Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / Truth, Lies, and the Polygraph: The Human Lie Detector | Steve Van Aperen

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Truth, Lies, and the Polygraph: The Human Lie Detector | Steve Van Aperen · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Ap Poche Production.
0:14
Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I'm your host.
0:17
Speaker 2: Adam Shand is an old saying the truth is still
0:19
Speaker 2: the truth, even if no one believes it.
0:22
Speaker 3: A full scale search in the airs rock Ereer today
0:25
Speaker 3: failed to find any trace of a nine week old
0:28
Speaker 3: baby girl believed to have been taken by a dingo
0:31
Speaker 3: or wild dog last night.
0:34
Speaker 2: A lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it.
0:38
Speaker 2: Does the truth even matter? Is it only about what
0:41
Speaker 2: you can prove or deny?
0:44
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.
0:49
Speaker 2: Most police dedicate themselves to finding the truth. My guest today,
0:53
Speaker 2: Steve van Apron, is the exact opposite.
0:56
Speaker 5: My name is Steve van Aprin and I'm an next cop.
0:59
Speaker 5: I'm referred to as a human light detector.
1:02
Speaker 2: He's made a career out of finding deception and lies.
1:06
Speaker 2: After a fifteen year career in South Australia and Victoria Police,
1:10
Speaker 2: became Australia's leading polygraph operator and diviner of truth. Is
1:16
Speaker 2: also known as the human light Detector. He joins me now,
1:19
Speaker 2: welcome Steve.
1:20
Speaker 1: Thanks Adam.
1:20
Speaker 2: Great to be here, indeed now had the pleasure of
1:24
Speaker 2: working with you on seven networks top rating the hunters,
1:28
Speaker 2: and we spent a lot of time in vehicles together.
1:30
Speaker 2: I know you were quite afraid when I was driving.
1:32
Speaker 2: We'll get to that. But I was also amazed with
1:35
Speaker 2: your business, Australian Polygraph Services. Your phone ran constantly. It
1:39
Speaker 2: wasn't just police and so forth, but ordinary people trying
1:43
Speaker 2: to find out deception in their own lives.
1:45
Speaker 4: Amazing range of work. You do.
1:48
Speaker 5: Everything from allegations of child sexual abuse to crazy stories
1:53
Speaker 5: of people wanting their partners tested for whatever reason. So
1:57
Speaker 5: a lot of accusations where there's no cooperative evidence, thefts,
2:01
Speaker 5: frauds and so on. So yeah, some interesting cases.
2:04
Speaker 2: Because poligraph is still not admissible in the court of law,
2:08
Speaker 2: but I think in the public's imagination it's very effective
2:11
Speaker 2: at weeding out lies. I mean there was one year
2:14
Speaker 2: told me where someone rang and said one of their
2:16
Speaker 2: clients thought they were God.
2:20
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
2:22
Speaker 5: Gentlemen come in and I have a form and one
2:24
Speaker 5: of the questions is occupation, And to be honest, I
2:26
Speaker 5: didn't actually see him write it down. And I was
2:28
Speaker 5: asking questions, very impeccably dressed, well spoken, and I said,
2:32
Speaker 5: what's the problem, why.
2:34
Speaker 1: Are we here?
2:35
Speaker 5: And just as he started talking, I looked down and
2:38
Speaker 5: he had occupation as God, and I looked. I said,
2:41
Speaker 5: I noticed you put your occupation is God. And he said, well, no, look, Steve,
2:45
Speaker 5: I'm the real deal. So I said, what is you
2:49
Speaker 5: want to Well, no one believes I'm God. And I said, well, look,
2:52
Speaker 5: I can't really test you because if you really think
2:54
Speaker 5: your God, you'll probably pass that test. So I said,
2:58
Speaker 5: let's speak to your psychiatrist. And he said, no problems.
3:01
Speaker 5: So I spoke to his psychiatrist and his psychiatrist. But
3:05
Speaker 5: it was a good idea. I didn't think it was
3:07
Speaker 5: a good idea at all, so I politely declined.
3:09
Speaker 4: Why would it be a good idea?
3:11
Speaker 5: Well, according to his psychiatrist, she believed that the mental
3:15
Speaker 5: health system had let him down. I don't know how
3:18
Speaker 5: I could have helped in that set of circumstances, but
3:21
Speaker 5: I think obviously he was delusional. That's my professional diagnosis.
3:26
Speaker 5: But yeah, I don't know why. But I just didn't
3:28
Speaker 5: think it would be a worthwhile process.
3:31
Speaker 2: So you've effectively thwarted the second coming of God, if
3:34
Speaker 2: not Jesus Christ.
3:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, what can I say?
3:38
Speaker 2: You've also worked with Victoria Police and other police forces,
3:41
Speaker 2: not just here but around the country. And you have
3:44
Speaker 2: worked on numerous homicide cases. How is polygraph used within
3:48
Speaker 2: homicide cases these days?
3:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, So usually I'm approached by cold case units where
3:54
Speaker 5: they've basically chased every avenue and there's no other forensic, scientific, medical,
4:00
Speaker 5: or cooperative evidence. So they'll say, look, we just need
4:03
Speaker 5: to know whether not this person may or may not
4:05
Speaker 5: be involved, or they may want to test the veracity
4:07
Speaker 5: of an informant. And sometimes what I'll also do is
4:11
Speaker 5: just analyze records of anyview to determine whether or not
4:14
Speaker 5: they may be withholding information. See, people, when people lie,
4:17
Speaker 5: they often will edit the information they supply you with,
4:20
Speaker 5: so you know they may be evasive, missive, dismissive, sidestep
4:23
Speaker 5: the issue, don't answer the question. So it's twofold. One
4:26
Speaker 5: is to look and evaluate records of innyview and the
4:30
Speaker 5: other is to do my own pre test interview together
4:33
Speaker 5: with polygraph. But as you said, it's not admissible in
4:36
Speaker 5: court because at the end of the day, our legal
4:38
Speaker 5: system is predicated on the basis will be judged by
4:40
Speaker 5: our peers jurists, and that's why we have different areas
4:44
Speaker 5: of forensic science. Biological trace evidence, DNA, blood, gunshot residue,
4:48
Speaker 5: and so on. So it Penultimately it's a role of
4:51
Speaker 5: juriy to determine Gilder instance, not a single polygraph. And
4:54
Speaker 5: the other issue is I've seen some woeful tests out there.
4:57
Speaker 5: I saw one a little while ago. The question was
5:00
Speaker 5: did you rape and murder Julie so and so. Now
5:03
Speaker 5: the problem with that is he could have raped but
5:05
Speaker 5: not murdered, or murdered and not raped. What part of
5:07
Speaker 5: the question is he passing or failing? So the questions
5:10
Speaker 5: have to be very clear and concise, so there's no
5:13
Speaker 5: room for misinterpretation or ambiguity.
5:15
Speaker 2: So how do you approach you've got a murder suspect
5:18
Speaker 2: and you're trying to help the police establish their guilt
5:20
Speaker 2: or innocence or whether they're lying.
5:22
Speaker 4: How do you approach it?
