As Part of the "Homework" assignment for my Deception Detection class I am sending participants to view the video at the link below of the interrogations of acquitted suspects in a murder investigation.
Here is the story as emailed to me by a group that is investigating the murder.
Patti – I’ve been seeing and reading about you for some time. I’ve been writing on an unsolved DC murder from 2006. No one has been charged with the crime, but three men were just acquitted on charges of cover up and obstruction in a closely-watched trial. We have finally obtained and began posting the police interrogations of the three men from the night of the crime. http://wp.me/pVtne-3SY
In your line of work, is body language reliable in such high pressure and unnatural environments like a police interrogation room?
My answer is that stress actually increases the amount of cues given by a suspect.For background and informational purposes, based on your experience, can anything useful be gleaned from such a late night and confrontational interview?
Confrontation is not always the best way of conducting an interview. In my workshops I discuss different questioning techniques and their benefits.
There are those who still believe the three defendants are involved in the murder of their friend. Thank you.
PS: For information on our site and citizen investigative efforts over the last 20 months, this recent Washington Post story is a good start:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/16/AR2010051603220.html
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at
http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at
http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.
