gotten a confession, and ruled out any alibis.  They're ready to take the case to the judge.  

If that's not enough proof for the  judge to approve criminal charges,  

there's the evidence. This is rock-solid  proof that they've got the right guy,  

and there's no jury that would acquit once they've  seen the evidence. There's only one problem.

The evidence wasn't real. It  was planted by the officers.

Does this really happen? Do the police plant  evidence to get false convictions or to protect  

themselves from charges? It happens more often  than you think, and here are eight of the most  

shocking cases where the police  planted evidence - including one  

that brought in the federal  government to investigate.

The first case takes place in rural New Zealand  in 1970, when crimes that made the front page  

were rare. So it shocked the farming community  of Lower Waikato when young farm couple Harvey  

and Jeanette Crew were found brutally murdered  on their ranch. Jeanette's father had legal and  

financial trouble before, and their farm had been  plagued by burglaries and arson. They were set to  

receive her mother's share in the farm shortly,  which would make life with their toddler daughter  

much easier. Then they went missing, and their  eighteen-month-old was found alone in her crib.  

Doctors said the baby had been alone for at  least two days and was severely dehydrated.  

But it would be almost two months before the  couple's bodies were found, shot to death.

Police immediately zeroed in on a suspect.

Arthur Alan Thomas lived on a neighboring farm  and it was discovered that his car axle had  

been used to weigh down Harvey's body. When the  police searched the Crewe house again and found  

a cartridge from Thomas' rifle in the garden, his  fate was sealed. He was charged with two counts  

of murder despite his wife and cousin giving  him an alibi. The star witness? Lenard Demler,  

Jeanette's father who had been forced to  sell them his half of the farm. Thomas was  

convicted twice despite little evidence, with  the first conviction being thrown out on appeal.  

Supporters and investigators quickly began  campaigning for a pardon and after nine years,  

evidence came out that the batch of cartridges  the bullet came from couldn't have been from his  

gun. Thomas was pardoned, and two Detectives  were investigated for planting the evidence.  

While they were both implicated in  misconduct, neither was ever charged.

But corrupt police don't just plant evidence to  solve crimes - they do it to get away with them.

It was the footage that outraged a nation in 2015.  Many controversial police shootings had taken  

place over the previous year, but few as shocking  as the one that happened in North Charleston,  

South Carolina. Walter Scott was a forklift  operator who had a warrant out for his arrest  

for missing a child support hearing. Michael  Slager was a police officer with several  

accusations of excessive force against him. When  Slager stopped Scott for a broken brake light,  

he found out about the warrant and  moved to arrest him. Scott ran,  

and the two briefly scuffled. When a taser  didn't knock Scott out and he turned to run,  

Slager pulled out his gun and shot Scott  eight times, hitting him fatally in the back.  

Slager justified his actions by saying that  Scott had taken his taser and was a threat.

There was just one problem with that.

It was the era of cell phones, and the  footage of the shooting of Walter Scott  

was captured by a bystander. Feldin Santana  was terrified of being targeted by police,  

but he shared it with Scott's family, who  released it. It showed clearly that Scott  

had never laid hands on Slager's taser and  was shot in the back without provocation.  

Mass protests came to North Charleston, and  Slager was fired and charged with murder.  

While the first case deadlocked when one juror  wouldn't vote to convict, he was charged and  

pled guilty to federal civil rights charges  and is currently doing twenty years in prison.

It wasn't the only time police tried to cover  up a killing, and the next one went much higher.

The year was 1975 in Montgomery, Alabama,  and it seemed like an open-and-shut case.  

Police were searching the neighborhood  for a suspect in a grocery store robbery,  

and they zeroed in on Bernard Whitehurst  Jr. When they confronted him, Whitehurst  

reportedly pulled a gun and aimed it  at the officers. They returned fire,  

killing him with a single bullet to the chest.  The shooting was quickly deemed justified when  

a gun was found at the scene, there was  no autopsy, and Whitehurst was quickly  

buried. It seemed like an open-and-shut  case like so many other police shootings.

