Smoke Screen: Just Say You’re Sorry

On a winter afternoon in 2015, Larry Driskill was approached by a stranger in a cowboy hat.

The man introduced himself as Texas Ranger James Holland, and said he needed help to solve a murder. What he failed to mention was that Driskill was a suspect.

After two intense days in the interrogation room, Driskill confessed to the murder of Bobbie Sue Hill, a 29-year-old mother of five — but he insisted he had no memory of the crime.

In “Smoke Screen: Just Say You’re Sorry,” a new six-part podcast from The Marshall Project, Somethin’ Else, and Sony Music Entertainment, Chammah tells the story of how this transpired. He learned that beneath Holland’s growing fame as a “serial killer whisperer” was a disturbing array of investigative techniques, from lies to gaslighting to hypnosis.

And all of them were legal.

Listen to Smoke Screen: Just Say You’re Sorry wherever you get your podcasts, or read more about the series at The Marshall Project.