5:23
Speaker 5: So typically what will happen is they'll brief me as
5:26
Speaker 5: to all the facts or the evidence or a summary
5:29
Speaker 5: of what they've got. Then I'll ask what do you
5:31
Speaker 5: want to know? So usually the question formulation is quite
5:35
Speaker 5: is without it out the most important part of the process.
5:37
Speaker 5: So let's say the forensic pathologist says the cause of
5:42
Speaker 5: death is single gunshot wound to the back of their head.
5:44
Speaker 5: That's pretty straightforward. Did you shoot whoever it is. But
5:48
Speaker 5: if say they've got a body in a dam and
5:51
Speaker 5: they can't establish the cause of death, well then the
5:53
Speaker 5: question may have to be altered. I remember I worked
5:56
Speaker 5: on one case. They found a body in a damn
5:58
Speaker 5: and they said, Steve, can you ask this person whether
6:01
Speaker 5: or not he strangled the victim. I said, well, that's
6:04
Speaker 5: a bad question, and they said, why, surely nobody strangled.
6:06
Speaker 5: I said, what if he held him under water and
6:09
Speaker 5: he drowned, Well, technically he could minimize, justify, or sort
6:14
Speaker 5: of evalude himself out of the question. So when I
6:17
Speaker 5: construct the questions, there has been absolutely no room for
6:20
Speaker 5: a deceptive person to riggle out of.
6:22
Speaker 1: And you also.
6:23
Speaker 2: Establish a control by asking them questions every day questions,
6:27
Speaker 2: but also other questions about deception that aren't related to
6:32
Speaker 2: the case you're talking.
6:33
Speaker 5: About, now, that's right. So they're called control or comparison questions.
6:36
Speaker 5: So they're used to diagnostically measure that the reactions are gain.
6:40
Speaker 5: So the theory is a truthful person who's not involved
6:43
Speaker 5: in the homicide will respond to the most threatening question
6:46
Speaker 5: to them in this case, it would be the control
6:48
Speaker 5: or comparison question, whereas the deceptive person is going to
6:52
Speaker 5: head out or react to the most threatening question of
6:54
Speaker 5: them and if they're involved in some way, shape or
6:56
Speaker 5: form what we call the relevant question. But this is
7:00
Speaker 5: why I like I Detect better because what happens is,
7:03
Speaker 5: you know, sometimes you may get somebody in and they're pretyt,
7:05
Speaker 5: they're pretty nervous, could be a truthful person. So with
7:07
Speaker 5: I Detect, the system uses an infrared eye scanner to
7:10
Speaker 5: measure ocular responses and changes. But the advantage is that
7:15
Speaker 5: it gets people to light to certain question. So what
7:17
Speaker 5: does Adam Shan look like when he's lying? So it
7:20
Speaker 5: all gets you to lie. It stores that data. Then
7:23
Speaker 5: later on it uses AI and machine learning and algorithms
7:27
Speaker 5: comparative algorithms to look for similarities or a differential between
7:31
Speaker 5: the questions that are asked and what we call director
7:34
Speaker 5: light controls. So the advantage of that is scored by algorithms,
7:38
Speaker 5: not a person, so there's no bias, there's no prejudice.
7:40
Speaker 5: And secondly, it relies more on what you look like
7:44
Speaker 5: when you're lying, is whereas a polygraph, sometimes somebody can
7:47
Speaker 5: be nervous and we get elevated cardio responses. So I
7:50
Speaker 5: think combining the two is a better way. And now
7:52
Speaker 5: we've got verified So the technology is evolving.
7:55
Speaker 2: I've seen that technology working on our show The Hunters
7:57
Speaker 2: Channel seven. You can find those episodes on seven plus,
8:00
Speaker 2: in particular the murder of Roger Wilson and a solicitor
8:03
Speaker 2: back in the eighties, and we had the Mark Anthony
8:08
Speaker 2: Clarkson who was acquitted of being the paymaster and organizing
8:13
Speaker 2: the murder of Wilson by Christopher Dale Flannery renter Kill
8:16
Speaker 2: and Clarkson was acquitted, but he's always felt that he
8:20
Speaker 2: never got the benefit of that acquittal. There was a
8:23
Speaker 2: technicality I guess well more than that, where one of
8:25
Speaker 2: the main witnesses disappeared, so the case the Crown brought
8:29
Speaker 2: fell apart. So he felt he wanted to come in
8:32
Speaker 2: and really prove his innocence. I thought it was a
8:34
Speaker 2: tremendous risk.
8:35
Speaker 5: It was a huge risk. I really could have backfight.
8:38
Speaker 5: But I guess, you know, actions speke later than words.
8:40
Speaker 5: Usually no one likes to be falsely or maliciously accused.
8:43
Speaker 5: So the fact that he showed up I have the
8:46
Speaker 5: highest cancelation rate in Australia without a doubt. The fact
8:49
Speaker 5: that he participated, he followed instructions, he was compliant, tells
8:53
Speaker 5: me that he wanted to do the test. Look, I
8:55
Speaker 5: get a lot of allegations of child sexual abuse and
8:57
Speaker 5: people say yeah, I'll do the test, and saying you'll
9:00
Speaker 5: do it and setting in my office and doing it
9:02
Speaker 5: two different things. But you know, look, the polygraph it's
9:05
Speaker 5: only a very small part of the process. So usually
9:07
Speaker 5: I will use behavioral analysis interviewing techniques that I learned
9:10
Speaker 5: with the FBI to analyze, you know, whether or not
9:13
Speaker 5: I think there's any problems there. And I'd say probably
9:16
Speaker 5: about ninety four ninety five percent of the time I
9:19
Speaker 5: can tell whether somebody's going to pass by the way
9:21
Speaker 5: they answer the behavior analysis questions and in advance and what
9:25
Speaker 5: are those questions. Well, let's say you've got a theft.
9:28
Speaker 5: The FBI will teach you call it adaptive interviewing. They'll say,
9:33
Speaker 5: what do you think should happen to the person who
9:35
Speaker 5: stole this money? Now, a truthful person who's not involved
9:39
Speaker 5: in all probability have nothing to lose when they voice
9:42
Speaker 5: their opinion. You know, maybe they should lose their job
9:44
Speaker 5: or the police should be contacted or whatever. So if
9:48
Speaker 5: you ask that question of the person who may be involved,
9:50
Speaker 5: well there's a number of things. Firstly, they're likely not
9:53
Speaker 5: to be as harsh on themselves, so they're likely to oh, well,
9:56
Speaker 5: maybe it was a mistake, or maybe they didn't mean
9:58
Speaker 5: for it to happen, I mean, or something like that.
10:00
Speaker 5: So it's a justification or rationalization. Whereas another great one
10:04
Speaker 5: is let's say you've got a crime scene and you've
10:08
Speaker 5: got a body there, and the suspect denies ever being there.
10:11
Speaker 5: I'd say, Tommy, Adam, have you been in that room before?
10:14
Speaker 1: No? No, I haven't you sure about that? Yeah?
10:17
Speaker 5: And then I'd say, well, is there any reason why
10:20
Speaker 5: we would find your fingerprints at the scene?
10:22
Speaker 1: Now think about it.
10:23
Speaker 5: A truthful person knows they've never been in that room,
10:25
Speaker 5: so they'd be quite adamant that you're not going to
10:27
Speaker 5: find my fingerprints there. Basically I wasn't there. Whereas a
10:31
Speaker 5: deceptive person will think, oh, do they have my fingerprints?
