What began as a worrying missing-person report turned into a harrowing ordeal for Thomas Perez Jr.. In August 2018, after calling police to report his elderly father missing, Perez Jr. was subjected to a relentless 17-hour interrogation. Under pressure, lies, and emotional manipulation, he gave a false confession — while his father, Thomas Perez Sr., was alive and safe the whole time.
From Concern to Accusation: How Interrogation Took a Dark Turn
- Perez Jr. reported his 71-year-old father missing after the senior failed to return from a routine walk with the family dog. The dog returned but the father did not.
- Police officers searched the home and claimed they found blood stains, the father’s wallet and phone, and even brought in a cadaver dog whose alert they interpreted as evidence of a corpse — despite no body being present.
- With the stage set, investigators treated Perez Jr. not as a worried son but as a suspect — beginning a sequence of aggressive questioning, misleading statements, and pressure to confess.
17 Hours of Coercion, Collapse & a False Confession
- The interrogation stretched through the night and into the next day. Detective tactics included telling Perez Jr. that his father’s body was in a morgue, that his dog would be euthanized, and that he was financially liable if he didn’t reveal a burial site.
- Mentally exhausted, sleep-deprived, and denied his psychiatric medication, Perez Jr. broke down — tearing at his clothes, pulling his hair, crying hysterically, and expressing suicidal thoughts. Under this extreme duress, he falsely confessed to fatally stabbing his father.
- It was only after 36 hours — and after the senior Perez was located alive, waiting at an airport — that investigators finally knew the truth. But Perez Jr. was not immediately informed. Instead, he was placed on a psychiatric hold and isolated.
Justice, Settlement & a Warning on Police Interrogations
- In 2024, the suburban city of Fontana, California agreed to a nearly US $900,000 settlement with Perez Jr., resolving a federal lawsuit over the coercive interrogation and false confession.
- The case has drawn scrutiny from civil-rights experts who describe the tactics used — deprivation of sleep and medication, emotional manipulation, false evidence claims — as a form of “psychological torture.”
- Perez Jr. has since shared his trauma publicly, describing the experience as deeply damaging: “once they learned my father was alive… they left me hanging in that mental anguish.”
