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The Knife: Off Record – 104 · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. Hello,
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Speaker 1: and welcome to the Knife Off Record. I'm Patia Eaton.
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Speaker 2: I'm Hannah Smith. On today's episode, we're going to cover
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Speaker 2: the case of Echo May Wiles's disappearance. We're going to
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Speaker 2: reference an interview we did with a retired FBI special agent.
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Speaker 2: We are going to skip recommendations and listeners questions this week. Instead,
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Speaker 2: we are going to ask a very important question. How
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Speaker 2: do you know if someone is lying to you? I mean,
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Speaker 2: this is really something everyone would love to know. I
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Speaker 2: personally think I'm pretty good at it. Doesn't everybody think
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Speaker 2: that they're going to do Maybe everybody thinks that. I
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Speaker 2: feel like that's the problem. Actually is everyone thinks they're
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Speaker 2: really good at.
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Speaker 1: It, Like you could never fool me.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be a very difficult thing to know
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Speaker 2: if someone is telling you the truth.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And you know, we have been researching this a lot
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Speaker 1: because we recently spoke with a retired FBI agent by
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Speaker 1: the name of Mark Rossey, who's an expert polygraph examiner.
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Speaker 1: Mark was brought in on a case the disappearance of
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Speaker 1: Echo May Wiles, which actually turned into a murder investigation.
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Speaker 1: So first we're just going to talk about polygraphs and
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Speaker 1: what does someone think of when they think of a polygraph.
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Speaker 2: My mind goes to like people in a basement, someone
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Speaker 2: strapped up to a machine sweating, and then there's like
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Speaker 2: a piece of paper and a machine and like what
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Speaker 2: do you call that? Like a little wire going crazy
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Speaker 2: and an angry person on either side who's like.
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Speaker 1: You're lying, and terrible lighting. Always, oh, terrible lighting for me.
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Speaker 1: I also think of puppy Gate, Hannah, puppy Gate, puppy Gate.
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Speaker 2: Okay, So for those.
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Speaker 1: Who don't know, I've been trying to get Hannah to
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Speaker 1: watch the Real House Size Above Hills or really any
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Speaker 1: franchise unsuccessfully since we met.
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Speaker 2: Hasn't happened yet.
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Speaker 1: Hasn't happened. So I'm just going to tell you about
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Speaker 1: puppy Gate.
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Speaker 2: Okay, great.
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Speaker 1: So Lisa vander Pump, who was a cast member on
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Speaker 1: the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills before leaving the show,
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Speaker 1: she has a dog rescue and another cast member, Dereete,
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Speaker 1: adopted a dog from that rescue. Okay, so here's where
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Speaker 1: things get a little murky. The dog was re homed
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Speaker 1: by Derete to someone else who then dropped the dog
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Speaker 1: off at a shelter. So why this is super bad
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Speaker 1: other than that nobody wants to drop their dog off
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Speaker 1: at a shelter, is that with dog rescue, you're usually
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Speaker 1: signing something in an adoption agreement that says, if anything
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Speaker 1: goes wrong, I'm going to bring you the dog back
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Speaker 1: so that they can make sure that dog never ends
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Speaker 1: up in a shelter again.
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Speaker 2: So that was the expectation that DeWitt would do that
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Speaker 2: if she didn't want.
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Speaker 1: The dog exactly, and the dog had I think bitten
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Speaker 1: people in her household or shown aggression and that's why
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Speaker 1: she rehomed the dog to someone she thought was going
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Speaker 1: to keep it. And so the story gets out that
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Speaker 1: Lucy Apple Juice the dog was given to a shelter,
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Speaker 1: and it becomes this like highly sensationalized story that points
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Speaker 1: a finger at Dery for, you know, sort of callously
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Speaker 1: getting rid of this rescue dog. And the allegation on
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Speaker 1: the show from the other cast members was that Lisa
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Speaker 1: vander Pump planted the story to get back at Derret's.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, the drama.
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Speaker 1: The drama.
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Speaker 2: So Lisa, to clear her good name, takes a polygraph test.
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Speaker 2: So the woman who owns the dog rescue did a
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Speaker 2: light detector test.
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Speaker 1: She did a lie detector test that she set up,
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Speaker 1: and it's on the show and she walks in there
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Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure she brings her little dog with
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Speaker 1: her and she sits down. A man asks her a
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Speaker 1: series of questions and she leaves and did she pass?
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Speaker 1: She did? She passed with flying colors.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 1: So, as we've now come to learn, this is not
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Speaker 1: what polygraphs actually are, but they actually have a long
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Speaker 1: history and sort of a complicated public perception because of
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Speaker 1: a lot of things we're going to talk about. The
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Speaker 1: probably biggest reason for that is that they're not admissible
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Speaker 1: in court. So why don't you tell us a little
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Speaker 1: bit about the history of polygraphs.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it's a storied history in a
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Speaker 2: lot of ways, because we do we see these images
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Speaker 2: on television shows and it's just hard to tell how
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Speaker 2: scientific it is really. There were really early iterations of
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Speaker 2: this kind of test in the even late seventeen hundreds
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Speaker 2: and early eighteen hundreds, but the first machine that is
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Speaker 2: similar to what we have today was invented in nineteen
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Speaker 2: fifteen by an American psychologist and author William M. Marston,
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Speaker 2: and it was basically just like a blood pressure monitoring
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Speaker 2: system that he used to try to determine if someone
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Speaker 2: was deceiving someone else. And then it was updated in
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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty one by a physiologist, John A. Larson, who
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Speaker 2: was also a policeman for the Berkeley, California Police Department,
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Speaker 2: and his test was a little bit more advanced and
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Speaker 2: very similar actually to what we have today. So along
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Speaker 2: with blood pressure, it also measures your breathing and your
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Speaker 2: pulse and your sweat, like how much you're sweating. And
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Speaker 2: he incorporated into the Berkeley, California Police departments police interviewing process,
5:32
Speaker 2: and for a time for a few years, there was
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Speaker 2: a lot of excitement around that because it was seen
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Speaker 2: as this new scientific technology that could prove that someone
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Speaker 2: was either telling a truth or a lie, and everyone
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Speaker 2: was really excited about it, and in some ways it
5:49
Speaker 2: was seen as a more humane way to interview suspects
5:53
Speaker 2: because there was a lot of police using violence, beating
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Speaker 2: a confession out of someone, if you will, So this
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Speaker 2: was is a more humane way to question someone and
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Speaker 2: get an answer. There was kind of immediately though also
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Speaker 2: skeptics who said, well, how scientific is this really? And
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Speaker 2: then the first time it appeared in court was nineteen
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Speaker 2: twenty three, so two years later and it appeared in
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Speaker 2: a criminal court case Fry versus the United States. James
6:21
Speaker 2: Alfonso Fry was charged with the murder of a prominent