10:35
Speaker 5: And often the question becomes the threatening stimulus. I was
10:39
Speaker 5: training some profilers in Dubai and they said, Steve, we
10:43
Speaker 5: want you to assemble questions that we think our profilers
10:46
Speaker 5: could use when people get off the planes or on
10:49
Speaker 5: the planes. So one of the questions I come up with,
10:51
Speaker 5: and it's quite funny, was do you have any associations
10:54
Speaker 5: with any terrorist networks or groups? And they looked at
10:57
Speaker 5: me dumbfounded, and they said, Steve, why on earth would
11:00
Speaker 5: a terrorist admit that? I said, It's got nothing to
11:02
Speaker 5: do with the question, but everything to do with it
11:05
Speaker 5: response to the question. How they react? Does the question
11:08
Speaker 5: make them feel uncomfortable? But often truthful people will take
11:12
Speaker 5: ownership and they'll answer.
11:13
Speaker 1: To the questions.
11:14
Speaker 5: In fact, I expect certain respons like shock or laughter
11:16
Speaker 5: or whatever. But if they're objecting, as opposed to denying,
11:20
Speaker 5: that's a red flag for me. So I don't care
11:23
Speaker 5: how well prepared someone is. They cannot possibly pre anticipate
11:27
Speaker 5: every question that I'm likely to ask you. If I'm
11:29
Speaker 5: interviewing you for a homicide, we know the homicide or
11:32
Speaker 5: the pathologists has established a time of death seven fifteen
11:35
Speaker 5: pm last night. I'm going to ask where were you
11:37
Speaker 5: between one o'clock and twelve pm? And you might say,
11:41
Speaker 5: went out? Where did you go to a restaurant? What
11:43
Speaker 5: was the name of the restaurant, What time did you leave,
11:45
Speaker 5: How did you get there? Who did you go there with?
11:46
Speaker 5: Have you been there before? A very valid question because
11:48
Speaker 5: a truthful person can recall past events, so they can
11:52
Speaker 5: use previous memories. But then I might ask you know,
11:55
Speaker 5: what did you order, what was on the menu, how
11:57
Speaker 5: did you pay? Describe the layout of the place if
11:59
Speaker 5: they had never been there before, who served you?
12:01
Speaker 1: What time did you leave? Which route did you leave?
12:04
Speaker 5: That takes a lot of cognitive processing, and I truthful people,
12:07
Speaker 5: unless they have acquired brain injury or some cognitive issues,
12:11
Speaker 5: can usually relate things because they've lived through them. They'll
12:15
Speaker 5: tell you how they felt, what they did, what they saw,
12:18
Speaker 5: conversations that took place. Why, Because they're just recalling historical events,
12:22
Speaker 5: whereas a deceptive person has to create them and make
12:24
Speaker 5: them up. But they also have to think, what have
12:26
Speaker 5: I said previously? It's likely to contradict me.
12:29
Speaker 4: Now.
12:30
Speaker 5: It's a lot of neurological processing, and we know under
12:33
Speaker 5: MRI scanning, our prefrontal cortex lights up like a Christmas tree,
12:37
Speaker 5: so it takes a lot of processing.
12:40
Speaker 2: People have often described the light detector as a fear
12:43
Speaker 2: detector that it may also be very useful police who
12:46
Speaker 2: are interviewing suspects for murders, in particular, whereby the polygraph
12:50
Speaker 2: can actually put them under pressure, and if they fail
12:53
Speaker 2: the test, they might even ended up confessing after that
12:56
Speaker 2: because they think the game's up, even though it's not admissible.
12:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I've seen it.
13:00
Speaker 5: I spent time with LAPD polygraph Unit, which falls within
13:03
Speaker 5: their Scientific Investigation Division, and one of the things that
13:07
Speaker 5: I saw regularly people walk into that room and a
13:11
Speaker 5: detective will say, look, before we start, is there anything
13:14
Speaker 5: in the back of your mind that you think may
13:15
Speaker 5: influence the outcome of this test? Because if there is,
13:18
Speaker 5: now is a time to tell me. And it's amazing
13:21
Speaker 5: and you look, some police departments in the States do
13:23
Speaker 5: use it as a psychological tool in the absence of
13:26
Speaker 5: any other types of forensic evidence. So yeah, that's where
13:30
Speaker 5: the fear side of things come from. But having said
13:33
Speaker 5: that too, I mean, at the end of the day,
13:35
Speaker 5: it's the role of an investigator to look at.
13:38
Speaker 1: All the evidence.
13:39
Speaker 5: And one of the things I remember this really clearly,
13:42
Speaker 5: the oc of the polygraph unit used to be really
13:45
Speaker 5: annoyed when Roberie homicide detectives would bring twenty suspects and
13:49
Speaker 5: he would say bring me your top three suspects, because
13:53
Speaker 5: what happened was detectives got lazy and they brought them
13:56
Speaker 5: in there and just wanted to do it the screening process,
13:58
Speaker 5: so they had very strict criteria for when they would
14:01
Speaker 5: do a test.
14:02
Speaker 2: You've had a great partnership with Victoria's HOMS, so it's
14:05
Speaker 2: squad in particular form of Senior Sergeant Ron Iddle's and
14:08
Speaker 2: I think Ron really understood the theater of an interview
14:12
Speaker 2: and how to bring people around to a confession. And
14:15
Speaker 2: he often brought you in, I think on dozens of
14:18
Speaker 2: homicides that you worked on with him.
14:20
Speaker 5: Now, yeah, so Ron and I shared the same training.
14:24
Speaker 5: He went to RCMP. I did my training at John E.
14:27
Speaker 5: Readan Associates in San Diego. And firstly, what we have
14:30
Speaker 5: to understand is the American legal system is very different
14:33
Speaker 5: from the rules of evidence here in Australia. So in America,
14:36
Speaker 5: I can use trickery, deception, or deceit to obtain a confession.
14:40
Speaker 5: So I can say, you know what, Adam, I found
14:42
Speaker 5: your fingerprints at the seat.
14:43
Speaker 1: You go, Okay, I was there, Kelly.
14:46
Speaker 5: Now, that would not even pass a voir dea hearing
14:49
Speaker 5: here in Australia based on the fact as I lied
14:51
Speaker 5: to you and I coerced you into a confessing So
14:55
Speaker 5: the RCMP sisters.
14:57
Speaker 4: The Royal Canadian Maunted Police YEP.
14:59
Speaker 5: Is based on the same common Wealth process of law
15:01
Speaker 5: as here in Australia. So I think a bit of system.
15:05
Speaker 5: But yeah, Ron was very big on behavior interviewing, but
15:08
Speaker 5: not just that. It was about building rapport because research shows,
15:12
Speaker 5: and the FBI has done research on this, they say,
15:15
Speaker 5: if you accuse somebody for their behavior, you make it
15:18
Speaker 5: substantially more difficult for them to confess. So they use
15:21
Speaker 5: a psychologically justifiable reason. So I can't say, Adam, it's
15:25
Speaker 5: okay that you shot the victim five times in the head,
15:27
Speaker 5: because there's not I'd say something like these, Sometimes things happen.
