Saturday, February 3, 2018

Statement Analysis in Cold Case Example


We have a number of Cold Case Investigators enrolled in training, including our Monthly Team Analysis.  We accept a limited number of submissions per month from investigators. 

Statement Analysis 101:  It may be that up to 80% of cold cases has a form of embedded or pronoun confession.  

This video is very encouraging. The cold case investigator highlighted two words and asked the right questions. 

 Here we see a case gone cold, and just two words, from two different subjects, that turns it all around.  

Internal Questions 

We believe the words before us.  We ask ourselves questions, constantly.  

The deeper one goes in training, the more incessant this questioning is.  For many, it "marinates" overnight and they wake up with answers. 

Two Words 

Here, the cold case investigator  saw the unnecessary word "immediately" and asked why it was needed.  The element of "time" was the focus of the sentence. 

Then, he saw the word "all", also unnecessary, and asked himself the right questions.  Why didn't the subject say "me and him" or something similar?  Why the need for "all"?  How many present does it take to use the word "all" by most people? 

If limited in time, begin at 33 minute mark.  

http://yify123.com/watch/ox1rr4GN-unusual-suspects-season-2.html


hat tip:  John

Two words turned everything around in this case. 

We offer training for law enforcement and the private sector, with both seminars, and individual at home instruction. 

To obtain excellence, one must dedicate himself or herself to a single goal:  100% accuracy in detecting deception.  

Enroll today by visiting Hyatt Analysis Services and email Hyattanalysis@gmail.com 

Obtain the skill, sharpen the skill, and use the skill.  

26 comments:

LuciaD said...

Great example. So cool!

Martha said...

I cant wait to watch this when I have time later tonight!
Peter, I have noticed that you & the crew here have multiple times come up with info on cases sometimes well in advance of other investigators and even LE/FBI. I hope the FBI can take advantage of the skill that you & several of your students have.

ima.grandma said...

'The Devil is in the Details' of the unraveling of a cold case. Statement Analysis exposes a structural weakness in statements. The 'dropped clues' of language increase the possibility that it will unravel.

The strategic use of forensic SA by trained professionals with vision will result in exponential rewards to law enforcement agencies, judicial systems, corrections departments and society.

habundia said...

I will watch too when i have the time, but its great that cold cases can become active and can be "closed"......wish your team great succes with that.....those victims and loved ones deserve this effort!

Anonymous said...

Well put, Imagrandma. SA is an invaluable tool due to its accuracy & due to CLUES it yields. I hope FBI will embrace this very blog as a tool. Did people here determine that DeOrr was NEVER at the campsite or within the search area on DAY ONE? Yes, they did, and unfortunately the FBI spent millions of dollars and 3 mos of searching to come to that conclusion. If they utilized the blog here, they would have known to immediately begin searching outside those parameters, giving DeOrr a much higher chance of being found!

Anonymous said...

I still need to finish watching the video, which I will do now!

Martha said...

I am 12 min in...I noticed the stepfather said "people who knew how much I CARED (past tense) about our family, but I think it is a false alarm bc it is simply grammatically correct usage.

Anonymous said...

Scratch a lie, find a thief.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that was such a great SA example! The detective must have known SA!!!

Oh, and why the hell did Joey's friends do that to him?!?!? So brutal!!! The poor kid!

Before I watched beyond the beginning, I took a break and asked myself "gut feeling alone who did it?" And I thought to myself "it was his friends". Why? Because there really is NOT much that could have happened to a teenage boy walking a mile and a half to meet his friends. One detective said that there were any number of things that could have happened to him, but actually there is nothing that would have likely happened to him.

I am a Mom, and I remember one time when my son was about 14, he and 3 of his friends were walking home from the center of town at night. Probably about the same distance--about a mile and a half. I hadn't noticed, but he was probably about 10 minutes late beyond what it would have normally taken for him to get home and I and the kids other Moms knew what time they had left the center of town to walk home bc the boys had sent us home when we arrived to pick them up and said they wanted to walk home. So anyway, one of the other kids lives a few houses away, and when the kids were about 10 minutes late, the kid's Mom called here frantic and said her husband had left to go look for her son and had my son gotten home yet? She was all worried thinking something had happened to the boys or to her son specifically. I said, "OK don't worry, as soon as my son gets home we'll go find your son. So, when my son got home about 5 minutes later, I said "do you know where ----- is?" He said "He walked with me down the street, I thought he went home." So I open the front door and look outside and the kid is standing in the street talking to the other kid. He was fine.

My son asked me "HOw come you were not worried Mom when we were late by 15 min. and the other kid's MOm was freaking out? I said "Because there is nothing that could have happened to 4 teenage boys walking from the center of town to home."

