It was a Wednesday afternoon in July of 1999 when a call of a home burglary that had just occurred was aired out over the radio as I was on the way back from my lunch hour. I headed to the location of the burglary and, along with other officers, made contact with the home owner who reported that she had left her home unattended for just 30 minutes and came back to find that she had been burglarized. Missing from her home was a DVD player, a small television set, and some jewelry. The burglary having just occurred the officers scoured the area looking for suspects. Within  few minutes I was advised by radio that officers made contact on the street with known burglar Richard Diaz. Richard was on a 10 speed bike and was carrying a school back pack with him. Officers searched the back pack and found screwdrivers, pliers, a knife, latex gloves, a slim jim for opening cars, and a couple of identification cards that did not belong to him. He was found with those items 2 streets from the location of the burglary so I advised officers to take him to my office for questioning. 

Richard Diaz was 18 years old at the time and had been in and out jail since he was a 13. He had been arrested for burglary, theft, aggravated assault, and assault on a public servant. He was known to most of us as one of "usual suspects" when it came to house and car burglaries. He was also known as constant user of marijuana and "roche" pills and was usually high when we made contact with him. He had left school in the 9th grade and never went back. He had an older sister who had been arrested for transporting several hundred pounds of marijuana and had done some time for it, and I don't recall ever meeting his parents. I believe he and his sister lived alone. 

Richard was a tall, skinny, dark complected kid with some of the biggest ears you had ever seen on a human being. I am serious they were huge. I remember one time he had broken into a car and taken some stuff and police caught up with him. An officer had chased him on foot and he couldn't get away even on his 10 speed bike. When I got there a said "hey Ric what happened you couldn't out run him on the bike?".  He said " I almost got away Alvarez but I turned into the wind and my ears slowed me down!". We couldn't stop laughing. Not just because it was funny but because it was probably true!

Before leaving the victim's house I noticed 2 bicycle tracks on her drive way. There was something about them that seemed familiar but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. I took a picture of them. The cop at the scene and the victim herself said that they looked like those thin bike tracks like the ones 10 speed bikes make. And the victim did not own a bike.  When I went back to the office I looked at Richard's bike and they were identical. There it all was. He was a burglar who I could place at the scene of a burglary carrying burglary tools within minutes of the crime. Bingo he was guilty.  I made my way to my office where Richard was already waiting for me. 

Getting a confession has always been so easy for me. People want to tell you the truth they really do. Most interrogators don't realize this but when you walk into a room and the suspect did "do it" you already have a confession. It is there sitting in the guy's head and it is ready to come out. Interrogators fail when they say things that make the suspect withdraw from the interview. It is a delicate balance in the confession room. You must do everything you can to maintain that balance or tip it in your favor. Most interrogators though just do and say things tip the balance the other way and they don't even realize it. They push the confession away. 

Richard was waiting in my office and quickly said hello to me when I walked in followed by "what's going on Alvarez I didn't do nothing!". That was the confession talking wanting to stay in his head. I told him that he was under arrest for burglary of habitation. This was a second degree felony punishable by 2-20 years in jail. He quickly yelled back "Fuck that Alvarez I didn't break into anything man you got the wrong guy this time!". This was going to be fun. I now needed to step back a bit and talk about anything but the crime. Anything that he can get emotional about so I can use that to find my way back to the confession stalling in his head.

For the next hour we talked about his life at home. It turned out he was more of a heavy drug user than I thought. He was hooked on cocaine and could never get enough of the roche pills. He was constantly looking for his next fix. He and his sister had different fathers and neither one of them had ever been in their lives. His mother was in prison and he and his 27 year old sister had been living alone for a year pretty much doing what ever they wanted. At the end of the hour he started crying. He said that he missed his mother so so much. She kept him in line. He had gone to visit her often.  He said the drug use was getting too much to bear and he wanted out. I had him. And I was about to give him the way out. 

"Look Ric there is some very good rehab programs out there and  you need to be in one"

" I know I know Alvarez but can you help me get into one?"

"You need to help me Ric. The good program I know about you have to be assigned to by a judge Ric. You need to have committed a crime to get in there. With your drug use history you are bound to get in."

"But I didn't do this crime Alvarez!! I didn't do it!"

