Are there every any deathbed murder confessions

The_Dave

I can't recall too many and there have been many unsolved murders. Do the murderers ever feel empathy for their victim's families and confess in their dying days or leave instructions with proof of their crime to be read upon their death, or has tv/films coloured me on the existence of this? Not all of them can be sociopaths

Ash.J.Williams

Common for nursing home staff to hear these things according to Google

saabsaab

The thing is that the mind can play tricks close to death. How seriously can you take such a confession in those circumstances. Proof would usually be hard to find also.

seamus

I'm sure there are. As said above though, how much credence can you give it, especially if a patient is suffering with dementia. The usual portrayal of a dementia patient thinking they're back in the past and remembering their childhood dog, is good wholesome nostalgic TV, but it isn't the whole truth. The barriers between reality and fantasy sometimes break down completely and they can talk about all sorts of things that never happened at all.

You also have other aspects such as families choosing to ignore it. If your father on his death bed told you that he'd done a hit-and-run that killed someone in 1961, would you decide that the right thing to do was to drag that up and go searching for that needle in a haystack, only to discover at the end that there's nobody alive who cares? Or would you decide that nobody else needs his memory tainted like that and to let sleeping dogs lie?

Most of these after death discoveries come because someone else comes forward as they're no longer in fear (think Saville), or someone uncovers documentation that the deceased was hiding.

The_Dave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118210488#Comment_118210488

This is why I was wondering if there's any known Irish cases where someone has the details etc... that only the killer would know in a sealed envelope or akin that is only opened upon their death. It's beyond me how people could live with themselves knowing there are people out looking for the victims.

KaneToad

Yes. Some crimes get solved by someone with information (not necessarily the criminal) who is facing death and wants to clear their conscience.

Another source of solving crimes is the scorned woman...the ex wife/girlfriend who, having had years of mistreatment, get the strength to speak up.

Jequ0n

Why does everyone assume old age in these cases? Young people die too.

I can’t see why someone would confess to anything unless there was some gain to them. I assume most people have a conscience and probably want to clear theirs, as humans seem to be getting scared of the “what if” question upon approaching the end of their lives. Ironically many won’t even realise that they are passing on the burden of knowing to those they confess to, but that’s just another example of human selfishness.

Rothko

Supposedly Frank Thorogood confessed to killing Rolling Stone Brian Jones on his deathbed back in 1993. Although, that theory is very much in doubt.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118210556#Comment_118210556

Convicted paedophile "Cookie Monster" Eamon Cooke didn't go so far as a full confession on his deathbed, but one of his victims came forward on foot of hearing he was dying, and gave information that is considered credible, that Cooke killed Philip Cairns. The case remains open, though. The detective who interviewed him in 2016 said Cooke disclosed enough details, to make him no 1 suspect.

FintanMcluskey

Not many people actually have an imminent pre-death period where they are awaiting death on their "death bed", and remaining compos mentis if they do have a death bed, is even rarer

People often slip away without warning

That's why when people say you will regret working so hard on your death bed or some such bolix, its highly unlikely we will actually even know whats happening if we do have one

Seen 2 relatives on a death bed in the last decade, both were asleep without waking for days before dying

JoChervil

Allegedly most people have a need to confess. Most criminal cases are solved because of informants, to whom criminals confessed. I read somewhere that is about 80% cases in US solved in this way.

People have a need to confess and they do it directly or indirectly, like this guy, who precisely described, how his wife had been likely murdered on the Late Late Show (don't remember his name).

And I think if someone is send to a nursing home so then has plenty of time to think back about their life.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118213906#Comment_118213906

Well yeah if you genuinely have something big to get off your chest, you don't want to leave it till you're gasping out your dying breaths, as you say a high risk you won't manage to get it out.

I suppose the problem if you want to make arrangements a bit before that for the secret to come out posthumously, via a sealed letter or a recorded audio message or whatever, is there a foolproof way of doing that that won't incriminate you if you miraculously pull through.

Donald Trump

Wouldn't they be sick if they were after getting away with it all their lives, then wake up unexpectedly in a hospital bed only to be told that they are dying and then confess to everything. Then be visited by the doctor a few hours later who says - "ah no, you're not dying at all. You just have a minor graze to your leg after tripping when walking home pissed and a passing driver called the ambulance for you. That other fella isn't a doctor and he was reading the wrong chart anyway"

They could then spend the last 20 years of their life locked up.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118213975#Comment_118213975

is there a foolproof way of doing that that won't incriminate you if you miraculously pull through.

I'd recommend don't give the tapes to Boston College maybe

Jequ0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118213875#Comment_118213875

Makes you wonder why someone would wait 30 years before coming forward with information just as the accused is about to kick the bucket.

Hangdogroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118213875#Comment_118213875

I dont think Cooke was involved in Philip Cairns disappearance. An evil scumbag he was but it didn't fit his modus operandi, the story this person gave just didn't add up. His deathbed "confession" was highly dubious as well, he had dementia and was probably drugged up to his eyeballs.

The_Dave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118213975#Comment_118213975

I'd be thinking more of an item that's left (through a will) to a friend/relative and is kept with the will at the solicitiors and only given to them upo death rather than a mysterious envelope reading "only open upon my death". Seems like I watch too much tv

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214533#Comment_118214533

I suppose if I was someone like Frank Thorgood to whom suspicion was long attached, and word got out that I had set up this 'posthumous' revelation, there'd be a nagging doubt in my mind: "Is there some way the cops/justice system could get at that 'item' before I snuff it?"

The_Dave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214946#Comment_118214946

I don't mean anything as obvious. Just, at the will reading; "and to XXX I leave this letter..."

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118215030#Comment_118215030

But no matter what arrangements you put in place, that confession would be out there in the real world somewhere, in a safe, in the back of a drawer, whatever. If it was it me there would always be the nagging worry:

It's far more likely that someone who gave an alibi to a suspect would come forward years later if they get a terminal illness or similar. They may have been uneasy for years about the alibi they provide but its only a crices that makes them come forward.

JoChervil

saabsaab

I'd say it's very rare. Unlike films n TV where is is often a plot driver. I can't remember a confirmed case in real life.

Freddie Mcinerney

Richard Kuklinski must have.

animalinside

I think everyone who dies should bequeath a public document that "sets straight" everything in their life that they wanted to say but couldn't find a good situation or time to or they were afraid of blowback over it.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118419550#Comment_118419550

I don't think he had much left to say. He claimed to be involved in the murder of Hoffa and 100+ other murders.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118419574#Comment_118419574

Or just do it in the airing of the grievances at Festivus.

Not a confession from the murderer himself but one from his mother - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Maria_Ridulph

There was one from the murderer himself in Tennessee or Kentucky a while ago where he confessed he had beaten a woman to death. I forget the specifics of the case but I think he was unwell in prison (for unrelated crime).

The last surviving witness to the missing postman disapperace,

Sent for the postmans family when on his deathbed,but had seemingly succumbed/gone unconcious by time they arrived

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Larry_Griffin