The Central Park Five - How False Confessions Destroyed Five Innocent Lives

On April 19, 1989, a 28-year-old investment banker was brutally attacked while jogging in Central Park. Within hours, five Black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were in police custody. Within days, they had confessed. Within months, they were convicted. And for thirteen years, everyone believed justice had been served.

In this episode of Deadly Intent, we examine one of the most consequential wrongful conviction cases in American history—not through the lens of who committed the crime, but through the psychology of how five innocent children were made to confess to something they didn’t do. We explore the interrogation techniques that break the human mind, the cognitive biases that blinded investigators to the truth, and why this case fundamentally changed how we understand the vulnerability of the innocent in the face of institutional power.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of sexual assault, violence, and the psychological trauma of wrongful imprisonment. Listener discretion is advised.

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