October 13, 2025 • 51 mins
One decision in the interview room can change a life—or ruin it. We sit down with interrogation expert David Thompson to unpack why survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking are uniquely vulnerable to false confessions, and how science‑backed interviewing protects truth without compromising justice. The conversation moves past TV tropes and into what the data actually show: a significant share of DNA exonerations include confessions that never should have happened. We explore the three core errors that drive these outcomes—misclassification, coercion, and contamination—and translate them into plain‑language risk points that any investigator, advocate, or attorney can spot and fix.
Rather than glorifying confrontation, we focus on curiosity, empathy, and structure. David explains how trauma‑informed, rapport‑based interviewing increases disclosure, accuracy, and case solvability—all backed by large-scale field studies. We talk about why behavioral “lie detection” fails, how the false evidence tactic breeds memory distrust, and what simple safeguards—recording, open‑ended prompts, time limits, legal counsel, trained advocates—do to keep both survivors and cases safe. Along the way, we examine gendered bias in financial abuse cases - pointing to an example featured in the Netflix documentary film, "Tinder Swindler." We also explore youth and disability as vulnerability multipliers, and the ripple effects wrongful convictions have on public trust and real offender accountability.
If you work in law enforcement, legal practice, advocacy, or forensic nursing—or you’re simply a citizen who cares about justice—this discussion offers a practical roadmap to prevent harm while getting better results.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
The subject matter of this podcast will address
difficult topics, multiple formsof violence, and identity-based
discrimination and harassment.
We acknowledge that this contentmay be difficult and have listed
specific content warnings ineach episode description to help
create a positive, safeexperience for all listeners.
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
In this country, 31 million crimes.
31 million crimes are reportedevery year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutes,there is a murder.
Every five minutes, there is arape, every two to five minutes,
there is a sexual assault.
Every nine seconds in thiscountry, a woman is assaulted by
someone who told her that heloved her, by someone who told
(00:41):
her it was her fault, by someonewho tries to tell the rest of us
it's none of our business.
And I am proud to stand heretoday with each of you to call
that perpetrator a liar.
SPEAKER_02 (01:07):
Today's conversation will be about false confessions
and wrongful convictions,primarily of domestic violence,
sexual assault, or traffickingvictims and survivors, women
who, in moments of desperation,either engaged in criminal
activity to cope or survive,were the victims of a crime and
not believed or who killed theirabuser.
Survivors are especiallyvulnerable to coercive police
(01:30):
interrogation tactics, includinglong high-pressure questioning,
false evidence, or promises ofleniency.
Many others falsely confess outof fear, hopelessness, or
misunderstanding, believing thatthey can clear it up later in
court.
Today we'll explore howinvestigative interviewing, the
initial phase where trust andopenness are built, can make or
(01:52):
break the ethical foundation ofan interview.
When done right, it encouragesaccurate, detailed disclosures.
When done wrong, it can lead todevastating consequences.
David Thompson, an expert ininterviewing and interrogation
techniques, will help us examinehow trauma-informed approaches
can protect survivors fromfurther harm.
David Thompson is a partner andpresident of Wicklander Zulowski
(02:15):
and Associates, responsible forthe company's strategic vision
and oversees the business'sday-to-day operations.
Mr.
Thompson also leads theevolution of interview and
interrogation curriculumdevelopment to provide
research-based investigativetools to practitioners while
driving change in the industry.
He is a highly requested speakerwho has presented customized
(02:36):
training sessions to clients inboth the private and public
sectors.
Additionally, Mr.
Thompson has presented at publicsector training sessions,
including multiple organizedcrime associations, as well as
the U.S.
Immigration and CustomsEnforcement, U.S.
Marshall Service, New York StateOffice of Attorney Generals,
U.S.
Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment, and many others.
(02:59):
Mr.
Thompson has also deliveredseminars domestically and
internationally for multipleFortune 500 companies.
He hosts the Truth Be Toldpodcast that focuses on
mastering the art of strategicconversations.
Dave, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (03:18):
Thanks for having me.
I'm excited to talk about suchan important topic.
SPEAKER_02 (03:21):
Today we'll be discussing your work in the
field of strategicconversations.
And it may be important to makethe distinction that there are
interviews and interrogations ofperpetrators or offenders, and
then interviews andinterrogations of victims or
survivors that can lead to afalse confession or a wrongful
conviction for both parties.