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Speaker 2: doctor in Washington, DC, doctor R. W. Brown, who was
6:27
Speaker 2: shot outside his home in nineteen twenty. Doctor Brown's family
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Speaker 2: offered a one thousand dollars reward for anyone who could
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Speaker 2: name the shooter, but for about a year there were
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Speaker 2: no leads in the case, and then suddenly this guy
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Speaker 2: in his twenties, James Fry, gets questioned by the police
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Speaker 2: for other crimes forgery and theft, and somehow at the
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Speaker 2: end of that he ends up confessing to the murder
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Speaker 2: of doctor Brown. So he's charged with the murder. The
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Speaker 2: case goes to trial, but then he gets his defense
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Speaker 2: attorneys and he tells them he doesn't have anything to
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Speaker 2: do with them, but he had planned to split the
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Speaker 2: reward money with the detective who questioned him, and he
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Speaker 2: said that's why he confessed. Yikes, who knows. But his
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Speaker 2: attorneys were not in a good place because he had confessed,
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Speaker 2: so they looked around and they found this guy, William Marston,
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Speaker 2: the psychologist, the guy who invented the early version of
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Speaker 2: the polygraph, and convinced him to come on. He gave
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Speaker 2: Fry a polygraph test and you know, came to the
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Speaker 2: conclusion that he had given a false confession. They tried
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Speaker 2: to submit it as evidence, but ultimately the judge denied that,
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Speaker 2: basically saying that, you know, if scientific technology is going
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Speaker 2: to be used in a court case, it needs to
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Speaker 2: be generally accepted as reliable in the scientific community, and
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Speaker 2: this was not, and that ends up becoming known as
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Speaker 2: the Fry standard. So, unfortunately, James Fry was convicted of
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Speaker 2: second degree murder and served eighteen years in prison. One
7:57
Speaker 2: thing to note that I thought was interesting about who's
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Speaker 2: the psychologist that they brought in. He was also an
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Speaker 2: author and years later, in nineteen forty one, he invented
8:06
Speaker 2: the comic book character wonder Woman. Okay, jack of all trades,
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Speaker 2: I know, right, Like, how many things can this guy do?
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Speaker 2: But one of Wonder Woman's magical powers is that she
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Speaker 2: has a golden lasso called the Lasso of Truth, and
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Speaker 2: when she ropes someone with it, they're forced to tell
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Speaker 2: her the truth. Okay, so call back to the light
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Speaker 2: detector test.
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Speaker 3: Nice.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like clearly really interested as we all are,
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Speaker 2: in this idea. If you had an ability to tell
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Speaker 2: for sure that someone was telling you the truth or
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Speaker 2: a lie, it would be so useful. I mean, it's
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Speaker 2: like so much of crime and what we talk about
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Speaker 2: and convictions, it's like we're trying to get to the
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Speaker 2: truth and it's a really difficult thing to get to and.
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Speaker 1: For law enforcement, they're so reliant on evidence as they
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Speaker 1: ought to be. But you know, if someone maybe did
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Speaker 1: a good job hiding that evidence, but you could still
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Speaker 1: take a light detector test and get them on that,
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Speaker 1: that would be case closed for so many investigations.
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Speaker 2: I mean easy. Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?
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Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be nice? You know, in the case that
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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today, it maybe had some
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Speaker 1: similarities to the James Fry case in that there were
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Speaker 1: no leads for a long time and eventually the investigation
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Speaker 1: was picked back up again and a light detector played
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Speaker 1: a really big role in closing that case. Yeah, which
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Speaker 1: I'm excited to get to that.
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Speaker 2: One last thing just about you know the history of
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Speaker 2: the polygraph in nineteen sixty five, there was a US
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Speaker 2: Committee on Government Operations that did an evaluation of the
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Speaker 2: polygraph machine and concluded, quote, there is no light detector,
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Speaker 2: neither man nor machine. People have been deceived by a
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Speaker 2: myth that a metal box in the hands of an
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Speaker 2: investigator can detect truth or falsehood. And then there was
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Speaker 2: another study in two thousand and three by the US
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Speaker 2: National Research Council which basically said that the results are
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Speaker 2: better than flipping a coin. Some critics have said the
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Speaker 2: results are fifty to fifty, it's basically like you're flipping
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Speaker 2: a coin. This research study basically said that's not true.
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Speaker 2: The accuracy levels are above fifty percent, more like sixty,
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Speaker 2: but still that's not great. There's a lot of room
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Speaker 2: for great and that's something that Mark actually spoke to
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Speaker 2: us a lot about which we'll get into, which is
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Speaker 2: the very wide spectrum of experts within polygraphing. So we
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Speaker 2: actually interviewed a retired FBI special agent, Mark Rozzi, who
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Speaker 2: was in the FBI for twenty nine and a half
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Speaker 2: years and had a variety of specialties.
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Speaker 1: During that time. He was a profiler, worked on the
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Speaker 1: SWAT team, and then became a federal polygraph examiner Mark
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Speaker 1: summarized polygraphs as it's basically what the body does when
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Speaker 1: the mind realizes you're telling a lie.
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Speaker 2: According to Mark, the polygraph measures our physiological channels such
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Speaker 2: as cardiovascular activity, respiratory activity, and electrodermal activity, which is
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Speaker 2: basically sweat secretion. One thing that really shocked me and
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Speaker 2: I think you as well when we talked to Mark
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Speaker 2: and he really walked us through the process of what
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Speaker 2: it looks like to give someone a polygraph test, and
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Speaker 2: he said it can take like four to six hours,
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Speaker 2: so long. Yeah, there's this whole long process of pretests
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Speaker 2: where you go through their medical history, you ask them
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Speaker 2: what medications they might be on, and give a full
11:43
Speaker 2: evaluation of their sort of status quo I guess is
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Speaker 2: what it would be. He also walks them through the
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Speaker 2: case that he's investigating as well as goes through every
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Speaker 2: single question that he's going to ask during the polygraph,
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Speaker 2: so there's no surprises like gotcha questions in a polygraph.
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Speaker 1: Right, And the idea is that you're getting a totally
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Speaker 1: objective test. You know someone's physiological channels and the changes
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Speaker 1: that are occurring within those are not going to be
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Speaker 1: spiked by a surprise. The idea is that it's just
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Speaker 1: the mind realizing the body is lying.
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Speaker 2: So we also have to whomind. Mark was a profiler
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Speaker 2: as well, so criminal profiler, So it's like when he's
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Speaker 2: giving the test itself and the results, and he's also
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Speaker 2: evaluating someone the whole time, right. He kind of called
12:35
Speaker 2: out all of those classic tropes of how you could
12:37
Speaker 2: tell someone was telling a lie, like they look down
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Speaker 2: into the left, and he basically was like, none of
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Speaker 2: that is.
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Speaker 1: Real, because everyone going into a polygraph, probably especially with
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Speaker 1: an expert polygrapher who works for the FBI, no one's relaxed.
