FAQs
Q: I have good reason to believe
that my ex-to-be has been hiding lots of money during a three-year
affair. I do not have an attorney, and I am getting divorced.
Can you help me find this money quickly and easily? How much is
it going to cost to find out if he has been hiding money and land
over the years?
A: The first answer is obvious:
no ethical, fair investigator can promise to uncover the work
of a smart, deceptive human being for $49.95. These searches can
easily involve a minimum of ten to twenty-five hours of investigative
time, including the use of expensive, on-line databases. We can
promise to work hard and to care about this effort, but we also
care enough about the matter to advise you to do everything in
your power to find and to retain an attorney. We are familiar
with several in your area, and we invite your call so we can suggest
three domestic relations attorneys from our network of fair, and
candid, legal professionals.
If you truly feel that you are dealing with a substantial
sum, then you have to consider a complete solution, which includes
an asset investigation. We are happy to assist with this, but
we still advise this effort be driven by an attorney.
Before speaking with any professional, whether it
be an attorney or an investigator, it is to your benefit to have
focused questions and any available proof (documents, etc.) available.
Q: I am charged with selling cocaine
to an undercover informant. I think I know who this is, and I
want to verify that hunch. I want to hire you to talk to her for
me and find out some things that will tell me if she is who I
think she is. Do you only work for attorneys?
A: No, we do not only work for
attorneys by any means. However, we do not go outside of the law
to do whatever our clients want. This is the kind of request that
we hear frequently, and it is made innocently enough. However,
it can be damning if it is used against you in court months later.
That is especially true if you want us to do something where someone
could later argue that you were hiring us to put pressure on someone
who may or may not be a witness in a case. In many instances,
if she is the informant, then you will learn her identity through
your attorney. Then, an investigation into the individual may
be advised, and we are happy to answer the call. We suggest a
frank and open discussion with your attorney, long before you
consider risky tactics. A good rule of thumb is this: do not say,
write, or do anything now that you will regret seeing or hearing
when you are sitting in trial nine months from now. There are
some conversations that may be better conducted in your imagination,
and this sounds like one of them.
Q: We are the parents of a twenty-two
year old daughter. On her birthday, August 10, she met and quickly
started to seriously date a thirty-four-year-old man, who is separated,
who has two children, and who is involved in what seems to be
an ugly custody dispute. She likes this man “Carl”
very much. But, for some reason, I don’t trust him. We do
not know more than this about him, and she says little if anything
more about him. We are traveling to Denver for Thanksgiving and
will be having dinner with them. Can you dig up something so that
I can show her that he is not good for her?
A: We can dig for information,
but we are investigators, not marriage brokers or counselors.
We will be happy to work with you to develop a checklist of a
few things that we call “Checkpoints for Truth.” Every
case has them. These are things that we can objectively find answers
for and which can be figured ahead of time and verified. We then
suggest our clients ask about the items on the “Checkpoints
for Truth” in an open-ended, casual, non-confrontational
manner. The questions, and more importantly the answers, may have
an effect on your daughter’s decisions. Remember, information
is power.
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Articles

Linguistic Statement Analysis
Technique
by Sergeant Bob Shaffer
Confucius claimed, “The essence
of knowledge is, having it, to apply it.” He knew the
benefit of knowing something is the opportunity to share it
with others. He couldn’t have been more right. What’s
the point of having special knowledge if you can’t tell
someone? It’s also the foundation upon which the majority
of criminal cases are successfully investigated. Someone does
something illegal, tells someone else about it, the information
gets passed on until the police or investigator catches wind
of it, and the bandit gets caught. It is also the premise upon
which the Linguistic Statement Analysis Technique (LSAT) is
based.
In 1998, a detective from my department
was investigating an alleged sexual assault. The suspect had
met the victim in a dance club, taken her to his home, and according
to the victim’s statement, forced her to have sex. The
detective conducted a thorough, traditional investigation, and
was convinced the suspect had committed the crime and had drafted
a warrant for his arrest. As an afterthought, she decided to
have me examine the suspect and victim’s statements in
hopes of gaining some more information that would strengthen
her case. It took only a matter of minutes to firmly conclude
that this was not a forced sexual assault but consensual sex.
