He Falsely Confessed to A Double-Murder — and a New True Crime Podcast Examines Why

On the night of Feb. 19, 2003, a fire broke out in a home near where Virginia high school senior Robert Davis lived. The body of a woman was found with a knife in her back and her throat slit, and nearby, her 3-year-old son had died of smoke inhalation.

Two days later, Davis, then 18, attended school and then went bowling with a friend. By 1 a.m. the next morning, Davis had been hauled into a local police station, where police questioned him about the deaths for more than five hours.

Davis denied his involvement multiple times, and asked to take lie detector tests. At the time, he wasn’t aware his schoolmates Rocky and Jessica Fugett, who were siblings, had already admitted to the murders — and told police Davis was involved.

“What can I say to get me out of this?” Davis asks in chilling audio from the interrogation room heard on the gripping new podcast, Wrongful Conviction False Confessions, which premieres Wednesday.

In response, interrogators promised that if he confesses the judge will go easy on him, and he’ll be spared life in prison.

Davis complied, and confessed — and why he did so is examined in depth on the podcast episode dropping Feb. 26.

“I felt helpless and hopeless,” Davis tells PEOPLE. “I lost hope, and while I was interrogated they threatened me with the death penalty. And when I was going to the bathroom, they were saying they were going to lock my mom up and put my little brother in foster care if I didn’t tell them what they wanted.”

Davis gave them what they wanted. At the time, he thought that he’d then be allowed to go home.

“I was scared, cold, in a corner being bullied,” he tells PEOPLE.

But then police told him he wasn’t going home. At that point, Davis says, “Why am I lying to you?”

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The podcast is hosted by Laura Nirider, an attorney for Davis, and lawyer Steven Drizin. Both hosts represent Brendan Dassey, whose murder conviction in the death of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach after a controversial confession is featured in the Netflix docuseries Making a Murderer.

In 12 stories of false confessions, the podcast brings listeners into interrogation rooms to hear the disturbing psychological tactics police use on suspects — and the work attorneys do after these wrongful convictions. (The full David interrogation can be viewed here.)

False Confessions ‘Can Happen to Anybody’

After his false confession, Davis was booked for double-murder and arson and faced decades in prison.

His false confession is not all that unusual, says Nirider. “We know of hundreds of proven false confessions,” she says. “Robert was threatened with the death penalty, but he was told confessing would help him.”

“What we’re doing with this podcast is trying to tell people, this isn’t just one case of corruption in one place,” she says. “This happens across the globe.”

Davis agreed to an Alford plea to the charges — in which he agreed to plead guilty without admitting guilt — and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Meanwhile his attorneys continued to fight for his release. “It was great to be believed by them,” says Davis.

In 2011, Davis’s fortunes changed after Rocky Fugett, who was serving a 75-year-sentence for the murders, admitted that Davis was never involved in the murders; his sister, Jessica, serving an 100-year sentence, later recanted her account as well.

Davis served 13 years before his release in 2015. After that, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe granted him a full pardon.

“Walking out of prison, I was ecstatic,” Davis tells PEOPLE. “I had so many emotions going through my body that I didn’t know how to act, but it was just exhilarating.”

Davis is engaged now, living in Virginia and doing electrical work. He has never received an apology from the siblings.

He also thinks of the innocent men and women who one day may be tricked into a false confession, and warns, “It can happen to anybody.”

Wrongful Conviction False Confessions premieres Wednesday.