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Speaker 1: It's just about being able to get a sense of
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Speaker 1: a person's baseline and then watching for any deviation from that.
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Speaker 2: When I have to go to the doctor and literally
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Speaker 2: just get my blood pressure taken, I'm nervous, so nervous
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Speaker 2: in that scenario. Oh yeah, I.
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Speaker 1: Went in for a blood draw the other day and
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Speaker 1: he was so nice, he was making small talk with me,
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Speaker 1: and I was just like, I have nothing, I'm nothing.
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Speaker 1: I'm just if I even breathe, I will run out
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Speaker 1: of here.
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Speaker 2: I have to just get through this. You and I
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Speaker 2: both would be nervous. Being polygraphed. Probably you even more
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Speaker 2: Probably I would fail even if I were innocent. But
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Speaker 2: what did Mark say to us, over and over and
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Speaker 2: over about nervousness?
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Speaker 1: Mark said that everybody is nervous. No one walks into
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Speaker 1: an FBI office, sits down, gets hooked up to a
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Speaker 1: polygraph machine, and is relaxed about it. It's only about
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Speaker 1: measuring the baseline for your nerves, and it's up to
13:52
Speaker 1: the examiner to work out what that baseline is.
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Speaker 2: Right, And so he said it's fine. He's tested people
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Speaker 2: who are really nervous and people who are not, and
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Speaker 2: claims that he'll still get good results even with the nerves.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and even when he is in the room polygraphing someone,
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Speaker 1: his whole goal is to get a clean chart, I think,
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Speaker 1: is how he referred to it. And for him to
14:17
Speaker 1: do that, he has to ask questions in a way
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Speaker 1: that is very straightforward, nothing left up to interpretation, which
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Speaker 1: goes into that pretest element of a polygraph, where you're saying,
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Speaker 1: when I ask you this question, here's what I mean
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Speaker 1: by it, Yes, and not using words that might be
14:35
Speaker 1: triggering for people that spike those changes in their baseline.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like he talked about going through the pretest with
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Speaker 2: them and making sure that there was no room for interpretation.
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Speaker 2: So it's like, were you at the bank last Friday
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Speaker 2: or something, and you know there could be a lot
14:56
Speaker 2: of ways that you interpret that, or were you at
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Speaker 2: the bank last Friday morning? And it's like maybe you
15:00
Speaker 2: we're there at eleven forty five and you're like, is
15:02
Speaker 2: that morning? Could that be considered afternoon? So he goes
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Speaker 2: through and says, were you at you know, this specific
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Speaker 2: bank on this corner at this specific time, so that
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Speaker 2: there's absolutely no room for you to as you're thinking
15:16
Speaker 2: about the answer and they're all yes and no questions
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Speaker 2: to be like well, I don't know, I don't know.
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Speaker 1: No room for misinterpretation is the goal. And you know
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Speaker 1: also in asking the questions, it's a very sort of monotone, unemotional, not.
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Speaker 2: Were you at the bank?
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Speaker 1: Right?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? I thought it was interesting. He really differentiated between
15:36
Speaker 2: like interrogation or interview and giving a polygraph test. He
15:42
Speaker 2: said those are completely separate things, and in fact, you
15:45
Speaker 2: cannot interrogate someone prior to giving them the test because
15:49
Speaker 2: it would compromise the validity of the test. So you
15:52
Speaker 2: have to be he's just like this calm collected guy.
15:57
Speaker 2: Or you have to pick one, or you have to
15:59
Speaker 2: pick one. Yeah, So today we're going to talk about
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Speaker 2: a case that Mark told me about. Well, I was
16:04
Speaker 2: on a call with him a while back. I knew
16:06
Speaker 2: we wanted to have him on the show, and he
16:09
Speaker 2: told me, you know, I'd really love to talk to
16:11
Speaker 2: you about the case of a young woman who went missing.
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Speaker 2: Her name was Echo May Wiles, and Mark's role as
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Speaker 2: an expert polygraph examiner played a major part in the
16:22
Speaker 2: investigation into what happened to Echo.
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Speaker 3: I am retired special agent Mark, rising from the FBI.
16:32
Speaker 3: I was an FBI agent for twenty nine and a
16:34
Speaker 3: half years. I became an FBI polygraph examiner and I
16:38
Speaker 3: held that position in North Carolina, so I was the
16:40
Speaker 3: only one in this state for the FBI, and I
16:43
Speaker 3: held that position for eighteen years. So by the time
16:46
Speaker 3: I retired, I was the senior most FBI polyographic examiner
16:52
Speaker 3: in the country, in the world.
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Speaker 2: So we did a full interview with Mark, and ultimately
16:59
Speaker 2: you and I decided we didn't want to use that
17:01
Speaker 2: interview for a full interview episode on the Knife, mainly
17:05
Speaker 2: because we had a difficult time finding a lot of
17:08
Speaker 2: information about Echo Wiles as a person. You made some calls,
17:13
Speaker 2: did some outreach, it was just really difficult to find
17:16
Speaker 2: any information about her. So we didn't feel great about
17:20
Speaker 2: using that interview for a full interview episode because we
17:23
Speaker 2: are really focused on victims stories and victims' rights. But
17:28
Speaker 2: we found Mark's story really compelling, especially because of the
17:31
Speaker 2: role the polygraph played in solving this case. We're going
17:35
Speaker 2: to walk you through the case of Echo wiles disappearance
17:37
Speaker 2: as well as our conversation with Mark, and we will
17:40
Speaker 2: play a few clips from our interview.
17:51
Speaker 1: Echo May Wiles was born on February eighth, nineteen eighty five.
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Speaker 1: There's not much written about her outside of her disappearance,
17:59
Speaker 1: which you had already mentioned and not played a role
18:02
Speaker 1: in why we're not going to do the entire interview today.
18:04
Speaker 1: But Echo was married relatively young at age twenty, and
18:08
Speaker 1: was living in Fort Riley, Kansas, which is a military base.
18:12
Speaker 1: Her husband, Joshua Wiles, was a soldier and he was
18:15
Speaker 1: on active duty. In August of two thousand and five,
18:19
Speaker 1: Echo disappeared along with her car, and an investigation was
18:23
Speaker 1: launched into what happened, but ultimately there were a few leads,
18:28
Speaker 1: and her disappearance remained a mystery. Her husband was deployed
18:32
Speaker 1: at the time. I believe he was overseas and he
18:35
Speaker 1: was not a suspect in this case. You know, he naturally,
18:38
Speaker 1: as a spouse, was on a list, but they never
18:42
Speaker 1: had reason to think he was involved in her disappearance
18:45
Speaker 1: or had knowledge of what happened. So, of course, when
18:49
Speaker 1: someone goes missing, there is so much digging that goes
18:53
Speaker 1: into their life to try to figure out who were
18:56
Speaker 1: they associating with and why, how were they spending their time. Time,
19:00
Speaker 1: every discoverable detail of someone's life gets drudged up, and
19:05
Speaker 1: in this case, it did come out to investigators that
19:09
Speaker 1: Echo was romantically involved in relationships outside of her marriage,
19:14
Speaker 1: but with no body her car was nowhere to be found,
19:18
Speaker 1: and you know, no real motive, no hard evidence. The
19:22
Speaker 1: case went unsolved for five years. Well they didn't even
19:25
Speaker 1: know that it was a crime at that point, right,
19:28
Speaker 1: she was just gone. And the lead investigator on that case,
19:31
Speaker 1: who worked for the army, actually retired in that time
19:35
Speaker 1: that her case was going unsolved with no additional leads.
