 Today, we're talking about Alex Murdov. Of course, we've been, we've done a couple of videos on him so far. We're sort of going back a little bit and we're actually looking at the interrogation. And in this thing, you're going to see a lot of things that they're tough to see unless they're pointed out to you. This is the small stuff we're always talking about. Nothing huge. But these are things that are almost mind blowing things that you may not have seen before. So you may learn something. Greg, tell us about the videos we're going to watch. Yeah. So this is a first for us as well because there's an attorney present here. He doesn't bring up his voice very often, but there is an attorney present during an interrogation, which is powerful because now it changes the way the investigator has to approach him. These videos are the first time he was asked to the police station and this is a sled agent talking to him, South Carolina law enforcement division. And this is the first time he's confronted with evidence of that video about him being at the kennels. That's an important part of why he was convicted. We found out from a juror. And then we also find out that the guy he's calling or he was trying to get through to is the guy that that video was sent to row row. So it's an important part of this discussion, but I also want you to know there's an attorney there and he's interfering at least once. There's a lot of subtlety in this one and I think you'll enjoy it. Wait till the end. That's the cliffhanger. There is a video on Paul's phone of you and him on the phone that night. You were playing with a tree. I don't remember playing with a tree. I guess there was a tree sapling or something that was falling over or bending over and you were trying to get it to stand back, stand up. But I mean the question in that is, when I met you that night, you were in shorts and a t-shirt, at what point in that evening did you change clothes? I'm not sure. You know, it would have been. Before dinner or after dinner? What time of day was that? I would have thought I'd already changed. There's not a time. Is he asking you now what time that picture was? Yes, sir. Go ahead. I was tap on it because there's so many posts, but I want to say it looks to be about dusk. So that would then 7 or 8 o'clock. I guess I changed when I got back to the house. From when we spoke. Alright, Mark, what do you got? Yeah, really simple this one. But look at the strong difference between Murdo and the interviewer that's more visible there. The difference in how set the body language is. So Murdo really closed down. You're not going to see him move at all pretty much in this video. And the interviewer, way more movement happening. So just that contrast for me is exciting because I go, let's see if that changes. Let's see if the interviewer can get Murdo to open up his body language or close down even more. Can one affect the other? We're going to actually see that in the next video. So it's pretty quick. Chase, what do you got on this one? Yeah, so we'll go back to my analysis of just focusing on what's missing here in a few of these videos. Just what's missing, omitted or concealed in every statement that you hear. And here he's skipping over the clothing the detective has very clearly illustrated in this question. And in an interrogation of innocent people when they don't know something, there's something that you're going to hear from them. They're going to say, I don't know. And they're going to be comfortable with not knowing the information. And when you see guilty people in an interrogation, they're always more willing to negotiate details and nuance because of their need to appear helpful. But innocent people have no problem. Most of the time talking about remembering these details. So we're going to focus on this. And in the coming videos, we're going to talk. We're going to actually teach you about interrogation and some of the secrets of how that stuff works. Looking forward to that, Scott. All right. From a body language perspective, he's pretty much batting down the hatches. This is for the person who doesn't know much about body language. This is one of those few times when you see crossed arms and it means what you think it means. He's just completely locked down. He's got his arms crossed, he's got his legs crossed for things tight. He's not moving much. He's trying to stay in control because he's being put on the spot. He doesn't know what these guys know yet. Doesn't know what the questions are going to be. So he's got to be very careful. So he's paying attention to that. All right. Greg, what do you got? Yeah, guys, you know, I'm kind of the priest of baselining. It's what matters most to me. What you're going to see is something we taught guys resisting interrogation to never do. And that's create an artificial posture you can't maintain. And what he's doing is coming in all locked down because he thinks he can control his body language. This guy who's questioning him and does a great job of soft peddling some questions and hard peddling others so that he fuels the pressure at times. Now, if you there's a couple other things to note here. This is a low pressure interrogation. One of the few you're going to see that's this calm and this contained and very little pressure. What we know is if I put high pressure on you and introduce facts, they can become memories. So he doesn't have that as a defense because nobody forced anything on him. That's not what's going on. He looks terribly frightened. He's doing this because he's fishing and you watch him, you'll be able to tell when he's looking for information they have. And he's starting off when he is locked down this whole way where he doesn't move at all. He's looking for a way to contain everything he's doing, but then he adapts and rocks as they ask him about that video. When we say adapting, we mean he's releasing nervous energy. For him, we saw this on the stand, but this is a very different him on the stand because he is not yet discovered to be the guilty party or claimed. But when they bring up the video and ask him what time he asked what time of the day was that he's fishing to see if they have the video that was taken of him. We also know that he said I was going to do something with Paul's phone at the site. Wonder what he was going to do with Paul's phone. If you knew this was an incriminating video, he was trying to get away from it. We can't tell that. What we can tell is he is fishing. He's locked. He almost looks like a photo through the entire thing. And when you see that baseline deviation, you're going to know something has changed. And by that, this is why I always say you are sitting on the couch eating Cheetos baseline is not what we're looking for. We're looking for what you're advertising when you come in the door and how much deviation occurs. This is a great start. Do you guys hear me swallow earlier? How loud that was? It looked like a glow. The eye wouldn't see you. There is a video on Paul's phone of you and him on the phone that night. And you were in a khaki pants and a dress shirt. You were playing with a tree. I don't remember playing with a tree. I guess there was a tree sapling or something that was falling over or bending over. And you were trying to get it to stand back, stand up. But I mean, the question in that is, when I met you that night, you were in shorts and a T-shirt. At what point in the evening did you change clothes? I'm not sure. You know, it would have been. Before being a rack of dinner? No, it would have been. What time of day was that? I would have thought that already changed. There's not a time. Is he asking you now what time that picture was? Yes, sir. Go ahead. I was to have on it because there's so many posts, but I want to say it looks to be about dusk. So that would have been 7.30 to 8 o'clock. I guess that changed when I got back to the house. Earlier when we spoke, he was hurt in the background, hurt in the background. That was prior to none. Rogan Gibson asked me if I was up there, he said he thought it was me. Was it you? At 9 o'clock? Yes, sir. No, sir. None of my times were right. Do you think it could have been? I have no idea. And Rogan's been around your family for pretty much all his life? Absolutely. Being recognized as your voice and you have a distinct voice. Do you think of anybody else that has the voice somewhere indoors that he may have misinterpreted? No, no, sir. He had asked me that, so I thought I was up there. Did that surprise you? Yes, sir. You kill us and return home from your mom's. All right, Greg, what do you got? This is why we tell you not to come in with a wonky baseline because you see he's been locked down. Now watch that thumb. He's got a, I think he has a tissue in that hand. If you watch and he's just wearing the hell out of that tissue. It's got your point. He never uses it for tears, but he sure is adapting on it. It's a tissue or something else. Kind of like a kid has a wooby or something and they play with it all the time and they feel stressed. All of us do something. When he's asked the question about 9 o'clock, he distances gives himself a split second to answer by saying at 9 o'clock, then you see the rocking and his foot pressing on the floor. That's a lot when you came in locked down as tight as he was. You don't do that. And why you can't hide something chase. You always talk about politeness spikes. There's definitely a deferential sir at no, it's not just no sir. It's no sir. And I cannot think of anyone else. There's no protest in this guy at all at being accused of being, and this is accusation by question. We all do it in the interrogation room. Is there any reason you call it bait questions and in regular intelligence interrogation, we'll call it put on notice by question. There's all kinds of things you may call it. But he is being accused by question and he's not defiant. He's not indignant. His chin is not out and there's no eye locked. That makes me go. Hmm. Why is this guy doing this? Scott, what do you got? All right. So we see he's changed his leg positions and he's loosened up just a little bit. That's because he's he's eased up that that first part I think is obviously at the beginning. So he's really, really tense at this point or up to that point. Now he's sort of relaxed, not relaxed, but he's letting go just a little bit. So he's gone from guarding his stomach and keeping that diet down to guarding his genitals, which he saw in the car as well. So I think he's realized from a body language perspective, since the fight is on now and he knows it is. He's got to look and sound like he's being honest. So I think he's in a small way. I think he's taken into consideration what he looks like just a little bit, not much, but just a little bit more. So he's not as squinched up as he was. And like you said, Greg, a lot going on with that thumb and forefinger, man. Looks like he's almost like playing a air banjo and his voice is quiet. There are no big pops of voice volume and his tone doesn't jack up or anything. He's focused. So he's he's he's going in fairly steady at this point. And then after the question comes about the time of his whereabouts, his head goes into that, that bobble thing where he's saying where his head is yes and no and spinning around. I think if we didn't understand what that was, we'd see that more as confusion because I think he's he's sorting out what he's going to say and being very careful to how he says it, which is important to him. Because now he's got to remember everything he's saying because as far as we know, something may have changed in the story he prepared to this story now. That's what it looks like because there's a whole lot of thinking going on in there. Taking the stress he's he's experiencing from the interrogator in consideration. Yeah, but it looks like a little bit more than that to me. I'll leave it there. Mark, what do you got? Yeah, so we're all in agreement that that he was choosing to do this behavior. I think we're probably right to say he's choosing to do that because he wants to lock it down. He wants to be in control and this is now 10 minutes later and he's changed. I think that is a result of the interview that's going on and the interviewer. The interviewer has managed to get some element of change out of him. I reckon I could do this all day if I really, really wanted to unless there's something else occupying my mind that I then forget to do this and start to do behaviors which are more unconscious to me. And so to your point, Scott, I think this protection of the primary sexual characteristics which we're now seeing is more unconscious behavior of him. So if the interviewer has done anything here, yes, it's caused him to have to think about other elements that are going on. Most likely the story that he's telling and so we're getting more unconscious rather than conscious behavior out of him. So another unconscious behavior we're seeing is that thumb move which, yes, is partly adaption on the tissue or handkerchief