Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, everyone. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Talking Dateline. Today, I'm here with Lester Holt and Dan Slepian to talk about their episode, which is called The Ruse. If you haven't seen The Ruse, you can find it in the Dateline podcast feed. So go there, listen to it, stream it on Peacock, if you wish, and then come right back here. To recap, Tom Perez Jr.
called police in August of 2018 to report his father missing. And before long, police began to suspect that Tom was involved in his dad's disappearance. So they brought him in for an interrogation. It lasted 17 hours and resulted in Tom confessing to his father's murder. The big twist was that Tom Perez walked back into his wife a few hours later alive and well. And Tom had falsely confessed.
For this Talking Dateline, we have a podcast exclusive clip from interrogation expert Steve Kleinman. And then Lester and Dan will answer some of your questions from social media as well. So, yeah, a false confession case. They feature in a lot of our Dateline cases. How did this one happen when actually the victim wasn't a victim at all?
Yeah, I mean, that's the amazing thing. This is an amazing crime story, except for the fact that there was no crime. And that's what we ultimately get to in this hour. But this is a case. Guy, you know, picks up the phone and calls the police station in his town, Fontana, California. And says, look, my pop didn't come home last night. He went out to pick up the mail down the street.
You know, his keys are here, his wallet is here, but no sign of dad.
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Chapter 2: What is the story behind Tom Perez Jr.'s call to the police?
So they talk to him on the phone for a while. They send out a police officer, a community resources officer who speaks to him, goes inside the house, is a little bit shocked by his wardrobe, or maybe we should say lack of wardrobe. He says they were moving and thus things were out of order. He seemed a little confused.
But as they spent more time and called more officers to this house, the more their spidey sense kind of went off to the fact that, you know, could this be a crime scene?
First of all, back up for just a little minute.
Chapter 3: How did police suspect Tom Jr. was involved in his father's disappearance?
How did you encounter this story in Fontana, California? How did that arise above the transom?
I'll defer to Dan on this. The story had been out there for a while, but no one had pieced it all together as we were able to do to really get all the players, all of the key individuals in this and bring them together to tell the story.
Yeah, I had first learned about the case because I had seen the footage. And what immediately struck me about the video was how raw it was. I mean, I've been doing this work like all of us for a long time. And, you know, I've never seen this kind of extreme personal experience. way that a person unraveled in real time.
Chapter 4: What interrogation techniques led to Tom Jr.'s false confession?
I mean, the video shocked me, ripping off his shirt and pulling his hair out. But then when I found out that the story was that dad was actually alive, it made me realize that all of these people that hear false confession stories all the time and say, did he really? I don't really know. Well, this one we now know because dad's alive. So it made me wonder, how did it all happen? So
It was really the police that had never spoken before from their perspective. And given Lester's work in this space and his reputation, they spoke exclusively to him to explain the backstory of why he came to be.
And I think it's fair to say, Dan, I think you'll agree, as you watch this hour unfold, the way we put it together, you can at least understand why some bells of suspicion were ringing. And I think that was part of what we wanted to do was we were going to give a fair look at this and kind of put people to some extent, you know, in their shoes as they were investigating this in real time.
What was some of the evidence that the police did have which You know, it made sense that they would ask such questions as they did because it looked like a crime scene.
What made it? I mean, I think they started off with his behavior, which they thought was odd, and that warranted more police officers coming to the scene. But there were things like they said there was blood evidence that they had discovered in the home, you know, drops and smears. But there was also another thing that we haven't talked about here, and that is the cadaver dog.
They called in a cadaver dog that's meant to hit on the scent of human remains. And they say that it had a positive reaction in that house. How that occurred, no one can explain because obviously there was no cadaver to be found. Finally, on the blood, Tom had an answer for pretty much everything, including the blood.
which he said his father was a diabetic and sometimes he would bleed after he pricked a finger to get a blood sample. And furthermore, there was a shower curtain that was missing. Tom says that was, you know, it was removed during the move process.
But these are little pieces that, again, if you're thinking already in the direction that something nefarious happened, these could, you could see a scenario where this would reinforce the notion that that this man had committed a crime.
And he said also, Dad also said that they had felt, fallen before, that they had accidents in the house. And when you clean up blood in the bathroom with a towel or soap, you might not see it with the human eye, but later it'll show up when chemicals are put onto it.
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Chapter 5: What evidence did police find that suggested a crime had occurred?
It's like cutting off an arm or something. Exactly right. So the questions that the audience has make sense. And the answer is we had to take out 12 minutes of material to fill that time spot.
Well, that was from Mag Z on Facebook. This one is at Sandy Castle, underline RB. Does his father have dementia? It wasn't explained why he takes off like this.
In his initial conversation with police, I think he floated the idea that he might have some dementia, but that was later proven not to be the case.
I guess he's kind of like his son. He's quirky. You know, it's like Lester was like, Tom, where were you? And he was like, oh, you know, I just decided to go for a walk, and it was a nice day, and there was the train, and I decided to get on the train. And, you know, it's just like, where's Waldo? You know, he was just kind of going, you know, and so...
He clearly didn't think his son would be concerned. It's odd behavior for sure, but it happened.
Barbara A. Couch on Facebook asks, where did the police find him? Find Tom.
Tom Sr. They found him at Los Angeles Airport. The time where this happened, Fontana is about, oh, maybe an hour, hour, 15 minutes east of Los Angeles. But apparently his name was on a list of people the police wanted to talk to, in this case, as a potential victim. So they got a call from, I believe it was TSA, but certainly some officials at LA Airport that said, we have a Tom Perez Sr.
here that we think you want to talk to.
Yeah, so this is the part that I had read some comments and heard some people will make. They thought that Tom and his father planned this, like that they were in on it together to falsely confess for a settlement or something. That's not what happened. He went to go visit his brother, and then he decided to see his daughter and was going to go fly to see his daughter.
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Chapter 6: How did the cadaver dog contribute to the investigation?
Yeah, his daughter was in Northern California.
Right. So he had a plane ticket. He was boarding the plane, and that's where they, as Lester said, TSA, it came up that there was a missing Tom Perez Sr., and they notified, L.A. police notified Fontana authorities, and they came to pick him up, and he had no idea. His son was in an interrogation room. He had no idea that he was declared missing.
I'd love to have been in the room when they got the call saying that there was a guy in the airport in L.A.
Can you imagine?
Absolutely.
Tom was still there that night. He had just confessed. He was still... Either they had just taken him to the hospital or he was still in the room.
Wow. Yeah. Laurie and David Cook on Facebook. Why did he ask at the pond, don't bodies float?
You know, I only take from that is he was, you know... I don't know. Actually, that's a good question. I've been trying to piece that one together. I think that was again in that...
area of where he was trying to be helpful and and they're thinking it's a you know in the lake perhaps but he's like well no it would it would it would be floating if that was the case um but again really ill-advised kind of a conversation to have with police if you didn't do it weird right i think lester's description of it is exactly right knowing this guy the way we met him it's just kind of like well he can't be here right because somebody's float but he was just like
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