(03:42):
So for the purpose of thispodcast episode, we would like
to focus on how victims andsurvivors can end up falsely
confessing to the commission orcomplicity of a crime, or can be
re-victimized or re-traumatizedwhen they are recalling details
of a crime against them and theyare not believed or being taken
(04:02):
seriously.
So that being said, before wereally dive into the whole
topic, help us understand yourbackground.
What led you to the interviewand interrogation space and
ultimately to the work thatyou're doing now?
SPEAKER_00 (04:18):
My background is kind of a little bit of all over
the place.
I worked in the field conductinginvestigations.
The company that I'mrepresenting here, Wicklander
Zelowski, has been in the fieldof training and teaching
interview and interrogationtechniques for over four
decades.
So really a long time ofteaching effective communication
strategies.
And I know what we'll get intotoday is how much of that has
(04:40):
changed over the last fourdecades and really more
specifically the last 10 years.
But for me, I was somebody whowas in the field as a
practitioner conductinginterviews and investigations
and just took a passion and aninterest into how research can
impact science and practice andlearned a lot about wrongful
convictions and falseconfessions in the most recent
years and brought that into ourtraining curriculum.
SPEAKER_02 (05:02):
So how has that become your niche topic?
SPEAKER_00 (05:06):
I grew a passion for how powerful communication can
be sometimes in the wrong wayand understanding the impact
that investigators can have withgood intent, but maybe the wrong
outcome.
And really the kind of turningpoint for me, like most people
nowadays, I got hooked onwatching Netflix documentaries
(05:27):
and I saw the Making a Murdererdocumentary back almost 11 years
ago now about Brendan Dassey'scase up in Wisconsin.
And I saw this interrogation ofa young, vulnerable person,
interviewee, Brendan, andimmediately was frustrated and
aggravated and also felt like,hey, if we've got this platform
of training investigators, wealso have a responsibility to
(05:48):
stand up for when we don't feellike it's being done right.
And at that time, I kind of tooka passion of learning about
what's the impact of improperinvestigation techniques, and
since then have really learned alot more about how this impacts
survivors, interviewingwitnesses and then interviewing
maybe suspects or people ofinterest in different crimes.
SPEAKER_02 (06:08):
This is a topic that has not been talked about very
much until recently.
This is kind of more currentinformation, and listeners may
not realize the magnitude offalse confessions and wrongful
convictions, especially as itrelates to domestic violence
survivors.
Can you share some statistics ofhow pervasive this phenomenon
(06:32):
is?
SPEAKER_00 (06:33):
Yeah, you know what's crazy when whenever I
discuss false confessions,whether it's in a training room
or in a courtroom, peopleimmediately think, well, I would
never falsely confess.
This is probably just somethingI see on a TV show or a
documentary or Law and Order.
But in the last three decadesnow, thanks to groups like the
Innocence Project and othergroups, DNA has been able to
(06:54):
show us tangibly andsubstantially how many proven
innocent people have also beenwrongly convicted and falsely
confessed.
And what they have found, andthe numbers change as we
continue to get more data, butapproximately 30% of DNA proven
wrongful convictions, meaningthese are not cases turned over
on appeal.
(07:14):
These are cases where DNA hasbeen able to prove these people
were innocent.
Between 25 and 30% of thosecases contained a false
confession.
And these are from suspects ofmaybe rape or homicide cases.
And so when we think about thatnumber, which is pretty
staggering, that means courtshave allowed those confessions
to be admissible.
That means jurors have heardthose confessions.
(07:36):
And when we relate that tosurvivors or people who've
experienced trauma, the researchshows that anybody who's been
exposed to trauma, especiallymaybe like a domestic violence
survivor, is even moresusceptible or vulnerable to
falsely confessing.
A lot of those same elements inan interrogation room can be
what they've experienced in thetraumatic events leading up to
(07:57):
that in their life.
So things like being moreaccommodating, being more
complicit in order to avoidpotential punishment.
So that's the numbers that wehave.
And with a number we don't knowis how many false confessors are
out there that we haven'tidentified yet because the
evidence hasn't proven.
SPEAKER_02 (08:11):
So yeah, and that could be very difficult to
ascertain.
Before we get into the fulldetails to false confessions and
wrongful convictions, let's getsome definitions out of the way.
Could you explain to us thesimilarities and differences
between interviewing andinterrogating?
SPEAKER_00 (08:29):
Aaron Powell Scary word, right?
Interrogation.
