Understanding the Free Editing Process and an Introduction to Obtaining the Statement.

The following is a sample lesson from the Basic Course, coming soon.

Lesson 3: Understanding the Free Editing Process and an Introduction to Obtaining the Statement. 

Free Editing Process: When a subject is speaking for themselves by choosing what to say and what not to say and choosing how to say it without influence by another. 

Before we can get into doing an analysis, we must understand why it is important for us to obtain a statement from a subject using their Free Editing Process. 

Consider when a crime, such as a murder, is committed.  When the perpetrator goes to the scene, commits the murder and flees, the perpetrator will undoubtedly have to interact with the scene to one extent or another.  The perpetrator will touch, move, or perhaps even leave things behind.  By interacting with the scene, the perpetrator has left their mark, which gives away aspects of the crime and sometimes aspects of the perpetrator’s identity.  Eventually investigators will be called to the scene.  These investigators are often trained in various forensic disciplines, including but not limited to, latent fingerprint collection, DNA collection, blood spatter analysis or psychological behavioral profiling.  The investigators will often be able to reconstruct aspects of the crime scene to obtain information that leads them to discover what happened, how it happened and even discover who committed the crime.  However, in order for investigators to do this, they must see the scene in a preserved state from the way the perpetrator left it.   

Once someone comes in after the perpetrator has fled and begins to carelessly walk over evidence, touch items in the scene, move the body, leave their fingerprints, etc., they change the scene.  There is potentially lost or destroyed evidence and some observations may be misleading.   When the investigator comes into this scene not knowing that anything has been disturbed, the misleading details may cause them to think they have everything the scene had to offer and everything they have is accurate and reliable.  This investigator will likely develop misinformed theories and the wrong suspects, lose the case or worse; put an innocent person behind bars. 

When the investigator has access to an uncontaminated scene, or at least one where contamination has been limited and noted by trained first responders, the investigator can learn if and what the contamination was and then work within certain parameters to preserve what the scene has left to offer.  This leads to more reliable theories or conclusions. 

THE STATEMENT IS A CRIME SCENE: 

When we look to gather information from a subject, whether it be a victim, witness or suspect, we would like to know how reliable the information is, if there is deception, where the deception is, if there is information edited from the account and if the subject has provided us with any additional important information that they were unaware they were giving away.   

Essentially, we want to know what the subject knows, even if they choose not to tell us. 

Statement Analysis is not a crystal ball that will tell us everything we need or want to know.  However, when we understand that our first objective is to get the information from the Free Editing Process, we can move to learning from the subject in a way that may aid in or directly solve the crime.  In the Free Editing Process, the subject is guided to speak (or write) their account by only the most limited, broadest and opened ended question permitted by the context of the subject’s potential involvement.  There are various strategies to obtain information in an interview setting, but for now, consider that the best way to obtain information is to start with the simple open-ended question: 

What happened? 

By starting with this question or an appropriate equivalent, and allowing the subject to then provide their account, uninterrupted, it puts the subject into the Free Editing Process.  This forces the subject to have to choose their own words and decide on their own, without our influence on what they will say or how they will say it. 

Although some people have larger vocabularies then others, everyone has a vocabulary that consists of two to three thousand words on average.  These vocabularies are what we have at our disposal when we choose to verbally communicate with each other.  The speed that the brain transmits thoughts into words is at a fraction of a second.  A speed that occurs so fast that the subject, when brought to freely speak or write, cannot assert any reasonable control over their own language.  At a fraction of a second, the subject, who is thinking about what they know, what they want to say and what they don’t want to say, selects from their vast vocabulary of words, formulates their thoughts and presents them through speech or writing.  This is not just what words they use, but how they use these words, the syntax (order) they use them and ultimately how the information is presented to us.  Because the subject is thinking of these things, the deceptive subject will have to think about the truth they wish to conceal while reaching into their vocabulary and formulating their communication.   

No one can tell us everything.  When we ask what happened, it is natural human nature for the subject to edit their account.  They must decide what is important and what is not important to tell us.  Then they must decide whether or not they are going to tell us going forward.  Even the truthful subject omits details they deem to be unimportant. However, as we have discussed, most deception is through omission.  The guilty subject who doesn’t want to lie, will often simply leave out the information that exposes their guilt or guilty knowledge.  Using the techniques of the analysis, we can often learn within the statement when or where the subject has omitted information and find clues about what the subject isn’t telling us.  This is because as the subject is deciding to be deceptive and NOT tell us something, they are forced to think about that which they wish to conceal.  As they think about it, it will influence their language.  This is as if our vocabulary is made up of a vat of all the words and phrases we know and have at our disposal to pick from when we formulate our speech.  When we are thinking of and formulating specific ideas in our minds, its as if it causes specific words or phrases to float to the top.  In the speed of transmission from thought to words, the brain reaches for what is at the surface and creates our speech with what is readily available to us.  The deceptive subject will have words and phrases at their disposal that will reveal what they are truly thinking about. The more the subject speaks, the more they will take from the vat and reveal themself. 