I recommended that our detective re-interview the victim, inquiring
about the additional information that was revealed in her statement.
The victim declined to comment and abruptly withdrew her complaint.
Further investigation revealed the victim was divorced and had
not had a physical relationship in over three years. When her
friends found out she had slept with the man that night, she
tried to hide her shame by inventing the rape story. In this
case, statement analysis prevented the arrest and potential
punishment of an innocent person.
In a 1999 robbery case, analysis
of a convenience store clerk’s statement revealed she
was not the victim she was claiming to be but was actually part
of the robbery plot. Focusing their investigation on the findings
of the analysis, detectives found that the robber was actually
the clerk’s boyfriend and that they had conspired to stage
the robbery.
These are excellent examples of how
linguistic statement analysis has been used to conduct investigations
with a much higher degree of efficiency and effectiveness. LSAT
is described as a process by which a trained analyst examines
written or spoken language and is able to determine truthfulness,
deception, and gleans significant additional information from
it. The LSAT discipline involves using a consistent, systematic
process to closely examining the word choice, structure and
content of a subject’s statement to determine whether
it is the product of a person’s memory or a fabrication
from another source. In basic terms, statements that come from
memory are truthful and those that come from somewhere other
than memory are deceptive. Whether truthful or deceptive, LSAT
reveals the reality behind the story, not just the
person’s perception or opinion.
In a 1999 study in which police,
psychiatrists, Secret Service agents, polygraph examiners, and
college students participated, all were shown ten videotapes
of people relating either a true or false story. They used the
traditional methods of attempting to read body language and
rationalizing the activities in the people’s stories.
Only two groups of law enforcement officers and a group of clinical
psychologists were able to detect deception with a questionably
acceptable 69% success rate. However, a 1994 study of the validity
of statement analysis in the detection of deception and truthfulness,
revealed it to be accurate at a rate of 90%.
LSAT works because people feel compelled
for various reasons to share information even if it is incriminating.
If they don’t do it openly, their mind will reveal it
discretely through spoken and written language. If you’ve
ever had a gut feeling that someone isn’t telling you
the truth, but you just can’t put your finger on why you
feel that way, it is not by accident. The gut feeling is caused
by your mind recognizing the same tactics for deception that
it has used itself countless times! We can’t escape it
because it is hard-wired into all human brains. LSAT is the
process by which we can justify our gut feelings by identifying
the tactics our minds use to disguise information in our spoken
and written communication.
All humans use the same subconscious
strategies and tactics to deceive. Our choice of words, phrases,
sentence and statement structure, and statement content is significantly
different when we are deceptive from when we are truthful. By
far, the most common strategy for deception is the omission
of sensitive information. This tactic is likened to leaving
footprints in the snow. They tell us something used to be there
but isn’t any longer. Like a footprint, the deceptive
person leaves behind a clue or linguistic signal that tells
the analyst they have excluded information. Research in the
fields of language, psychology, behavioral science, and deception,
has led to the identification of numerous and consistent trends
in language that are referred to as linguistic signals. Using
LSAT, analysts identify these linguistic signals that differentiate
deceptive statements from truthful ones and most often reveal
valuable information that the person does not know they have
revealed.
Common linguistic signals are specific
adverbs and phrases that indicate the person has intentionally
left information out of their statement. If someone says, “I
went to the store. Later I went home”, they are not telling
us how much later or what they did between the two activities.
The word “later” is one of many adverbial signals
that the person intentionally omitted that information, making
it a deception. Other signals include changes in the terminology
a person uses to describe the same thing. For instance, someone
referring to a “gun” at one point in their statement,
might refer to it as a “pistol” somewhere else in
the same statement. This subtle change is attributed to changing
circumstances during the actual event that affected the person’s
perception of that item and subsequently, the terminology. This
is a strong indication the person has left out significant information
and therefore can be considered deceptive.
Other signals include specific use
and misuse of pronouns and certain types of punctuation. When
asked what they did the morning of an event, the deceptive person
might answer with, “Got up and fed dog. Then went to work.”