that's there. But also we're seeing it as a baton gesture as well, a gesture that moves along to the rhythm of his speech. Although it doesn't, it doesn't quite move along exactly to the rhythm of his speech. The baton gesture, the baton the conducting is incongruent with the rhythm. So I'm going to suggest, you know, go back, take a look at how incongruent the rhythm of that thumb is. Have a listen to what he's talking about and then think to yourself, is it incongruent because there's extra stress and pressure around this particular element that he's talking about? Is what he's talking about right now, is this going to end up being absolutely consequential to the case? Is it important data? Is he unconsciously signaling how important this element of the story that he's most likely creating is? But look at that really subtle changes ultimately that we can start to think about and think what is the consequence of this further down the line? Chase, what do you got on this one? Yeah, you guys covered a lot. I'll just cover one more thing here. When he says no, sir, not if my times are right. I want you to pay attention to that. The qualifier here is one of the biggest red flags you could possibly get as an interrogator. And I'll tell you why here. There is a known piece of information that any reasonable human being could answer from memory. Were you down there? Were you present during this video? So when he makes the denial, it's about time instead of memory. And this is where an interrogator would be asking something like, are you certain that your times are even correct or right? And then the temptation for most people to jump onto this deception is almost irresistible. And instead, I think it's best to accumulate these mistakes and red flags over a period of time, especially with people like this. If you read the average interrogation training, it's going to tell you that undetected lying is rewarding. But in cases like this, where there's lots of rehearsal and stuff, you want to get a mountain of this kind of stuff. So in interrogations like this, especially when you're interrogating an attorney, confessions are extremely unlikely. So your job here as the interrogator instead is to develop these red flags. And the moment you call someone out on one of those, a wall starts building. So you don't do that. You keep pouring water on these little red flag seeds so they become bigger red flags that the jury can watch during the replay. That's all I got. So you think it's true in intelligence? Exactly. The island is you. And Maggie was hurt in the background, and you were hurt in the background. And I was prior to none. Yeah. Ruben Gibson asked me if I was up there. He said he thought it was me. Was it you? At 9 o'clock. Yes, sir. No, sir. None of my times are right. If you think it could be. I have none. And Ruben's been around your family for pretty much all his life? Absolutely. And he recognizes your voice and you have a distinct voice? Anybody else that has a voice somewhere even worse than he may have misinterpreted? No, sir. I mean, he had asked me that. And I mean, he had told me that he thought I was up there. Didn't that surprise him? Yes, sir. So when you return back to the hills, when you return home from your mom's, you say here, like you're talking to somebody else or something else. I say here? Here. Yes, sir. The dispatcher is asking you if they're breathing and you said no. And she asked if you, did you see anyone else in the area and you said no. She asked about guns near them and you said no. And then you kind of stutter and start moving around and you say here. And I'm just saying that, I guess I'll have to listen to it too. You know, but I don't recall the dog being out. I'm just certain that there was not a dog out. You know, I mean, there's other things people have told me about it. They told me somebody else. I don't know. That's why I'm asking. And that obviously was nobody else out there. And certain that it was not a dog. I remember saying anything about Buster would know. I was asked about that later. I had information about what if Buster had information about threats that I said he would know. All right, Chase, what do you got? So right here, I think the detective makes a mistake in searching for the papers about the word here, h e r e. So in interrogations, it's, it's really tempting to want to do this like, oh, I have the evidence right here. But there's no need to illustrate that it's on paper somewhere. But you can see that Murdoch takes advantage of this to buy time. So he's trying to find that when the question is clear, concise and perfect, he should not have to re qualify himself. I think that takes away from his authority or his perceived authority in the interrogation room. And I think second, you're seeing another brilliant and giant red flag here. And this is what I call diving for details. And whether a dog is out or not of a cage or a kennel is beyond irrelevant. But Murdoch makes an effort to very carefully examine his memory to determine if a dog was out or not. So when you see this level of detail about relevant details, those are probably green flags. They're indicators you're talking to someone who's probably innocent or being honest. When you see the denial or that, sorry, you see this detail diving into nuance, minutia, relevant, hollow details like this. You're seeing something that should scare you pretty bad as an interrogator. So if we stick with the what's missing technique, we're seeing loads of detail about stuff, but the detail is missing around the victims, the timelines, the clothing. Everything relevant to the case has no detail and everything irrelevant and meaningless. He spends tons of time talking about and detailing the little answers around those. Scott, what do you got? All right, on the playback, let's pay really close attention. Mark brought up earlier of that detective's body language compared to Murdoch's body language. The detective is really fluid. It's big. He's using big illustrators and talking fairly slow and his tone stays even. Everything's good. And then Murdoch, whose brain is on fire with trying to keep up with everything that's happening. Watch him like Greg said earlier. It's almost like a picture or a mannequin. He's just sitting there. Nothing moves much at all. We still see a little bit of the thumb happening, but he's running scenarios in his head. And what if it goes this way? What if it goes that way? What if it goes this way? Then I saw the plays looking for the papers chase. I saw that more as just trying to take up time between questions to help build that tension. That's where I went, but I see what you're saying. That makes sense. But I think in there, we saw a great example after you finished asking the question, how would you sit there and look at him where he would pretend like he was doing something else and just let Murdoch talk and talk. Then he'd stop and he'd add more stuff and he'd stop and add more. And that's a technique you use. And you can use it at home on your kids. You ask, where have you been? And they tell you, did you go to Sonzo's place? And they say, yeah, I went to her house or his house and you just keep doing this. Don't look like this, but look normal. And see what else they give you. See if they'll keep talking. See if they'll give a little bit more information. They may, they may not. They may say, why are you acting so weird? Most likely they won't do that because they're going to be thinking, whoops, they don't believe me. Whoops, they don't believe me. And if you look back to the, the, when you, when someone's talking to you and they break eye contact, most people are in the impression that person's lying to you. Whereas we know now that the person who doesn't break eye contact with you, that a huge percentage of that says that they are lying to you because their brain wants to keep an eye on you to make sure you believe them. And if they, if you don't believe them, they'll start adding qualifiers. And this is a version of that. But it's, it's a more advanced version of that what the detective is doing. He's not looking for qualifiers. He's just looking for this guy to spill more information. That's how it looks to me. Greg, what do you think? What do you got? Yeah, so a couple of things. Chase, while I agree with you, that is from the mechanical side and the pure fact, an important part of how you go after that information. You also have to remember, I trained a lot of interrogators in my life and it's all about, this is an art form and it has to fit the person. So that guy probably has got enough under his belt. He feels comfortable doing it a certain way. And I've had interrogators who had the, I called it the bungling Colombo method that would rifle through things and just clean house. Others who can't do that. And so I think it depends on the person. And I would say that all of this stuff and we're all on the same page. All this stuff is an art form. Every one of us has our own art and style and the way we do it. It also is theater for one. So you have to be believable to that guy. If you know that guy, if you've had exposure to him, you may have a different approach. So I, you know, I want to know what the guy's thinking when he's doing this. I want to talk to you if you're there and you're listening to us. We'd love to talk to you about what you're thinking while you're interrogating murder. Another couple of interesting things for me, that when he's doing that dog thing to me, that's a chaff and redirect. He's looking for every opportunity you can because this guy, and if you don't know what chaff and redirect is with us, it's when I spew useless information for you to pick up and follow. And we get people in the comments always saying, this stuff doesn't work. Well, if you're talking about absolutes and you touch your nose, it doesn't work. We interrogate for living. So it's one of many skill sets. All the body language we're talking about, the behavior is another layer, the questioning, all the theater stuff that he's doing. All those are layers of this approach. And what we pray on, this guy's been sitting in a vacuum, de-conflicting his story since he killed these people. He has no idea what they know. And now he's starting to find out and they're poking. He's got a de-conflicting on the fly. Scott and Chase, you both brought it up. He's starting to feel a little stressed because now he knows that he didn't know when he came in. When they questioned him about this 911 call, I call this extra edit info. Because when a person is writing, and if you have been around long enough to choose the email all the time, you would edit your email and you'd have junk at the end. You would delete that. A lot of times when people are de-conflicting their story, before they go on 911, they're going to have words flowing through their head. They've practiced and practiced and practiced. And then that last word that dropped out there might make no sense whatsoever. None. And so anytime I hear that, I go, that's a push-pull word for me, something I want to grab and pull. Last I'll say, and there's a bunch in here, but last one I'll point out, there's a poor camera angle, but I think he does a regulator. And we talk about a regulator being a way to control conversation. Look at his head, fish for information, as to whether that guy believes him or not. Pay really close attention. See if you agree with me. If you don't, if you think it's just some anomaly, put that in the notes too. If you think all this doesn't work, don't ever go into an interrogation with another lawyer because it does work. Mark, what do you got? Yeah, what I love about this is both of the major players here are good enough, more than good enough or experienced enough that we're able to look at the real subtleties that are going on here and kind of go, well, I wonder if the tactic here is this or it's this. I'm going to split the difference on the tactic here and it's to do with the rhythm. I think the initial element there of looking for that piece of data is real because I think he's actually searching for the piece of data and he doesn't quite know where it is. And I picked that up from how fast that and indirect that rhythm is. Then he slows it down because I think he goes, you know what? As I'm looking for this, I may as well play it. Now, my bias would be I would play it even bigger and even longer, but that's my exhibitionism there. How much can I turn up the heat even more by making this last a lot, lot longer on this? But you know, everybody's got their own idea, their own style. They're going to do what they're going to do in this situation. Regardless of what the reality is, I think this interrogation, this questioning has him now locked in a new position. He's now locked in this new, what was an unconscious position. Maybe he's locked unconsciously. Maybe he's locked himself now consciously and gone, okay, stay with this, stay covered up in this area. Because once again, he's locked down and he's using, I don't know, I don't