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(#10) James Brewer Confessed To Shooting A Man Who Flirted With His Wife, Only To Live And Go On Trial
As James Brewer lay in bed during what he thought were his final moments, he confessed to slaying his neighbor 32 years earlier. In 1977, Brewer had been living in Tennessee with his wife, Dorothy. In a jealous rage, Brewer shot their neighbor, Jimmy Carroll, believing he was trying to seduce his wife.
Brewer and his wife fled Tennessee after the event, hiding in Oklahoma under assumed names. Brewer, called Michael Anderson in his new life, suffered a stroke in 2009. From his hospital bed, he called the police and confessed to the deed. He wanted to "cleanse his soul" before he passed.
Brewer lived, however, and he and his wife returned to Tennessee to surrender.
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(#3) Nili Shamrat Told Police Her Late Husband Confessed He'd Stolen Marie Antoinette's Pocket Watch
In 2006, an anonymous woman hired a lawyer to negotiate selling some antique clocks and watches that her late husband had collected over the years. Some 40 time pieces were sold to the LA Mayer Museum in Jerusalem, and when asked by investigators later, the women stated her husband confessed to stealing them from that same museum in 1983.
The woman, Nili Shamrat, was the widow of Na'aman Diller, an Israeli thief who was "a repeat offender who specialized in forgery and break-ins... [and] could scale walls and slip through small windows." He was active in Tel Aviv during the '60s and '70s, during which time he met Shamrat. The two had a brief love affair, but she moved to the United States and married someone else.
In the '80s, the two reunited and were married in 2003, although Shamrat continued to live in the US. They met up regularly in Tel Aviv and Europe. Accounts differ as to how, but before Diller's passing in 2004, the spoils of his thievery were collected into a box and moved to Europe before Shamrat took possession of them.
One item was a watch made by Abraham-Louis Breguet for Marie Antoinette. The watch took over 40 years to complete and wasn't finished until 1827, long after Antoinette's time. In fact, even Breguet had passed, with his son taking over the task and completing it. Breguet was known as the "the watchmaker of the kings, the king of the watchmakers" and his works combined invention, innovation, and luxury into one timepiece. The watch that he constructed for Marie Antoinette was made out of gold and sapphires, and valued at over $30 million when it was recovered.
Diller had been questioned at the time of the robbery, but there was no evidence he'd committed the act. Nili Shamrat was arrested for possession of stolen items, convicted, and sentenced to probation and community service.
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(#6) KKK Member Henry Alexander Denied Involvement In Willie Edwards Jr.'s Slaying - Until His Final Moments
In 1957, four Ku Klux Klan members grabbed truck driver Willie Edwards Jr. and forced him to jump off the Tyler-Goodwin Bridge near Montgomery, AL. Edwards, only 25 at the time, had stopped for something to drink on the way back from a delivery when he was forced out of his truck at gunpoint and into their car.
The Ku Klux Klan members claimed Edwards had "offended a white woman" and beat him as they drove to the bridge high above the Alabama River. Once they arrived at their destination, they made Edwards get out of the car and told him to jump or be shot. Edwards jumped 125 feet; he didn't survive.
One of the four men that took part, Raymond Britt, confessed to the crime in 1976. He was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony against his three companions, Sonny Kyle Livingston, Henry Alexander, and James York. None of the men were ever convicted, however, and the charges against them were thrown out not once, but twice. Alexander, according to his widow, Diane, finally admitted to her that he'd been one of the men who forced Edwards to jump.
According to Diane, her husband not only played a part in the slaying, but was the one who falsely identified him as the man that "offended a white woman," prompting the action against him. Alexander told his wife "I didn't think he would jump... if he'd a run, they would never have shot him." Alexander was remorseful and just before he died said, "I had no business hating the blacks... they've never done anything to me."
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(#11) Roy Heath Admitted To Slaying A Man And Led Police To The Body, Buried Under His Patio
From his hospice bed in London, Roy Heath told authorities that he had slain Mohammed Taki, wrapped him in a blanket, and buried him under his patio. Taki, an Iraqi national, was 53, but little is known about what led to his end.
When Heath confessed to the brutal crime in 2010, he told them he'd choked Taki. Heath passed 13 days later, so authorities were unable to follow up with him, although Heath supposedly explained his motive beforehand.
Investigators also discovered that Heath had ties to gangster Reggie Kray and his brother Ronnie. Heath had also been accused of slaying a business associate in 1997, but nothing ever came of the case. Police arrested three additional suspects after Heath's confession, but no charges were ever filed.
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(#13) Geraldine Kelley Told Her Family She Slayed Her Husband And Stored His Body In A Freezer
Geraldine Kelley told everyone that her husband, John, died in a traffic accident after returning to Massachusetts from California, where the rest of the family was living. But in 2004, she admitted that it had all been a lie. Kelley had shot her husband around 14 years earlier, storing his body in a freezer. Kelley, losing a fight with cancer at the age of 54, told her daughter what she had done and that the body was still in that same freezer.
Kelley, who had also moved back east from California, shipped her husband's remains to Massachusetts during the late 1990s. When authorities visited Kelley's storage unit where the freezer was stashed, they found an unplugged, locked freezer sealed with duct tape. The remains inside were ultimately determined to be John. Some believe Kelley was a victim of domestic violence, but motive for the incident remains unclear.
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(#7) Ottis Toole Confessed To Slaying A 6-Year-Old Right Before He Passed
Six-year-old Adam Walsh vanished from a Sears department store on July 27, 1981. He was on a shopping trip with his mother, who let her son out of her sights for a few minutes, never to see him again. The search for Walsh led to the discovery of the boy's head in a canal over 100 miles away from the Hollywood, FL, mall where he disappeared. His body was never discovered.
Walsh's father, John Walsh, became an advocate for missing children as the host of America's Most Wanted, and never gave up when it came to finding the person responsible. There were several suspects, one of whom was Ottis Toole. According to the Walshes, however, the investigation was botched. Toole had been partnered with another serial slayer named Henry Lee Lucas, and both men confessed to countless grisly acts over the years.
Toole, in prison for another slaying soon after Adam's, twice confessed, but recanted both times. Despite this, John Walsh always believed Toole was responsible. It was only in his final moments that Toole told his niece he'd done it.
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