Dr. Phil S21E101 - Anatomy of a False Confession

If you think only guilty people confess to crimes, think again. Innocent people are often convicted after they provide police with a false confession. What could possibly motivate an innocent person to confess to a crime they didn't commit? Atif Rafay claims he was forced into confessing to a crime he says he did not commit. In the summer of 1994, 17-year-old Atif was home from Cornell University, hanging out with his high school best friend, Sebastian Burns. On July 12, when they returned home sometime after 2 a.m., they say they walked into a brutal scene. Atif's parents and sister had all been bludgeoned to death. Atif, now 46, has been sitting in prison for 28 years serving three life sentences. Speaking to Dr. Phil from prison, Atif says two undercover cops posed as mobsters and lured the young men into thinking that they would be killed if Atif didn't confess to murdering his family. Dr. Phil dissects Atif's confession with his appellate attorney Daniel Woofter; attorney Laura Nirider, co-director of the Center on Wrongful Conviction; Dave Thompson, expert in interrogation training and certified forensic interviewer; and Innocence Project board member Jason Flom. Plus, documentary filmmaker and the director of Netflix's docuseries The Confession Tapes Kelly Loudenbergcovered Atif's story and tells Dr. Phil it was one of the hardest cases she investigated.