Summary Judgment Motions, San Diego California, 2/17/2004
Haunting Questions: The Stephanie crowe Murder Case, San Diego Union Tribune, John Wilkens & Mark Sauer, 5/12/1999).
The Interrogation of Michael Crowe, 2002 movie
Juvenile Interrogations Reform Bill Signed by Governor Newsom, Makes California the Fourth State to Adopt Anti-Deceptive-Interrogation Reforms, California Innocence Coalition, 9/15/2022
The People of the State of California v. Michael Steven Crowe, Joshua David Treadway, & Aaron Paul Houser, Superior Court of the State of California for the County of San Diego, 5/22/1998
The Reid Technique Controversies, Criticisms, and Evolving Interrogation Practices, Francesco Galvano, 6/2023
The Right to Remain a Child, New York University Law Review, Ariel Spierer, 11/2017
She’s So Cold: A Defense Attorney’s Inside Story by Donald E. McInnis
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