63. No socks: Why do people confess their crimes?

In 1983 Kieran Patrick Kelly, who was living on the streets of London at the time, was brought into Clapham Police Station for attacking and stealing an old man’s watch and wedding ring.

Kelly murdered his cell-mate during his first night in custody for snoring too loudly. While under questioning he went on to willingly confess to multiple other murders the police didn’t know about nor suspect him of – essentially he willingly confessed to being a serial killer. In this episode of Bad People Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen discuss risk perception, the limited research around spontaneous true confessions and why distinguishing fact from fiction is incredibly difficult in this case. Warning: This episode includes graphic descriptions of violence.

This story was researched by RTÉ in Ireland and Third Ear in Denmark, the producers of the 2020 podcast, The Nobody Zone. All of the audio is from this podcast.

CREDITS Presenters: Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen Producer: Simona Rata Music: Matt Chandler Editor: Rami Tzabar Academic Consultants for The Open University: Lara Frumkin and James Munro #BadPeople_BBC Commissioning Assistant Producer: Adam Eland Commissioning Executive: Dylan Haskins

Bad People is produced in partnership with The Open University and is a BBC Audio Science Production for BBC Sounds.