It wasn't, and six months later  the entire case started to unravel.

The Montgomery Advisor was one of the only  newspapers to cover the case extensively  

and allege that the gun was planted, and many  locals were starting to question the events.  

The police alleged that the paper was making up  stories, and their publisher even agreed to take  

a polygraph test. Three Montgomery officers  were eventually charged with perjury over the  

planted gun, and offered a chance to take  a polygraph test to prove their innocence.  

They all resigned from the force instead. While no  one was ever charged in the shooting and no one is  

exactly sure what happened in the moments that led  to Bernard Whitehurst Jr.'s death, the conspiracy  

led to the resignation of eight officers and  several Montgomery officials including the Mayor.

There's a third type of planted evidence.  Instead of trying to solve or cover up crimes,  

this officer tried to create them.

For those who were stopped by  Deputy Zachary Wester in Florida,  

a traffic stop quickly turned to horror.  He would pull them over, question them,  

and then make up a reason to search the car.  He would quickly find drugs, usually meth,  

and make a quick arrest. The people would go into  the system and many saw jail time or lost jobs or  

custody of their children. Over several years,  Wester seemed to have an uncanny ability to stop  

cars whose drivers were carrying small amounts  of drugs. This was a great asset for a policeman,  

and anyone who watched him work was  sure he was headed for a promotion soon.

It was all a lie.

Zachary Wester was planting the drugs on  unsuspecting people, and footage shows them  

react with shock and horror when it's pulled out  seemingly from thin air. While only eleven victims  

were initially found, prosecutors dropped over a  hundred cases involving Wester and were reviewing  

over two hundred. Eight people were released from  prison and Wester was charged with racketeering,  

false imprisonment, official misconduct, and a  host of other charges. Prosecutors were showing  

no mercy, and Wester wasn't offered a plea deal.  He's currently awaiting trial and could face over  

thirty years in prison if convicted - and he's  probably lucky his victims were already released.

The next case set a record the  Government wasn't happy about.

It was one of the most shocking crimes in the  history of Waukegan, Illinois. In August 1992,  

a woman called police and reported  that her home had been broken into  

and her children's 11-year-old babysitter,  Holly Slaker, was missing. When police arrived,  

they found the girl's body in the house,  stabbed to death. Evidence of rape was found,  

samples were taken, and a massive manhunt began.  A prison informant fingered a fellow inmate,  

Puerto Rico-born Juan Rivera. Rivera cooperated  with the investigation and gave samples of his  

blood and DNA. While no physical evidence  was found on site linking him to the crime,  

Rivera was held in custody where his  mental condition began to deteriorate.

His long nightmare was only beginning.

Rivera was interrogated until he confessed, even  though many Detectives stated his comments were  

inconsistent with the crime scene. He was quickly  charged with first-degree murder and convicted,  

despite evidence from his electronic  ankle monitor showing that he hadn't  

left the home on the night of the murder.  While his first conviction was overturned,  

his fate was sealed at his second trial by the  testimony of the child being babysat- who was only  

two at the time. It wasn't until 2004 when  DNA testing cast doubt on his guilt that he  

saw the chance at freedom - but prosecutors  were determined to try him again. They had a  

bizarre theory that he could have still been  guilty due to cross-contamination and even  

claimed that Slaker had been sexually  active, contaminating the crime scene.

Shockingly, Rivera was convicted  again and all hope seemed lost.

It was 2011 when the courts issued a  scathing condemnation of the initial trial,  

pointing out all the flaws. Not only  did they overturn Rivera's conviction,  

but they barred the prosecution from  trying him again. The prosecution had even  

tried to enter shoes as evidence that weren't  available for sale at the time of the murder.  

The many legal flaws and lies in the proceedings  led to Rivera winning the biggest settlement  

for wrongful conviction in United States  history at the time - twenty million dollars.