remember and he's not moving and he's not responding in any big way. So isn't that wonderful? Started off locked down, interrogator managed to open him up really by getting him to change position, get him on the back foot a little bit and now he's locked himself down again. So where's this going to go next? I'm interested to find out. There, that's all I got on that one. The island is you. You have one point in the novel, one call. You say here. Like you're talking to somebody else or something else. I say here. Here. Yes, sir. So the dispatcher is asking you if they're breathing and you said no and she asked did you see anyone else in the area and you said no. She asked about guns near them and you said no and then you kind of stutter and start moving around and you say here. I'm just saying that. I guess I have to listen to it too. You know, but I don't recall a dog being out. I'm certain that there was not a dog out. You know, I mean there's other things people have told me about it. None went one call that I don't remember. Like I was calling a dog. I was talking to somebody else. I don't know. That's why I'm asking. I'm certain. I mean that obviously there was nobody else out there. I'm certain that there was not a dog. I remember saying anything about Buster would know. I was asked about that later if I had information about or that Buster had information about threats that I said he would know I was a turkey load. I was a buckshot. I understood that. The shotgun that you had with you that night there was a bird shot and a buckshot. When Jeff went back the next day I'm not sure which attorney it was pointed out that there had been a shotgun laying on the pool table that he had put in pointing out that ammunition that was with that and it was a buckshot and a bird shot and the shotgun that we took for potential comparison it was also loaded with a bird shot and a buckshot. So I have all of these consistent loads along with what's that in the feed room. I call it the feed room and again is that what you call it? That's something. It's fucking good enough. Okay. If I say feed room I just want you to know what I'm talking about. The night I grabbed the shells that I could get my hands on exactly what I had. Okay. Also when we talked I asked you if it was going to keep guns down to the guns and you said you have to check. Have you been able to check to see what was missing from your collection? I have. Yes, I know what's missing from what I believe is missing from our guns. Okay. And what are those? There's three guns that I think are missing. And what kind of guns are those? It would be a Benelli shotgun, a Browning shotgun and a Pump Shotgun. The Benelli and the Browning and they pump or auto? The Benelli and the Browning are automatic. And the Pump Shotgun what brand is that? I believe it's a Remington but I'm not positive. Are they like standard Brown black or all black? The Browning is Camo and the Pump is Camo. All right. Greg, what do you got? Yeah. So let's start off Chase back to your point about what his style is because he has a very specific style and what he's doing is he's walking it very slowly and going at him. If you want to know here's the one that I think he could have just torn him a new one right here but he didn't. He chooses to hold off. The guy says that night when I picked up ammunition to load the shotgun I don't have any idea what I picked up. Do you find it a random coincidence that this guy had an empty shotgun in his house? The rest of them weren't clearly but he went and got exactly the same ammo and loaded it that these people were killed with? Hold on. Now that could right there be enough of a rift if there's not an attorney there for us to have our feet squarely under us and go at him hard. An interrogation often to Chase's point will go they'll wait until they get this big blunder they'll let one pass they'll get this big blunder and then they'll tear the scab off. In his case he doesn't. He's a little bit more meticulous which makes me think his style and we'd love to talk to you again I forget his I think it's Davis this is his last name but if you know and I'm wrong and you know this guy please ask him to come talk to us we'd love to talk to him. Listen to his style now I Mark you started off by talking about the two of them everybody in the room is moving along normally scratching milling he's locked down tight again now he's back to his resistance to interrogation idea that's not how it really works by any means guys but two of us who were resistance trained would tell you there's no way I would ever go in lockdown it's a dumb way to move this I love the way the agent goes in with a slow delivery at the reason I am asking is and he's moving look when you get to confession you always slow that language down because you bring them down a notch you lower your voice and it brings him down and he does something masterful here masterful whether he did it intentionally or not I love it he asked a question that is non pertinent and non pertinent questions are the most lethal questions in interrogation the reason is because the guy has no reason to lie so what is he going to do he's going to do what's normal and he does only responds to an easy question he's happy to answer that because he feels like he's being helpful which is what most bad guys do but his feet and thumb are moving and here he goes again that night when he's talking about grabbing shells you could say this is a missed opportunity I think it's a great opportunity for him to go out the guy then he squeezes that arm as he slowly answers the description of the shotgun why not it was a camouflage shotgun 12 gauge Remington chase what do you got yeah so one thing in interrogations we're going to talk about some of the good some of the bad here and any of the criticisms that we offer about the interrogation or the techniques are not on the officer the training is lacking in a lot of departments so we're not making any judgments about the officer there in particular but one thing that's true about interrogations the more people that are in the room the less likely you are to get a period and that's proven time and time again but when he's talking about the missing guns there's a complete loss of fluency where he's having trouble putting sentences together there's hedging and qualifying saying between it's missing or I believe was missing and then he says our guns the big emphasis on our guns wondering what that means the emphasis is extremely unusual and his characteristic nodding as a hint if you see this he is lying so that is his personal tell like I showed you or all of us showed you in the squad car video before the trial even started so that you can look for it in the trial as the footage came out and I think finally in this clip he is locked on so when he's asked these detailed questions he doesn't look away when you ask a normal person to recall their eyes will move to recall what gun it was what it looked like and their head sometimes will move with their eyes so they'll do this normally and this is this head and eye lock is indicative of deception especially when it's piled up with this giant cluster of all these other indicators which Greg you've covered so many of and liars are more likely to do this when they lie because they're subconsciously and head to recall details and one more thing he does here and you'll hear this in his voice he transitions into what sounds like a fifth grader reading a paper in front of a class and this is two factored one he's unknowingly doing this to sound more clear and believable but he's not doing it consciously his brain's doing this behind the scenes two he's doing this because he's trying to look honest and in my interrogation courses we call this a shift to clinical language it's actually the sister or very closely related to another thing we talk about called pronoun absence or when the pronouns disappear from a person's language or answers Mark yeah so now I believe we have some self soothing on the elbow here now why is that important because why might it be more important say as much as I possibly can this is a vulnerable area on the body the knuckles are vulnerable the wrist is vulnerable this elbow area is vulnerable if those areas get damaged you lose the use of way more of your of your arm if this gets damaged here well you still got your shoulder you still got the elbow you still got the wrist so you know the more vulnerable a joint is yeah chase when you came down to Virginia you and I were having a glass of wine and you taught me about this and you were telling me about it and I was internally processing going yeah I guess that makes sense and while I was like trying to see oh is that true or not you grabbed my elbow and I had a visceral response to it and it was so different so it is I have told this to so many people since you taught me this so sorry just wanted to put that in there it's so true and I was getting ready to go there that's when you hit that smile on your face what about this must be good sorry go ahead if you really want to annoy somebody grab their elbow take control of their elbow take control of their wrist just take their finger and just take a joint of it and mess around with the joint super super annoy them so look that's why this is of interest more than this or this because it's way more protectionist I would say here's one last thing that's interesting me we've got this kind of almost rocking back and forth but certainly the head moving back and forth now what is that about here's what I'm going to tell you I don't know for sure what that's about but I'm going to give you all the options I can come up with very quickly in my mind and it won't be all the options out there and what you need to do as somebody who's interested in nonverbal communication and looking at situations and going this is the truth of this is you've got to go well what if it's this or what if it's that or maybe it's this or maybe it's that and get those clusters together could be compliance could be a yes and he's just he's not saying yes to everything he's just trying to show compliance it could be self soothing could be soothing himself it could be a barrier gesture it could be him trying to you know take away everything out there and just moving his body in order that no other information can come in almost a kind of a trance-like state in fact Greg Scott you probably I think that's probably what you call the trancer state because look if you go if you go and see Dervishes for example or you go to the whaling wall go to the whaling wall and see the movement in front of the whaling wall it's a trance state movement so you literally can change the way your mind is functioning by simply moving your head up and down it's like twirling round and round and round and round and round will change the state of your mind the whaling Dervishes do that try it out but make sure that all the furniture is moved apart because you'll probably fall over Greg what's your thought Mark one last thing to add to that this guy had a serious opiate addiction and neural pathways 10,000 strikes they get to be a habit who knows how many times he rocked absolutely so for sure I've got down here drug use it can come a lot of heroin addicts myself and you would see it you would see it a lot depending on what state they were in had they used recently had they not used recently enough it could be stimming so could be neurodivergent or diverse or neuro atypical or a whole bunch of other things do I know which one it is well I can make my guess and then I can test my guess as we go along but the important thing is is it's a guess you're making your best guess now on all the information you have to be intelligent and then you're testing that guess to get closer to the truth and you might well get there but you don't do it with this always equals that it's all possibility it's all a state of maybe and you might go well Mark that just means you know nothing you have no absolutes and it's not having the absolutes that makes you way more intelligent and gets you to the truth quicker I would say who we got left on this so Scott yeah okay I've left with nothing so I I'll go with an overview still locked down I think the constant bobbing back and forth obviously that's indicative of stress and I think he's he's trying to agree with everything at the same time while he's trying to stay locked down at a safe time he's blown off that built up stress intention so I think that's several things at the same time Mark I agree with that and he's getting these little bits and pieces of information from the detective because he's slowed down he's talking slow he's not giving him very much it looks like he's getting ready to paint this big picture of here's what's going on but he doesn't give him much at all and that's driving him nuts because he's usually the guy in charge he's the guy that tells you what to do bonkers as he's trying to get through this and that's why he's locked down so hard as well because he I'm sure