Twelve years ago this week, firefighters found Nola Charles and her toddler son William dead inside their burning Crozet home. Someone had duct taped Charles to her bed before stabbing her and slitting her throat. Three-year-old William had died of smoke inhalation. Three teens were convicted of the murders. All of them agree that one of them, Robert Davis, is innocent. Now, thanks to an investigation by Governor Terry McAuliffe’s parole board into what some legal experts believe was a flawed interrogation and a false confession, Davis is getting another shot at a pardon—his only hope for an early end to a 23-year sentence.
Davis has sought a pardon before, and failed. Last January, on his final day in office, Governor Robert McDonnell signed his name to a letter denying Davis’ petition for clemency more than a year after it was submitted, said Davis’ attorney Steve Rosenfield. McDonnell appointees never followed up on the petition, Rosenfield said.
But Davis’ second request is getting a different treatment. Governor Terry McAuliffe’s administration has pushed for a probe of Davis’ claims, according to Deputy Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Tonya Vincent. Her department oversees the Virginia State Parole Board, which examines clemency requests.
“I don’t think it was ever investigated under the previous administration,” Vincent said of Davis’ petition. “We have requested that they do a full investigation.”
Under pressure
The details of the early days of the investigation have been extensively reported by various news outlets since 2003, and are backed up by later affidavits: Within two days of the murders, 19-year-old Rocky Fugett and his 15-year-old sister Jessica admitted they played a role in the slaying of their across-the-street neighbor and her son. They also named two other Western Albemarle High School teens. One was released from juvenile detention after police conceded they didn’t have enough evidence against him and dropped charges. The other was Robert Davis. Then 18, he was arrested at gunpoint by Albemarle County police and brought in for questioning at around 1am February 22.
Video released to C-VILLE and posted by the newspaper to YouTube shows what happened next. Police questioned Davis for six hours. Held in leg shackles and given little respite, Davis sounds first bewildered and then desperate on the interrogation tape, pleading repeatedly for a chance to talk to his mother as investigators push him to tell them the truth, so that he can be spared “the ultimate punishment.”
After more than five hours and dozens of claims of innocence, he starts giving police what they want. Bit by bit, he confesses to the crime, including the stabbing of Nola Charles; he stabbed her “one or two times,” he says. Moments before the video feed cuts out, the detective who has faced him off and on all morning asks him a final question.
“Is what you said tonight, this morning, to me—is that a true and accurate statement about your involvement, about who was there?” he asks.
“Yes,” Davis says, almost inaudibly. And then, after a pause, “because it’s too late for me to say no.”
He was right. Davis eventually entered an Alford plea: He pleaded guilty, conceding there was enough evidence to convict him, but maintained his innocence.
In 2006, Rocky Fugett asked for a meeting with Rosenfield, the attorney said, and said Davis wasn’t there the night of the double murder. He later told reporters the same thing. Jessica Fugett initially stuck to her story, Rosenfield said, but she later told him she wanted to clear her conscience, and admitted she lied about Davis’ involvement. Both have signed sworn affidavits saying Davis is innocent, he said.
“You have two killers, neither of them having any reason to lie, having signed under oath saying they framed Robert,” said Rosenfield. But Davis’ guilty plea meant a new trial or a sentence modification were off the table. A pardon was his only chance.
“And then you still have to overcome the confession,” Rosenfield said.
When innocents confess
A confession is a powerful piece of evidence, explained UVA law professor and false confession expert Brandon Garrett, and it’s often the only one police have to work with in a murder case.
“Assuming you don’t have DNA evidence or somebody caught in the act, some of the most important crimes crucially rely on whether this person is going to come clean,” he said. Sometimes investigators can’t resist asking leading questions. “It’s very tempting, if they’re not getting the answer they want, to encourage the answer.”
But there’s a growing understanding in the criminal justice world of the dangers of leading questions during an overzealous interrogation, he said: Certain people are vulnerable to confessing to crimes they didn’t commit.
Robert Davis is just such a person, said Dr. Jeffrey Aaron, a forensic and clinical psychologist at UVA who specializes in evaluating confessions, and the director of the Commonwealth Center for Children & Adolescents.
People have a hard time understanding the why and how of false confessions, Aaron said, but there’s a solid explanation.
“It seems crazy until you understand the process, and then it makes perfect sense. It’s completely consistent with known psychological processes,” he said. “There’s a core element of human psychology that involves choosing the best outcome available, and if it’s a bad but not worse outcome, you choose the bad outcome.”
Aaron testified in an Albemarle County Circuit Court hearing in 2003 that there were a number of errors with Davis’ interrogation by police, and when the Fugetts recanted, he signed a new affidavit reaffirming his takeaways. Davis had mental health problems and was immature, Aaron said, and combined with the way he was questioned—police indicated they had physical evidence against him when they had none, hinted that he could get the death penalty and told him he’d see his mom if he confessed, all of which was perfectly legal—he believes a false confession could have resulted.
Perhaps most importantly, said Aaron, the interrogation shows a clear pattern of Davis first denying allegations, seeking guidance on what to say and then feeding information provided to him back in the form of statements suggesting guilt. That, he said, is exactly how detailed false confessions come about.
The Albemarle County Police Department was unable to make detectives available for an interview about interrogation techniques by press time, but has committed to discussing policy for a follow-up story.
Aaron’s affidavit asserting Davis’ susceptibility to providing a false confession joins the sworn statements from the Fugetts in the clemency plea that is now, for the first time, getting a full investigation by the state. But Garrett pointed out that detailed confessions have staying power, even when there’s overwhelming evidence to contradict them.
“We have governors who fail to understand that a detailed confession could be wrong,” he said. Doug Wilder offered only life in prison to Earl Washington Jr., who confessed to raping and murdering a teenage mother in Culpeper in 1982, and Tim Kaine refused to grant a full pardon to the Norfolk Four, sailors who confessed to a brutal 1997 rape and murder; in both clemency petitions, there was exculpatory DNA evidence.
Davis and Rosenfield hope their case is strong enough to sway another governor.
“I’m deeply impressed with the McAuliffe administration taking the issue of justice surrounding the Davis case so seriously, and I’m happy at their commitment to seek out the truth,” Rosenfield said.