The statement analyst knows that by omitting the pronouns like
“I”, “my”, or “she”, the
person has not told us who actually did these things. When this
occurs, the likelihood of deception is over 99%. Why do people
leave out the pronouns? In many cases, feelings of guilt cause
the person to disconnect themselves from the deception. Other
times, it is the person’s attempt to conceal someone else’s
identity.
Punctuation is one other significant
signal. For instance, parentheses tell us the information contained
in them is likely to be truthful and lends credibility to a
statement. Quotation marks used for words other than quotes
tell us the person has a totally different definition of that
word. When I say, “I went to ‘work’ yesterday”
it might mean I actually went golfing and just thought about
work! Other linguistic signals include the calculation of statement
segment ratios (the amount of information dedicated to events
before, during and after the event), tense, extraneous information,
time references, corrections, personalizing the statement and
references to emotions.
LSAT is equally effective and useful
when applied to suspect, witness, and victim statements alike
and is applied in a highly organized, systematic manner. First,
the analyst examines the person’s statement to identify
all of the existing linguistic signals using an elaborate series
of markings, connecting lines and coding. They then determine
exactly what specific points of the statement are deceptive
or truthful, and reveal much information that the subject didn’t
intend to include. Look at an example from a homicide suspect’s
statement:
“Before I left home,
I went to tell her goodbye. After I said goodbye to her, I left
the house to catch my flight.”
To the untrained reader there appears
to be nothing out of the ordinary. To the contrary, this segment
contains multiple signals that the writer is not only highly
likely to have committed the murder but also exactly when he
is likely to have committed it. Consider the underlined words
and phrases in this segment again:
“Before I left
home, I went to tell her goodbye.
After I said goodbye to her, I left
the house to catch my flight.”
Notice the suspect twice used the
word “left”. This particular word is a trend in
language that commonly indicates a conflict. It leads the analyst
to strongly suspect there was a conflict at the home. Like “later”,
the adverb “after” is a sign of omission and indicates
the person intentionally removed information from that point
in the statement. Next, the suspect repeated describing the
action of saying “goodbye”. This corroborates the
suspicion that the suspect omitted information at this same
place. Also notice that the suspect first describes the action
as “telling” goodbye, but later describes it as
“saying” goodbye. The difference between telling
and saying is that “telling” indicates he received
a verbal response, while “saying” is a statement
for which there was no response. Is it possible that there was
no response to “saying” goodbye because the victim
was not able to respond due to her death? Another more subtle
signal is the person changing terminology from “home”
to “house”. This indicates something happened between
these references causing him to change his description.
All linguistic signals in the segment
above point in to the place between the first “goodbye”
and the word “after” as being the point where the
murder was most likely committed. This most sensitive point
in a statement is most often the reason for the statement being
written.
Traditional interview methods require
the investigator to ask questions to gain information. Then,
using logic, the investigator must try to distinguish whether
the information is truthful or deceptive by rationalizing whether
the actions could have happened. In contrast, the LSAT analyst
examines a suspect’s written statement before the interrogation.
Using the person’s own words, the interrogator knows beforehand
what the deception is and exactly where it lies without having
asked a single question. In our example statement, the investigator
would immediately ambush the suspect by probing into the events
that occurred between “goodbye” and “after”.
Attacking this deceptive part of the statement that the suspect
believes he has skillfully concealed, strips him/her of their
defense and leaves them highly vulnerable significantly improving
the likelihood of gaining the suspect’s confession.
The LSAT process has been used in
various forms for about 30 years in the private sector. The
majority of instruction is conducted for private investigators,
loss prevention personnel, and more recently in human resource
applications. As a personnel sergeant responsible for hiring
police personnel, I use LSAT during pre-employment interviews
and background investigations with a very high degree of success
in determining the truthfulness and validity of information
regarding applicants. Statement analysis is gaining popularity
with agencies such as the F.B.I., the U.S. military intelligence
and other prominent government agencies. Local law enforcement
is recognizing the value of statement analysis and is leading
a growing movement toward applying it in a wide range of criminal
investigations from arson and assault to robbery and homicide.