When we approach the subject with a list of questions, statements of our own or even offering our own opinions, we contaminate the subject’s language and can lose much of the information we seek. When we do this, we are alerting the subject as to what we, the investigators, believe to be important, causing the subject’s language to be influenced by us and our influence will be reflected back to us in the account.  The subject’s language will indicate important and sensitive issues, which will only be important and sensitive to the subject because we have essentially made them so.  We want the subject’s personal perceptions to influence the information and not that of the investigator.  If we contaminate the language, we can then be deceived by the analysis. 

Further, as we do the analysis, we will be looking to each and every individual word the subject uses.  We want those words to come from the subject's own internal vocabulary and NOT introduced by the interviewer or other investigators.  The subject’s personal language is key to an analysis and to any subsequent interview or interrogation.  When we introduce our own terms or language, the subject can, and often will, pick up on it, even subconsciously, and parrot it back to us. The deceptive subject can often use the language we introduce to manipulate the account and effectively deceive.   

When we are careless in obtaining the statement and contaminate it, we are leaving our own footprint on the subject’s language.  This would be like having to wonder if what we found at the crime scene, we are processing was left that way by the perpetrator or if it was left that way by something, we, the investigators, did to change the scene. It casts a shadow of doubt over the investigation at best and it misleads the investigation at worst. 

STERILE QUESTIONS: 

When an investigator collects evidence from a crime scene, they are often required to use sterile tools and equipment to avoid the introduction of contaminates.  For example, DNA swabs used to collect latent skin cells (touch DNA) require the investigator to use sterile buccal swabs and sterile water that come sealed by the manufacturer and remain unopened prior to use.  The investigator must use latex gloves when collecting items for DNA testing and must change their gloves between handling each item, all while being cautioned not to talk over and to wear a mask while collecting the evidence.  All these steps are to ensure that when the DNA is examined, the investigator hasn’t introduced any outside DNA or contaminates to the evidence that can make the results of forensic testing unreliable. 

Our questions are our tools for collecting information from the subject.  A first responder and subsequent investigator must be mindful of the subject’s statement, using sterile questions and capturing the uncontaminated account, just like we would use sterile tools in processing the scene.  A sterile question is the open-ended question prior to any relevant discussion, which is crafted with the minimal amount of specific or leading language introduced by the investigator.  The investigator, when selecting the language of the question, should consider using language that is void of legal or morally charged terms and consider that whatever language the investigator chooses is possibly open to a degree of interpretation based on the subject’s personal subjective dictionary.   

The Personal Subjective Dictionary refers to the fact there is room for equivocation, sometimes large and sometimes small, which exists amongst how terms are used and applied from one individual to the next.  Each and every one of us has our own personal internal subjective dictionary.  We will discuss this concept further in later lessons, but for now, one must understand that when a subject applies a term to their language, the concepts that the subject is correlating to their use of that term may be different then the concepts that you, the interviewer, are correlating to the same term.  For example, what comes to mind when I say, “The woman cared for the sick man?” 

How did you picture the woman?  How old was she?  What does it mean to you to be a “woman” instead of a “girl” or a “lady?” Likewise, how about the “man?”  The internal subjective dictionary of one person may invoke the image of a 30 something white female while for another, it may be a 60 something black female.  One person may picture a “woman” wearing business attire and being one who has a strong no-nonsense personality, while when picturing a “lady” they see someone wearing a Sunday dress who keeps proper manners. For others those terms may be internally defined as something else. 

What did you picture “sick” being like?  Is a “sick” person one who feels under the weather or is it someone battling cancer? Perhaps when you imagined a “sick man” you related “sick” to mental health or even addiction. 

What constitutes “caring” for someone in your mind?  Perhaps you thought "caring” was merely an emotional attachment.  Perhaps you pictured “caring” as the woman bringing chicken noodle soup to a man with the sniffles or perhaps to you "caring” was the role of nurse administering medication to someone on their death bed.  

