Killing of Stephanie Crowe

Stephanie Crowe, a 12-year-old girl, was found stabbed to death on the floor of her bedroom in her family's home in Escondido, California, on the morning of January 21, 1998. She had been stabbed eight times. Investigators found no sign of forced entry: a window screen was undisturbed and a sliding glass door in her parents' bedroom was unlocked. No murder weapon or bloody clothing was recovered despite an extensive search.

Police focused on Stephanie's 14-year-old brother, Michael Crowe, largely because the crime scene suggested an inside job and because he appeared "distant and preoccupied" after the discovery of the body. Michael was interrogated for hours using the Reid technique without his parents' knowledge or an attorney present. Officers falsely told him that physical evidence implicated him, that he had failed a "truth verification" test, and that his parents believed he was guilty. After roughly six hours, he gave a vague, non-detailed confession, at times stating he was only saying what interrogators wanted to hear. Two friends, Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser, were also interrogated for many hours; Treadway eventually gave a detailed confession implicating all three boys, while Houser did not confess but offered a "hypothetical" account under police prompting. All three later recanted, alleging coercion, and were charged with murder and conspiracy, then ordered tried as adults. They were held for roughly six months.

Separately, police had also interviewed Richard Raymond Tuite, a 28-year-old transient with a history of schizophrenia who was seen in the Crowe neighborhood the night of the murder, knocking on doors and looking in windows. Police confiscated his clothing and noted scrapes and a cut on his hand but did not treat him as a suspect at the time. As Treadway's trial was set to begin in January 1999, belated DNA testing found drops of Stephanie's blood on a shirt belonging to Tuite. Charges against the three boys were dismissed without prejudice.

The case was later transferred to the California Department of Justice, and in May 2002 the Attorney General charged Tuite with Stephanie's murder. His 2004 trial included an escape attempt from custody during jury selection. On May 26, 2004, a jury acquitted Tuite of murder but convicted him of voluntary manslaughter with a deadly-weapon finding; he was sentenced to thirteen years, later extended by four years for the escape attempt. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the manslaughter conviction in 2011, citing unfair limits on cross-examination and weaknesses in the evidence. At a retrial that concluded December 5, 2013, a jury found Tuite not guilty of all charges.

In 2012, a California Superior Court judge ruled Michael Crowe, Treadway, and Houser factually innocent, permanently dismissing the case against them. The families of the three boys sued the cities of Escondido and Oceanside; the Crowe family reached a $7.25 million settlement in 2011. The case has been cited as a notable example of false confession obtained through coercive interrogation methods and has been the subject of a television dramatization and two nonfiction books.