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Kenneth Powers Jr. admitting at a press conference that his confession to four murders was a hoax.

Last week, Kenneth Powers, Jr., a convict serving a 40-year term in Indiana, passed two polygraph examinations regarding his spontaneous confession to the murder of four women. The polygraphs were administered on Friday, 7 October 2005 by the Indianapolis Police Department. On Wednesday, 5 October, Powers also passed a Psychological Stress Evaluator "test" (a form of voice stress analysis) administered by the Madison County Sheriff's Department.

The polygraph results convinced Madison County Sheriff Terry Richwine that Powers was being truthful, and searches for the bodies of the putative victims got underway in Indiana and Florida. But on Tuesday, 11 October, a laughing and smiling Powers admitted it was all a hoax. Powers not only fooled the polygraph and "Psychological Stress Evaluator," he also made fools of those who relied on the results of these pseudoscientific "tests" to assess his credibility.

An account of Powers' lie detector examinations is provided in an 8 October (pre-recantation) article credulously titled "Powers statement true" by Anderson, Indiana Herald Bulletin reporters Ken de la Bastide and Stacey M. Lane Grosh :

Quote:

http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/story.asp?id=16098

Powers statement true
By KEN de la BASTIDE and STACEY M. LANE GROSH

The Herald Bulletin

Anderson resident Kenneth L. Powers Jr. was telling the truth when he told police that he murdered two women in Madison County and two in Florida.

Powers, 35, passed several polygraph tests on Friday administered by the Indianapolis Police Department, according to Madison County Sheriff Terry Richwine.

Richwine said investigators will regroup over the weekend before renewing the search to find the bodies of two women in Madison County, one reportedly buried in Anderson and the second near Chesterfield.

Powers first told officials at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City that he killed two women in Florida in 1999 and then killed two women in Madison County in 2000. Powers said he met the women, none of whom have been identified, at a truck stop near the Madison/ Delaware county line.

Power said he confessed because he wanted to clear his conscience and was afraid he might kill again.

“We never had this before,” Prosecutor Rodney Cummings said of the admission of serial killings. “We have had someone kill more than one person before, but the sexual components, time and geographical distance make this different.”

Richwine said on Wednesday Powers passed a psychological stress evaluation given by the Madison County Sheriff’s Department.

“We wanted confirmation from an outside agency that he was telling the truth,” Richwine said.

The Indiana State Police was originally asked to administer the polygraph test on Thursday but refused because Powers had taken the test in Madison County.

“All we wanted to know was if his confession was truthful,” Richwine said. “The Indianapolis Police Department conducted the tests.”

Powers was given more than one test in Indianapolis with basically the same questions and passed all of them.

“All the tests said he was telling the truth,” Richwine said. “It verified our results. He is being truthful about the location of the victims.”

Investigators with the Madison County Sheriff’s and Anderson Police Departments will determine over the weekend how to proceed, according to Richwine.

He said the county will now seek high tech equipment and ground searching sonar to locate the bodies.

Richwine said Powers told investigators he buried the two bodies in Madison County deep in the ground.

“These were violent crimes,” Richwine said. “We have to prove every element of the crime.”

Richwine said it is possible the women will never be identified because they were transients and believed not to be from the area.

Santa Rosa County police have requested local investigators conduct a videotaped interview with Powers on information about the Florida killings and location of the bodies.

Richwine said that even though he worked homicide with the Anderson Police Department for 18 years, Powers’ confession came as a surprise.

“I was skeptical up until this moment,” he said.

Cummings said very little surprises him anymore when it comes to crime.

“Sadly with the experience of myself and the sheriff, there are not too many surprises anymore,” he said.

Cummings said his role is only advisory at this point in the investigation.

“I always assumed he was telling the truth,” he said. “Even if he failed the polygraph, we would have had to do some excavations.”

An account of Powers's recantation is provided by the same writers in today's (12 October) edition of the same newspaper:

Quote:

http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/story.asp?id=16185

Powers recants
By STACEY M. LANE GROSH and KEN de la BASTIDE

He smiles as he says it, his tongue flicking at the hole in his mouth from a missing tooth.