15:32
Speaker 5: Maybe you were provoked, maybe you didn't mean for this
15:35
Speaker 5: to happen, Maybe it was an accident, maybe you acted out.
15:38
Speaker 5: But there's always reasons for your behavior. Let's talk about that.
15:41
Speaker 5: What is it that could have happened? Now, A truthful
15:43
Speaker 5: person will ninety nine point nine nine ninety percent of
15:46
Speaker 5: the time saying I'm not involved, I don't know what
15:48
Speaker 5: you're talking about. I am I underrest ca and I
15:49
Speaker 5: go blah blah blah. Whereas a deceptive person who has
15:53
Speaker 5: been involved, it's like being off at an olive branch.
15:56
Speaker 5: So it's a psychologically justifiable reason for their behavior. And
16:00
Speaker 5: I've used it many times and it is amazing what
16:04
Speaker 5: sort of admisis and confessions come through.
16:06
Speaker 2: Because ron Ittle's was a big rapport man on the job.
16:10
Speaker 2: He'd pushed the table out of the way, sit with
16:12
Speaker 2: the suspect, and he would give them all kinds of
16:15
Speaker 2: opportunities to unburthen themselves, and the polygraph was one of them.
16:20
Speaker 2: What was the sort of stick he would use with
16:23
Speaker 2: suspects and the polygraph?
16:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what he would do is, and I agree
16:28
Speaker 5: with this, it's how you put it to people.
16:30
Speaker 1: Because if I say I.
16:31
Speaker 5: Think you're involved in this murder, if you don't do this,
16:33
Speaker 5: this is going to happen, that's going to happen. Well,
16:34
Speaker 5: you make it substantially more difficult for a person to confess.
16:37
Speaker 5: So his approach was, look, let's do a test. If
16:40
Speaker 5: you pass well, off you back, but if you fart,
16:43
Speaker 5: we can't use it anyway. And this is a great
16:46
Speaker 5: way to clear your name once and for all. And
16:49
Speaker 5: see Let's not forget a lot of the times you
16:51
Speaker 5: may be interviewing somebody who may be a witness and
16:53
Speaker 5: then all of a sudden may bring things up that
16:55
Speaker 5: make them a potential suspect or vice versa. So it's
16:59
Speaker 5: how people respond to questions. And RCMP had a very
17:03
Speaker 5: good reputation for me have analysis, interviewing and training because.
17:07
Speaker 2: One of the things I think works in your favor
17:09
Speaker 2: and in this tactic is that people trust the polygraph
17:13
Speaker 2: yes or no. Well, I think generally speaking, I think
17:15
Speaker 2: people accept now that there's a eighty ninety percent accuracy
17:18
Speaker 2: rate that's established over a long period of me only one
17:20
Speaker 2: hundred years it's been used. So I think the power
17:23
Speaker 2: of a failure or a success on the test can
17:27
Speaker 2: influence what people then say to detectives investigating.
17:31
Speaker 1: Oh very much.
17:31
Speaker 3: So.
17:32
Speaker 5: I remember many years ago when I did my training,
17:35
Speaker 5: I did some training at the FBI Field office in
17:37
Speaker 5: LA and they were contacted by w Police in relation
17:42
Speaker 5: to the Clemont Cerial Keller of investigation. And because I
17:47
Speaker 5: knew the officer in charge there, he said, look you Steve,
17:50
Speaker 5: because they what was happening was they were looking for
17:52
Speaker 5: an examiner to go and do it, and a guy
17:55
Speaker 5: by the name of Ron Hilly, No, my mistake, it
17:58
Speaker 5: was wrong. I can't think of his sur no now,
17:59
Speaker 5: but there's another wrong and he went there and helped them. Now,
18:02
Speaker 5: one of the things is people were confessing to other crimes,
18:06
Speaker 5: but they use it as a prompt. So if somebody fails,
18:10
Speaker 5: then they'll say, look, you failed, help me try to
18:13
Speaker 5: understand why you may have failed, because obviously there's something
18:16
Speaker 5: in there that really concerned you. And then especially LAPD
18:20
Speaker 5: a lot of American police forces, they'll then use that
18:23
Speaker 5: as part of the next step of theme development to
18:26
Speaker 5: elicit further information.
18:28
Speaker 2: False confessions are a huge issue, particular in America, where
18:30
Speaker 2: people are battered over hours and hours of interviewing and
18:33
Speaker 2: they end up they confess to everything. And we've had
18:36
Speaker 2: this scenario here in Victoria a couple of times during
18:38
Speaker 2: the Gang War in particular, where informers came in and
18:41
Speaker 2: started to tell all kinds of stories for their own benefit.
18:44
Speaker 2: How easy is it for you to identify a false confessor?
18:49
Speaker 5: Well, you know, it's really interesting because you've got to
18:52
Speaker 5: look at the process that they go through, and you
18:54
Speaker 5: nailed it. A lot of the times they'll be in
18:56
Speaker 5: there for hours and hours and hours and beat them down.
18:59
Speaker 5: And we've seen making a murder was a great example
19:02
Speaker 5: of it, where it got to a stage where they
19:04
Speaker 5: just constantly at them and sometimes it's unrelenting. And that's okay,
19:08
Speaker 5: I did it. What's important for me is I don't
19:12
Speaker 5: want to convict somebody. I don't want to have the
19:13
Speaker 5: courts convict somebody who's innocent. To me, that goes against
19:16
Speaker 5: the grain of why you've sworn in as a police officer.
19:20
Speaker 5: So if I get it, let's say it's a false confession,
19:23
Speaker 5: I then want to cooperate that. So if he says, yeah,
19:27
Speaker 5: look I went there and then I went here, well,
19:29
Speaker 5: I mean, now you know you'd be getting toll records
19:32
Speaker 5: from toll gantries to confirm whether or not they were
19:36
Speaker 5: in that location, or ping their phones or speak to
19:39
Speaker 5: witnesses and that because, I mean, no one benefits from
19:42
Speaker 5: a false confession.
19:43
Speaker 1: No one.
19:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. How many murderers have you set in
19:46
Speaker 2: front of and tested?
19:48
Speaker 5: Well, when you say murderers, I worked on eighty nine
19:50
Speaker 5: homeside cases and I'd say probably around about at least
19:54
Speaker 5: sixty percent of those had failed.
19:56
Speaker 2: Right, And when you have someone who fails, are they
19:59
Speaker 2: also giving you body language cues that get you thinking, well,
20:04
Speaker 2: this guy's knock going to pass the test ory might.
20:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, I look for a number of things.
20:08
Speaker 5: Firstly, I will often get somebody to tell me, give
20:12
Speaker 5: me a narrative of what happened. The first thing I'll say,
20:15
Speaker 5: Now that I'm out of the place, I'll say, look,
20:17
Speaker 5: I'm not on your side, I'm not on the police's side,
20:20
Speaker 5: but what I do need to know in your own words,
20:22
Speaker 5: what happened now. The reason I do that is because
20:25
Speaker 5: a people are going to tell you what they want
20:28
Speaker 5: you to know. So usually there'll be more content and
20:30
Speaker 5: information on when somebody's relaying historical events to the truthful. So, yeah,
20:35
Speaker 5: a lot of the times I see conflict or contradiction
20:38
Speaker 5: between what they're saying their body language is expressing. Micro
20:41
Speaker 5: expressions are a good one. Usually I look to see
20:44
Speaker 5: if the emotions are in the right place, but also
20:47
Speaker 5: are they including themselves in the narrative or excluding themselves
20:50
Speaker 5: in the narrative. Usually they might say things like walk
20:53
Speaker 5: down the street, but they may not say is I
20:55
Speaker 5: walk down the street, or may not identify who they
20:57
Speaker 5: walk down so when language is evasive, I'll go in
21:01
Speaker 5: and ask for clarity.
