Several Murder Confessions Taken by Brooklyn Detective Have Similar Language

Whilst police statements and reports do tend to follow a set format and therefore may appear to be suspicious when in fact they are not, this case goes way beyond this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/nyregion/several-murder-confessions-taken-by-brooklyn-detective-have-similar-language.html?_r=0

As the Brooklyn homicide detective Louis Scarcella told it, the suspect in a ruthless home invasion that left one man dead and two more people in a coma started talking after just a few minutes of questioning.

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Louis Scarcella, who retired in 1999, on the "Dr. Phil" show in 2007.

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DOCUMENT: ‘I Was There’ Confessions

“You got it right,” the suspect, Jabbar Washington, said. “I was there.”

The phrase was straightforward and damning, introducing the central piece of evidence that sent him to prison for 25 years to life. At the 1997 trial, Mr. Scarcella told the jury that it was the easiest confession he had obtained in more than two decades working for the Police Department.

But if the interrogation was unique for him, the wording was not. In at least four more murder cases, suspects questioned by Mr. Scarcella began their confessions with either “you got it right” or “I was there.”