Off Duty: The Police | Ep 3
From Black Box: The Chatbots by The Guardian
March 18, 2026 · 29 min · Season 6 · Episode 3
About this episode
This episode investigates the case of Alex Villa, who was accused of a crime but refused to confess, exploring the reliability of eyewitness testimonies against him.
Unlike the other suspects, Alex Villa refused to confess. He was released after 48 hours, but the police weren’t done with him. Not by a long shot. To build their case, the state relied on three people who claimed they overheard Alex saying he did it. But do their stories check out? This is episode three of Off Duty, an investigation by the Guardian’s Melissa Segura
People in this episode
Host: Melissa Segura
Topics covered
- police investigation
- false confessions
- eyewitness testimony
- criminal justice
- society
Keywords
- Alex Villa
- police
- investigation
- confession
- eyewitness
- testimony
- criminal case
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The Guardian
More episodes of Black Box: The Chatbots
- Off Duty: The Last Stand | Ep 7 · March 18, 2026 · 37 min
- Off Duty: The Sentence | Ep 6 · March 18, 2026 · 18 min
- Off Duty: The Prosecutors | Ep 5 · March 18, 2026 · 32 min
- Off Duty: Digital Forensics | Ep 4 · March 18, 2026 · 24 min
- Off Duty: The Interrogations | Ep 2 · March 18, 2026 · 32 min
- Off Duty: The Crime | Ep 1 · March 18, 2026 · 26 min
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