The immediate implication iswe've got somebody in this kind
of cinder block room with alight hanging and a phone book
and all these kind of crazythings.
And so I think there's twodifferent ways to look at this.
If we look at it from more of alegal definition, right, a lot
of different things apply whensomebody is in a custodial
(08:49):
interrogation.
Miranda may apply, right?
Somebody is not free to leave.
They're being accused of acrime.
They're being directlyquestioned about that crime by
somebody of law enforcement or asworn officer.
Typically, when you're lookingat an interview, are more
non-custodial.
These might be more witnesses,maybe a complainant, a victim
interview.
It could be a survivor, it couldbe somebody that's more
(09:11):
fact-gathering.
And so when you look at it kindof from a legal aspect, you can
categorize is this an interviewand it's non-custodial, or is
this a custodial interrogation?
However, as we're going tocontinue to explore kind of
false confessions and theevolution of interviewing,
really what we're trying tofocus on is that every
conversation should be aninvestigative interview,
regardless if the person you'retalking to is suspected of
(09:34):
wrongdoing, or they're the onecoming forward to complain of
some type of wrongdoing.
Changing the goal of why am Iwalking in that room?
Is it to get an admission or aconfession, or is it just to get
information?
And our goal is to move everyconversation to the latter is
let's just try to get as muchactionable information as we
can.
SPEAKER_02 (09:52):
So I don't know much about interrogation practices or
strategies or interviewstrategies as they relate to
this particular topic, but Iwould assume that approaching
anything from the position ofcuriosity may give you the
results that you're looking for.
SPEAKER_00 (10:08):
Yeah, you're right.
Curiosity is such an importantmindset to walk in with.
We call it an investigativemindset what details can we get
to help us maybe eliminatepotential options or maybe
narrow down or find moreevidence.
What you often see in eitherfalse confession cases, or as
we're talking specifically aboutmaybe survivors being
(10:30):
interviewed and being eitherforced or compelled to give
information that's not true, iswhen an investigator lacks
curiosity and instead replacesthat with assumption, assumption
of guilt, assumption ofownership, biases, those types
of things, a premeditated kindof mindset instead of allowing
the interviewee to tell thestory themselves.
SPEAKER_02 (10:52):
Yeah, and that could be particularly difficult for
when interviewing survivors,right?
And that's why it's so importantto use those trauma-informed
survivor interview techniques,which is something that we are
going to get into as well inthis conversation.
Now, when we talk aboutcommunication, a lot of us have
heard the old adage,communication is key, and that
(11:13):
can mean a lot of differentthings to different people.
How does that apply to your workand how crucial is this adage in
the world of effective andsuccessful interviewing and
interrogation?
SPEAKER_00 (11:24):
It's everything, right?
I mean, when an investigatorwants to get information out of
somebody, it's the same conceptif somebody wants their kids to
tell them the truth, or theywant their friend to feel
comfortable to share somethingawful that happened in their
life, or their significant otherto share what happened during
their day.
Communication is so important,and it's more about talking.
(11:45):
It's more than just listening.
It's being an engaged listener.
It's developing rapport in aneffective and genuine way.
It's projecting empathy withsincerity.
It's asking questions andactually reflecting on
somebody's answer.
So, yeah, communication isfundamental in the investigative
interview and really ineverything that an investigator
(12:06):
does.
But for people that arelistening that aren't in that
occupation, you communicateevery day, whether it's with
your coworkers, it's with yourfamily members, it's with your
friends.
And we all kind of fall into thesame traps.
We all walk in with assumptions,we walk in with sometimes
outside voices, you're having abad day, and you take that into
a meeting at work.
And so communication isfundamental, but it's really
(12:27):
focusing on what is the mosteffective strategy to be
sincere, genuine, and try to getas much actionable information
out of that conversation aspossible.
SPEAKER_02 (12:35):
Yeah.
And also don't always approachit.
I'm not an expert in this, butI'm going to offer my opinion.
Okay.
Don't approach it as if everyonewould understand what you mean
maybe the first time around.
Use terms that really tell yourstory in a way that is both
meaningful to you and can bereceived by others, right?
SPEAKER_00 (12:56):
Yeah.
I had somebody I was talking toabout something similar to this.
It's almost called like thecurse of knowledge, right?
When you feel like you have somuch information about something
or you work it every day andyou're talking to somebody, you
think they know what you'rewhat's in your head already.
And yeah, it's recognizing youknow everybody that we talk to
has a different background,different experiences, different
knowledge level of what you'retalking about.
