How One Man Confessed To a Crime
He Didn't Do
E-mail By Christopher Ochoa
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Christopher Ochoa spent 12 years in a Texas prison after falsely admitting to a 1988 rape-murder when he was 22. He also falsely implicated his roommate. Both were freed in 2001 after a man, who has since been convicted, confessed and was linked to the crime by DNA. |
Ochoa spoke in an interview:
I kept on telling them I didn't know. I said, "No I don't know what you are talking about." You sit there and you think, if you keep telling them you didn't do this, they are cops, they should know.
This was the first time I was questioned by police. I trusted the police; they used to come to the schools. My parents taught me that if I got in trouble I should to go to the cops. I used to see a cop and feel safe.
There was a rape-murder of a worker at a Pizza Hut in Austin, and a couple of weeks after they reopened for business my roommate was driving us home from another Pizza Hut, where he and I worked. He wanted to stop and go into the place where the crime happened. I didn't see the point of going there, but he wanted to have a beer. Inside, he makes a toast to the memory of Nancy; so we toast. As we left he was talking to a security guard. I don't know what he was saying. I guess that raised their suspicions.
A couple of days later, the cops came into the Pizza Hut where I was working and said they wanted to question me about a burglary. I assumed they wanted me to answer some simple questions. I asked, "Can I take my car to the police station."
They said, "You don't have to. It won't take long."
So I go down to the station. As I'm riding in the car, I am thinking I might as well do my duty as a citizen. I'd never been in custody. As I'm walking into the police station, I ask the cop that picked me up, "Is this about the robbery at the Pizza Hut where the murder took place?"
He said, "No, it was about a burglary at a Pizza Hut where I used to work."
One cop sticks me in this room; he leaves and then a second cop comes in and says, "Why were you asking about the robbery?"
I told him, "I don't know, I was just curious."
He says, "You must know something. Why were you curious to ask what this question was about?"
I tell him, "I don't know what you're talking about."
He was very intimidating; he slammed his fist on the table and said, "Do you know what they call me on the streets?"
I said, "No."
He said, "They call me the bogeyman."
This went on over a period of hours; at one point he left and another cop came into the room, playing the good cop role. I didn't know that this is what it was at the time. He says his partner's a hothead. Then he leaves and the partner comes back and threatens me, "You could be charged with capital murder if you know something and don't tell us." I assumed he knew what he was talking about.
He leaves and another cop walks in and I ask if I can have an attorney. She says you have to be officially charged to have an attorney. I thought, "Maybe she's right, I don't know."
She walks out and one of the other cops comes in and says, "You know, the DA is ready to charge." He shows me a picture of death row. He says, "This is the cell where you are going to live until you die. You'll never get to hug your family. Is this what you want?" He leaves and comes back with a picture of the autopsy of the victim. He says, "Don't you feel sorry for her? Don't you want to help her?"
I said, "I do, but I don't know what you're talking about." This was going on for hours. I was losing track of time.
At one point he says, "Look, I'm going to book you. I'm going to put you in a jail cell where you'll be fresh meat." I thought, "They're going to rape me in jail."
He tells me my co-defendant is in the next room ready to talk. He says, "You know the white guy always gets the deal and the Hispanic always gets the rap. I don't want you to take the rap. Why don't you just talk now?" It was pretty late; I must have been there 10 and a half hours. He starts taking a statement, and I was just saying whatever he wanted, just to go home. He would say something, like "your roommate told you this," and I would just agree with it and he would type it. I thought these guys have power - they can execute. The only shred of common sense I had was to survive this thing. I didn't even know if my roommate had any part in it. I know I was scared to die. I was young; I didn't want to die in a death chamber.
They put me up at a Holiday Inn for the weekend, saying that because I gave a statement against my roommate he might come after me. Then the cops came back Monday and wanted me to tape a statement that I had taken part in the crime as lookout. He asked the color of this item or that; I couldn't make it up. He would tell me what it was; and type it up and I would say what he wanted and signed the statement.
Copyright (c) December 8, 2002, Newsday, Inc.