We must carefully choose our words to minimize or avoid the traps of semantics.  The following is an example of how one might formulate a question to a suspect in an assault case: 

Investigator: “Henry, we are investigating an incident that happened at Sam Smith’s residence last night during the party you attended.  Please tell us everything that happened at the party last night.” 

This is one example of the many strategies an investigator has to choose from.  This scenario demonstrates several key elements: 

1). The investigator set up the context.  By doing so, the investigator is necessarily framing the subject’s free editing process while the investigator also puts the subject on alert as to what he is to be thinking about as he formulates his response.  If the subject was involved or has knowledge of there being an incident then the subject will either have to speak of the incident or choose to be deceptive.  If the subject assaulted the alleged victim, the subject will likewise have to think about the assault, while choosing to either speak about it or choose the words he uses to formulate his deception.   

2). The investigator refrained from calling it an “assault.”  The question of an “assault” may be the wrong question according to the subject’s own internal personal subjective dictionary. “Incident” is a morally and legally neutral term.  It is human nature to internally justify our bad behavior.  Morally charged or legally charged terms carry baggage with them.  In order for the subject to admit to “assault” the subject has to admit to the moral and legal culpability that he perceives comes attached to it.  If the subject punched Sam, but has internalized his own justification for his actions for one reason or another, such as believing it constituted self-defense, he may be able to internally justify that what he did was not an “assault.”  The deceptive subject may find the opportunity to make a denial, that has the appearance of being a Reliable Denial, which is one we deem to be statistically likely to be the truth.  The subject will be able to reliably state, “I didn’t assault Sam” and be telling the truth according to his personal internal subjective dictionary.   The deceptive subject can do this, while deceptively omitting what “really’” happened according to his personal perception of the incident. 

Further, the investigator should always be aware of the personal subjective dictionary as at times it may set other traps of semantics.  For example, if the subject pushed Sam, but didn’t punch him, he may also not consider that an “assault.”  The subject may classify a push as something different and he may only consider punching and kicking an “assault.”  The broader and more encompassing the language the wider the net we cast. 

In 1998, then U.S. President Bill Clinton was questioned about an inappropriate sexual relationship with White House intern, Monica Lewinski.  President Clinton is famously known for his denial to the accusation when he said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinski.”  President Clinton later admitted to performing sexual acts with Lewinski, however in his denial, President Clinton didn’t lie.  As you will learn in future lessons, it was the truth.  President Clinton actually did not have “sexual relations” with Miss Lewinski.  The only problem was that in his personal subjective dictionary, his denial of “sexual relations” did not exclude the sexual acts he did engage in.  We later learned in reports that the president justified his denial by how he defined “sexual relations.”  It turned out that in his internal subjective dictionary, the term was reserved only for sexual intercourse.  President Clinton and Monica Lewinski did not have intercourse.  Therefore, he was able to truthfully deny having “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinski and we could not have accused him of otherwise. 

3). Additionally, by using the morally and legally neutral term “incident” the subject is not being made to feel the weight of an accusation.  By not introducing an accusation before getting the account, the analyst will have a clearer context to work from.  The innocent subject who hasn’t been accused will have no need to speak the language of the accused, while the innocent subject who has been accused will have been handed reasons to indicate some signals in the language of sensitivity and defensive posturing.  The deceptive subject, knowing he is guilty of an assault, yet not having been accused of one, may still feel the need to protect himself from the accusation.  This will likely leak out in his account and give linguistic signals in a way that may be powerful to the analysis.  A subject who appears defensive when the investigator has not given him anything to be defensive about is very telling. 

TWO GENERAL TYPES OF STATEMENTS IN AN INVESTIGATION: 

Although we can find other ways to obtain information, for our purposes now, we will take a look at the two main types of statements an investigator is likely to seek out. 

1). The statement that addresses What Happened. 

2). The Alibi statement. 

The statement that addresses what happened is the one where we are likely to speak to a victim, witness or a known suspect and seek out their account of the crime; what they witnessed, what they experienced and what part they played. 

This can be brought on by the simple question; “What happened?”, or some close variation to that as we previously discussed.  It doesn’t exactly look like rocket science, yet it is very important to remember that this is our sterile question.  It should not come after any other questions or any other discussion on the matter.  To the best of our reasonable efforts, this should be our first question.   

In a case of domestic violence, we might say: 

Investigator: “Carl, we’re here because Linda called 911 about an altercation you two had.  Tell me what happened.” 

The alibi question is for those who may or may not be suspects of a crime; those who cannot be directly linked to a crime but cannot be excluded from the pool of suspects.  We look to them to provide a description of what they were doing during the time the crime is believed to have occurred.  This can be done a number of ways tailored to each individual scenario, but in general one would place time parameters in the question and ask the subject to tell us everything they did during that time. 