19:39
Speaker 2: It's got to feel so bad to retire with unsolved cases.
19:43
Speaker 1: That would be really hard because you know what we
19:46
Speaker 1: came to learn from Marcus. She worked incredibly hard on
19:49
Speaker 1: this case to try to bring closure to Echo's family,
19:52
Speaker 1: to try to find her. Yeah, they did extensive work
19:55
Speaker 1: in the beginning, interviewing people who knew Echo, were associated
19:59
Speaker 1: with Echo, but she was just gone. And the first
20:04
Speaker 1: break in the case came just by chance. It was
20:08
Speaker 1: in April of twenty ten. Construction workers were draining a
20:12
Speaker 1: body of water called Moon Lake, which is on Fort Riley,
20:16
Speaker 1: and as the water lowered, they could see a car
20:20
Speaker 1: antenna emerging. My gosh, I know, and the car was
20:23
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven Chevrolet Monte Carlo and that is
20:27
Speaker 1: the kind of car that Echo Wiles was driving. Of course,
20:30
Speaker 1: they have to do their due dilgence and make sure,
20:33
Speaker 1: but the car did belong to Echo, and tragically, her
20:36
Speaker 1: remains were found inside of.
20:38
Speaker 2: The vehicle, so she'd been there the whole time.
20:40
Speaker 1: She'd been there the entire time.
20:43
Speaker 3: You know.
20:43
Speaker 1: At that point the investigation is reignited because now they
20:47
Speaker 1: have remains and it's still not clear what happened. They
20:52
Speaker 1: just have her remains in her car, but with evidence
20:55
Speaker 1: they could examine for the first time in the case.
20:57
Speaker 1: They actually brought back that retired Army investigator to come
21:01
Speaker 1: back to work on it, and the remains were not
21:04
Speaker 1: in a state where even a medical examiner could determine
21:07
Speaker 1: the cause of death.
21:09
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so you have remains now, but you have
21:14
Speaker 2: no way of knowing how she died.
21:16
Speaker 1: Right, But because of the remains being in the car,
21:19
Speaker 1: they now had reason to suspect foul play, and that's
21:24
Speaker 1: when they call Mark. Mark was brought in to assist
21:29
Speaker 1: the Army on this case because he's an expert polygrapher,
21:33
Speaker 1: and one thing that Mark explained to us is that
21:36
Speaker 1: polygraph is an incredible tool for ruling people out as
21:42
Speaker 1: much as it is finding someone who's guilty of a
21:46
Speaker 1: crime and trying to be deceptive about it.
21:49
Speaker 2: When he told us that, one of the points he
21:52
Speaker 2: made was that there's resources that have to go into
21:56
Speaker 2: investigating all the people of interest in a case. Right,
22:00
Speaker 2: so if you can rule someone out, then you're saving resources, money, personnel,
22:05
Speaker 2: as well as a person who is innocent having to
22:08
Speaker 2: have like their phone records reviewed, et cetera.
22:12
Speaker 1: Right and time, because you know, if you believe that
22:15
Speaker 1: there's fell play, you're trying to get to the person
22:17
Speaker 1: who's responsible.
22:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:19
Speaker 1: So Mark was called in and he said, yes, absolutely,
22:22
Speaker 1: he would assist. And the first person that he was
22:26
Speaker 1: asked to polygraph was a man that Echo was known
22:30
Speaker 1: to have had a romantic relationship with. And this person
22:34
Speaker 1: was actually still on active duty but had since been
22:37
Speaker 1: relocated to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and Mark hit
22:42
Speaker 1: a speedbump as soon as he arrived. He said, when
22:45
Speaker 1: he got there, they introduced him to this person and
22:49
Speaker 1: he was under the impression that this person would be
22:53
Speaker 1: unaware he was coming. And you know, we've spoken a
22:56
Speaker 1: lot about how there's no surprises with polygraphs, but in
22:59
Speaker 1: this specific situation and maybe other situations like this, the
23:03
Speaker 1: idea is that Mark then has an opportunity to introduce
23:07
Speaker 1: himself and let this person know how highly trained he is.
23:12
Speaker 1: Because polygraphs are voluntary, so you know, there's nothing stopping
23:17
Speaker 1: someone from saying nope, non interested in walking away.
23:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's also a point of information gathering, right,
23:24
Speaker 2: Like the first time someone hears the question of will
23:27
Speaker 2: you take a polygraph? In this case, he's reading their reaction.
23:31
Speaker 2: Are they shocked like usually yes, but are they sort
23:35
Speaker 2: of like okay, why would I or are they super resistant?
23:39
Speaker 2: It's all potential information that could help inform his profiling
23:44
Speaker 2: basically of the person, right.
23:46
Speaker 1: And that is the idea is he walks in and
23:48
Speaker 1: he has an opportunity to say, my name is especially
23:51
Speaker 1: Jim Mark Rossey, and here's all of my accreditations and experience,
23:56
Speaker 1: and here's why you should take this test. But an
23:59
Speaker 1: attorney who are for the army, because the soldier was
24:01
Speaker 1: still an active duty, advised his client do not take
24:05
Speaker 1: this polygraph. And so Mark is immediately like, okay, I
24:09
Speaker 1: need to find a way to make this happen. And
24:11
Speaker 1: we're going to play a clip for you from Mark
24:13
Speaker 1: telling us about that moment.
24:16
Speaker 3: And I said, I'm going to have multiple people I
24:19
Speaker 3: need to polygraph, and I'm here to clear your good
24:21
Speaker 3: name as long as you didn't, you know, kill Echo.
24:24
Speaker 3: And the look in his eyes he encounted to me
24:27
Speaker 3: like you know you think I killed Echo? It just
24:29
Speaker 3: had that ring to it. And I said, oh, do
24:31
Speaker 3: you think I'm here because of the affair you had
24:34
Speaker 3: with her? I said, I don't care about that. I said,
24:37
Speaker 3: I'm just sure, you know, to make sure that you
24:39
Speaker 3: didn't kill her, and he looked at me and I said,
24:41
Speaker 3: but if we can't clear you with a polygraph, they'll
24:44
Speaker 3: just keep digging into your past and going through your records.
