Eyewitness accounts of a crime can, like any piece of evidence, be contaminated. Why the only "uncontaminated" version of a memory is the very first time a witness tells what they saw and why assessing the confidence of that first telling is key. We examine how this applies to the only eyewitness account of the triple murder that saw Kevin Strickland erroneously convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
- John Wixted, Ph.D., distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego