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(#10) James Brewer Confessed To Shooting A Man Who Flirted With His Wife, Only To Live And Go On Trial
As James Brewer lay in bed during what he thought were his final moments, he confessed to slaying his neighbor 32 years earlier. In 1977, Brewer had been living in Tennessee with his wife, Dorothy. In a jealous rage, Brewer shot their neighbor, Jimmy Carroll, believing he was trying to seduce his wife.
Brewer and his wife fled Tennessee after the event, hiding in Oklahoma under assumed names. Brewer, called Michael Anderson in his new life, suffered a stroke in 2009. From his hospital bed, he called the police and confessed to the deed. He wanted to "cleanse his soul" before he passed.
Brewer lived, however, and he and his wife returned to Tennessee to surrender.
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(#12) Eileen Tessier Confessed To Providing Her Son With An Alibi - But May Have Falsely Accused Him
In 2008, the Illinois State Police received an email from Janet Tessier telling them that her brother was responsible for the oldest cold case in the nation's history. Tessier had been at her mother's side 14 years earlier, just before she passed, when the older woman confessed to providing her son, John, with a false alibi for the slaying of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph in 1957.
Maria Ridulph disappeared from Sycamore, IL, in December 1957 and her body was discovered in Galena the following spring. The FBI didn't have any solid leads until an anonymous phone call brought them to the Tessier household.
When authorities asked Ralph and Eileen Tessier where her son was on the night Ridulph vanished, they claimed he was miles away at a military base. For the other Tessier children - Janet was only an infant at the time, but her older sisters remembered the night vividly - this was problematic because they knew that it wasn't true.
According to Jeanne Tessier, "I thought she must be protecting him because she had, to my knowledge, lied to protect him before..." John was abusive to all of his family members and seemed to be "unstable," but his mother covered for him that night.
Eileen Tessier admitted to lying for her son shortly before her passing in 1994. By this time, John had changed his name to Jack McCullough and moved to Seattle, where he worked as a police officer. After his arrest and trial, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2012. But a collect call Tessier made around the supposed time of the event placed him in another town. In 2017, a judge ruled that Tessier was innocent.
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(#1) An Outlaw Biker Admitted To Slaying A Teenager And Feeding Her Body To Alligators
When 17-year old Amy Billig disappeared on March 4, 1974, the entire community of Coconut Grove, FL, was devastated. Billig reportedly made a trip home after getting out of school, changed clothes, and was seen getting into a van to visit her father's place of business. She never arrived.
Investigators looked for Billig, but to no avail, and even used her journal as a guide to try to figure out what had happened to the girl. Authorities found her camera by the highway, but there were no real leads as to her whereabouts.
Billig's mother, Susan, never stopped looking for her daughter and traveled around the world, following potential leads. She wrote a book about her investigation, detailing all of the tips called in and the motorcycle outlaw subculture she was drawn into as she searched for her daughter.
One of the strongest leads Susan possessed was that Billig had been taken by members of the Pagans motorcycle club to party in the Everglades. In 1998, a former "enforcer" for the Pagans, Paul Branch, confessed to the deed, admitting the club had picked Billig up, slipped her something, then taken her to their clubhouse, and repeatedly assaulted her.
Billig's heart stopped as a result of the substances and abuse, and the gang dropped her body in the swamps of the Everglades to get rid of the evidence, feeding her to the alligators to cover their tracks. According to authorities, Branch and other members of the Pagans had been questioned in Billig's disappearance, but repeatedly denied any knowledge of the event. Only at the end did Branch admit to his wife that members of the club were responsible.
It's unclear if Susan Billig ever believed Branch's confession or if an actual confession ever took place. Authorities were hesitant to believe Branch's widow, thinking she was trying to capitalize on the passings of Billig and her husband. Susan Billig continued to look for her daughter, indicating she wasn't satisfied with the widow's information.
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(#9) Alice Mock Falsely Accused A Black Friend Of Rape, Which Sent Him To Prison For Over A Decade
After Alice Mock accused Wayman Cammile Jr. of rape in 1975, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the offense. According to Mock, Cammile also robbed her, but on her deathbed, she admitted that she had invited Cammile into her apartment and actually robbed him once he passed out from drinking.
Before passing, Mock revealed the true story to her neighbor. Mock only made the claim because she didn't want her landlord to know she had invited a Black man into her apartment. She also didn't want Cammile to know she had taken money from him. After Mock's confession, Cammile was released from prison in 1987.
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(#8) Christopher Smith Lived With His Guilt For Over 20 Years
In 1975, Joan Harrison was raped and fatally beaten in Preston, England. Harrison was the mother of two children, and worked as a sex worker. Her body was found in a garage and the acts was attributed to the Yorkshire Ripper, later identified as Peter Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe was convicted of slaying 13 women between 1976 and 1981. He did not do the same to Harrison, however.
In 2008, convicted sex offender Christopher Smith was arrested for a DUI offense. From that arrest, authorities were able to collect DNA evidence that later matched DNA from Harrison's body. In the interim, Smith passed from lung cancer - but not before scrawling out a confession of sorts. The note, discovered by police after Smith's passing, read:
Two how (sic) ever it concerns I would like to put the record straight. I can't go on with the guilt.
I have lived with it for over 20 years.
I am truly sorry for all the pain I have caused to anyone. Please believe me when I say I am sorry.
I love my grandkids and my daughter. I cannot go back to prison anymore. Please God help my family who I worship. I have been out of trouble for over 20 years so please Gold help me.
I am so sorry. God forgive me. I love you all forever.
After the DNA match was confirmed, police took this note as a confession.
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(#5) James Washington Thought He Was At The End And Confessed To Murder - But He Survived
In 2009, Nashville prison inmate James Washington suffered a heart attack (or a seizure attack, according to some outlets), an experience that prompted him to confess to the slaying of Joyce Goodener in 1995. Washington, in prison for a second degree murder conviction from 2006, thought he was at the end. Either in an attempt to find absolution or as an act of pure desperation, Washington told a prison guard that he ended Goodener, a woman that had been found brutally slain in Nashville, TN, 17 years earlier.
Washington recovered from his ailment and tried to take back his confession, claiming he was hallucinating. He was put on trial, where it came out that Washington had been in a relationship with Goodener. After a three-day trial, Washington was convicted, and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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