Point being, my Mom's intuition told me that noone kidnapped Joey, noone hit him with a car, etc etc. It had to be the friends. Because teenage boys are very capable of walking a mile and a half and staying on the side of the road and kidnappers generally do not kidnap teenage boys.

But then when watching it, I did think it must be the kid that bought them beer and left town. In fact, I kinda wonder if he was involved also. JMO

Ladela said...

The first discovered killer made that statement that the victim "Was killed by a piece of steel."--distancing language.



I am watching at this moment the Columbo episode where upon meeting Columbo the killer speaks as if the missing victim were already dead, in past tense. Columbo points this out immediately. It's the chess episode called " The Most Dangerous Match."

Ladela said...

Sorry, not distancing language, but rather passivity. Which is distancing language, duh....nevermind, lol.

Anonymous said...

I bet the stolen uhaul/beer-buying friend had something to do with it. He left the state the night it happened? Yeah, that's just a little bit fishy.

There is something that is not being said: There is no way that the 2 friends would have beat him to a bloody pulp with a metal pipe over stealing a baggie of weed!!! Yes I do believe they beat him with the pipe. But what was it really over? It was over something a lot worse than weed that the boys were involved with, meaning those 2 don't want to admit whatever it was. And UHaul/Beer-buying guy probably had a gun pointed at Joey while they were hitting him with the pipe or at least to get him to kneel on his knees and stay there long enough to be pounded senseless by a pipe.

And the getting his bones 6 years later and allegedly scattering them across NYC.
Why did they suddenly get scared after 6 years that they would be caught? The building of the development?

Those kids allegedly acted like hardened Mafia hitmen to their friend (!) over a baggie of weed.

There is some piece of the puzzle still missing.

Anonymous said...

Peter,

Regarding "We were ALL walking along",

Could it have been 4 of them (including the Uhaul-stealer/Beer-buyer)?

The reason why I ask, it just occurred to me, at least within my own use of language,

if I was walking with 1 person I would say "We were walking along"
if I was walking with 2 people I would say "We were ALL 3 of us walking along"
if I was walking with 3 people I would then say "We were ALL walking along"

I feel like within the English language, people instinctively will indicate how many when it is 1, 2, or 3, but then it just gets to be too many, it becomes a "group" and they say "ALL". Granted I understand that the interviewee would not want to tell how many, however I feel like if he was lying about 3 and wanting to make it look like only 2, he would "go down" so to speak numerically to the use of "we" indicating 2, but once it becomes a larger group, that is when a person would "slip" and say "We were ALL walking along"--it becomes harder to "hide" it with pronouns--the human brain is going to take longer to figure it out which pronoun to use. With 3, the brain is going to say "OK hide the presence of the other person and say "we", but once it becomes more than one person's presence they need to hide, it becomes a 2-step process in picking the right pronoun, the brain is going to falter in choosing the right pronoun. I hope this makes sense!!!

Anonymous said...

Maybe it stems from us being taught from very little to "count to 3". Hold up your fingers and count to 3. 1-2-3 Blast OFF!!! etc etc

Its like we are programmed linguistically to depict the exact number linguistically up to three (much as counting to 3 on our fingers). We will say "all THREE of us".

"Please try all THREE of the dishes"

"Please eat all THREE of your vegetables"

But once it becomes FOUR (or more), then our brains feel we do not need to create a visual image of what number we are talking about.

"Please try ALL of the dishes"


WE are taught we need to "show" how many up till 3. Hold up your fingers and count to 3. But we are also taught to "show" how many up to 3 linguistically.

I think there were 4 in the group and that is why he said "ALL". It is the fact our brains strongly sense the solidity of three and it is easy to subtract 3-1 and say "we". Hold up your fingers and count to three. OK subtract one and you hold up two fingers.

Once it becomes 4, your brain does not know how to lie as easily because of the loss of that solid mental representation of 3. Hold up your fingers and count to 3. OK subtract one and your hold up two fingers and you get "we". Hold up 4 fingers and subtract one and what do you get?

"ALL"

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, the last paragraph should say "Once it becomes 4, your brain does not know how to lie as quickly (choosing the right pronoun) because of the loss of that solid mental representation of 3.

Hold up your fingers and count to 3.
OK, subtract 1 and you will be holding up 2 fingers and you get "we".

Hold up 4 fingers and subtract 2 and what do you get?
First you will picture 3 (because of how our brain WANTS to say "ALL 3 of us when there is 3"
Next you will picture 2, OK that is the right number, but what do I say now? My brain has already pictured the word "ALL" but I can't say "ALL 3 of us", so I'll say "ALL".