he wants to scream because this guy is not giving information quick enough and then again and the only movement outside that again is that thumb and obviously we talked about being an adapter because of the timing he's using and all that alright so I'll leave it there since most everything's gone already the island is you the reason I'm asking about that the shot shells that we recovered that night one was a turkey load one was a buckshot I don't understand that the shotgun that you had with you that night there was a bird shot and a buckshot when Jeff went back the next day I'm not sure which attorney it was pointed out that there had been a shotgun laying on the pool table that he had put away and pointed out that ammunition that was with that and it was a buckshot and a birdshot and then the shotgun that we took for potential comparison it was also loaded with a birdshot and a buckshot so I have all of these consistent loads along with what's that in the feed room I call it the feed room and again is that what you call it that's something okay I just want if I say feed room I just want you to know what I'm talking about the note I grabbed the shelves that I could get my hands on I don't you know I had no idea exactly what I had okay also when we talked I asked you if it was going to keep guns down to the guns and you said you had to check have you been able to check to see what was missing from your collection I have yes I know what's missing from what I believe is missing from from our guns okay and what are those there's there's three guns that I think are missing okay and what kind of guns are those it would be a Benelli shotgun a browning shotgun and a pump shotgun the Benelli and the browning and the pump are autos the Benelli and the browning are automatic and the pump shotgun and what brand is that I believe it's a Remington but I'm not positive are they like standard brown black all black or Camo the the Benelli is black the browning is Camo and the pump is Camo okay and that's you know we've talked about the shot shells so the cartridge casings were 300 black out cartridge casings that were found by Mack there were also cartridge casings found by your house by the side door to the gun room and that was shooting right I'm asking about shell casings that were found by Mack that's Mack's body Brett found by Mack yes had he ever been confronted with this information prior to right now that you know not that I'm aware of okay I believe he was but not by me I don't think there were also cartridge casings found by your house by the side door to the gun room and at the shoot shoot range in the ones by the house and some of the ones found at the shoot range are confirmed matches to the ones found by Mack okay so which gives another concern I've got the same load as the shot shells in multiple guns and 300 blackout that match one's found on your property so you now believe those guns that pause guns were used yes okay I understand somebody had seen that gun recently but you know and I'd ask a buster about it that gun has been gone since back before Christmas Nolan Nolan recalls Paul's first 300 going missing around Halloween at a party at Hampton Halloween of 2020 when did y'all no that cause no no no it was it was whatever chase what he got I like the level of composure here in the interrogator so it's not this confrontational thing I have done training in police departments I will not say which ones but I've done training police departments where they just they didn't have any training so they just did what they saw on TV and I'm not joking that's they don't have training for the department so they just copy this aggressive behavior let's talk about what's missing here what's missing is a any denial even remotely mentioning that these guns were involved in the crime and I'm talking about Murdoch here a single mention of the guns that were using the crime or an acknowledgement that it looks bad or the biggest one of all some kind or some hint of confidence so his body is in full blocking he's turtling protecting the brachial arteries under the arm protecting the groin and femoral arteries there's abdominal protection there and if there's one thing if you go on YouTube and type in a compilation of people getting the crap scared out of them like somebody pops out of a trash can and all that you'll see the same reaction in every person all the arteries start getting protected the shoulders come up and we're just kind of seeing that here in permanent form and just for me lastly at the end of his statements you'll hear a vocal noise that's not language at all just kind of a coming out of his mouth and this is maybe a vocal exhaust it's letting off stress but secondary to this I think it's a desire to build some confidence to reassure himself that he is in charge or that he can speak up when he wants to don't have a lot of time to get into that but too many people in the room the less likely you are to get a confession pins and paper having a pin and paper open and on the table taking notes while a person is talking reduces the likelihood of confession having a gun on your belt or having multiple people in the room with guns make confessions less likely the arresting or involved officer conducting the interview makes it exponentially less likely for confession but they did do well by not having on a uniform because the uniform also reduces likelihood of confession so Greg what do you got yeah two things number one indicator that he's not gonna confess though to me chase he's getting an attorney sitting there that's exactly but you're right look a doctor Phil says it best nobody confesses in a crowd and he's dead on it's that's an intimate thing when you're talking to somebody let me tell you two things that in my all my years of interrogating I never I realized the person who is guilty is capable of acting like they're innocent but people who are innocent have a hard time acting like you're guilty and by that I mean if I'm innocent and you accuse me some I'll come up in my chair and come at you I may say something at least but I'm gonna be indignant often the guy who isn't is the most helpful little bastard you're ever gonna meet in your life and he's gonna go to front of the mouth talking y'all always hear me say that and this guy does it he goes okay and he does fading facts and does that kind of front of the mouth talking you hear it all the time when people are trying to be solicitous and try to get information out of you I'll leave that part there and I'm just gonna run down a list of things I see here and let you decide what it means to you his respiration is up watch his chest his free hand is adapting meaning this hand that's off to the side is adapting the hand that's here is squeezing the hell out of the arm he's doing his Ozzy Osbourne move as we talked about before he starts to chaff and redirect and when he does you see his feet dance and his cadence slow and then he hits a bunch of ums we say no single indicator of deception but a damn pile of deception like that seeing a whole lot of indicators means something to me Mark what do you got yeah well actually that front of the mouth talking Greg I'm worried that you're trying to steal my Penelope Pitstop impression there it's getting awfully close getting awfully close I'm a little bit I'm a little bit worried and a little bit nervous about my property on that one now look what I really love about this because I agree with you Chase that the interviewer here is doing a really subtle calm interview compared to you know the classic TV idea of an interrogation it's nothing like you'd expect if you've seen all those TV interviews and at the same time he has got bigger with his gestures so that points to me Scott to what you were saying I think he's getting a little impatient to maybe a little excited about this I think he can see somebody who's locked themselves down and is giving a few indicators of the stress that he's under and he's seeing the impression that his questions have and so there's going to be an edge of excitement there that I think we're seeing in the gestures and at the same time all of us want things to move along a lot quicker like all of us want a result and I think even though he's got to know that he's there with a lawyer and he's not going to get any confession and there's other people in there and you know it's unlikely you know you'd want it all the same wouldn't you you'd want that moment and I think that's what we're seeing in those big gestures is a level of wanting to move this along and the excitement of it so you know impatience and excitement I see there in the interviewer now the subject here we see some foot stamps we see it because we see the knee move and very directly down down down I want you to go back and have a listen to what he was talking about when he's doing those suppressive gestures with his foot and then think around the case and think was that information was what's being talked about around there did it become pertinent to the case was it was it information that anybody who has perpetrated a crime would want suppressed but they're not able to say shut up be quiet don't talk about that I don't want to answer questions on that I don't want that information but unconsciously he's stamping down on that I think I think that might be the case who have we got left? Scott? me? you guys Dan covered everything but I agree with you Chase when you when you go train and then you run into somebody let's say you go to a different town and then you get pulled over and the awfully soft says where don't know you from and you say well I do this this and oh wait no you trained you trained us in interrogation and then you say well how's everybody doing and they always have that one guy that didn't listen you know he only went through things one time you know or he's using his read technique make their own way and they'll say this was you know those guys get on my nerves the ones that don't pay attention and really mess things up for somebody that's so I know where you're coming from that really gets on my last nerve I'll get if I get it into that and before we get finished with this let me just add this in here and this is about Greg Greg would you mind doing that frontal mouth voice and just say the ABC's in it? yes please sure yeah later let's hear it now go ahead and do it I don't know if I can A take a shot D E F there you go that's good enough let's hear it man do the alphabet I'm done I did it dude I know where you live remember you got two times though I know that would have been so good anyway but now he's got that clean X out and he's goofing around with that the whole time and his adapting thing is really really working up a little bit here and I'm sure he's been using it to wipe his fake tears and his you know his fake runny nose and all that stuff like we saw in that initial car video this is there I think Marcus the one brought that up and then there's such little head movement again he looks almost like a mannequin and it's very odd to see something like that out in the wild or see something normal so you automatically like Greg always goes back to this is just it's weird because he's just frozen and talking you don't see that very often from someone who is is a normal as far as the brain goes you don't see that very often but he looks almost like a mannequin and so that's I think you guys have covered everything I'm going for it here I'm trying to find something to go over but I got nothing so I can do it but it'd be boring so the eye wouldn't see you and that's we've talked about the shot shells so the cartridge casings went through a hundred blackout cartridge casings that were found by Megan there were also cartridge casings found by your house by the side door to the gun room and that was shot right we're now asking about shell casings that were found by Megan that's Megan's body, Greg the cartridge casings found by Megan, yes had he ever been confronted with this information prior to writing that you know that I'm aware of I believe he was but not by me I don't think there were also cartridge casings found by your house by the side door to the gun room and at the shooting range and the ones by the house and some of the ones found at the shooting range are confirmed matches to the ones found by Maggie okay so which gets another concern I've got the same loot as the shot shells in multiple guns and in 300 blackout that match one's found on your property so you now believe that those guns that toss guns where he is yes okay I understand that somebody had seen that gun recently but you know and I'd ask Buster about it I believe that that gun has been gone since back before Christmas Nolan Nolan recalls Paul's first 300 going missing around Halloween at a party at Hampton Halloween of 2020 when did y'all no that was years it was whatever another part in the novel one call you made the comment I should have known and the questioning that's around it you had dispatchers asking is anybody else supposed to be at the house and