Saturday, September 29, 2012

Baby Lisa: Questions and Answers



1.  Instinctive.











"fully cooperating with police."



Q.  What about the cadaver dog?




It was a shrewd move on his part.






1.  Do you live on Smith St?
2.  Is your daughter's name Lisa?
3.  Did you cause her death?
4.  Did you lie to police about the kidnapping?
5.  Is Jeremy Bradley Irwin the father?

No surprise questions.


A.  Because the language in the case showed that Lisa was dead and there was no chance in ever having to pay out the reward.  If you go back to the video of the press conference, several reporters noted the language from Stanton and how he was hedging his words so they pushed him to finally saying that the reward will be paid if someone brings Lisa right to him.  Since their language indicated that she was dead, the reward was never going to be paid out.



A.  Yes.







Q.  Why do you hate attorneys?

A.  I don't hate attorneys.  I hate opportunists who pervert justice for their own gain.  I am not a fan of the fact that our country has relinquished its freedoms but lawyers are the only ones who seem to profit from the endless making of new laws but we are to blame.  We no longer elect leaders, particularly leaders who were tested under battle:  we elect lawyers.  Lawyers profit from new laws and the litigation that comes from new laws.

I also have a fondness for lawyers.

They give us much sample to practice with.

In the case of Hailey Dunn, her attorney incensed people with phrases such as "our girl" and "our daughter", sounding foolish.  In the case of Baby Lisa, a search of the NY Post will give you quite a view of Bradley's attorney.



Q.  Why did you ask Ron Rugen to come on the show?

A.  Ron is highly intelligent, passionate, and was close to the case, initially believing Deborah Bradley's story.

Q.  Doesn't that make him look foolish?

A.  No.

Statement Analysis has an advantage over in person interviewing.  We have the luxury of only viewing her words, not her tears nor her presence.  Because he is a kind man, his empathy is expected.  For us, the "subject is dead; the statement is alive" , meaning that we are not analyzing Deborah Bradley.  We are analyzing her words.

There are other examples of intelligent people fooled by someone in cases like these.  The one fooled usually is:

a.  Kind
b.  Empathetic
c.  Has had personal (in person) contact with the guilty party.

This makes it very difficult for discernment as a friendship in its early stages develops due to kindness.  We see this in therapists who develop a strong bond with a sociopath.  They feel as if they are "betraying" the client by admitting that the client is lying.

We also have the element of parenting in these cases.  Ron, and other good people like him, who are parents, have a special feel for a parent who plays the victim.  They cannot help but wonder, "but what if the police are wrong?  What if the polygraph was wrong?  What if the Analyst is wrong?  I have just accused not only an innocent person, but a terribly hurting person, left bereft of her child, falsely!"

It is a lot to bear.

As we progress in the digital age, I think people are seeing more and more the value of transcribing an interview and allowing a dispassionate view of the words.

I was once involved in a case where an investigator was conducting a long interview with an addict.  From the addict's statement, I knew deception was indicated.

I made a list of 11 or 12 things that the investigator would say to me after the interview, in defense of the subject's "innocence."

When the interview was over, the investigator was exhausted and said, "I don't think he did it."

I had the investigator take a break, get some coffee and change scenery.

We then sat down and I read off my list:

1.  Did the subject say he didn't do it?
2.  Did the subject tell you his childhood?
3.  Did this increase your sympathy?
4.  Did the subject talk about chronic pain?  ("yes, but it is real!")
5.  Did the subject...

and on and on it went.

The investigator then went back over his notes, reading back the direct quotes from the subject.  He saw the guilt and deception.

Later, the subject confessed.

The investigator learned a valuable lesson:  Being up front and close with someone triggers our emotions and impacts caring individuals.

In my first interview with a killer, I was utterly unprepared for what I encountered.  I was unprepared for what my emotions did to me:  the sympathy I felt, the strong desire to believe innocence, and the desire to deny the truth.  I had to, literally, keep the record of what the crime entailed, at my side, under a notebook, just to remind me what this person was actually capable of.  After the interview, I sat in my car in the parking lot and bawled my eyes out.

Suspicious people cannot analyze statements because they cannot know what the expected looks like.  They are forever moving the landmark from its set location, by their suspicious nature, and without the expected in place, they are on shaky ground when the unexpected is spoken.  They do not easily recognize it as the unexpected.

Caring people care.  It is what they do.  If they are taken in because of their care, it is an indication of who they are. Yes, they need to step back and examine evidence, and learn to discern their own emotions, but it is within this emotional capacity that their own greatness is found.

Carrie McDonigle received no shortage of criticism on the Hailey Dunn case.  I have strongly disagreed with her.

Carrie McDonigle's daughter was abducted and killed by a monster.  If anyone could relate to the mother of a "missing" teen, it is Carrie.

But Carrie did something that I do not believe that I possess the courage to do:

She confronted Amber's killer, face to face.

Anything can be said of Carrie; anything at all, but she will always hold my admiration for the courage of that single act.

If someone's child is found by her, I promise you this:

No grateful parent is going to say, "Put my child back into the woods.  I don't think your dog was certified by the right people."

Amber:  source of inspiration for many 
God favor Team Amber.  It exists to honor Amber's memory.  

 God bless Carrie.  

Ron Rugen is not only an investigator, he wears a journalist's hat as well.  Notice that Ron possesses what has become a rare commodity in our "self" esteeming madness of today:  humility.

He didn't struggle to say he changed his opinion on the Baby Lisa case.  It took time to process his emotions.

This is another principle of Statement Analysis in play:   Emotions. 

We do not analyze emotions:  We analyze emotions within a statement.

When emotions are found in the perfect part of the story, at the height of the action, it is a signal of deception.  Tiffany Hartley's story of David Hartley's death is deceptive.  She spoke of her emotions right at the point of finding David, face down, no wait, face up, with God speaking to her (appealing to people of faith; clever). She put this in the logical part of the story.

In reality, we humans are different.  Like Ron with Baby Lisa, and me with my first killer interview, it takes time to process the emotions, and reason them through.  Avinoam Sapir's rare genius saw and chronicled the phenomena within statements.

"My heart was pounding as I walked towards the killer, thinking that I may never leave here alive, but I pressed on..." makes for really good story telling and book writing.  In reality, it is much more dull:

"I walked towards the killer..." and then, after the story, the truthful account brings up what emotions were felt.  Emotions in the "after" part of the story show truth.

Q.  Will this case be solved?

A.  I hope so.






Deborah Bradley has a reason why she doesn't cooperate.



Little Baby Lisa's remains were left to be ravaged by wildlife.



Anonymous said...

The obstruction of justice charge approach is interesting. Casey Anthony was ultimately only convicted of lying to police in connection with the investigation. I don't think you could be convicted of obstruction of justice for exercising your 5th amendment right to silence though. This also makes me thnk of another point you have raised in the past about eliciting confessions by threatening to remove children out of the home. There is a Supreme Court case that says this is coercion and that any confession obtained as a result of such a threat would be excluded. I don't recall the name of the case but will send it if I think of it. This is Ivy. Please excuse the typos.

Justme said...

Interesting information. I can't imagine the frustration the detectives and prosecutors must feel.

Lemon said...

An excellent post - thank you Peter and Heather to your commitment to the truth.

BostonLady said...

I agree with Lemon. Thank you!