21:03
Speaker 1: I don't care.
21:04
Speaker 5: Like I said, I mean, you can be prepared, but
21:06
Speaker 5: sooner or later, if you're lying, your story is going
21:08
Speaker 5: to come unstuck.
21:09
Speaker 2: And also you're very strict about people moving, breathing too heavily,
21:15
Speaker 2: all kinds of things, and you actually give them three strikes,
21:16
Speaker 2: then you can then you to stop the whole test.
21:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, when I do a test, the first thing I'll
21:21
Speaker 5: do is I'll have all the senses attached. They won't
21:24
Speaker 5: know this, but I'll be watching the cardiocycles and whatnot,
21:27
Speaker 5: in particular the breathing, because you can control your breathing
21:29
Speaker 5: and you can hold your breath or whatever. Now, of course,
21:31
Speaker 5: if you take a deep breath, what happens Your heart
21:33
Speaker 5: has to work that much harder to circulate the oxyhemoglobin
21:36
Speaker 5: any blood. So then we see increased breath, but we
21:39
Speaker 5: see change in heart rate. Now I know that that's
21:42
Speaker 5: not necessarily because the person's lie. That's because they took
21:44
Speaker 5: a deep breath. I think over the years, I've probably
21:46
Speaker 5: downloaded twenty twenty five thousand dollars worth of information on
21:51
Speaker 5: how to beat a polygraph and a lot of it's rubbish.
21:54
Speaker 5: But it's interesting because in the States, most law enforcement
21:57
Speaker 5: bodies these days you have to undergo a polygraph or
22:00
Speaker 5: I detect tests before you get in. So there's a
22:03
Speaker 5: lot of websites who are of a teering and how
22:06
Speaker 5: to beat a polygraph. Now, I mean, you don't want
22:08
Speaker 5: somebody who enters a county sheriff or a police department
22:11
Speaker 5: and you know the big methamphetamine addicts or something like that.
22:15
Speaker 5: I remember when I was at LAPD, they had one guy.
22:18
Speaker 5: He passed his physicals, he passed all the medical exams,
22:21
Speaker 5: he passed the entry blah blah bah, and then even
22:25
Speaker 5: passed the site test and the last part of the
22:27
Speaker 5: process was to do a polygraph and one of the
22:29
Speaker 5: questions in the last five years, have you used any
22:34
Speaker 5: legal drugs? And the guy failed and admitted that he
22:36
Speaker 5: used crack cocaine on no less than three hundred occasions.
22:39
Speaker 5: So that's not someone you want in the property office.
22:42
Speaker 2: Yes, pathological liars believe they can fool anybody. Can they
22:47
Speaker 2: fool the polygraph and the eye detect as well?
22:50
Speaker 5: It was an interesting question. There was a study done
22:53
Speaker 5: in the States, and admittedly a small control but they
22:57
Speaker 5: had twelve clinically diagnosed psychopaths. Now, I think psychopathy is
23:01
Speaker 5: one of the most misunderstood words in the English language.
23:04
Speaker 5: So a lot of people think, so chopaths go out
23:05
Speaker 5: and kill people. Well, I guarantee you you've worked with
23:07
Speaker 5: people in your past that have psychopathic behavior, so they
23:10
Speaker 5: have little empathy or remorse.
23:12
Speaker 2: So if you and I but recently, actually I'd say
23:14
Speaker 2: let's not go there.
23:16
Speaker 5: So to give an example, you and I applied for
23:18
Speaker 5: a job and I'm a psychopath. I'll destroy you, I'll
23:20
Speaker 5: do everything it takes, but I will win and there's
23:24
Speaker 5: no doubt. So there's no compunction, there's no empathy, there's
23:27
Speaker 5: no remorse. So what's interesting was with this group and
23:30
Speaker 5: now these twelve clinically diagnosed psychopaths were within the prison population.
23:35
Speaker 5: They said, listen, we're going to do an experiment, a
23:38
Speaker 5: mock crime, and we're going to get you involved. Then
23:41
Speaker 5: you're going to do a polygraph test and we want
23:43
Speaker 5: you to deny it. Now, what was really interesting, if
23:46
Speaker 5: you or I do something and we're interviewed by the police,
23:49
Speaker 5: we may have feelings of guilt about doing what we did.
23:52
Speaker 5: Whereas the theory was psychopaths do not, but they're more
23:56
Speaker 5: concerned about being apprehended for their crime rather than having
23:59
Speaker 5: any empathy or remorse for their victims. And not one
24:03
Speaker 5: of those twelve could actually beat the test. And they
24:05
Speaker 5: even to even make it even more lifelike, they said,
24:09
Speaker 5: we'll give you I think it was twenty five dollars. Now,
24:12
Speaker 5: as you know, in the prison population, twenty five dollars
24:14
Speaker 5: a lot of money. Not one of them could beat
24:16
Speaker 5: the test. So I found that really interesting. But look,
24:19
Speaker 5: you are going to get people who it's like a sociopath.
24:23
Speaker 5: You know. I'm sure you've met people and they tell
24:25
Speaker 5: these lies, and the liars are unbelievable, but they maintain
24:29
Speaker 5: that facade. And that's a certain percentage of the population
24:32
Speaker 5: as well. But you can still believe it's a lie.
24:34
Speaker 5: But at the end of the day, you still know
24:36
Speaker 5: the truth. So if you're involved in an armed robbery
24:40
Speaker 5: and you're trying to convince yourself that you weren't involved
24:43
Speaker 5: in that armory, you still know the truth.
24:45
Speaker 1: Whether or not you.
24:46
Speaker 5: Can convince yourself or not, that question becomes the threatening stimus.
24:50
Speaker 5: I remember when I did my training, they got me
24:52
Speaker 5: to break into a car. Now, They said, there's cash
24:55
Speaker 5: in the car, break into it, and then you're going
24:57
Speaker 5: to do a polygraph test after that, and I want
25:00
Speaker 5: you to try.
25:01
Speaker 1: To beat the test.
25:02
Speaker 5: So I was tested by a guy called f at
25:05
Speaker 5: Akam who was the often charge of Oregon State Police polygraph.
25:09
Speaker 1: You know, so you knew his stuff.
25:11
Speaker 5: So I'm there, all the senses are there, and I'm
25:13
Speaker 5: thinking I'm going to beat this easy, no problem at all.
25:15
Speaker 5: I'm thinking about, you know, being on the Gold Coast
25:18
Speaker 5: and all sorts of stuff.
25:19
Speaker 1: As soon as you asked the question.
25:20
Speaker 5: When I was in the car, they hit the alarm
25:22
Speaker 5: and I thought, oh, so I grabbed the cash. So
25:24
Speaker 5: they tried to make it as life like as possible.
