Guest post by Fabiana Alceste. In 1994, a Washington, D.C. detective named James Trainum questioned a woman under suspicion of homicide. After a 16-hour interrogation, the woman relented and provided a detailed narrative of how she and two other men killed a man and threw him in the Anacostia River 1 . Her confession seemed perfect—she incriminated herself and included accurate and privileged information about the crime that only the police and the true perpetrator could have known. After the confession, Trainum and his colleagues naturally considered the case closed. Although investigators could not find any other evidence against the suspect, her confession reinforced the investigators’ belief in her guilt – in part, because it contained those accurate details. Soon after, the investigation showed that it was impossible for this woman to have committed the crime—she had an ironclad alibi—and the charges against her were dropped. But how could she have possibly known the ...