(13:16):
And even in the investigativespace, if you hang out with a
bunch of cops for the day,there's a lot of lingo and
jargon and 10 codes that you'regoing to hear that most people
have no idea what they'retalking about.
And when those things can creepin to a conversation with a
survivor, they can beintimidating, they could be
potentially misleading, and theycan be confusing.
SPEAKER_02 (13:34):
Aaron Powell That is exactly what I was trying to
say, but didn't say very well.
You clearly know how to do thisjob, right?
Having conversations andinterpreting what other people
say.
SPEAKER_00 (13:44):
Aaron Powell You get credit for thinking of the idea.
So that's how this works.
SPEAKER_02 (13:48):
Oh, that's fair.
Yeah, thank you.
You mentioned empathy a coupleof minutes ago, and it can be
difficult to understand or evenempathize with someone who
falsely confesses because manypeople believe that a person who
would not admit to committing acrime that they did not commit.
So let's get into that part ofthis conversation and that
topic.
(14:08):
Can you share with us some ofthe common reasons as to why
people falsely confess and howthe training that you offer
helps to address those factors?
SPEAKER_00 (14:19):
Yeah, I think I mentioned this a little bit
earlier.
It's so hard to communicate topeople that have never been in a
position like that.
Why would somebody falselyconfess?
It's the same thing, you know,when we talk again about
survivors of domestic violenceor sexual assault or these
terrible crimes, people think,well, why didn't you leave?
Why didn't you do this?
And it's like, unless you're inthat situation, it's so hard to
(14:40):
describe the pressure and theemotional kind of overbearing of
your will in thosecircumstances.
Where I've gained the mostempathy for people that have
falsely confessed is having theopportunity to talk to people
who've actually been in thatsituation.
And there's a ton of research,and we can talk about the
research and what the sciencesays, but sitting down and
having a conversation withsomebody who was in an interview
(15:03):
room or an interrogation roomwho had to make a decision, a
risk versus benefit decision ofdo I confess to something I
didn't do, or do I continue totry to assert the fact that I'm
innocent where it's not goinganywhere?
What's the best choice here?
And some false confessions wecan talk about are voluntary.
(15:24):
People come in and they justsay, hey, I did this because
maybe they want credit.
Maybe they want to takeownership for something so
somebody else doesn't get introuble.
But the majority of falseconfessions are a source of some
type of coercion by theinvestigator.
So you've got a person who'seither feeling like they have to
be compliant with theinvestigator because they're
refusing to accept denials ortheir own narrative.
(15:46):
And then you also have falseconfessions that can be a source
of contamination.
And we can dig into both ofthese things, but that's more so
where a person starts to almostbelieve that they could be it's
a coerced internalizedconfession where they actually
start to believe what theinvestigator is saying is true,
right?
Well, maybe I blacked out.
Well, maybe I don't rememberwhat happened, and maybe what
(16:07):
they're telling me is the actualnarrative.
So you've got kind of twocategories that we can dive
into, one of which is thecoerced confession where
somebody knows coercedcompliant.
They know they didn't do it, butthey feel like there's no choice
other than complying.
The other is they start toself-doubt maybe what the
investigator is saying isactually true.
SPEAKER_02 (16:24):
Aaron Ross Powell And anyone who's watched any of
these true crime shows on TV hasa feel for what those interviews
look like and interrogationslook like.
And to be clear, it's not justwith alleged perpetrators that
these conversations arehappening, it's also with
victims.
So a woman who is beinginterviewed by police about a
(16:47):
sexual assault can be talked outof the fact that it actually
happened to her, even though shejust reported it, right?
SPEAKER_00 (16:55):
Right.
Yeah, and let's kind of breakthat down.
So when you look at what theresearch shows on how a false
confession kind of transpires,there's really three main
errors.
And these can apply, as youmentioned, in a suspect
interview, or it can apply in aninterview with a survivor.
The first of which is calledmisclassification.
And so this means what caused aninvestigator to classify the
(17:18):
person they're talking to aseither guilty or as a liar or
being untruthful.
The second is coercion, which wecan dive into.
That's kind of the tactics beingused.
And the third is contamination.
But let's stick with the firstof misclassification.
What happens often withsurvivors is investigators are
observing physical behavior andthey're listening to the verbal
(17:40):
behavior, and somebody's storyis kind of out of sync and some
of the details are missing.