you said no ma'am please hurry and she says we're getting somebody out there to you and your next comment was I should have known what do you reference in that statement I don't remember saying that but I guess you know all the threats and you know and I had been convinced that this was something to do with boat wreck and you know all of that never get physical with you never get into a heated argument and get physical one time I mean a little bit where he wouldn't listen to me did you ever get physical with him no sir so both Maggie and Paul get physical with Maggie no she probably wanted to at times she wanted to with all of us the one time Paul did that he had had too much to drink in a very isolated incident where was that was that a Moselle or kind of stuff that was at Moselle so that was pretty recent no sir it had been a while turn Paul over and his cell phone popped out David was something like I thought about doing something but then I put it back down and that was the interview our first interview what were your intentions with the phone I don't know I mean it when I went up to him and the phone came out having intentions of doing anything with the phone alright Mark what do you got yeah so what's interesting now is this interview we're seeing a lot of adapting there a lot of trying to manage I believe you know his own stress around this and this is tricky for anybody anybody I mean just put yourself in a position where you are interviewing somebody else for a job so it's not even it's not even an interrogation like this you're interviewing somebody for a job and you want to do a really good job because you want to make sure that you get the right person for it you're going to be under stress and the interviewer here is under stress as well and here's where we're seeing this person manage their own stress at this time I think managing it very very well but it's more marked at this point than a lot of the body language from the subject though there is some good stuff from the subject in just one moment now also we see him go and adapt at the papers as well he moves around the papers for no real reason I don't think he's doing it for dramatic effect he's just trying to find something to do to deal with his stress around this so you know the question is is like you know how do you manage your stress in these situations because everybody feels it and everybody needs not only training to get information out of people but training in how to manage yourself in that interview so that you don't corrupt it with your own problems in there here's what's happening in the subject when I went up to him there's then a change in that baseline that he's now established he's locked into and he goes to protect his knee and barriers again important joint on the body if the knee gets damaged you're in big trouble I dislocated my knee about six, seven, eight months ago something like that and it's hard to walk like it's hard to walk when you so you don't want that joint you know damaged in any way so under stress and pressure the knee is an area we also see people will go down and touch the ankle Prince Harry does that he'll go down and touch his ankle zero reason to do it his foot he's the foot's not going to disappear anywhere but he kind of thinks you can't it's a habit that he's got into you won't be able to see me adapting on my ankle again tricky joint he then goes on to say I didn't have any intention of doing anything with the phone so here's what I'd say because he protects the knee he did have some intention of doing something with that phone yeah I'm going to gamble that that is probably inaccurate as to what he's saying there Scott what do you got on this one I think the stress with the detective is from it's not stress it's more of a thing where he's thinking about all the things he's got he's looking at all the information he's got he's putting everything in order that's what looks like to me what I'm thinking I always do that's where I put my hands up around my mouth and people complain about it and all that when I do it on here but I think that's what this guy's doing he's thinking about all the stuff he's got and it's more of a positive thing than a stress reliever from being something negative built up bad stress cognitive load cognitive load when I say stress I'm not saying negative or positive just load that you don't necessarily need right yeah right I've been in that spot before so we all have that's the way it looks like to me anyway but again the bobbin's going strong here and he's laser focused on that interrogator because he didn't put much thought into the 911 call he didn't think it would be dissected he didn't think it would be brought out phrase by phrase word by word he remembers pretty much the story he's talking about but he doesn't remember all the little tiny details and those that he does remember he's sure to lean into him like when he talks about it and he throws his kid under the bus again and blames this whole thing on his child that he killed you know that this is a dirty guy here this is this is not this is a low that's using language we can use on here when he's asking if he's been excuse me violent with Paul that's when we see the most moving in that right hand that's when it starts going the most he's remembering that violent situation and that's the way he that's the way he's trying to because I'm sure it was pretty violent that kid came at him you know what it wasn't good for the kid by the time it was over because that burned out as a big boy and this is I think this is good because we see him trying to stay composed he's trying to stay under control he tries hard to look natural so it doesn't look odd but it does look odd because it's not natural we see him trying to hold hold those things back with all his adapters and everything he's doing trying to stay straight and and all bunched up like that and it's so his confidence that he's trying to show really doesn't come through that way just looks and sounds odd alright chase what do you got so let's just examine a little bit here there's no mention of detail about the crime that occurred like ever there's not mention of murder or being shot or someone killing someone or guns not one desire to find out who did this not one ounce of anger not one ounce of guilt which normal people tend to have just under the assumption they could have maybe prevented something from happening if I would have only done X then why wouldn't have happened and there's no mention of how the bodies looked but the detail and the very specific carefully executed phone description is just astonishing here to me and this is an example of a detail and a detail spike and it suggests extreme deception to me and that there's something with this phone that is key to the case so this has not gone to trial yet I would say that phone holds something there and when he says you ever get physical with him when he saw about Paul saying no sirs a quick headshake and then he goes back to nodding and Maggie is just no it's more direct more confident and there's a more firm headshake so these are two kind of just apart from each other and I'll let you determine whatever that means and then interrogations it is your job to help somebody soften the severity of the case to help them carefully just come to the conclusion that they can confess and I would say no matter what your job is to go whether there's an attorney in there or not it doesn't change the desired outcome so there's a quote from Sun Zoo that I have on the first page of all my interrogation manuals that when I train students and police and this is build your opponent a golden bridge on which to retreat so when your suspect is as bad a liar as this you'll have actually more work to do but they'll the cool thing is they're definitely going to show you the blueprint of what that bridge is supposed to look like what do they need to hear and interrogators essentially have seven core jobs and this is me just going through the interrogation training here for you we have to minimize socialize project justify rationalize emphasize the truth and increase anxiety associated with deception those are the main jobs of an interrogator and we're not seeing a whole lot of that here maybe we will later on but I wish we had seen a little bit more uh Greg what do you got yeah in non-course of interrogation there is a golden tool that you use and it's called futility and only good interrogators are any good with it everything we do everything chase just said all of that is about one thing it's about getting that person to the point they have a realization they can't resist you and the hardest thing for a person to get is that I mean my days of teaching interrogation they would stand up and sound like Picard from uh Star Trek saying resistance is futile and you'd fire them you put them right out of the interrogation and say no come back it's about subtlety of message it's about getting the person to realize that you have more ammunition than they do and they're going to lose the war that's really at the end of the day what we do there are lots of ways some are coercive in some parts of the world some are non-cursive my style is non-cursive some like Reed has another set of tools all of these work on that one thing that a person gets to a point they realize there's no reason to resist because they're not going to win what we see here Mark I love that you're talking about the investigator because I think what we're seeing here is some masterful interrogation that you only have to be able to know what he's doing to figure out why the stress is there he has a job and that job is to hide the key crux of the matter and he brings up a crux question in here what were you going to do with that phone that's why he's here he wants to know because this is they already know now that he was down at the kennel and he's trying to find out was a guy trying to get rid of it so all that stuff he's doing is kind of a redirect if you watch magicians you guys are big fans of magicians more than I am they're redirecting while they're doing something with the other hand it's what he's doing and I was saying interrogators like a swan they look elegant and floating along the top of the water but they're paddling like hell underneath and you can see it he's paddling like hell right here he's trying to keep his head above water Mark you're picking up on that and seeing that stress we see this is I'm going to go a little bit long in this one because this is probably one of the most powerful ones we're going to see but we start off by watching Murdaugh do a rapid short stroke of the thing he always does watch how short stroke he is as he's doing and he's asked about the 911 call because that's what he thinks this is about now you see that tissue in his right hand starting to take the crux of all this things that are going on something else changes have you heard him say you know ever until now he starts now to have filler words you know you know you know he also goes to partial sentences and phrases okay that's a fairly common southern speech pattern around where I live and around where he lives but he doesn't use it this is the first time I've heard it as soon as this guy looks away watch when the investigator takes his second looks away and watch that explosion of movement just crazy only to lock right back down right there enough is enough for me to say why the hell are you doing this then we see really big rocking when he's asked about his son and he says he wouldn't listen to me the one missed question here is how physical did you get I would have asked that just to fire across the bow and say I think you're violent and but I think he does a great job of containing it and then Paul Murdaugh gives out useless information he talks about alcohol but watch him when you see that thing where he covers his knee mark that's in response to the crux question when he asked that crux question his hands go out to block that knee and you could say it's because he's been so balled up he needed to move out to get to there or it could be the knee or it could be both but something caused him to do that and then he gets back to keen on locking everything down if you're being interrogated dropping your hands in your lap while you're fig leafing if nothing ever changes and so what is just your baseline now the only problem with putting your hand on your knee is we can see everything you're like a little meter there this is a big deviation baseline and powerful powerful interrogation step the eye witness is you another part in the novel one call you made a comment I should have known and the questioning that surrounded dispatchers asking is anybody else supposed to be at the house and you said no ma'am please hurry and she says we're getting somebody out there to you in your next comment was I should have known what are you referencing in that statement I don't remember saying that but I guess you know all the threats and you know and I had been convinced that this was something to do with