Interviewing the pathological subject

As I mentioned in an earlier column, you're invited to e-mail me questions on interviewing to dwrabon@msn.com. Here's the selected question for this issue: "I interviewed a pathological liar on several occasions who had bribed a government official. He exhibited no anxiety and actually seemed to enjoy the interviews. What techniques can you suggest using in this situation? By the way, he never admitted guilt, even when confronted with documentary and testamentary evidence at his trial. He was convicted and served seven years in a federal prison for his crime."

I am all too familiar with interviewing the pathological subject. Years ago, I was a law enforcement officer in Salisbury, N.C., the home of a veterans' administration hospital. The hospital serves veterans with physical, mental, and emotional needs. Many times the local bank would call the police station because a hospital patient would want to draw large sums of money out of his nonexistent savings account. I would then talk to the patient at the bank. He wouldn't be lying to me or the bank; he would honestly believe that he had money and it was in the bank waiting for him.

Let's start with a working definition of deception (it's not the only definition but it will do for now): "One person intending to mislead another." The key word in this definition is "intending." Deception by definition has to be intentional. No one will accidentally or inadvertently deceive another. Consequently, the term "pathological liar" is once again by definition, a misnomer. Pathological subjects believe that what they are telling is the truth so, therefore, there's no deception. But still, the pathological person can't remember something that didn't happen.

When dealing with either the knowing or the pathological liar (I add "liar" only for the sake of clarity) the problem for them both is in the details. Both individuals are drawing from imagination. As the skilled interviewer questions to find the details, the interviewee has greater difficulty holding the fabric of the story together without making a mistake. The knowing liar tends to become emotive when the interviewer asks increasingly pointed questions to elicit more details but the pathological liar, as we learn in the reader's question, tends to display no anxiety.

Confronting the pathological person with facts and details that are contrary to his assertions is like nailing Jell-o to a wall. He will simply shrug it off and go off into another direction and build yet still another explanation.

When dealing with the pathological interviewee, give him the facts and details that will refute his assertions but don't expect him to acquiesce or recant his previous statements.

Good read on discourse and deception
For those of you interested in discourse and the study of deception, I recommend reading "The Language of Deception: A Discourse Analytical Study" by Dariusz Galasinki (Sage Publications). The book, though only 121 pages long, contains a great deal of information and is a good primer on the subject. Chapter 5, Metadiscursive Deception, is particularly good.

Analysis of the previous issue's statement
I can't provide here a detailed, technical analysis of the statement I included in my March/April column but I can address those components that drew my attention.

001 I was standing in the back storage room talking to Ann Smith on the phone.
002 A black man in his late 20's to early thirties came out of the bathroom and
003 handed me a note saying - I have a gun don't do anything stupid or I'll
004 kill you. - I got off the phone with Ann. He showed me the gun (medium

Note: Here I would have expected the "teller of the tale" to include some type of emotional response: "At first I thought it was a joke." "I was so shocked that I could not think." "I have never been so scared in my life." Truthful people tend to place themselves into the story. They experienced it and that experience made an impression on them. They will tend to share that impression within their narrative.

005 pistol). He thought the money was in the candy room and demanded to go
006 in. I took him in there and showed him around. He wanted to know where
007 all the money was and how much there was. I told him. I also told him it
008 would take 10 minutes to open the safe. He said to play it cool and open it
009 while he waited. I set the timer and walked him around the store. After
010 about 5 minutes I walked him back to the front, and took the money out
011 of both end registers. I put the safe money together with it in a blue zipper
012 bag, then put the bag in a small box. I walked him to the back of the store.
013 He left the box on the floor, put the bag up his shirt, then told me to walk
014 him out.

Note: What I quickly noticed was the victim's constant use of the pronoun "I" with a verb (in boldface above). In a truthful narrative, I would expect to see more of the pronoun "me." "I" is the doer of the verb and "me" tends to be the recipient of the action of the verb. In this case I noted the writer was the doer. (It's important to point out that all of these actions were recorded by the store's surveillance camera.)

Lastly, I noted that the writer didn't include any actions he took after the robber had left the store. I prepared a list of amplifying questions and scheduled an appointment with the store to personally conduct an interview with the employee. The employee never retuend to work. I'm convinced that he and the "robber" had planned the theft and attempted to use the store's surveillance video as proof.

Negation and repression
If you conduct a non-directive interview (using questions containing what, how, why, could, or would) the interviewee will produce an open narrative about what happened. If during his narrative, the interviewee tells you something that didn't happen then you should ask another question about that element at some point during the interview. For example: "I got to work yesterday at 9 a.m. I unlocked my safe and counted my deposit and found that it was $150 short. I looked in my receipt bag from yesterday. I did not go into my co-workers' drawers to look for the money."

This linguistic device is known as "negation." While telling what happened, the interviewee, on his own, relates what didn't happen. I liken it to a salesman returning from a business trip. His wife asks the question, "How was your trip?" and he answers "Well the food was great. I made the sale. The hotel was clean and comfortable. I made all of my airline connections and I did not go out with another woman." Most assuredly, the wife would ask a question about that portion of his narrative. Obviously, if the interviewee uses negation, you should be suspicious.

Negation has a first cousin - repression. In this linguistic device, the interviewee relates on his own those things he remembers that he doesn't remember. (This sounds odd, but bear with me.) Let's take our salesman's narrative and change it just a bit to illustrate. Once again, the wife asks, "How was your trip?" and the husband answers, "Well the food was great. I made the sale. The hotel was clean and comfortable. I made all of my airline connections and I don't remember if I went out with another woman." In either of the two illustrative cases, the husband has some explaining to do. Ask the interviewee a question and make him explain.

Keep those questions, comments and observations coming to dwrabon@msn.com. Until next time, keep asking.

Don Rabon is the manager of the Investigations Center at the North Carolina Justice Academy in the North Carolina Department of Justice and a longtime member of the ACFE faculty.