"Ric you were in the area, your bike tracks are on the lady's drive way, come on Ric!!!"

"Check for fingerprints!!"

"Ric we found the latex gloves in your back pack there aren't going to be any finger prints."

"But I didn't do this one!"

"Ric how many have you done that you got away with? 10? 20? I bet you it is a bunch more than that Ric. You need help man and you are not going to go into rehab voluntarily so you need to do this!"

"Yeah I can't stand it any more Alvarez."

"I know Ric if  you don't do this someday we will find you dead in a ditch somewhere. You need this help man. You need to do this. Save yourself man."

He was crying. "Yeah I need the help. What do you want me to do?"

"Confess".

The rest was gravy. Within 30 minutes Richard confessed to breaking down the back door of the house and taking the TV, DVD, and some jewelry.  He was a little sketchy on the details but it was good enough. He said that he dropped off the items with a friend of his and refused to give the name. He was booked in for Burglary of Habitation and taken to the judge and arraigned on the charge. He was assessed a $35,000 bond. Sometime later in the evening he would be transported to the county jail in lieu of bond. Case closed. Damn I was good. 

I went home and rested. I did the usual things like have dinner, play with my kids, watch TV till 2 a.m., and dozed off somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. so I could be at work at 8. Real detectives don't sleep. I was leaving the house sometime around 7:45 a.m for work again when I remembered it was trash day. I got my trash can from the side of the house and rolled it down my drive way and out to the street. I had opened the door to my car to get in when I looked back and saw them. It had drizzled the day before so there was a little mud on the side of the house where the trash can was. When I rolled it down it made two tire tracks down the drive way. Damn it. They looked identical to the ones at the victim's house. I got out some measuring tape and measured the distance of the tracks from each other. They were exactly 36 3/4 inches apart. I rushed to the victims house and luckily the "bike tracks" were still there. They measured exactly the same. I checked her trash can and measured it just to be sure and it was the same answer. I went to the department and looked at Richard's bike tires and now they didn't look that identical. Hell they looked very different now. I could no longer place him and his bike at the scene of the crime.

Now here is where decisions get difficult. He confessed. I don't need evidence if he confessed. Not only that but he also agreed when I said that there were so many other burglaries that he had gotten away with. And well....he confessed!! What kind of idiot confesses to something they didn't do?? 

I rushed to the judge and had the warrant quashed. I went to the county jail and submitted the paperwork for his release. I asked some of the officers there about him and they said "yeah he has been screaming all night long that he didn't do it".  I called his sister to go pick him up and I met her at the county jail to wait for him outside. When he came out he was pissed. He looked at me and said "what the fuck happened?".  "You didn't do it that's what happened". "I told you and I told you and I told you I didn't do it! You wouldn't believe me!" he said. "Then why did you confess?". He just stood there not knowing what to say. He got in the car with his sister and left. That was the last time I saw him.

I found out later from the burglary detectives that they found the property that was taken from the victim a week later. They tracked it back to the thief and arrested him. He confessed also.

Richard was arrested 6 months later on a burglary where he was caught in the house by the home owner. He assaulted the home owner with a chair and seriously injured him so the crime was bumped up to an aggravated robbery. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail. He was eligible for parole in 2009 but he assaulted a guard while in prison and received an additional 20 years. He won't be eligible for parole until 2022. I heard he joined one of the worst Texas prison gangs while he was in there. His mother died in prison while he was locked up. She contracted a bad infection that wasn't treated properly. His sister had gotten arrested again in 2007 but should be out this year.

I treated confessions differently from then on. But even then it happened 2 more times. I obviously caught them both but I know for a fact that no other investigator I know cares about whether a confession is false or not. Or rather they wouldn't care to know if it was or not. When they talk to someone it is because they believe them to be guilty. And if an investigator already believes you're guilty then everything he sees, hears, or does will be done in that light.  A confession is a confession is a confession. Nothing else matters.

I always wonder where Ric would be if I had done the wrong thing and kept him in jail and sent to rehab.  Who knows? Maybe in the same place but maybe not. Maybe he would have gotten to visit his mother more and gotten a chance to bury her. Maybe that would have made all the difference in the world to him. I don't know. Sometimes doing the right thing is not the right thing to do.