both rec and you know all of that we'll ever get physical with you never get into a heated argument and get physical one time I mean a little bit where he would listen to me did you ever get physical with him I'm sorry did Paul get physical with him she probably wanted to at times I'm sure she wanted to with all of it the one time Paul he did that he had had too much to drink in a very isolated incident where was that was that was it at a store that was at a motel so that was pretty recent no sir it had been a while and his cell phone popped up you're standing with something like I thought about doing something but then I put it back down our first interview what were your intentions with the phone I don't know I mean it when I went up to him and don't remember having intentions of doing anything with the phone you said you probably went to the office at 30, 9 o'clock 10 o'clock we left early around 5 or 5.30 then there's been some other times or times that we've talked about and you can't quite remember what the times are what time of day it was when the dispatcher asked you when was the last time you saw Maggie or told Maggie he said an hour and a half two hours ago to me that's a set without thinking about it you should route off that time we're sitting here trying to figure out a timeline the question was you told the dispatcher an hour or two hours ago an hour and a half to two hours an hour and a half to two hours what time was the 9 o'clock 10 o'clock, 6 p.m. what I said to the dispatcher we said an hour and a half ago probably two hours what time was that that was when you were on the phone and the 9 o'clock was made at 10 o'clock so given two hours that would have been eight probably about and that's probably wouldn't you believe I'm getting you an inconsistent answer no I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it when I'm asking you what time you went to the office that day what time you got home at this point in the investigation did you have the video back from Paul's phone showing the dog at the campus no sir I had not we said five to five thirty I've gotten the court read out from the law firm and it shows you going in at five five thirty going into the door? Yes sir and Randy says when you left about six o'clock you were still there so the times aren't matching up I'm just trying to get an understanding of why I believe I left that's not the first time I was at my office that day there were several readings but your court wouldn't work somebody actually had to let you in but I've got your court opening the door at the law firm at five thirty and Randy's saying all right Mark what do you got? yeah so what interests me now is this yellow shirted interview the one that we can't really see too much of you can see his breathing rate because you can see his stomach his diaphragm moving so you can have a look at where his breathing rate is and to all the points that have been made so far look in this situation let's assume probably rightly that they are looking whether it's unreasonable or not looking to move somebody to a confession it could be unreasonable in this situation but that's where they're going and there's an element of nonverbal which is about time like how quickly does or slowly does something happen and how quickly or slowly something happens has effect on human beings and it often shows up in their nonverbal behaviour I think we're seeing from the yellow shirted interviewer that he would like this to be happening a whole lot quicker than it is and so it takes me back to the other interviewer and what again what I would call the stress that's happening there which is you know the cognitive load that not that he's out of control with things but he would like probably a better pace on it I mean who wouldn't like to get something done faster rather than slower so not only when you're thinking about how you might do interviews whether it's in this kind of situation or something you know with a little less risk in it maybe but you know even interviewing somebody for a job there's a lot of risk involved with that you've got to understand the pressures of time and what you're liable to do under these pressures of time and I think in this situation we've got somebody here going you know what I'd like this to be happening a lot quicker than it is so interesting to to see that Chase what do you got on this one? I almost did that didn't go on as long as I would have liked it to luckily zoom has an alert that comes up now when you're on oh that's just been gone forever then isn't it so I believe he told his attorney he was innocent I believe that that's what he said to his attorney and you can I think you can tell here because he's not looking back at him very often for advice or anything and I'm going to say something that's critical of interrogation training but I'm not talking about this particular officer this is a unique case where he's literally interrogating a former prosecutor this whole series of clips still does illustrate why it's important not to follow just some blind step-by-step checklist for interrogations and one of the biggest damaging mistakes that I've seen in every police department every one that I've given training to including the military is they have zero training on how to understand the person that they're speaking to and so many departments get kind of a washed down version of interrogation training and none of them teach interrogators to understand the phrases the approaches the techniques and specific words that are going to influence certain types of people and then how to tell which type I'm talking to right now so essentially most interrogation training is kind of this basic lockpick where they're taught to just jiggle this lockpick in the lock for hours in hopes that a confession is going to come out or information is going to come out when all they needed was the key which is kind of the right words that the person their psychology the suspect psychology will respond to and as the key lesson from this video take a look at Murdoch's behavior it is restrained now lots of people get nervous in the interrogation room lots of people get stressed out innocent and guilty but only some conceal and restrain those behaviors of stress and we're definitely seeing that here Scott what do you got? I agree I think this from this point on this is where he's beginning to realize that things aren't going to go his way that's why it's starting to get a little bit more odd looking and things start ramping up a little bit he knows he messed up and his brain is scrambling to fix all that stuff is scrambling to keep his story straight scrambling to remember what he said and what he's done at this point that's I'm just giving the overall body language view so I'm going to stop there Greg what do you got? Yeah this is a good one because it we see a new adapter we see he starts off by doing his normal foot moving rocking doing all that but then he twists in his chair that's something new why do you do that don't know we always say doesn't matter why it makes me want to know why so then we go there then he uses a delaying technique tell me again that gives him time to think and as soon as he gets done with that he does two handed adapting pulling a close and squeezing his arm there's a lot going on here then there's a negotiated answer with Lil to the end that's probably about right well Chase I think you usually say innocent people are comfortable introducing ambiguity let me give you a great example of that if this happened to me I would say hell I don't know what time it was I came home my wife and child were dead it could have been 20 hours hell I don't know my brain was not working but we don't hear that we hear that overly helpful and people who don't know how to resist interrogation always think that if I'm just helpful they'll leave me alone that's why it works that way the island is huge one thing that I'm trying to understand is your timeline you said you probably went to the office at 3 9 o'clock 10 o'clock we left early around 5 5 30 then there's been some other time lines or times that we've talked about you can't quite remember what the times are what time of day it was when the dispatcher asked you when was the last time you saw Maggie or told Maggie he said an hour and a half two hours ago to me that's you know a set without thinking about it you should route off that time we're sitting here trying to figure out a timeline the question was you told the dispatcher an hour or two hours ago an hour and a half to two hours an hour and a half to two hours what time was the 9-1-1 call 10-06 p.m. an hour and a half to two hours prior to that yes sir you haven't told the specific time oh yes sir I don't tell me again what I said to the dispatcher we said an hour and a half ago probably two hours and what time was that that was when you were on the phone and the 9-1-1 call was made at 10-06 so given two hours back that would have been 8 that's probably about about right and so would you believe I'm getting you an inconsistent answer no I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it when I'm asking you what time you went to the office that day what time you got home at this point in the investigation did you have the video back from Paul's phone showing the dog with the cameras no sir I had not you know you said 5-5-30 I've gotten the court read out from the law firm and it shows you going in at 5-5-30 you going to his door yes sir and Randy says when he left about six o'clock you were still there so the times aren't matching up I'm just trying to get an understanding of why that's not the first time I was at my office that day there were several readings but your court wouldn't work you had to let you in but I've got your court opening the door at the law firm at 5-3 and Randy saying and Randy saying when you left at 6 you were still there I'm just trying to understand you know I left the office earlier than I normally did what's your normal time to leave I mean it it's not unusual for me to be there you know I try to get home and Maggie's home you know $4 she don't like staying out there by herself that's right so if it was 5-30 or 6 I don't think I was still there at 6 o'clock but it wasn't long after that so I went straight so my court have you all been able to get Chevrolet to download my we're still working on that okay it's a long process I mean Paul and I to ride the property for a substantial length of time you know more than an hour I thought probably a couple of hours that we were together but somewhere you go down the river I believe I believe that we Greg what do you got yeah this starts off with nonpartisan information but the heat is really up still so he's adapting still he's doing all of his usual stuff squeezing and rubbing and swirling in the chair but now he starts to talk about conditions he starts to condition everything he says with I believe and that's a cut out word because I can always say well I said I believe I don't know no maybe I was wrong and I can't really do it this leads him to say I believe I was that's not a lie and all that kind of stuff we've heard from him but he really rocks when they ask him about Chevrolet and talking to onestar because if you don't know what your car is tracking is tracking everything just so you know that unless you're driving something really old your car is tracking everything I've had a friend who had an accident and they were able to tell exactly what happened before the accident and he had a lot of instances on non pertinent information about riding the property but when he's asked about the river or I think it's the river he asks the questions for he loses his ability to construct a sentence what happened down there what caused all this might have started there don't know but something changed and then he changed and then he goes back and he interrupts himself with I believe that we that believe is part of his defense later that's my opinion Scott what do you got let's move a little bit more than he has been a lot more actually and those are just signs of stress that's all I'm going to add to that because I'm trying to stay on the body language thing I really didn't get into what he's saying back and forth all right Mark what do you got yeah let me just dig into the central theme of all of this and why it confuses me as to the theme that you choose if you were innocent he spent I don't know how long this interview has been going on now but he spent all the time defending his position answering in some way often not answering or I don't remember but you know committing to the interview that's going on rather than saying stop these ridiculous questions I'm nothing to do with this find the people who did this or person who did this to my son and my wife and if they continued asking these questions then going you two are a bunch of idiots and I want you out of here right now I want the most senior person at this station in the room with me right now and I want this dealt with that's where I'd be at this