A clue to deception?

Fraud examiners know that a suspect's body language can reveal more than that subject realizes. However, without empirical evidence, interviewers are at risk of assuming guilt or innocence. This column is adapted from a paper written by recent graduates or current students in Carlow University's Master of Science in Fraud and Forensics program for a class taught by Associate Professor Enrique Mu, Ph.D. — ed.

In 1989, a woman jogging in New York's Central Park was brutally beaten and raped. In what became known as the Central Park Jogger case, aggressive investigators coerced five juvenile men into confessing. Police investigators — faced with a lack of forensic evidence — believed that some of the men's nonverbal gestures were indications of guilt. However, the confessions were false, and the investigators' assumptions were wrong. Forensic author and former FBI agent, Joe Navarro, wrote, "Officers mistook nonverbals of stress for deception and pressured the innocent into [making] confessions." (See the book, "What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People," by Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins, page 206.)