The next case's criminal cop  didn't commit his crimes alone.

Sgt. Wayne Jenkins was a prominent officer  in the Baltimore Police Department,  

the head of the Gun Trace Task Force. So when  one of his suspects wound up dead, run over by  

Jenkins' car while being arrested, most officers  gave him the benefit of the doubt. He claimed  

that the suspect had pointed a gun at the car,  which turned out to be a BB gun, and that gave  

him the authority to take out the suspect by any  means necessary. But all of this started falling  

apart when Jenkins was arrested and convicted for  a host of crimes committed using his position of  

power including robberies and dealing drugs.  All his past cases started being investigated.

And the truth about the incident  with his car was blown wide open.

Not only did the suspect not have a gun  on him, but Jenkins didn't act alone.  

He called up two other officers,  Keith Gladstone and Carmine Vignola,  

and asked them to bring a gun from their  own car to the scene. The two officers  

worked together to stage the crime scene. When  federal investigators looked into the case as  

part of a massive scandal involving Jenkins' task  force, the two officers were exposed and wound  

up receiving prison sentences. As for Jenkins, he  was headed for a twenty-five year stay in prison,  

where many of the people he had convicted  were likely not so happy to see him.

The truth usually comes to light  - but sometimes it's too late.

It was 1940 in County Tipperary, Ireland,  

and the central-Irish town was about to be  rocked by a shocking murder. Mary McCarthy,  

also known as Moll, was an unmarried woman with  seven children by six fathers who made a living  

off sex work. Her controversial profession  led to her home being targeted for arson,  

but everyone was still shocked when she turned up  dead, found with two gunshot wounds to her head  

delivered by the nephew of her landlord. Harry  Gleeson was suspected of being the father of her  

youngest child, and suspicion soon fell on him. He  claimed innocence, but he was quickly charged and  

convicted. Justice was swift in those days, and  Gleeson was hung only six months after the murder.

That was far from the end of the story.

Sean McBride, Gleeson's lawyer, didn't give  up the fight after his client was executed.  

Decades later, a friend of Gleeson's put together  a book detailing all the flaws in the case.  

Among them, the murder happened on a date when  Gleeson had an alibi, the landlord wasn't called  

as a witness, and the local Garda engineered  a false confrontation between Gleeson and two  

of McCarthy's children. They had even failed to  enter the local shotgun register into evidence,  

which could have helped Gleeson's case.  The suppression of the register and the  

alibi was enough, and the President of Ireland  issued a posthumous pardon to Gleeson in 2013.

The next case nearly took down an  entire major police department.

New York State Trooper David L. Harding was an  ambitious man, and he was looking to move up  

to the CIA. When he was asked in an interview if  he was willing to break the law for his country,  

he didn't wait - he answered yes and proudly  announced that he had fabricated evidence  

to convict people he knew were guilty  as an officer. The CIA wasn't pleased.  

They notified the Justice Department  and an investigation began - and what  

they found was shocking. In Central New  York, a massive conspiracy of fraudulent  

convictions and falsified evidence  had been taking place for years.

It had even ruined people's lives.

Two false murder convictions were quickly  uncovered. One man, John Spencer, had been booked  

into a police precinct. The police then lifted  his fingerprints off surfaces in the precinct  

and attached them to evidence cards, using  that to convict him of murder. Another suspect,  

Shirley Kinge, was convicted of burglary and  arson in a horrible quadruple-murder case  

that her son was implicated in. While she did  possess a stolen credit card from the home,  

the evidence against her was mainly falsified  fingerprints. Not only did what came to be known  

as the New York Police Troop C Scandal lead to  five officers being charged and three convicted,  

but every conviction involving  the unit had to be reinvestigated.

For more on shocking police behavior, check  out “Weird Times Police Arrested Kids”,  

or watch “This Happens to Drugs Confiscated  By Police” for an in-depth look at the system.