In 2015, Larry Driskill confessed to a murder he swears he did not commit. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and he didn’t know the victim, a 29-year-old woman named Bobbie Sue Hill. And yet, ten years after her murder, Driskill found himself in a police station describing how he disposed of her body in a creek in Parker County, Texas.

The man sitting across from Driskill was James Holland, a Texas Ranger who later became known as a “serial killer whisperer" for his ability to procure seemingly impossible confessions from serious criminals. After interrogating Driskill for hours, Holland was convinced he had the right guy. But in the podcast, Just Say You’re Sorry, reporter and host Maurice Chammah reveals just how wrong he was.

This week on Crime Story, Maurice Chammah on the confession that sent an innocent man to prison.

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In Ringgold, Georgia, Alvin Ridley was something of a local bogeyman. He rarely left his house and, when he did, he was always by himself.

So when Alvin called 9-1-1 to report the death of his wife – a woman that no one had ever heard about, let alone seen – the town was shocked.

Quickly a narrative began to emerge: Alvin Ridley had held this woman captive for more than thirty years. And then, he’d strangled her.

It didn’t take much for the citizens of Ringgold to believe it. And, before long, police came to the same conclusion and charged Alvin with first degree murder.

But there was one person who came to Alvin’s defence: a down on his luck attorney named McCracken Poston, who would become Alvin’s biggest defender – and his friend.

In his memoir Zenith Man: Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom, Poston recounts his experience representing Alvin Ridley, and tells the story of one of the strangest trials in Georgia history.

Feedback for us? You can email us directly at crimestory@cbc.ca.

When someone is attacked, especially in their home, the victim usually knows the person hurting them. And in the 2002 murder of a woman named Marlyne Johnson, the police charged her daughter-in-law, Sophia Johnson, with first degree murder. The whole ordeal tore two families apart because not only was Sophia charged with killing her mother-in-law, but the main witness against her was her own brother.

Amory Sivertson dives back into the case in her new podcast, Beyond All Repair. She joins Crime Story now.

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Feedback for us? You can email us directly at crimestory@cbc.ca.