12 People who confessed to terrible crimes they committed on their death bed – this will make you shiver! (With Pictures)

7. James Washington

One person who made a ‘deathbed’ confession a little prematurely was James Washington. Already in prison for another crime, he admitted to killing a woman in 1995 after suffering from a heart attack. He is thought to have believed he was dying when he told prison guard James Tomlinson: “I have something to tell you. I have to get something off my conscience and you need to hear this. I killed somebody. I beat her to death.”

He attempted to recant the confession when he recovered, but it was too late – in 2012 he was sentenced to 51 years for the murder of Joyce Goodener, much to the relief of her family. “I didn’t have any trust in the system. All of a sudden, I got this phone call and they said, ‘We think we found him,’” said her daughter, Sonya Kimbrell.