One example might be in an internal theft case where you ask the employee: 

“Please tell me everything that happened on January 23rd from the time you arrived at work until the time you arrived home.”  

Or in the case of murder: 

“Describe your day on January 23rd from the time you woke up until the time you went to sleep.” 

When one is answering this first open-ended question, we don’t interrupt them, we simply let them speak (write).  If the subject stops speaking, we simply encourage them to continue by asking, “What happened next?”  Any follow up questions should wait until the subject has completed their response and should also be open ended to the best that we can continue on that endeavor. 

CLOSED ENDED QUESTIONS: 

Closed ended questions, such as “yes" or “no” questions, should be avoided for as long as reasonably possible. These questions are the easiest ways to get away with deception.  The short answer “yes” or “no” forces the subject in a fight or flight response, meaning the subject who wishes to be deceptive is brought to a dichotomy between answering truthfully or telling a lie. It may also minimize the internal stress to a fleeting moment for the deceptive subject.  This is not to say that nothing can ever be learned from these questions, but when a subject simply answers a “yes” or “no” question we are often left with very little information to work with and therefore detecting deception becomes less likely.  

Closed ended specific questions, such as, “What time did you get home?” are designed to focus the subject to a specific answer.  These questions should also be put off until the appropriate timing as well.  These narrow the information field of what the subject will give you. 

Close ended questions presented too soon can complicate the analysis, as they are influential and cause contamination by their very nature.  These questions alert the subject to what is most important for the investigator to know and that may be reflected back in the language.  All interviews will result in the need for closed ended questions, but they must be put off until the timing is right. 

QUESTIONS TO AVOID: 

When formulating an interview strategy or style, two types of questions that should be avoided at all times are compound questions and leading questions. 

Compound questions are when the subject is asked two or more questions in one, such as, “Did you count the money or did you take it directly to the bank?”  This could allow the deceptive subject to answer, only one of the two questions.  But what did they answer “I took it directly to the bank?”  Did they count it?  Did they deposit it?  Deceptive subjects will often get away with specifically answering part of the compound question and successfully diverting the attention away from the questions they don’t want to answer.   

 
Q: Did you punch and kick Brian? 

A: I didn’t punch Brian at all. Look at my knuckles.  You won’t see any injuries. 

We note in this example that the subject has effectively gotten away with not answering the question of whether or not he “kicked Brian.” 

Leading questions are when the interviewer implies the answer, he/she is ready to hear from the subject, within the formulation of the question, such as: 

Q: “So, then you ate lunch before you went to the store, correct?” 

The interviewer has effectively told the subject, “I will accept this as your answer,” while simultaneously allowing the subject the opportunity to avoid answering the question for him/herself.   

RECORDING THE STATEMENT: 

Statement Analysis is not something that should be done in haste.  As one gets more proficient, they will begin to pick up on signals in language and other tells through good listening skills during normal discourse.  However, the investigator who wishes to reconstruct the crime scene to learn what happened and/or analyze it for behavioral patterns, usually cannot do a thorough analysis in a short time based on one initial quick walk through of the scene.  They have to spend time with the scene, often even relying on good, accurate photographs to allow them to revisit the scene several times when necessary.  The statement is the same way.  We look to spend time in the statement and to revisit it when necessary.  This is done by having a good recording of the statement. 

One can either instruct the subject to write their statement or they can obtain a verbal statement on a quality audio recording.  In any case, it is always the recommendation that the statement be transcribed into a computer document where the analyst can apply the methods in this course to process the statement and add notes. 

OTHER WAYS TO OBTAIN UNCONTAMINATED STATEMENTS: 

Analysis doesn’t have to be limited to statements solicited by the investigator.  Any time the subject is brought to speak or write, we can use an analysis.  For the uncontaminated statement these can include, but not limited to: 

Letters/Anonymous Letters 

Social Media Posts 

Statements Made to the Media 

Text Messages 

These examples are the purest forms of uncontaminated language as it comes directly from the subject without any direct provocation from the investigator or anyone else.  Analysis work can be done on transcribed interviews and 911 calls as well, but these forms are not necessarily without contamination, so one must be aware that there may be information lost by the nature of the interview and that it requires the analyst to have the full transcripts so that the analyst can see just how the investigator or 911 operator influenced the language.  However, these types of transcribed interviews can still give a wealth of knowledge to the analyst and something as simple as an analysis of a 911 call can turn an investigation on its head.