Klaas jury hears taped confession
May 1, 1996
Web posted at: 11 p.m. EDT
SAN JOSE, California (CNN) -- Since his trial began, Richard Allen Davis, a Californian who had prior convictions for kidnapping and drug abuse, has not denied that he kidnapped and strangled 12-year-old Polly Klaas. In fact, he confessed to police on videotape just before leading police to her body in December 1993. (111K AIFF sound or 111K WAV sound)
A Killer's Confession,
A Father's Outrage
(1.6M QuickTime movie)
The jury hearing Davis' trial listened to the tapes Tuesday and Wednesday. Visibly shaken by what they heard, a few jurors wiped their eyes, and Polly's father and grandmother, present in the courtroom, leaned toward each other for support.
Davis did not volunteer the confession until he learned that police had found his palm print in Polly Klaas' bedroom. Almost immediately, Davis put his head down and cried. Then he confessed.
"She's not alive," he told detectives.
"Do you know where she is now?"
"Outside Cloverdale."
Davis went on to describe how he drank beer and smoked marijuana in a park across from Polly's house. "I got pretty well toasted and things got fuzzy after that."
"Why did you take her?" detectives asked Davis in the December 1993 questioning. "I don't know, man, I don't know," he answered. Had he touched her "in any place?" "Not that I remember."
"The only thing I could think of was to try to cover my tracks, I guess," he said. "I knew I'd f---ed up. I could have sent her home, I'd be right back in the joint."
He said that at one point, Polly asked to go to the bathroom, and he let her get out of the car. When she was about to get back in, he said, "I strangled her with a piece of cloth. She didn't know what hit her."
Davis described how he got another cord and knotted it tightly around her neck, because he "didn't know how long it would take" for her to die. "I never did anything like that before," he said.
While the videotape of the dramatic confession played in the courtroom, Davis withdrew, removing his glasses and staring at the defense table.
He never looked at the videotape. But Polly's family watched in stunned, rigid silence.
Davis said he was sorry for killing Polly, but only after being prodded by police.
"He's not sorry for anything he did to my daughter," said Polly's father, Marc Klaas. "He's sorry he's going back to the joint, and he's hoping like hell that they can't prove he's raped Polly, so that he has to go back to the joint as a child molester."
Polly Klaas was abducted from a slumber party at her home in Petaluma, California, in 1993, while her mother slept in the room next door. Her disappearance sparked a nationwide search, and led her father to begin a foundation to help track down missing children.
Prosecutors are trying to prove that Davis planned Polly's abduction beforehand, and that he therefore deserves the death penalty. Davis' lawyers argue that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time, and did not realize what he was doing.
They also argue that there is no evidence indicating that Davis sexually molested Polly. Both factors, they say, should reduce his sentence to less than death. But if prosecutors can prove Davis is lying about raping Polly, he stands a good chance of getting the death penalty.
Correspondent Susan Reed and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Jury seated in Polly Klaas murder trial - April 17, 1996
- Jury selection begins in Klaas trial - February 14, 1996
- Murder trial moved in Polly Klaas killing - November 21, 1995
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