US man 'forced' to confess to killing 'alive' father, wins $1 million lawsuit

The sleuths told Thomas that his father was dead, and his body was recovered.

A California city has been ordered by a court to pay $900,000 to a man who was pressured by police officers to "falsely" confess to murdering his father, who was still alive. Thomas Perez Jr was questioned by Fontana police for 17 hours in 2018 - an incident the judge said was a form of "psychological torture".

Thomas' ordeal began on August 7, 2018, when his father took their family dog out for a walk. While the dog returned within minutes, his father could not be found. Thoman then called the police to report him missing.

However, instead of getting relief, what followed was a period of extreme emotional and physical distress for Thomas as he was questioned vigorously by investigators for the next 17 hours.

The sleuths told Thomas that his father was dead, and his body was recovered. They pressured him to confess to the crime.

In court, the police department said Thomas seemed "distracted and unconcerned about his father's disappearance". They also claimed they found bloodstains and a police dog sniffed the presence of a corpse.

As Thomas repeatedly insisted he didn't kill his father, the interrogators allegedly told him that the brain often tries to "suppress troubling memories".

At one point, the investigators even threatened to have his dog "euthanised" and even brought the pet into the interrogation room so he could bid farewell.

The ordeal did not end there. After his confession, Thomas tried to hang himself with the drawstring from his shorts when police left him alone in the interrogation room. However, the tragedy was averted as police reached the room on time and Thomas was sent to a mental hospital.

During this, police received a call from Thomas Perez Sr's daughter, saying he was alive and was on his way to visit her in northern California. However, the police did not inform Thomas about this, and he was kept in the mental hospital for three days.

"I have never seen that level of deliberate cruelty by the police... This case shows that if the police are skilled enough, and they grill you hard enough, they can get anybody to confess to anything," Jerry Steering, Thomas's lawyer, told The Guardian.