point because I wouldn't have killed my wife and my son well I do know why he's not there because he's done it I mean that's why that's why so you know as a fundamental rule if he's spending all of this time defending himself when he could just go shut up the both of you I'm nothing to do with this get me somebody who's an investigator in the room if he's not going down that route I got to wonder why Chase what do you got on this one yeah I think Mark you stole my notes on this one I'm sneaky this is a pronounced focus I'm just going to like summarize what you're saying just so people can get this there's a pronounced focus on innocence and a disappearance of a person who might have done this or a desire to find out what really happened there's no desire there and this is plain and simple to diagnose this is where all attention of law enforcement should be placed and it's so rare to see this in innocent people this kind of behavior is so incredibly rare that I'm going to make an unprecedented statement here that if you see this this alone has the potential to serve as the guidepost for where law enforcement should be paying all of their attention if you see behavior like this in this clip the eye witness is you and in rainy stand you left it see if you were still there I'm just I'm trying to understand I left the office earlier than I normally did what's your normal time to leave I mean it's not unusual for me to be there to a dark you know I try to get home in Maggie's home you know before dark she doesn't like staying out there by herself or that's right so you know if it was 5 30 or 6 you know I don't think I was still there at 6 o'clock but you know if I was it wasn't long after that so I went I went straight home so my car have you all been able to get Chevrolet to download my we're still working on that it's a long process I mean I got home early enough for Paul and I to ride the property for a substantial length of time you know more than an hour I thought probably a couple of hours that we were together but somewhere took it down the river we wrote down all the roads I believe that we all struggles at house so where were they how did they get down I mean it's normal for y'all to leave your keys in the cars if somebody showed up and did this you're not going to take Paul's truck back in the house and leave the key in it I mean do you know that the guns were in the truck and could they have been somewhere else there could have been somewhere else I mean he didn't have his normal truck I understand that no one too believes he saw the gun three weeks beforehand I haven't talked to him but he believes it was the one that not the one that was at the house was it his truck that Paul always kept with them Paul primarily kept one of a couple of binaries it was a camera that was the last one that Paul that Nolan saw and HDD some type of 7mm rifle did you have that at home yes sir that's what he saw I was told by somebody that Nolan saw a 300 he told me he had not seen it 300 since March after Turkey season what do you got so he's heated up here pretty good because he does a couple of things I've never seen in the interrogation and one of them is he tries a fig leaf while crossing his legs and I said he's doing a Sharon Stone leg cross moment if you're not old enough to remember the Sharon Stone movie basic instinct he does a big move like that and it's just not something you see every day that's over the top what we see often in people prior to confession I don't mean right as they confess as he is here their chin drops to protect their throat look at him compare his chin now back to one and see are we seeing any of that deviation but what we see then often is their feet hunt the door and that's a predecessor and then we put pressure pressure pressure then we give them silence let them simmer a little bit and then we go for the close I'll bet if you could see his feet they're pointing for the door already at this point just to tell us what's going on in his head Mark what do you got yeah it's nothing but an agreement with what you've said I want to note that I had here because for me it's in the only thing of of big consequence is his hand is now tucked right in at his groin area protecting those primary sexual characteristics I think that's a deviation from everything that we've seen so far yes he's been locked down yes he's been protective but he's now shielding these knuckle joints in his legs and his primary sexual characteristics at the same time you know something is something is a little more extreme Scott what do you got on this one yeah I think this is really interesting because this is the fastest bobbing back and forth we've seen so far and his breath rate is up he's breathing faster and deeper and that's a dramatic change at this point his voice tone and his diction they're the clearest they've been so far clearest and clearest I think this is because he got a little adrenaline pop during this and he's realizing there are even more things he didn't work out properly so he's having to slow down and think about what's happening and what's happened so far he's still got all these parts of the story swirling around his head trying to get that stuff worked out and again he didn't have the answer for these questions so his stress level is through the roof on this compared to what we've seen so far and his lawyer can't even help him and his lawyer's got his legs crossed as well which I thought was interesting but it's opposite of Murdoz so that was pretty interesting. Greg, what do you got? Well, Chase, what do you got? Yeah, I agree completely and if you see somebody having trouble completing a sentence the moment a murder weapon is introduced to the conversation there's something happening there's something maybe significant going on and if the person also then corrects you on the caliber of the weapon so that it's not involved with the crime that might also be a big deal and that's all I got However, if somebody showed up and did this you're not going to take Paul's truck back in the house and leave the key in it. Do you know that the guns were in the truck? Could they have been somewhere else? They could have been somewhere else I mean he didn't have his normal truck I understand that Nolan too believes he saw the gun three weeks beforehand and I haven't talked to him but he believes it was the one that was at the house Was his shotgun that he always kept that Paul always kept with him? Oh, primarily kept yeah, he kept but one of a couple of binaries Yeah, it was a camera binari it was the last one that Paul that Nolan saw and a HDD some type of 7mm rifle Did you have that one at home? Yes sir, that's what he saw That's what he saw I was told by somebody that Nolan saw a 300 He told me he had not seen it 300 since March after Turkey season A few more questions Did you kill Maggie? No, did I kill my wife? No, David No, I do not know who did Did you kill Paul? No, I did not kill Paul Do you know who did? No, sir, I do not know who did Do you think I killed Maggie? I have to go where the evidence and the facts take me I understand that and you think I killed Paul I have to go where the evidence and the facts take me and I don't have I am a suspect You were still in you were still in this with everything that we've talked about with the family guns ammunition DNA and go with the facts I'll go first on this one This is a classic non-contraction of the denial and so we asked to be killed as a wife and he doesn't say no, I didn't instead of saying no, I didn't he says no, I did not I've come to the point in my life where I see that sometimes as that person may be making sure they get everything about that statement correct and they're trying to run that home so that's why they don't contract so I think maybe in this situation I'm kind of on the fence about this one it's not it's non-contracted but it didn't the flow of it isn't the flow you usually see when somebody says no, I did not it was very slow and it was very dead, dead, dead so I think he was ready for that and I think he was trying to make sure that point gets across I don't think it's a subconscious or a non-conscious situation there so these days I'm on the fence about all that and this is one of the things that's about it yeah because I've thought about that for a long time I think that answer is probably rehearsed I think at some point he said to himself because he hasn't been able to discuss it with his lawyer because like I think you were saying Greg were you the one that said that you think he's Chase okay yeah I think you might be right I think he told the guy he was innocent I guess you have to say that you didn't do it so they can it was depending on your relationship with him but I would think knowing this guy's personality and the people he hangs out with I think he may have told the guy the truth you know dirty hangs out with dirty man birds of feather but I think this was beautifully executed by the detective at the end he says I have to put my beliefs aside and go with the facts there's this little tether of trust you must keep between you and the person you're talking to under the impression you're not there to help them then everything changes I know in this room it's like you know a party in there there's so many people in there but you must keep that thing you've got to keep that trust thing happening there so they'll be able to confide you'll feel like they're confiding you he's not going to confide in three other people you know in three people he would have done it with one but and I think you're right in this case there's three people in there it's not going to happen and you can see that I think from the beginning that it's not going to happen but the detective I really think he does a great job in keeping that little tether man keeping that still strong by saying what he said and if somebody out there knows this guy the detective or you know how to get hold of him please have him get hold of us and get hold of us at the behavior panel at gmail.com the behavior panel at gmail.com and if there's no you in behavior that one's already gone we have to get the one with no no you in it so it's the behavior panel at gmail.com have an email say if you would or if you see this go ahead and email us there chase what do you got so we're seeing this classic knotting again throughout this and look at the spots when the knot I just want you to I'm not going to tell you where it is look at the spots where the knotting spikes where it gets to this peak point and there's question repetition with psychological distancing so he's not saying the name he says my wife this time and he uses the officer's name this time during a denial which is way way out of baseline for this entire long video it's out of baseline his body is freezing which means that he's not really adapting or doing anything he's completely locked so we're not seeing a whole lot of movement then there's the non-contracted denial there but we're seeing that non-contracted denial also added with partial repetition what we call in my training repetition of a question fragment which is repeated with the denial no I did not kill my wife and then he's still knotting and with every other denial that was truthful he had a very positive head shake like this but he's still in here which this is a rare case where those are out of baseline it's uncharacteristic so this head knotting means something during the denials it or potentially does and this is not necessarily he's doing a great job here but this is not how a classic trained confrontation is supposed to go granted the attorneys in the room so it's a little bit different and there's actually a six-step protocol to make a direct confrontation to another person and let them know they're a suspect you don't believe them I don't think any of those six steps are in this clip but one huge one from that protocol is using the suspect's name especially during this time when you want to develop that little line of trust that Scott was talking about that's when you want to lean out there and use that person's name and that's when you know Scott is a big fan of kind of reaching out touching me and saying listen I think you're a good person and I just want to figure out why this happened and maybe you are out of your mind or whatever but I'm not blaming the officer or the detective here at all the interrogation that a lot of people receive is pretty minimal but I know he's doing his best and it's a damn good job and I'm not discounting that he's extremely good at what he does as a detective there Greg? Yeah so let's talk for a minute about that thin line of trust or whatever you want to call it everything we do I contend is based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs and for me to get you to give me something or to want to do something for me I have to create a new sense of belonging and the magic of what we do with this elicitation or this interrogation any of that is based on me creating a new normal where you belong to a tribe I belong to and