When applied by a competent analyst, LSAT is more dependable
and less time consuming than the traditional method of rationalizing
the events in the person’s story.
LSAT is highly effective for any
number of applications and its usefulness is spreading well
beyond criminal investigation. It is being utilized by attorneys
during jury selection. At a hole-in-one golf challenge where
the grand prize was a new car, those claiming to have made a
hole-in-one and their witnesses were asked to submit a statement
about the shot in order to confirm it prior to the prize being
awarded! For anyone looking to expand their investigative toolbox,
dramatically reduce investigation time, and maximize their overall
effectiveness and success, LSAT can be a tremendous asset when
applied properly. Persons interested in attending LSAT training
may request class information at: sgtshaf@aol.com.
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To Tell the Truth (an interview
with polygraph examiner Lawson Hagler)
by Shaun Kaufman and Colleen Collins
Highlands Investigations recently
worked on a case with Lawson Hagler, MSW, an independent, clinical
polygraph examiner and owner/operator of Accountability Polygraph
Services, Inc. in Englewood, Colorado. In this interview he
shared his knowledge and thoughts about the current practices
and future trends in the polygraph examination field.
Q: For those of
us who aren’t familiar, tell us how a polygraph examination
is performed.
A: The examiner prepares relevant questions
from a topic (ideally, one topic) that is significant to that
interview. The examiner also uses standard questions, control
and neutral questions, to get a baseline response. These questions
are blended together.
A majority of our testing is done here at the office, where
we seat the subject in a non-threatening room. We then place
sensors on various locations on their body: galvanometers on
the hand to detect changes in galvanic skin response (electrical
activity and perspiration); a blood pressure cuff on the arm;
and respiration monitors, called pneumographs, on the upper
and lower chest.
Typically, 3 control questions are asked to obtain a baseline
physiologic record. Ideally, 1 primary critical question is
posed in 2 or 3 different phrasings. The subject’s responses
to the relevant questions are then compared against responses
to the control questions.
The premise is that someone is deceptive when they manifest
abnormal physiologic responses, so the examiner poses questions
and records the subject’s physiologic responses. In response
to a neutral question, the blood pressure, respiration rate,
and galvanic skin responses will show little variation. In response
to a confrontational question, a deceptive or truthful answer
pattern appears on a set of “charts” that are recorded
on a computer or on long scrolls of graph paper. The charted
results look similar to EKG paper and have marks that indicate
when each question and answer was made in the session. Because
multiple ("poly") signals from the sensors record
on a single strip of moving paper ("graph"), you get
the term “polygraph.”
After the test, the examiner “grades” the charts
at each juncture where a question was posed. Each set of physiologic
responses is scored on a scale of +9 to -9. The +9 is an extremely
non-deceptive answer (in fact, any score rated greater than
+3 is scored non-deceptive). Similarly, deception is found at
a score of -3 to -9. Any response between +3 to -3 is scored
inconclusive.
Q: How long have polygraphs been around and
how accurate are they?
A: Polygraph instruments, similar to those
still in use today, have been around for over 50 years. Computerization
of this technology occurred in the early 1990s, resulting in
significant improvements in overall test accuracy. If done according
to established procedures, polygraph accuracy for single-issue
(meaning, one relevant issue) exams is 90-95 percent. Of course,
this is dependent on the integrity of the test process.
Q: What technological changes are on the horizon
for polygraph examiners?
A: There are software applications now available
that assist in scoring the physiologic data obtained from clients.
These algorithms ultimately will increase the accuracy of test
outcomes. One such algorithm was developed by researchers in
the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University.
Also, new hardware technologies are now available. For instance,
we know from extensive testing that pupil size varies considerably
when a deceptive response is given, just as respiration rate,
blood pressure, and skin response varies. A computer software
and hardware package (developed by Limestone Technologies, Inc.
at www.limestonetech.com) captures pupil response by means of
a camera attached to the computer. As the computer is fed data
from the traditional polygraph test, the web-cam device captures
pupil size changes.
