Hypnosis helped put this Texan on death row, his lawyers say. The Supreme Court could soon decide his fate

The Texas Association for Investigative Hypnosis sold these commemorative medallions to members at its 2019 annual conference in Huntsville. The association is one of the few, if not the only, remaining societies for police employing hypnosis in criminal investigations. (Smiley Pool/Staff Photographer)(Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer)

The witness remembered the Volkswagen Beetle, its psychedelic flames visible in the twilight, and the white man with long hair who parked the garish thing on her quiet street that January morning in 1998.

But, when Farmers Branch police showed her a lineup, she couldn’t pick out the passenger.

She wanted to remember what he looked like to help catch her neighbor’s killers, the men who slithered under the garage door, shot the 64-year-old grandmother dead and ransacked her home. So a local policeman did something he’d never done before and would never do again.

The officer hypnotized her. [Read more on The Dallas News]