“This was all a scam to get a picture of my kids.”

Kenneth Powers Jr. then smirks, proud of what he says he’s accomplished.

This is the same mouth that just a week ago was confessing to the gruesome deaths of four women. They were picked up randomly at truck stops. They were strangled in the front seat of his car. Three with a rope. One with a bandana. Then they were tossed haphazardly in his trunk until he had a chance to dispose of them.

Do the women really exist? Not even the police know.

Yet.

But they will continue to search the two Madison County sites for their bodies this week. Because what if he is really telling the truth about the homicides? What if he is lying now in the jail as he sits on a plastic chair, leaning against a wall and talking about this picture of his kids?

Powers said his ex-girlfriend and mother of his 5-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, refused to let him or his family see them. He could not even get a photograph.

“She said I couldn’t ever have one. I said I would get one.”

So he began devising a plan, he said. There’s not much to do in prison but wait and think and get tattoos. He has several. One arm has the faces of three women. The other a naked woman with large breasts. His back has the beginning of a dragon and a skull.

He smiles that toothless smile again, rubs his tattoos and begins to tell of why he says he faked this crime.

“It would take four (victims) to classify me as a serial killer. If they end up charging me with false informing, it is worth it. To me that picture (of the twins) is worth it. I mailed it out of here (the jail) so they can’t get it back. The picture is safe and secure.

“I wanted to generate enough attention to get what I wanted,” he continued with a laugh. “I wanted that picture. I also got to go on a road trip, smoke and eat fast food. It was like a mini vacation.”

The Madison County Detention Center is smoke-free, and Powers requested a pack of Marlboros from The Herald Bulletin reporter. She mentioned this to the jail commander who said she could be arrested for trafficking by bringing cigarettes in.

Coming to Madison County from the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City would bring Powers closer to his mother.

“She had a slight stroke a few weeks before (the confessions were given),” Powers said. “I wanted to see how she was doing for myself.”

Powers has other children, both girls: a 13-year-old in Florida and a 14-year-old in Plainfield.

“I chose to be a hoodlum, doing drugs and drinking. I can’t blame no one but myself. I consider myself a good person in general.”

“But seeing how gullible (the authorities) really were made me pursue it more,” he added. “There are no bodies.”

Yet a cadaver dog hit on something at the rural Chesterfield site police were searching on Sunday.

“Who knows what’s there,” Powers said. “I didn’t put anyone there.”

He also says there are not two bodies buried in Florida, where he briefly lived in the 1990s.

Powers felt he had to stop the media frenzy about him being a serial killer because it was hurting his mother and family.

“My family’s gotten upset,” he said matter-of-factly. “My mother knew I was going to do this. I told her.”

“I wasn’t prepared for all of this. I think it was for my own benefit and didn’t take into consideration what would happen to them (his family). I wanted to embarrass the sheriff and the prosecutor.”

But to be successful in his venture, Powers had to conquer a stress test and polygraph tests. He beat them all.

“It was easy,” he said. “I’m an intellectual. I studied psychology.”

“There were all these wrongs done to me and my family by police,” he said, noting that he had been a career criminal and deserved some of the treatment received by police. “They said things to me and my family over the years that were wrong. They deserved to be treated wrong too.”

Powers said he picked the locations to say he buried the bodies out of convenience.

“I used to live in Chesterfield; I used to fish for small mouth bass (in the rural area),” he said. “The one in Anderson was near where I grew up. Did you notice the descriptions of the women were all basically the same: brown hair, same height, same weight, except for one with dirty blond hair. I threw that in to mix things up. They all wore summer clothing. If I classified the women as transients, no one would ever know where they came from. That person would not be classified as missing.”

Powers credits the media to his successful lie.

“I just picked up pieces off shows on A&E — they have a lot of crime shows — and ‘48 hours.’ I’ve read true crime in magazines. I just put those things together for a good story, don’t ya think?”

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