25:27
Speaker 5: But soon as they asked that question and there was
25:30
Speaker 5: no ramifications for me being caught in that light, I
25:33
Speaker 5: still failed miserably. So you might be able to try
25:35
Speaker 5: to convince yourself. But the end of the day, you
25:38
Speaker 5: still know ground zero. Do you know whether or not
25:40
Speaker 5: you're lying or not.
25:43
Speaker 2: Tell me some of the cases you've worked on. There
25:44
Speaker 2: must be some memorable moments from homicide cases and other
25:48
Speaker 2: things you've done.
25:48
Speaker 4: You've got a few for me.
25:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, Look, I remember the murder of Bonnie Clark was
25:54
Speaker 5: one of those. I was contacted by the homicide squad
25:57
Speaker 5: and they said, look, we've got a case. It's cold case,
26:00
Speaker 5: and we think Marion Weisshart, which is the mother, may
26:04
Speaker 5: be involved in the murder. And I was briefed and
26:07
Speaker 5: they said, look, it appeared that she was sexually assaulted.
26:09
Speaker 5: And I said, well, what do you think it's the
26:11
Speaker 5: mother and they said, well, we think she may have
26:13
Speaker 5: sexually assaulted her daughter to throw us off the scent. Now,
26:16
Speaker 5: statistically you probably know this yourself. It's rare from mother
26:20
Speaker 5: to sexually abuse her offspring physically, mate sexually.
26:22
Speaker 1: It's rare.
26:23
Speaker 5: Anyway, before I even did the test. Oh the other
26:25
Speaker 5: thing too, she wasn't that cooperative with the police, so
26:29
Speaker 5: they thought, well, what is she hiding? Why is she
26:31
Speaker 5: behaving like this. Let's not forget she's lost her daughter
26:35
Speaker 5: in horrific circumstances, and now everyone's pointing the finger at her.
26:40
Speaker 5: So anyway, she's talking and I'm thinking, wow, everything she said,
26:44
Speaker 5: I couldn't find any fault with it.
26:46
Speaker 1: And this is before we did the test.
26:48
Speaker 5: And anyway, we did the test and she passed, and
26:52
Speaker 5: I remember copying a bit of a ribbingness. Oh yeah,
26:55
Speaker 5: we're not sure, all that sort of stuff, and I
26:57
Speaker 5: think its About six months later, I got a phone
27:00
Speaker 5: call from one of the bosses of the homesie squad
27:03
Speaker 5: and he said, we've just arrested previous border. Now there
27:07
Speaker 5: was no signs of fourth entry into the house, no
27:09
Speaker 5: broken windows. A key was used, and he sexually assaulted
27:13
Speaker 5: and stabbed her and.
27:14
Speaker 1: She died as a result of her injuries.
27:16
Speaker 5: So I can only imagine being falsely accused as a mother,
27:20
Speaker 5: or having that ring of suspicion hovering above your head
27:24
Speaker 5: would be hard for any parent, I mean, especially when
27:27
Speaker 5: you have tragically lost trial. So but you know, sometimes
27:30
Speaker 5: you can go to cases and you know, things point
27:32
Speaker 5: in a certain direction.
27:34
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes, you know, I remember when I was
27:36
Speaker 1: on the job.
27:36
Speaker 5: You can go to a crime scene and you can
27:39
Speaker 5: tell pretty quick smart whether or not you know, it's
27:41
Speaker 5: organized or disorganized. That's how the profile is basically working
27:44
Speaker 5: out organized disorganized. You know, has the offender spent time
27:47
Speaker 5: with the victim post mortem, has the body been moved,
27:49
Speaker 5: has the crime scene been staged? All that type of thing.
27:52
Speaker 5: But here's the thing. As investigators will go there we'll
27:55
Speaker 5: formulate an opinion based on the evidence. We'll then try
27:58
Speaker 5: to support that hypothesis with evidence. But what if our
28:02
Speaker 5: hypothesis may be wrong. The beauty of what we have
28:07
Speaker 5: these days is, you know, I remember years ago the
28:09
Speaker 5: best you could do at a crime scene was blood grouping.
28:13
Speaker 5: Now we've got the ability of using DNA. We could
28:15
Speaker 5: get everyone in this building and everyone in this street
28:18
Speaker 5: to pin prick themselves and or put it in a
28:21
Speaker 5: pool of blood, and DNA experts can extract individual DNA.
28:25
Speaker 5: But also that in itself. I mean, you may have
28:28
Speaker 5: DNA at a crime scene, but the issue is does
28:31
Speaker 5: that DNA go to show the person may have killed
28:33
Speaker 5: the victim? So I mean, holistically, we need to look
28:36
Speaker 5: at all the available events.
28:39
Speaker 2: So how much should we rely on the polygraph? I
28:42
Speaker 2: mean it's in films, popular culture. We see the ink
28:46
Speaker 2: on the page, we see the suspects sweating. How much
28:49
Speaker 2: do you think we should rely on it? I know
28:50
Speaker 2: that money your clients do now in their daily lives.
28:53
Speaker 2: They're trying to use the polygraph to change outcomes in
28:55
Speaker 2: their daily lives.
28:57
Speaker 5: Look what I say to that is a polygraph is
29:00
Speaker 5: just another tool in the arsenal of investigative techniques. You
29:03
Speaker 5: can use the panacee for every investigation. But let's not forget.
29:08
Speaker 5: Often when people come to me, they've been accused and
29:11
Speaker 5: there's just he said, she said, there's no other cooperative evidence,
29:13
Speaker 5: scientific or medical, forensic, whatever it may be. So, like
29:16
Speaker 5: I said, it's not a panacea to every investigation, but
29:19
Speaker 5: it can help investigate his focus their resources. I mean,
29:22
Speaker 5: if an informant comes up and says John Smith is
29:25
Speaker 5: a person who you should be looking for, I look
29:27
Speaker 5: at motive. Is John Smith his opposition drug dealer and
29:31
Speaker 5: he wants to put him out of action? So always
29:34
Speaker 5: we have to question motive. We have to look at
29:36
Speaker 5: the evidence and not just rely on one piece of
29:38
Speaker 5: evidence because often you might have alibi evidence. And as
29:42
Speaker 5: we know in some of the cases we worked on
29:44
Speaker 5: in the Hunters, people will protect other people. That's how
29:47
Speaker 5: it works, that's life.
29:49
Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned a case that we looked at, the
29:50
Speaker 2: Beaumonts in South Australia. The leading suspect now is Harry Phipps,
29:55
Speaker 2: who lived quite close to Glenell Beach nineteen sixty six
29:58
Speaker 2: and one of the key planks of that suspicion was
30:02
Speaker 2: a testimony given by his son, Hayden to another investigator,
30:06
Speaker 2: you know, and you were asked to analyze that, and
30:10
Speaker 2: you didn't have him to put them put the polygraph on,
30:12
Speaker 2: and you had to rely on the questions that were asked.
30:15
Speaker 2: But you looked at that and you felt that he
30:17
Speaker 2: was being truthful, that his father had in fact taken
30:19
Speaker 2: those kids off Jane Grant Nana, off the beach there
30:23
Speaker 2: and had murdered them. He'd actually, Hayden Phipps claimed he'd
30:25
Speaker 2: seen them in their house near Gleneld Beach.
