The confession tapes

Whew.

Psychologically, what happened when you came here...

is that you had a gun to your head.

But you made probably one of the worst mistakes

a human being can make.

You see, how does the system punish you?

Because you're gonna punish yourself a lifetime.

And that's why I think you're more a victim...

than perhaps your own children.

Because, see, their fate is sealed in time.

For some reason, your fate has been left in the air.

The test is about to begin.

The Lawrence DeLisle story is really tragic.

And it's also a mystery.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that a father who has no criminal record

would suddenly drive his car into the river with his family.

It was really speeding. I mean, it was roaring.

And the car crashed through the barricades and went in the river.

The whole thing was just "whoom-bam."

It's not a question of whether he was at the scene.

Everybody knows he was at the scene.

It's just a question of, "What is his intent?"

It was a blockbuster story.

The terrible incident that happened here has put a harsh spotlight

on this small Downriver community.

The media kept on showing the crane lifting this car out of the water.

The car is essentially the murder weapon,

so we have to find out everything we can about it.

It strains anybody's sense of justice to think,

"Oh, that's just an accident."

Especially when the mother and father escape.

From the standpoint of being a reporter,

we affected what happened in this case.

See, as a human being...

you try to think...

of a logical reason...

for an illogical act.

You're not equipped.

I've had the pleasure

of testing some of the top brain scientists in the world.

I test some very, very intelligent people.

They can't think their way through the test.

Now, so that we're both here for the same reason,

what is your understanding of what the test is supposed to be about?

Well, I don't know exactly what you mean by that question.

The test, as far as I know, is to find out if I'm telling the truth.

Right?

About what?

-I don't know, the accident, I guess. - Okay.

-What it is, is that on August the 3rd... -Right.

...you had an accident

where your car left the roadway and went into the Detroit River.

And I want to know if, in fact, it was an accident

or if it was a purposeful act.

-It's that simple. -Okay.

So, what I need to have you do

is go through for me everything you remember happening.

You're talking August 3rd.

Temperature that day was probably close to 90.

I'd been working all day.

I was a service manager...

but I specialized, just like my father, in brakes and front end.

We lived in Lincoln Park, the suburb outside of Detroit.

I met Sue about six months prior to my 18th birthday.

We had four very beautiful children.

Emily Suzanne, our fourth, was christened in 1989.

They were everything to me.

I mean, my son... so good at baseball.

This particular night...

we went shopping for the girls' beds.

And everyone was just in such a good mood

that we decided we were gonna go get some ice cream.

Bob-Jo's, they sell the best custard ice cream in all Downriver.

We had some ice cream.

My legs had been bothering me for the last few hours,

so I took my shoes off.

When we left, my daughter asked my wife and I,

"Can we go down and see the boats again, like we did the night before?"

So we drove to the end of the street.

We stopped there, I'm thinking, "God, let a boat come by."

No boat came by.

Meanwhile, our youngest is starting to teethe.

So we turned around and my wife said, "Stop in this store."

When we left, I misjudged my turn when I came out.

A leg cramp happened.

My foot stomped down on the gas.

I reached down, pulled my foot off. The car did not slow down.

Just then, my wife reached over,

grabbed the steering wheel, started yanking hard to the right.

Well, I was trying to get control of the vehicle to stop it,

but we had ran out of street, and we were airborne from that point.

Being the senior detective, I was there within five minutes.

That was the start of sort of a nightmare.

It ended up approximately 90 feet

south down the river because we have a strong current.

They had big, huge lights that, you know, tried to light up the scene.

And the taillights were still visible underneath the water.

The next thing I know, I'm treading water,

trying to shake off the cobwebs.

When I looked around to find where the car was...

only the tail end of it was sticking up, straight up out of the water.

And before I could yell for help, it rolled under the water,

and I can't swim.

Eventually, I heard my wife cry out,

and it was when I heard her voice that I was able to reach out

because I felt there might be hope now.

The first baby that came out was handed to me,

which I handed to the rescue crew.

And they were brought up at various times, one at a time.

I remember being in the hospital,

looking at the lights above me as they were wheeling me down the hallway.

I remember them talking about they found the children.

And it ended up that they had passed away

in the exact opposite order that they were, uh, born in.

I remember the arresting officer, Galeski, came up.

He was asking questions.

Are you-- are you in a frame of mind,

or are you willing to tell us what happened?

I turned down Eureka.

My leg was killing me.

My left foot was crossed over, and I was trying to reach down

to get whatever was stuck unstuck.

What do you mean "stuck"? What was stuck?

I don't know. Maybe my shoes or something. I don't know.

- You had your shoes off? -My shoes were off.

Something was stuck in the gas pedal.

At that time, he told me that he had a leg cramp

and that's what caused him to push down on the gas pedal,

and, subsequently, he didn't know where he was.

A few days later, he told me that the accelerator stuck.

And that set off some bells for me

because now that's the second story he told me.

You know, that was the initial unbelievable thing about this case.

How can you have a cramp in your leg and drive your car into the river?

That doesn't make any sense at all.

"Why, I'd do this and I'd do that,

and I'd make sure no cramp would cause me to drive my car into the river."

That seemed like he was making something up

to cover intentionally killing his children.

And that's what made the media

and the police suspicious from the beginning.

I'm starting to relive the experience that this case was,

and it's not a happy memory.

Very strange to be back here.

I'm not sure I ever actually came down to the end and looked in the water,

'cause I wasn't really interested in getting close to the water

where his four kids had died, so...

I just came down the street, and I let my investigator, I believe,

take the pictures and interview the witnesses.

But I came and looked. I remember that.

And then I got to see the apartment building

where, at least one of the witnesses was.

Aside from Lawrence and Suzanne DeLisle,

Beverly Lake may be the best witness as to what happened.

She had a bird's-eye view.

Beverly lives up there, in the corner apartment

on the top floor of the Biddle House.

Tonight, in her first local TV interview,

she tells what she saw that night and how it changed her life.

There. It was just a nightmare. It's something you'd never forget.

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or maybe I was in the right place at the right time. Ahem.

My husband called me and the guys next door the "Snoop Sisters."

He said, "You know, one of these days, you're gonna see a murder."

I was sitting on the 11th floor balcony.

I think the time was about 9:20.

We heard this horrible roar,

and the car crashed through the barricades and went in the river.

The whole thing was just "whoom-bam." You knew there was no stopping.

You knew there was no way out. This was a one-way trip. You knew it.

Shock, anger, disgust.

All of those emotions are swirling through the city of Wyandotte today,

indeed, throughout the Metropolitan area.

This is a story that people simply cannot understand...

a darkness that people cannot fathom.

Because of the sensational nature of the case,

the news media was staking out his house.

They were attempting to interview him. They finally got an interview.

That interview haunted me for a long time.

Before we came out, a family member gave me a Valium.

I actually took two of 'em.

I was barely cognizant of my surroundings.

I was grabbing at the wheel. I was grabbing at the ignition.

I was grabbing at the gear shift. I--

if I touched any one part of those, I don't know.

It happened so fast.

My leg, I thought, curled under, and I thought my left leg went over.

So I don't know if my right leg was on the gas pedal.

I thought it was by the seat 'cause I was trying to rub it.

Left foot kicked over.

Larry and Suzanne didn't express any emotion or feeling,

which people thought was really weird.

I come from a family that tries to greet everybody with a smile,

even when we're sad.

It's just the way our family is. We keep things to ourselves.

You weren't there for the nights of crying.

You weren't there for the days and weeks

that my wife and I had grieved for our children.

How could you not be numb with all of that?

How could the news be so insensitive