In addition, my company has purchased motion sensors using piezo
technology to identify possible artifacts or other movements
by the client. Private research groups and government agencies
have reportedly begun analyzing data from a variety of additional
measures, including EEG (ElectroEncephaloGraph or brain waves),
skin temperature, and facial muscle movements.
In our office, we are also currently changing how we record
and archive polygraph examinations. We have an entire storage
area devoted to archiving old examination videos. Using digital
technology, we are recording each examination to a DVD, which
can be stored indefinitely and requires much less storage space.
These DVDs then exist as evidence for court and can be used
by other polygraph examiners to confirm the integrity of our
examinations.
Q: What have you learned about Linguistic Statement
Analysis Technique (LSAT, see Bob Shaffer’s article on
LSAT in this newsletter) and is there a corroboration between
LSAT and polygraph analysis?
A: From what I have been able to gather about
LSAT, the correlation is exciting. Both examine how a subject
responds to a stimulus concerning a past event, and what response
they produce when questioned about it. While LSAT approaches
this from a grammatical reflection of what the subject experienced,
the polygraph examiner employs a device to physiologically record
potentially deceptive responses. In both cases, we are trying
to ascertain the truth and to pierce a veil of deception. We
both use different techniques to obtain an idea of what did
or did not happen from that one person who frequently knows
the truth. As a side note, this is why police will not publicize
important details about crimes because often the person who
is the object of interrogation will inadvertently supply that
information either verbally, through the written word, or through
physiologic responses. LSAT and a polygraph examination are
both means of identifying that response, and both seek the truth.
Q: We appreciate your time, Lawson.
A: I enjoyed it. Thank you.
Lawson Hagler’s practice, Accountability Polygraph Services,
Inc., is located in Englewood, Colorado. He can be reached at
303-799-6688 or lawson@apolygraph.com.
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Checklist for Hiring a Private
Investigator
by Colleen Collins
Looking for an old friend? Want to
know if your spouse is cheating? Need to check out a potential
tenant or employee?
A good private investigator (PI)
can help you obtain these answers. And as with any expert you
hire—a doctor, a lawyer, an insurance broker—it
benefits you to take the time to ensure you’re hiring
a professional who has experience, quality reputation, and good-business
ethics. Below is a checklist that will help you find just such
a private investigator:
1. Ask friends, business associates,
your lawyer for a referral. Word of mouth gives you the inside
scoop, and the opportunity to ask questions specific to your
needs.
2. Check your state’s private
investigator associations, most of which have web sites that
post their membership directory.
3. If you can’t find a private
investigation association for your state, there are multiple
national PI organizations that refer investigators, such as
The
National Association of Investigative Specialists. Also,
check your state’s legal organizations—for example,
affiliates of the American Trial Lawyer’s Association
or the state defense bar—which typically have a directory
of recommended investigators.
4. Insurance companies use PIs constantly.
Especially if your needs fall into surveillance and background
checks, an excellent resource is your own homeowners insurance
company. Ask to speak to a claims representative. With a few
inquiries, you should be able to pinpoint which investigators
your insurance company uses, which is a good referral.
5. Check Internet and Yellow Pages
for private investigator listings, but remember these are paid-for
ads. Ask for references; check if the PI is licensed (most states
require a PI to be licensed, a few don’t); if you’re
going before a judge and jury, ask if the PI has courtroom experience.
NOTE: An untrained investigator may not know the laws and end
up doing something illegal during an investigation—which
causes you problems.
6. Before you speak to an investigator,
decide what’s in your budget.
7. When you speak to an investigator,
ask if he/she has done the type of work you’re seeking.
More important, ask them the outcome of that type of investigation.
8. Ask to see examples of reports
they’ve produced for similar cases.
9. Gauge your comfort level while
speaking to the investigator. Good communication will be critical
after the investigation begins. Also, be open minded—your
investigator may have new ideas that are worthy of exploration.
10. Expect to pay a retainer up front.
Just because a PI doesn’t ask for one (or even a reasonable
hourly rate), doesn’t mean he/she is better at what they
do. You want to hire someone who’s competent, not hard
up for work.
Remember, a good private investigator
can be your best resource!
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