that's exactly what you have to do if I am screaming and yelling and throwing stuff at you for me you might do it for someone to get away from me so all those tools even if you are calling a personal liar even if you're going at them it's about keeping that thin line of trust as you call it Scott so I'll call it the same thing that thin line of trust creates a new normal where I can then approach you make you feel guilty for lying to me or make you feel guilty for not being coming forward with some piece of information so let's talk about what's clear here the very first thing he says is no he just does the fading facts he reminds me of our friend Candice Blye on Dr. Phil no just disappears but then he restates after he repeats the question did I kill my wife he does that non-contracted denial we've been hearing him use phrases a lot and now this non-contracted denial I would just got it doesn't always mean something except when it does his chin is down we usually associate with shame not up and defiant we usually associate with that kind of thing that non-contracted denial on his son there's a politeness spike no sir I did not when he does did you kill Paul it's interesting that all this works Scott we were at Dr. Phil and they gave me the disclaimer and Scott said you can tell he was in the military because they asked me a question I repeated the question as I affirmed it because that's the way my brain works that's not the way his brain works but listen to him do it here he's doing it here very specifically sounds like me disclaiming and then after he's told he's a suspect his eyes drop down to his left which we associate with internal conversation and then down into the right which we associate with emotion and then a little compression what we know is pre-confession body language is locked up locked up locked up go down into this kinesthetic down left down right down left down right and then they open was not going to open with somebody sitting beside him who is part of his Maslow as long as there's a room full of people and especially one of them somebody he's associated with he's not going to confess in a crowd. Mark what do you got? Yeah so look I think the key to critical thinking is to be agnostic about absolutely everything and so you're right anybody's right to be on the fence about any one signal and all we're doing is going look we're on the fence about everything until enough mounts up that if you went to the casino what would you gamble on the accuracy of your judgment based on being on the fence about everything until the information piles up and that's just being intelligent which is not making snap judgments because your instinct does that on its own like it doesn't even need to eat to do that your instinct takes microwatts of energy whereas your intelligent brain that does critical thinking it's like a 40 watt light bulb of energy to get that going so you do have to be comfortable you got to eat enough in order to get that working you don't do critical thinking by accident you do it on purpose and we're getting so much information here mounting up that puts us in the direction of he's been up to something it's not good news for him I want to put on top of that we then get his lawyer doing lint picking which is you know where you take some piece of dust he's not doing it from his lapel by the way but he's doing it on his knee I'm just showing you that so you can see it and it is often a show of indifference a show of there isn't enough power out there I've got time to make sure there are no flies on me there are no there's no dirt on me I'm not feeling the stress and pressure outside in this environment well interesting that this lawyer who is attached to their client they have a relationship with their client that the others in the room don't have it's meant to be a supportive relationship and you've got this person with the supportive relationship doing lint picking at this point now do we know what that means we know it tends to show indifference is it him going now would be the time to get rid of this client you know I'm going to be indifferent to my relationship with this client could be that that's quite a nice idea or is he signaling to the others in the room I don't think you've got anything you know or is he signaling you've got something there you're onto something but I want to show you that you have nothing I don't know which which one it is I'd have to turn to the person and go hey what's going on for you right now what's going on there look let's couple with that we now get the subject leaning forward and saying do you think I did it well this is compounding what's happening and this is a question I believe that would have been if somebody was innocent they'd have asked right at the start right at the start they'd have gone do you think I what's this about do you think I did it if they said yes then the person would have gone okay what evidence you have because I didn't do it like let's get through this because we need to go and find the person who killed my wife and my kid fast because I want justice and none of that has happened clearly not a good not a good show going on here I think that's all yeah I wouldn't say thank you I just saw a few more questions did you kill Maggie no did I kill my wife no David do you know who did no I do not know who did did you kill Paul no I did not kill Paul do you know who did no sir I do not know who did do you think I killed Maggie I have to go where the evidence in the fact I understand that and you think I killed Paul I have to go where the evidence and the facts take me and I don't have anything that points to anybody else at this time so does that mean that I am a suspect you were still in like I told Cory earlier you were still in this with everything that we've talked about with the family guns the ammunition nobody else's DNA my beliefs aside and go with the facts so Mark so far what have you seen up to this point so far I believe what we've seen is some of the most interesting and subtlest indicators in an airy interrogation that we've looked at as to what's going on the battle that's going on both these parties are doing a great job to attack and defend under a lot of pressure for both parties and I think what we've picked up on here is some real subtleties of what's going on indicating that continued battle Chase what are you seeing so far so far I think this is one of the first if not the first interrogation videos that we've analyzed where every single video contains massive red flags it's normal for us to get some but in this one it is incredible like every video here and this all these videos are a testament to how important psychology is in interrogations and I think the interrogator did do a great job it is I cannot imagine the insurmountable task of interrogating a former prosecutor with his attorney sitting next to him there's somebody else maybe one of my senior people from what it looked like sitting next to me so that would be really tough and he brought up all the key elements of the scene and I'm no detective by any means so I know that's its own entire area of expertise but I will certainly be using these for training in my classes Greg yeah so far what I see is this is a guy on a fishing expedition he's in to figure out what they know now we know that he has done a lot of heinous stuff by now we know all the facts that came out in the court case but without that without the ability to see what's going in an interrogation you might miss all of this because the subtlety of body language the mistake of coming in locked down and trying to resist interrogation like you think people do and then watching it unfold as an interrogator does his job is powerful I think what we're seeing here is some places that gave them a place to drill down when they end I know that I would go after that crux question for sure you also saw some stress up to now working on the person who is asking the questions interrogation is a complex thing it's an art form and it's designed for the person sitting across from you think he did a good job all things considered with a person sitting and again we've said this many times will say it again love to have you on the show love to talk to you love to know more about what you're thinking when you're doing this Scott what have you seen yeah I agree I hope he's told them where he hears about this and comes and talks to us that'd be awesome I think I think this is a great example of seeing someone go through the process of not sure if they're going to get in trouble or not to being pretty dang sure they've had it or that everyone's on to I think they that's a great a great example of that and I think the detective did a wonderful job of that because he kept his cool and he never really he never changed from that little plane he was riding down that just flat and right there I think I think he did a great job doing that but we did see a lot of little things that you that we usually just blow right by because there's so many big things happening in an interrogation that we can point out and the little things become boring but in this case is all the little things that were huge that made such big difference for this one I think all right fellas I think there's another good one and we'll see next time what would you guys say if he asked you do you think I did it what would be your response I'm curious I got my note here says I'll do all the question around here Bob over I'd say I'm not sure yet that's that's the that's the one that you think I did this so I'm not sure yet that's why that's what I'm here to find out we're gonna find out what happened you know I would do exactly what this guy did look if you cross that line in this investigation you don't get a chance again and in my opinion when you do that you have to do what he did he said I'll let the facts speak I'm just here to collect information that way you're not turning into the bad guy and you're not adversarial because there may be another opportunity and you can't do it if you the termination is an interrogation about maintaining the relationship and you have to be really careful that's what I would do I think I'd say you go ahead Chase I think I'd say you know Rob I'm not here to make that determination but I've been doing this a long time and it certainly doesn't you don't seem like the person to do this kind of premeditated thing and if that is the case or something did happen I definitely don't think you meant to do that well if he said why you call me Rob whatever isn't his name Rob didn't he go by Rob Alec no Alec is what he calls himself Alec oh Alec and they're an X on the end of his name yeah but they say Alec that's right it doesn't matter oh my god we heard him call himself Murtik once and then he goes to Murdoch then I hear him say Murdoch it's a Scottish name pronunciation can go all over the place Mark's called a Murdo Murdo at the top Murder Murderer there's a joke me and my buddy Jason Rosalie he was a homicide at West Precinct in Nashville and when I first moved to Nashville I was walking by this minimart being a buddy of mine and there was a lot going on there was a that had roped off in the cops and we were walking by and there was a news guy there and as we were walking by I go hey man what's going on he goes there's been a murder like that there's been a murder and that's been sort of our back and forth for years every time I see him because what's going on I always go there's been a murder we were doing the sorry when we were doing the Dr. Phil thing I realized how dark our sense of humor is because the juror was in our room and we were watching videos and I was like hey man sorry our sense of humor is a little dark anyway yeah it is so here's what I do Chase to that question I'd throw my friend under the bus I'd go he thinks you definitely did yes that's a great way to do it and I can't convince him otherwise he's definitely like he wants you hung straight away Department of Defense top interrogator qualities number seven interrogator distances themselves from authority figures yeah that's threat and rescue I felt so sorry for that little guy Greg we were in there and he was in makeup and he was welled up he was about to cry we were like what's wrong with this cat man and then Tina my makeup person she said he's really really nervous what he said Greg when you said what's going on man he said is he going to grill me and I was like no man you're like the star of the show today you're an innocent member of the public all right check it out so we're in Dr. Phil's dressing room this place is something isn't that cool let's go in here we'll see you then oh it's a gratitude sign come here stay in there you're still on the crack look around look around this place let's take a look at his cars look at that that's his car that's Robin's car same thing got this window here come around this way come back this way you can see there's that here's the office it's a great office oh my god he loves it all security I got some riffraff in the office