30:28
Speaker 5: Now, I know you and I may differ on this point,
30:30
Speaker 5: but one of the things I look for is firstly,
30:34
Speaker 5: are they under the influencer drugs or that tope of thing. Secondly,
30:38
Speaker 5: how believable and incredible is their story? You know? When
30:40
Speaker 5: he was recalling information, I mean, look, ideally, you know,
30:44
Speaker 5: I didn't have a lot of material to work with,
30:46
Speaker 5: because what ideally, in the perfect world, I'd say, okay, Tommy,
30:48
Speaker 5: what happened and then we could go through all the evidence.
30:51
Speaker 5: But I remember you and I having a conversation out
30:55
Speaker 5: the front of Harry Phipps place and you said, well,
30:58
Speaker 5: you know, he says that he let off shots inside
31:00
Speaker 5: the house.
31:01
Speaker 1: You know that seems a little bit unbelievable, Well does it?
31:04
Speaker 5: I mean sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction. I mean,
31:07
Speaker 5: you look at victims of sexual abuse and whatnot, and
31:11
Speaker 5: you listen to some of the stories and they seem
31:14
Speaker 5: incredibly difficult to believe. But you know, sometimes the most
31:18
Speaker 5: strangest stories end up being true. I look at motive.
31:22
Speaker 5: You know, what's his motive? And that's the important point.
31:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, Listen, that was just one piece of evidence within
31:27
Speaker 2: a whole range of things we were looking at. And
31:29
Speaker 2: in that case, I then went and spoke to a
31:32
Speaker 2: cousin of Hayden Phipps, who said he's a liar, and
31:35
Speaker 2: she told a lot of stories that suggested he was lying.
31:39
Speaker 2: But I guess in that situation you'd want to polygraph
31:42
Speaker 2: the cousin to have some sort of benchmark to say, well,
31:45
Speaker 2: let's look at Hayden's testimony in a different light.
31:49
Speaker 5: It's always difficult testing a person on a thought he
31:52
Speaker 5: was always a lie. I say, give me some examples,
31:55
Speaker 5: and then I'd try to cooperate that to work out.
31:57
Speaker 5: You know, and we've seen cases, more recent cases where
32:02
Speaker 5: one lie covers another lie covers another lie, and then
32:05
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, investigats will hang on you lied
32:07
Speaker 5: about that. Why would you not lie about that? If
32:09
Speaker 5: you're telling the truth, you've got nothing to fear. So
32:12
Speaker 5: sometimes people do lie. I mean some cases where a
32:16
Speaker 5: person is lied because they're having an affair and they
32:19
Speaker 5: don't want their wife to know about it. But does
32:21
Speaker 5: that mean they're their keiller? Not necessarily.
32:24
Speaker 2: By the way, do you think Harry Phipps did abduct
32:27
Speaker 2: and murder the Beaumonts.
32:28
Speaker 5: Yeah, Look, to be honest, I think there was more
32:31
Speaker 5: than one offender. I think there's more than just Harry.
32:33
Speaker 5: I think as we discovered, as we investigated that there
32:37
Speaker 5: are a number of people in quite high places that
32:42
Speaker 5: were involved in a well established pedophile network. And yeah,
32:50
Speaker 5: I think Harry was definitely involved, But I don't think
32:52
Speaker 5: he was the only one.
32:53
Speaker 4: That's what we differ. I don't think he was involved.
32:56
Speaker 2: I think there were lots of circumstantial pieces of evidence
32:58
Speaker 2: that point to him, but I think the heaviest piece
33:01
Speaker 2: of information or allegations come from Hayden, and I just
33:04
Speaker 2: don't trust Hayden's testimony. What I find remarkable in that case, though,
33:07
Speaker 2: is that the South Australian Coroner does not want to
33:10
Speaker 2: hold an inquest after all these years. I think that's
33:13
Speaker 2: a good way to not just test the information that's
33:16
Speaker 2: out there, but also the police investigation.
33:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:19
Speaker 5: Look, I can't see any reason why there should not
33:23
Speaker 5: be one. I mean, the argument and we've heard it before,
33:26
Speaker 5: you know, so long ago, the parents have passed away
33:29
Speaker 5: and all that type of thing. I think there is
33:30
Speaker 5: one surviving or two surviving family members. I think that
33:35
Speaker 5: you know, these typicicronial inquiries can highlight inconsistencies in evidence
33:40
Speaker 5: or investigative processes, where future investigators can learn from mistakes
33:44
Speaker 5: from previous investigators. I don't see any negative I mean,
33:47
Speaker 5: if it comes down to cost, well that's negligible. But
33:50
Speaker 5: I think at the end of the day, the whole
33:52
Speaker 5: legal system is predicated on the basis that crimes will
33:55
Speaker 5: be investigated and if necessarily, prosecuted, and that's the system
34:00
Speaker 5: in which we live in. I would like to see
34:02
Speaker 5: it the other thing too. Sometimes these hearings or as
34:06
Speaker 5: you know, royal commissions can bring out other witnesses that
34:09
Speaker 5: previously have never had a voice, who have never been approached,
34:12
Speaker 5: who have valuable information that can help.
34:14
Speaker 4: Well.
34:14
Speaker 2: That one's particularly important because on the day that they
34:18
Speaker 2: disappeared and the following days people lined up at Glenell
34:21
Speaker 2: Police station to give eyewitness accounts. There was two coppers
34:25
Speaker 2: on duty, a couple of phone lines. They didn't get
34:27
Speaker 2: to speak to everyone. So this queue of people maybe
34:31
Speaker 2: didn't give their evidence and so they're still out there
34:35
Speaker 2: or their children, and you think what was missed in
34:38
Speaker 2: those early moments. And I think that's why a coronial
34:41
Speaker 2: inquiry is very useful because the community also needs some
34:45
Speaker 2: form of resolution of these things to say, well, was
34:48
Speaker 2: it properly investigated?
34:50
Speaker 5: And you know the other thing there is you hear
34:53
Speaker 5: of cases where people have actually approached the police and
34:56
Speaker 5: that's our This is you know, I mean, this is
34:59
Speaker 5: why we have intelligence reports and whatnot because sometimes the
35:03
Speaker 5: file and ron It Wilson often used to say it,
35:05
Speaker 5: usually the killer's name is in the file somewhere. And
35:08
Speaker 5: that's why a new set of fresh eyes can pick
35:10
Speaker 5: things up that other investigators may have had a particular
35:13
Speaker 5: bias towards or against. So let me give you a
35:16
Speaker 5: great example. In my experience, I worked at Flemington CIB
35:19
Speaker 5: and I investigated an armed robbery and the uniform did
35:23
Speaker 5: a doorknock, very casual door knock, and I had to
35:26
Speaker 5: investigate the next day. It happened on a Thursday, so
35:30
Speaker 5: humans are where creatures are habits. So I thought, well,
35:32
Speaker 5: what I do is I go back on the Thursday
35:34
Speaker 5: at the time the armed Robbie happened, and I knock
35:36
Speaker 5: on a number of doors and this lovely lady come out.
