Conspiracy theories, solved cold cases and the long silent witness

A recurring motif in conspiracy literature is the “witness” who waits for years before coming forward to tell their stories. With popular subjects such as the JFK assassination or the Roswell UFO there seems to be no end to these witnesses. The flow is not even constrained by the actuary tables because we now hear from witnesses even after they die.

“My father, on his deathbed in 2003, told me…”

Non-conspiracy types have a real problem with this sort of “evidence”. It is exceedingly difficult to falsify. The passage of time makes it nearly impossible to check any details of the story. Hence, we have to take the witness on faith.

For example, say some guy comes forward tomorrow and tells Montel Williams that on 9 December 1965 he hid on a hillside and watched as US military personnel hauled four body bags and a large, tarp-covered object from the woods near Kecksburg, PA. Had he told his story in 1965, we could check a host of details to test his veracity. The milk truck driver can tell us if dozens of army trucks lined Ankney Hill Road as the witness claims. The high school teacher can confirm or rebut the claim that the witness missed school on December 10 because military intelligence officers interrogated him for eight hours and threatened to send him to Vietnam if he talked about what he saw.

It seems eminently reasonable to ignore such tardy witnesses unless they can provide compelling evidence to substantiate the critical elements of their story.

So what do we do with cold criminal cases?

All too frequently, the crucial “evidence” that prosecutors use at trial is the uncorroborated testimony of witnesses who came forward years after the crime occurred. Just as with the Kecksburg example, it is nearly impossible to verify their story with any sort of physical evidence.

I’m not sure that I can see a clear distinction between the Grassy Knollers and the hero DA who convicts a man on the word of a witness who waits twenty years to tell their story.


More on this later.