24:48
Speaker 3: And but that you're right, and he said, wait, wait
24:51
Speaker 3: a minute. He said, listen, on second thought, I'd like
24:53
Speaker 3: to take a polygraph.
24:55
Speaker 1: Mark got him.
24:56
Speaker 2: He got him.
24:57
Speaker 1: Mark got him to take a polygraph. A couple of
25:00
Speaker 1: in the military, having an affair with a married person
25:03
Speaker 1: is a punishable offense, and this man that Mark had
25:07
Speaker 1: been asked a polygraph was still on active duty. So
25:11
Speaker 1: whether or not he had anything to do with Echo's
25:13
Speaker 1: disappearance or any knowledge of what happened to her, by
25:16
Speaker 1: admitting that he had this romantic relationship, he could potentially
25:19
Speaker 1: still face those consequences. So Mark knew this might be
25:22
Speaker 1: concerning for him and just had to reassure him, I'm
25:26
Speaker 1: not here because of the affair. He was there because
25:29
Speaker 1: Echo's body was in that car. Although when we asked, Mark,
25:33
Speaker 1: did you tell them that Echo's remains were founder in
25:36
Speaker 1: the car? And he couldn't recall exactly with this first
25:40
Speaker 1: polygraph that we're going to talk about, but he said
25:42
Speaker 1: that because it had been published, he suspected that the
25:45
Speaker 1: person knew why he was there because he was concerned
25:49
Speaker 1: about the affair.
25:50
Speaker 2: Right, so it was public knowledge at that point that
25:53
Speaker 2: Echo's remains had been found, right, gotcha.
25:57
Speaker 1: So they go ahead and do the polygraph, which again
26:00
Speaker 1: consists of a lengthy pretest, the polygraph itself, and the
26:04
Speaker 1: post test. And you know, these are a series of
26:08
Speaker 1: yes or no answers. They're all questions asked multiple times.
26:12
Speaker 1: And Mark is doing all of this to see if
26:15
Speaker 1: he can get a quote unquote clean test. And so
26:26
Speaker 1: Mark told us that he was able to get a
26:28
Speaker 1: very clean test and it was clear to him in
26:30
Speaker 1: the room that this guy had passed with flying colors,
26:34
Speaker 1: is what he said. He talked about there being a
26:36
Speaker 1: process of he can't really tell you in the room,
26:39
Speaker 1: but he knew. And then it was quickly confirmed by
26:42
Speaker 1: his associates that this guy passed the polygraph. This was
26:46
Speaker 1: not the person who killed Echo. I imagine that was
26:50
Speaker 1: a moment of extreme relief for this person.
26:52
Speaker 2: You gotta think, so, you gotta think. So.
26:55
Speaker 1: So Mark returns home and he communicates these as to
27:00
Speaker 1: the army investigator. And you know, Mark said that in
27:04
Speaker 1: his eighteen years of polygraphing, he ran somewhere between three
27:09
Speaker 1: thousand and thirty five hundred polygraphs. He knows what a
27:13
Speaker 1: past polygraph test looks like, but as you mentioned, he
27:16
Speaker 1: can't say that in the room. And that's all just
27:18
Speaker 1: part of this very strict process the FBI has where
27:21
Speaker 1: an outside source has to look at it so that
27:23
Speaker 1: they're going off only this chart and not a lingering suspicion.
27:29
Speaker 2: So then eventually he gets another call and it's from
27:33
Speaker 2: that same lead investigator on the case that's with the military,
27:37
Speaker 2: and she tells him that there is a second person
27:40
Speaker 2: of interest in the case named Christopher Willoughby, and asks
27:45
Speaker 2: if he is willing to go and do another polygraph.
27:49
Speaker 2: By this time, it's December of twenty ten, about seven
27:52
Speaker 2: months after Echo's remains were discovered, still five years after
27:56
Speaker 2: she went missing.
27:57
Speaker 1: Right a little over five years after Echo had initially
28:01
Speaker 1: gone missing. And at this time Chris Willoughby is in
28:04
Speaker 1: his mid twenties and no longer active in the military.
28:10
Speaker 1: So we have another clip from Mark talking about that
28:13
Speaker 1: call requesting a second polygraph.
28:17
Speaker 3: So on the second polygraph, quite frankly, I was given
28:19
Speaker 3: a very similar story. We found another soldier, former soldier
28:24
Speaker 3: who is a civilian now that when he left for Roley, Kansas,
28:29
Speaker 3: I don't know his direct path, but ultimately settled down
28:32
Speaker 3: as a civilian in the Pensacola area, and we believe
28:37
Speaker 3: that he may have had an ongoing affair at the
28:39
Speaker 3: time of Echo's disappearance with Echo and would I be
28:43
Speaker 3: willing to also give him a polygraph?
28:46
Speaker 1: So Mark travels to Florida to meet Chris Willoughby in person,
28:51
Speaker 1: and just like in the scenario of the first polygraph,
28:55
Speaker 1: Mark introduces himself, speaks with Chris about his experience and asks, Chris,
29:00
Speaker 1: are you willing to take a polygraph? You know, Chris
29:04
Speaker 1: had also been known to be a romantic associate of Echoes,
29:08
Speaker 1: and that was no longer a concern for Chris like
29:11
Speaker 1: it was in the case of the First Soldier, because
29:14
Speaker 1: at this point Chris is a civilian, right, so he
29:16
Speaker 1: doesn't face any consequences for this extra marital relationship.
29:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he still agrees to do the polygraph. And
29:23
Speaker 2: not all polygraphs are recorded with video, but this one
29:27
Speaker 2: was because it was an investigation run by the military,
29:30
Speaker 2: and that was the military's process. I don't know always is,
29:33
Speaker 2: but for this case it was so they were in
29:36
Speaker 2: a room, you know. Same with this first polygraph, everything
29:39
Speaker 2: was captured on video.
29:40
Speaker 1: Right, and that was not a FBI process at the time,
29:43
Speaker 1: so that was just completely set up by the Army.
29:46
Speaker 1: Mark was going to go in and do the polygraph.
29:48
Speaker 1: Either way, let's get into the clip.
29:51
Speaker 3: So a lot of backgrounds being done in this case
29:54
Speaker 3: between Chris and I and then we start reviewing the case.
29:58
Speaker 3: You can't give a polygraph without talking about the case,
30:01
Speaker 3: and we did. We spent some time talking about the case,
30:04
Speaker 3: and somewhere in this we referred to as the pretest,
30:09
Speaker 3: the pre polygraph examination, the pre test interview in order
30:13
Speaker 3: to give a fair, unbiased polygraph. It's just a discussion.
30:17
Speaker 3: I'm asking them some questions. I'm answering any questions they
30:20
Speaker 3: have with me. But somewhere in that pre test interview,
30:25
Speaker 3: Chris Willoughby turned to me and out of nowhere, and
30:28
Speaker 3: it wasn't in response to anything I asked him, and
30:31
Speaker 3: he said, he let out a little phrase something like this,
30:36
Speaker 3: I can still smell her perfume.
30:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, talking to Mark, A lot of years
30:43
Speaker 1: have passed since these polygraphs, and we asked him a
30:46
Speaker 1: lot of specific questions as we typically do. And you
30:50
Speaker 1: know Mark always was like, oh, I can't quite recall
30:53
Speaker 1: or maybe around this time he remembered that comment from
30:57
Speaker 1: Chris so clearly.
31:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's such a bizarre comment that it
31:04
Speaker 2: was an immediate red flag to him, right.
31:06
Speaker 1: Because he's got this whole career as an FBI agent,
31:09
Speaker 1: a criminal profiler.
31:11
Speaker 2: He knows. Yeah, it's not just like a flippant comment
31:14
Speaker 2: that someone would say, right for no reason.
31:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so you know, it'd been five years at
31:20
Speaker 1: this point since Echo had disappeared, so to recall her perfume,
31:25
Speaker 1: and also you know, I wasn't there, and I'm speculating,
31:29
Speaker 1: I guess, but you're speaking with an FBI agent and
31:32
Speaker 1: that slips out just an astonishing moment for Mark. But
31:36
Speaker 1: his training, Marks training has brought him to this place
31:38
Speaker 1: of being able to appear totally neutral even if he's
31:42
Speaker 1: majorly flagging something like a very strange comment.
31:47
Speaker 2: He can be internally shocked, but he doesn't show that
31:50
Speaker 2: on his face at all, because he wants whoever he's
31:54
Speaker 2: talking to to give him as much information as possible,
31:57
Speaker 2: to be very comfortable and see him almost like a
31:59
Speaker 2: friend that he can talk to.
32:01
Speaker 1: Right, someone who's only there to conduct a polygraph and
32:05
Speaker 1: not there to determine guilt, right, not there to get
32:08
Speaker 1: the guilt out of someone, but to just get the truth.
32:12
Speaker 1: So Mark flags this comment super unsettling, and he briefly
32:17
Speaker 1: contemplates abandoning the polygraph and going into an interrogation to
32:22
Speaker 1: try to get a confession, to try to get a confession.
32:25
Speaker 1: But you know, there comes another point in this pretest
32:29
Speaker 1: where that decision ends up being made for him, And
32:32
Speaker 1: we're going to play that clip from Mark.
32:35
Speaker 3: I'm going to be honest with you, there comes a point,
32:37
Speaker 3: at least for me. But I know, in speaking to
32:40
Speaker 3: all these other FBI polygamers and other POLU presammers, where
32:43
Speaker 3: you have to decide are we even giving a polygraph today?
32:47
Speaker 3: Because there's nothing to prevent you from just going into
32:50
Speaker 3: an interrogation. But once you start an interrogation, you're done.
32:56
Speaker 3: There is no polygraph. In other words, you can't go
32:59
Speaker 3: after some one and say, hey, listen, I've got reason
33:02
Speaker 3: to believe you did this thing, and we need to
33:04
Speaker 3: dig deeper and then come back and say okay, and
33:07
Speaker 3: now I'm going to give you a fair, unbiased pelt.
33:09
Speaker 3: You can't do that. So my brain is going, do
33:12
Speaker 3: I go for it now? Because I think he did it?
33:14
Speaker 3: Do I go for it now?
33:15
Speaker 2: But Mark said that right as he was thinking that,
33:18
Speaker 2: Chris turned to him and asked if they could go
33:20
Speaker 2: outside and have a cigarette. Mark doesn't smoke, but he
33:23
Speaker 2: was like great, So they go outside, and he said
33:26
Speaker 2: that Chris was chain smoking and pacing around the parking
33:30
Speaker 2: lot really quickly. Mark was like, you know, worked on
33:33
Speaker 2: the SWAT team for years, but was like, you know,
33:34
Speaker 2: rushing to keep up with him. And he's thinking, okay,
33:38
Speaker 2: maybe this is another sign I should go for an interrogation.
33:41
Speaker 2: But then Chris finishes his cigarette, goes back inside and says, okay,
33:46
Speaker 2: I'm ready for my polygraph, And so Mark thought, all right,
33:50
Speaker 2: well he asked for it, he wants to do the polygraph.
33:52
Speaker 2: Let's just do it. Let's do it and see how
33:55
Speaker 2: this goes.
33:56
Speaker 1: So Mark proceeds, and here's a clip where Mark talks
34:00
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the process and specifically with Chris,
34:04
Speaker 1: who had already sort of given him a few maybe
34:08
Speaker 1: warning signals.
34:10
Speaker 3: You can't ask about a murder, but you can ask
34:13
Speaker 3: about did when you don't have any remains? Did you
34:16
Speaker 3: directly cause the disappearance or when you have remains, did
34:21
Speaker 3: you cause her too either disappeared? Did you cause you
34:26
Speaker 3: know anything to do with the lake, anything to do
34:28
Speaker 3: with the car. The more specific the better, based on
34:31
Speaker 3: how much you know in that way, again, their mind
34:33
Speaker 3: doesn't have Witherer room. So again exactly what the phraseology
34:36
Speaker 3: was with him, But the bottom line was it was
34:39
Speaker 3: a in there in that set of questions is did
34:42
Speaker 3: you do it? And as I'm watching it come across,
34:45
Speaker 3: it's not funny, haha. But when you're giving them and
34:48
Speaker 3: you know you've got to run three or four times,
34:51
Speaker 3: and the first time you run it, you look up
34:53
Speaker 3: and your brain goes again, she's my language, Oh shit,
34:57
Speaker 3: he killed her, And you're saying, okay, and now we're
35:01
Speaker 3: going to take a break and get ready to run
35:03
Speaker 3: it again.
35:04
Speaker 1: So they run it again and again, and Mark goes
35:08
Speaker 1: through these very pointed yes or no questions, and eventually
35:13
Speaker 1: they come to a place where Mark's been watching his
35:16
Speaker 1: body language, but mostly Mark is watching his charts, and
35:21
Speaker 1: they come to the end of the polygraph and Mark
35:25
Speaker 1: SE's indications of deception. Mark makes a decision during the
35:30
Speaker 1: post test to just level with Chris Willoughby and tell him,
35:34
Speaker 1: you know, I have to send these back to the
35:37
Speaker 1: office for an outside person to make the final determination
35:41
Speaker 1: on the test. But I think that.
35:43
Speaker 2: You have failed. And this is the post test, So
35:48
Speaker 2: anything in the actual polygraph is not admissible in court,
35:52
Speaker 2: but the pretest and the post test are. And so
35:55
Speaker 2: here is this next clip mark explaining exactly what happened.
35:59
Speaker 3: Next, I let him know we're done with the test.