35:39
Speaker 5: I said, look, I'm investigating an arm robbine that happened
35:42
Speaker 5: last Thursday, and she goes, yeah, I remember that, and
35:44
Speaker 5: she said. The uniform police come and spoke to me.
35:47
Speaker 5: I said, oh, and is there anything that you saw
35:49
Speaker 5: that you think may be important? And sometimes the smallest
35:52
Speaker 5: things she goes, oh yeah. I actually didn't like the
35:55
Speaker 5: police officer who spoke to me. It was quite rude.
35:57
Speaker 5: I said, oh, okay, what happened? She explained, it was
36:00
Speaker 5: very abrupt. She said, I just felt like I said,
36:02
Speaker 5: I may have some information and said, what's happenings? Well,
36:06
Speaker 5: I think this car blah blah bude, she's going on
36:08
Speaker 5: a bit anyway. As it turns out, she recorded the
36:11
Speaker 5: registration number of the car. They get away car.
36:13
Speaker 1: Now you know, at the end of the day.
36:16
Speaker 5: It's how people react that makes a difference to a
36:19
Speaker 5: lot of these crimes. Now, going back to what you
36:21
Speaker 5: were saying, sometimes people find God, they find Christianity, they
36:25
Speaker 5: have cancer, life threatening disease, they've been sitting or living
36:29
Speaker 5: with the secret, this dark secret, and they've never been
36:32
Speaker 5: approached or you know, for whatever reason. This why cases
36:35
Speaker 5: twenty thirty years old can sometimes be solved.
36:38
Speaker 2: Is I was amazed in the wake of our show
36:40
Speaker 2: The Hunters how many people sent me messages about cases
36:44
Speaker 2: we'd investigate all others.
36:46
Speaker 4: I was amazed.
36:46
Speaker 2: I mean people had information that they said, oh the
36:49
Speaker 2: police wren't interested, or they dismissed me. And what advice
36:53
Speaker 2: would you give to people who have that kind of
36:55
Speaker 2: information but feel that they'll be rebuffed or not taken seriously.
37:00
Speaker 5: You know, I firstly, write it down. That's the most
37:03
Speaker 5: important thing, because over fiod of time people forget things
37:06
Speaker 5: and write down everything as best you can recall at times, dates, place, memories,
37:11
Speaker 5: all that type of thing. And then I always say, like,
37:13
Speaker 5: report it. And we saw this with the Bondi Headland
37:17
Speaker 5: murders and that where a lot of people are being
37:19
Speaker 5: the murders thrown to their deaths where a lot of people,
37:23
Speaker 5: you know, police sort of wrote things off as suicides
37:27
Speaker 5: when it was clear that there was good evidential Well,
37:30
Speaker 5: there's evidence there that it wasn't, so yeah, report it,
37:34
Speaker 5: and you know, you never know because as we saw
37:37
Speaker 5: with the Royal Commission into that, eventually new police were
37:41
Speaker 5: sent out to chase up old leads and it did
37:45
Speaker 5: return some vague.
37:46
Speaker 2: One case I'm going to cover shortly on the show
37:49
Speaker 2: is Eryl Grimmer disappeared from Ferry Meadow Beach near Wollongong
37:53
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy and a new witness came forward recently
37:57
Speaker 2: who was a young boy at the time, migrant family
37:59
Speaker 2: living across the road in a hostel, didn't have television,
38:02
Speaker 2: didn't see the case at all, but did see young Cheryl,
38:06
Speaker 2: three year old being picked up by a man and
38:09
Speaker 2: taken away as an absolute carbon copy memory of that.
38:13
Speaker 2: He came forward only recently, and the US Southwell's Homicide
38:17
Speaker 2: Squad said wind interview him, can't use his testimony because
38:23
Speaker 2: he could.
38:23
Speaker 4: Have made it up.
38:24
Speaker 2: And I thought that was a classic case where a
38:26
Speaker 2: polygraph could actually help. And I've said to the family
38:30
Speaker 2: that they should get you in there to talk to
38:32
Speaker 2: this witness to test his memory. Is he making it up?
38:34
Speaker 2: Is he me too?
38:35
Speaker 4: Kind of character? What would you do.
38:38
Speaker 5: Well, I'd look at it from an investigative background. I'd
38:42
Speaker 5: actually get that witness to do what we did on
38:45
Speaker 5: one of our episodes and do a face composite because
38:49
Speaker 5: as you know, they can be aged. So who knows
38:53
Speaker 5: there weren't other victims from this same person, So there
38:56
Speaker 5: could be someone out there that could actually be the
38:58
Speaker 5: missing link and connect the you know, not maybe two
39:02
Speaker 5: unsolved crimes, but to this particular crime. You know, through
39:05
Speaker 5: the passage of time, you know, people do lose their
39:08
Speaker 5: memories and stories change, so I would say polygraph would
39:11
Speaker 5: be great for that. But also if they don't believe
39:15
Speaker 5: you know, somebody, I mean, we can cover that, but
39:18
Speaker 5: why not do a phase composite and have that distributed
39:21
Speaker 5: and maybe someone out there because you know as well
39:24
Speaker 5: as I do, a lot of these crimes are solved
39:27
Speaker 5: by a single phone call out of nowhere over many.
39:30
Speaker 1: Years, and that's all it takes. So you never know
39:34
Speaker 1: what's happening.
39:35
Speaker 5: And sometimes in domestic cases, partners are so scared of
39:38
Speaker 5: their partners and then for whatever reason, something happens and
39:42
Speaker 5: they're no longer threatened and then they unburden themselves will
39:45
Speaker 5: come out. So these are the people that should be
39:48
Speaker 5: listened to. And look, you know, I used to get
39:50
Speaker 5: this all the time. You bring out crackpots and you know,
39:54
Speaker 5: conspiracy theorists and all that type of thing. But we
39:56
Speaker 5: still have to check, you know, we still have to
39:59
Speaker 5: follow those leads up.
40:02
Speaker 4: You've got to talk to them.
40:03
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to keep pushing in that case
40:05
Speaker 2: because I think this witness could actually really drive this
40:08
Speaker 2: case forward.
40:08
Speaker 4: Steve, it's been a pleasure to talk to you.
40:10
Speaker 2: As always, I look forward to re engaging with you
40:12
Speaker 2: on The Hunter's next series. We'll waiting to see what
40:14
Speaker 2: happens there and also putting more people under the microscope
40:18
Speaker 2: of the Polyger.
40:18
Speaker 4: Thanks for joining me today.
40:19
Speaker 1: My pleasure Adam got on.
40:22
Speaker 2: That was Steve Van Admren the Human Light Detector. You
40:25
Speaker 2: can see our stories on seven plus The Hunters. And
40:29
Speaker 2: if you do have information on a crime, don't sit
40:31
Speaker 2: there and say, oh, the police not interested, or that
40:35
Speaker 2: that's only a small piece.
40:36
Speaker 4: Come forward.
40:37
Speaker 2: Call Crimestoppers one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero, or
40:41
Speaker 2: you can email me if you're scared of the police.
40:43
Speaker 2: Adam Shann, writer at gmail dot com, will certain you
40:45
Speaker 2: take it seriously? This has been real crime with Adam Shann.
40:49
Speaker 2: I'm Adam Shanned. Thanks for listening.
40:58
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41:01
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41:04
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