GRAND HAVEN — Karen Boes returned to Ottawa County’s 20th Circuit Court again Feb. 12 to begin a new evidentiary hearing on false confessions and interrogation techniques.
A previous hearing Feb. 4-5 focused on changes in fire science.
Boes was found guilty in 2003 of purposely setting the house fire that killed her daughter, Robin. Boes has ferociously maintained her innocence since her confession, which followed a ten-hour interrogation in 2002. She’s serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ordered two new hearings in 2025, based on Boes’ argument that clashing opinions in fire science and her susceptibility to suggestion during interrogation are significant enough to warrant another chance before a jury.
Boes was initially denied a new trial in 2023, after Judge Karen Miedema (who is overseeing the hearings) determined new research cited by Boes and the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic failed to show a significant change in fire science. During the two hearings, defense attorneys hope to change her mind.
‘It causes a person to mistrust their memory’
During proceedings Feb. 12, police practices and interrogation techniques expert Jim Trainum was called by the defense. According to a ruling from Miedema, he couldn’t be considered an expert in false confessions because he doesn’t have a background in psychology.
The defense dissected the techniques used to elicit a confession from Boes during her interrogation in 2002.
“The way the interrogation was conducted, the level of contamination and the lack of corroboration calls into serious question the overall reliability of the confession,” Trainum said, citing the use of false evidence and minimization.
The use of false evidence in an interrogation is technically legal. For example, during her interrogation, Boes was told her fingerprints were found on the gas can authorities believe was used to accelerate the fire.
“It can induce a guilty person to confess,” Trainum said. “But (experts in the field) have (found) an overwhelming majority — if not all — of false confession cases (involved) false evidence ploys. … It actually causes a person to mistrust their memory.”
In the interrogation videos, Boes can be heard repeatedly saying she doesn’t remember. The prosecution tied her memory loss to a statement she made about how alcoholics or recovering alcoholics can experience blackouts. Trainum said the statement was Boes’ attempt to rationalize a missing memory.
“Once the person begins to doubt their memory because they’re being confronted with all this false evidence that definitely proves there were there, according to investigators … they have to account for why that memory loss occured,” Trainum said, calling this an “internalized false confession.”
He described minimization as a way to smooth over the seriousness of a crime, including detectives telling Boes “you’re not a cold-blooded killer” and “things just got away from you.”
Trainum cited studies conducted after 2006 that show inferences of leniency through minimization can elicit false confessions. He also noted the length of the interrogation, ten hours, could influence such a confession. She’d been separated from her husband, he said, only four days after her daughter’s burial.
“Long interrogations … (can) create situations where the person may confess … because of exhaustion,” Trainum said.
Trainum added detectives today are more informed in how trauma, such as losing a loved one, can affect how a person acts during an interrogation.
What happens now?
The hearing on false confessions will continue Feb. 13. After the hearing concludes, Miedema is expected to issue a decision on whether Boes should receive a retrial.
— Cassidey Kavathas is the politics and court reporter at The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at ckavathas@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on X @cassideykava.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Defense argues Karen Boes was pushed to confess with false evidence
Reporting by Cassidey Kavathas, Holland Sentinel / The Holland Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