36:03
Speaker 3: I take the equipment off, and then we go into
36:06
Speaker 3: our post test setup. It's time to see if he's
36:09
Speaker 3: willing to tell you what he's done. So that's where
36:13
Speaker 3: the conversation begins. And basically, at some point you got
36:17
Speaker 3: to stop with you know, are you sure you didn't.
36:20
Speaker 2: Do you know?
36:21
Speaker 3: You know it's a I've reviewed my charts and I
36:27
Speaker 3: know what I'm looking at. And Chris, I wasn't there,
36:31
Speaker 3: but you were, and you need to tell me what
36:35
Speaker 3: happened that day. So I don't remember exactly how Chriss
36:38
Speaker 3: went with the bottom line is when I told him
36:41
Speaker 3: that he had failed his polygraph. And again, to be honest,
36:44
Speaker 3: I don't remember exactly how it happened, but at some
36:48
Speaker 3: point he just looks up and says, I'm going to
36:52
Speaker 3: tell you what happened.
36:54
Speaker 1: Wow, And it's important to remember they're still recording and
36:57
Speaker 1: just outside the room that army and investigator is watching
37:01
Speaker 1: this all happen.
37:02
Speaker 2: Who has been working on this case before she retired,
37:06
Speaker 2: then a few years of her retirement back on the case,
37:09
Speaker 2: and really they had a few persons of interest, but
37:12
Speaker 2: no DNA evidence, no real leads. And now Mark is
37:16
Speaker 2: sitting here across from this guy who's saying, I'm going
37:19
Speaker 2: to tell you what happened.
37:21
Speaker 1: And Mark knows that he has details not released to
37:26
Speaker 1: the press that covered the discovery of echoes remains, and
37:30
Speaker 1: so he's now going into the mode of Okay, so
37:35
Speaker 1: he's gonna tell me what happened, and I have details
37:39
Speaker 1: that only people working on the investigation or someone who
37:44
Speaker 1: was there and involved would know. To make sure that
37:48
Speaker 1: it's not a false confession. It's not a false confession.
37:51
Speaker 1: There's no way to back out of it if you
37:53
Speaker 1: have that information. So Mark proceeds.
37:59
Speaker 3: But what he tells me what happens is this he
38:04
Speaker 3: knew Echo to be pregnant with his children, with Chris's children,
38:13
Speaker 3: twins actually, and that he loved her so much that
38:19
Speaker 3: he had approached her and begged her to run away
38:24
Speaker 3: with him and not stay with her husband, who was
38:28
Speaker 3: again oversees at the point of this conversation that took
38:32
Speaker 3: place years prior, and he tells me, I wouldn't have
38:37
Speaker 3: any other way of knowing. He tells me that she
38:39
Speaker 3: tells him that the husband had been home for a
38:43
Speaker 3: home visit. That wouldn't have made it impossible that the
38:48
Speaker 3: husband impregnated her. And so Echo tells Chris, this is
38:53
Speaker 3: all per Chris. This is the only place I got
38:55
Speaker 3: it from. Echo tells Chris, I'm going with that story.
39:00
Speaker 3: He's to never know about you. He's to never know
39:03
Speaker 3: you're the father of the children, because no, I'm not
39:07
Speaker 3: going to run away with you. I'm going to carry
39:12
Speaker 3: on with my husband when he comes back, etc.
39:15
Speaker 2: So she says, I'm going to have these kids and
39:17
Speaker 2: say that they're my husbands.
39:18
Speaker 3: Yes, And this all takes place either the day prior
39:23
Speaker 3: or the day that Chris will be is exiting the military.
39:28
Speaker 3: His time of service is up. Coincidentally, well, I don't
39:33
Speaker 3: know coincidentally. I'm just saying it comes to a head.
39:35
Speaker 2: I see you, okay.
39:36
Speaker 3: In other words, Hey, I'm leaving base. I want you
39:39
Speaker 3: to leave with me. You're going to have our children,
39:43
Speaker 3: and you're going to let your husband know you're leaving him,
39:46
Speaker 3: and you're coming with me. And this is what I'm
39:49
Speaker 3: getting from Chris. Now. The investigator backed up the fact
39:53
Speaker 3: that they had medical records to show she was pregnant,
39:56
Speaker 3: that she'd been visiting a doctor, things like that, but
39:59
Speaker 3: the very specifics of what Chris said, we didn't know
40:03
Speaker 3: because all you have here skeletal remains, so it's not
40:06
Speaker 3: like we had a DNA test available to show us
40:09
Speaker 3: they had to be his children. Chris tell me they're
40:12
Speaker 3: his children. And apparently what happens is it comes to
40:16
Speaker 3: a head per Chris, and when he says you're coming
40:20
Speaker 3: with me, and she says, no, I'm not. He went
40:24
Speaker 3: into graphic details with me. He said, you know, I
40:28
Speaker 3: remember putting my hands around her neck and around her
40:33
Speaker 3: throat and just squeezing.
40:37
Speaker 1: You know, I can't imagine being in Mark's position in
40:40
Speaker 1: that moment and just keeping a straight face and a
40:45
Speaker 1: calm demeanor. It's the work that you're doing. So in
40:48
Speaker 1: a sense, you're relieved that you've now got a confession
40:52
Speaker 1: from someone that lines up with what you know to
40:54
Speaker 1: be true about the remains, because Chris revealed to Mark
40:58
Speaker 1: that he seat Belted's body into the back seat when
41:02
Speaker 1: he pushed her car into the lake. And that was
41:05
Speaker 1: really the piece that solidified Chris Willoughby's confession as being
41:11
Speaker 1: truthful to the investigators, because.
41:13
Speaker 2: So unusual you would think that if someone drove into
41:16
Speaker 2: a lake, obviously they'd be in the driver's seat. She
41:19
Speaker 2: was in the back seat, seat belted in.
41:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly, not seat belted in in the back seat.
41:24
Speaker 1: I mean, the remains were still seat belted in when
41:27
Speaker 1: they found the car, and so no one outside of
41:31
Speaker 1: anyone who had been working on the case knew that information.
41:35
Speaker 1: So in this particular instance, a polygraph led to a
41:39
Speaker 1: murder confession and Chris Willoughby was arrested. He had federal
41:44
Speaker 1: charges first and then eventually for the murder of Echo Wiles.
41:48
Speaker 1: Chris was federally charged with concealing the body of Echo
41:51
Speaker 1: Maywiles in the car and sinking the car, failing to
41:54
Speaker 1: report the theft of wiles car to authorities, stealing her car,
41:59
Speaker 1: obtained control of Echoile's dead body, entering a military installation
42:04
Speaker 1: for unlawful purpose, and then the state filed their own
42:08
Speaker 1: charge murder in the second degree, and Chris was sentenced
42:12
Speaker 1: on July twenty first, twenty eleven. But we actually found
42:16
Speaker 1: something very surprising to both of us when we looked
42:20
Speaker 1: into it.
42:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris was actually released in twenty twenty two. According
42:25
Speaker 2: to the Kansas Criminal Justice Information System, which we were
42:29
Speaker 2: able to access online, Chris will be status changed to
42:33
Speaker 2: in state post release on May twentieth, twenty twenty two,
42:36
Speaker 2: and then changed again on May twenty fourth, twenty twenty
42:40
Speaker 2: two to sentence expired. So he is out, and it
42:44
Speaker 2: feels like not enough time for having killed someone, you know.
42:50
Speaker 2: I don't know if this goes into the fact that
42:52
Speaker 2: Echo really didn't have a lot of family and a
42:54
Speaker 2: lot of people to sort of speak out for her.
42:57
Speaker 2: One of the things that Mark told us was that
42:59
Speaker 2: that leading investigator, she was so thrilled that this was
43:03
Speaker 2: solved for the few people in Echos lives that were wondering,
43:06
Speaker 2: you know, but Echo didn't come from a lot of means,
43:09
Speaker 2: and so that investigator actually like raised money to bury
43:12
Speaker 2: echos remains. And I'm so glad that this case was solved.
43:16
Speaker 2: It's horrible how she died. You know, it's horrible, even
43:21
Speaker 2: the way that he described that he loved her so
43:23
Speaker 2: much and was so possessive and then he killed her,
43:25
Speaker 2: Like that's not okay, that's really screwed up. Even though
43:29
Speaker 2: she didn't have a lot of family, her life still mattered.
43:32
Speaker 2: And I'm glad that they were able to solve the case.
43:35
Speaker 2: And I don't know why he didn't serve his whole time.
43:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, so hard to understand how someone could feel that
43:43
Speaker 1: level of entitlement to another human being. And it's hard
43:48
Speaker 1: to comprehend someone out there living their life really only
43:51
Speaker 1: a little over ten years of serving time.
43:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
43:55
Speaker 1: So we also asked Mark a lot of other questions
43:59
Speaker 1: we had about polygraphs, and you know, Hannah, you had
44:03
Speaker 1: read a book recently about sociopaths. I'm obsessed with sociopaths.
44:08
Speaker 1: Hannah's obsessed with sociopaths. What did you learn?
44:13
Speaker 2: So I asked Mark, how would a sociopath do if
44:16
Speaker 2: they were given a polygraph test? My thinking was maybe
44:19
Speaker 2: they could pass it more easily, but he actually said
44:24
Speaker 2: that in his opinion, you know, he's done a lot
44:26
Speaker 2: of tests that he found that sociopaths and psychopaths were
44:31
Speaker 2: easier to test in some ways, even though they maybe
44:35
Speaker 2: don't get nervous. He said, it's really about memory recall.
44:39
Speaker 2: He said that if he's asking about a specific incident, about,
44:43
Speaker 2: you know, robbing a bank for example, well, he said,
44:47
Speaker 2: sociopaths have great memories, and oftentimes in his experience, when
44:52
Speaker 2: he would interview someone or give someone a polygraph test
44:54
Speaker 2: a sociopath, they would maybe have thought about it a lot,
44:58
Speaker 2: almost like a victory, like revel in that right, And
45:01
Speaker 2: so the recall is so crystal clear. If he says,
45:05
Speaker 2: did you rob this bank, He's like, even if it's
45:08
Speaker 2: just such a quick flash through your mind, you see
45:10
Speaker 2: the scared teller's eyes, you see them handing you the money.
45:14
Speaker 2: You know, all of it is so clear, and that
45:18
Speaker 2: will be reflected in your physiological responses. And he basically
45:23
Speaker 2: said he could give almost anyone a polygraph test because
45:27
Speaker 2: it actually calls right back to his initial reader's digest
45:30
Speaker 2: explanation of polygraphing, which is the mind detecting when the
45:34
Speaker 2: body is lying. And so if you're a sociopath, with
45:36
Speaker 2: all of this visual imagery happening in your mind as
45:39
Speaker 2: you're being asked the question, you're watching that all play
45:42
Speaker 2: out and your body is telling a different story. Yeah,
45:47
Speaker 2: still doesn't quite make sense to me, because I don't
45:50
Speaker 2: think that sociopaths care that they're telling a lie. But
45:53
Speaker 2: maybe there's still some kind of physiological response.
45:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, the question of how a sociopath could ever be
46:00
Speaker 1: I think Mark referred to sociopaths as the easiest people. Yeah,
46:04
Speaker 1: he did to give lie detector tests.
46:05
Speaker 2: It's reference.
46:06
Speaker 1: His reference is sociopaths. Yeah, because of their recall of
46:10
Speaker 1: these situations and that being helpful to him. But yeah, surprising.
46:16
Speaker 2: I quickly did want to say, you know, just because
46:18
Speaker 2: we're talking about polygraphs, there have been instances of people
46:24
Speaker 2: in the past who have successfully tricked a polygraph test,
46:28
Speaker 2: guilty people who pass them, as well as innocent people
46:32
Speaker 2: who did not pass them. So we're not here advocating
46:36
Speaker 2: that polygraphs are perfect or that they should be admissible
46:39
Speaker 2: in court. I think there's a really good reason why
46:42
Speaker 2: they're not. But and that's something Mark agreed with when
46:45
Speaker 2: we were speaking with him. He was like, polygraphs are
46:47
Speaker 2: not perfect. It makes total sense that these are not admissible. Yeah,
46:50
Speaker 2: but they can be a useful tool for investigator.
46:54
Speaker 1: Well, you know it's a tragic story, but it's amazing
46:57
Speaker 1: that Mark was able to help bring closure to this
47:01
Speaker 1: case for Echo's family. And I did reach out to
47:05
Speaker 1: Chris Wellaby as well since we're mentioning him and did
47:08
Speaker 1: not hear back.
47:10
Speaker 2: I am really glad to have learned about the case
47:12
Speaker 2: of Echo Wiles, and I feel like I also learned
47:15
Speaker 2: a lot about the polygraph test this week. If you
47:18
Speaker 2: have any opinions about polygraph tests or specific stories in
47:23
Speaker 2: your life that relates to it, or questions about it,
47:25
Speaker 2: send him in. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks
47:28
Speaker 2: for listening. We'll be back next week. If you have
47:33
Speaker 2: a story for us, we would love to hear it.
47:35
Speaker 2: Our email is The Knife at exactly rightmedia dot com,
47:38
Speaker 2: or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife
47:40
Speaker 2: Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast. This has
47:43
Speaker 2: been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced by me
47:46
Speaker 2: Hannah Smith.
47:47
Speaker 1: And me Pasha Ey. Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and
47:50
Speaker 1: Alexis Samarosi.
47:52
Speaker 2: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
47:54
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
47:56
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport. Artwork
48:00
Speaker 2: Vanessa Lilac Executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and
48:04
Speaker 2: Daniel Kramer.