Times investigation: Shocking murders, lingering doubts in a California mountain town

A shocking series of murders stunned the rural California mountain town of Placerville in the 1980s. Authorities were under intense pressure to solve the cases, and for a while it seemed they did. But Times reporters Anita Chabria and Jessica Garrison spent more than a year reexamining the crimes and found troubling questions about both justice and the justice system.

Part 1: A false confession

Nearly two decades after a woman falsely confessed to a shocking murder, her sons finally see her exonerated from a wrongful conviction that derailed their lives.

Read more: Pressured by cops, a mom made a false murder confession. Now, her sons can prove she's innocent

Part 2: Shocking murders, lingering doubts

Forty years ago, Michael Anthony Cox was convicted of the murders of three girls in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Years later, the two main witnesses at his trial, also teenagers, recanted, saying police had pressured them into false stories. So why is Cox still on death row?

Read more: Three dead girls and a man on death row. Did lies put him there?

Part 3: A war over cops who lie

California law enforcement is in the midst of a culture war, as experts inside and outside the system question a commonly used police interrogation method that they say can lead to false confessions and wrongful convictions.

Read more: Cops lie to suspects during interrogations. Should detectives stick to the truth?

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.