It would take a LOT longer than a split second to figure out the correct adverb once you have 4.
If you have 3, your brain WILL do it quickly, it will subtract 1 and get "we".

Once you have 4, your brain cant figure out the pronoun quickly, your brain is going to latch onto "all 3 of us" as it tries to subtract and then grasp onto the "ALL".

habundia said...

In SA the number 3 is often used as a "liers" number.
Ive been reading some of the statements here about that 3 or more used with "all"
I would think 3 or more is when people use the world "all".
I never say " eat your three vegetables", i would say "eat all of you vegetables" if i would give mor then two vegetables.
I wouldnt say "we went all three" (unless someone had asked me with how many people we were), i would have just said, "we all went..."
So I would think the use of "all" would be always more as 2.

General P. Malaise said...

"we were all on foot" at this point there was unity among them.

Peter if there was premeditation would it change the language to not show unity?

Anonymous said...

"we were all on foot"

To tell us they were "on foot" (unless asked) is extraneous, but important to whomever relayed the information.
Why would they/he say this.?
Why do we need to know this?
Wwhy is it on their mind?
Does transport have a roll to play?

Statement Analysis Blog said...

It’s so powerfully instinctive that the “no pre thought” status is given.

In major heist, the “victim” said he was beaten and “we went into back room where they made me open the safe...”

He could not help but show the unity. It’s so very powerful!

He would want to have distanced himself but he couldn’t.

Statement Analysis Blog said...

Good reply and good questions.

My first thought was “who was in a car?” Followed by “when?”

I like your questions.

Statement Analysis Blog said...

the application of the principle:

It’s when a subject is fabricating reality and must choose a number.
2 sounds too low but 4 sounds excessive.

It’s application should be severely limited.

Anonymous said...

@habundia, I can only speak for myself, but I have noticed within my own speech that I DO feel compelled to specify "all 3 of us were walking along" but then once the number increases to 4, I just say "We were ALL walking along".
Like I often have told my son stories of "what it was like when I was a kid/teenager" (it probably drives him nuts ), and I have noticed that when I am talking about going somewhere with 2 other people here is what happens: I say me and friend A and friend B decided to go (to a specific place). All 3 of us set off on our bikes" (I have actually observed my own brain saying to myself as I am constructing the sentence 'you need to specify 3' and I say "all 3 of us". Once it gets to be 4, I just say "we".
I think it may be due to the training we all got as children "hold up your fingers and count to 3". I feel like that is how all of us were introduced to counting. Parents will then use toys or fruit or sommething to teach and say "count the 3 apples... 1-2-3". My point is I think mentally there is a compulsion to linguistically specify 3 due to the concrete solidity of 1-2-3. We were all taught to count to 3 using counting on fingers or counting objects. Once it gets to be number 4, it loses its solidity and we dont feel compelled to specify the number. We say "we".

Anonymous said...

"All"

Context is vital.

For example

If you was out "with" your friend, ONLY the two of you's. Is what im aware of.

Q: Did you have a good night?

A, yes

Q, bloody hell, you sounded drunk on the phone. How did "YOU'S get home?
A, we "All" got a taxi together.

Now, if there was ONLY yourself and 1 friend, would you not say,"we" got a taxi. Or myself and xyz.
To add "All" (imo) even to the lay person (SA rooky and or) surely would think, (instinctively) who is all?
Why not say, we got a taxi, or myself and joe blogs got a taxi.
Using the word "all" in context, is, at the least, warrants claryfication.

Anonymous said...

My cat had 3 kittens (for real).

"I have a picture of all 3 of them when they were just learning to walk."
(I have said this exact sentence before).

What if there had been 4?

"I have a picture of ALL of them learning to walk.@

Anonymous said...

The brain knows what it knows.
To disrupt the natural flow of information [from the brain to the mouth] takes effort.
This disruption, will then alter and fragment the continuity in language.
Have you ever listened to someonè, and thought, something doesn't seem right.? Not knowing what it is, or why you feel that way. But all your spidey senses are telling you, ugh ohh

Anyway, i digress.

When he said "immediately" and the other fella said "all", it was natural, the words flowed, without pre thought. Not realising what they leaked. [The beauty of free editing]

People dont like to "lie". They want to speak the "truth". Some will say, yes, i'm a good liar, noone will ever know.

I call this, rehearsed patronising contemptuos mirroring.
In other words. They lie looking at themselves, then try to project and accuse.

Once you get someone talking in the free editing stage, without interuption or itroducing language.
I bet my bottom dollar [no matter how hard they try] they will leak marbles.


Nadine Lumley said...

Unfort the vid link ph posted is now dead ugggggg