And what we know, obviously,from what the research has shown
us, is that's a directreflection of somebody who's
experienced trauma, where we allreact differently, our behavior
is different.
But an investigator who's maybenot properly trained or not
trauma informed, or any layperson that's listening, right?
(18:02):
You've all talked to somebody inyour life, or they're telling
you a story about something, andyou think, I don't think that
story's true.
They shouldn't laugh when theytold a story about something bad
that happened, or I would havebeen more angry than they were
if that happened to me.
Those are all assumptions.
We don't know how we would reactunless we were in that
situation.
So the first thing to thinkabout is how are we improperly
(18:23):
assessing somebody's credibilitybased off of their maybe
physical behavior or theirmemory?
The research shows us that justtalk physical behavior, for
example, our accuracy atidentifying deception based off
of somebody sneezing andscratching their face and
crossing their arms is about54%, which means we may as well
flip a quarter and have just asgood luck.
(18:44):
And so kind of step one is howdo we remove this bias of this
person feels guilty, it smellslike they're lying to me, I
don't really like the waythey're telling the story.
That means they're a liar.
And let's convert that to, hey,let's be trauma-informed and
understand that that can happen.
What information can they giveme and how can I investigate
those details?
SPEAKER_02 (19:05):
Yeah, those are all excellent points.
And anyone who's in this type ofwork as part of their career
would understand some of thenecessary training that needs to
be taken in order to participatein these interviews in the most
appropriate way.
So maybe we can talk for aminute about that.
What practices and protocols canlaw enforcement and legal
(19:26):
agencies implement to helpmitigate these types of
confessions and these behaviorsfrom investigators?
SPEAKER_00 (19:34):
Training is obviously important, and I'm
going to stand on that.
One thing that's kind ofinteresting, when you think
about all the training thatinvestigators get, and there's
so many responsibilities thatlaw enforcement has, we
sometimes underestimate how manyareas a law enforcement
professional has to be an expertin day to day.
And so there's a lot oftraining.
But what's interesting is whenyou think about, you know, they
(19:55):
got to carry a firearm and theygo through training in the
academy and they probably haveto re-qualify annually, or
depending on what state they'rein.
Um maybe if they carry a taser,they have to go through training
on the taser to be certified andthen have to requalify.
When you talk aboutcommunication, de-escalation,
interviewing, interrogating,most states, most agencies don't
(20:16):
have requirements for how muchcontinued education does
somebody have to have, right?
A lot of agencies will say forlaw enforcement, you mean?
For law enforcement, right.
So you might go to a two-day ora three-day or five-day course,
and then that's it for 15, 20year career, maybe a couple of
random trainings here and there.
But one thing is when we sendsomebody to training, first of
(20:37):
all, making sure it's current.
Imagine going to your doctor andhaving surgery, and they told
you they graduated medicalschool 20 years ago, but they
don't believe in any researchsince then, right?
You'd probably find anotherpractitioner.
SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
Yeah, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00 (20:49):
Right.
So I think it's continuededucation, but it's also making
sure, just like anything inlife, you can send somebody to
training, but are we followingup?
Are we evaluating, are werecording the conversations if
possible?
If they're with a survivor,maybe depending on the
situation, maybe not the righttime to do it.
But is there a secondaryinterviewer?
Is there people that are givingfeedback?
Um, so training is one.
(21:11):
Recording documentation isanother.
Evaluating the processconsistently and providing
feedback is really important.
And then it's really making surewe know what we're evaluating.
And so we can dig into that.
But you know, we talked aboutmisclassification as kind of the
first error of a falseconfession.
What you're talking about now iswhat is the investigator
actually doing in the room withthat information, right?
(21:32):
What, how are they askingquestions?
What's that process look like?
And that's the part we can spendsome time on.
This is where people need to bebetter interviewers every day in
life, better communicators, sothat we're allowing people to
feel like they can cooperatewith us versus have to be
compliant with us.
SPEAKER_02 (21:48):
Yeah, great points.
There are many law enforcementdetectives and investigators who
believe that they are doing theright thing in the name of
justice by aggressivelyconfronting suspects, especially
if the evidence appears to lineup or the suspect seems to be
uncooperative.
So I have several questions toexplore around this topic.
(22:09):
So we'll just take them one byone.
And to begin, where dointerviewers possibly get this
wrong?
SPEAKER_00 (22:18):
Step one, I think, is what is the goal of the
conversation?
And a lot of times if you'rewalking in with somebody based
off what you just said, right,the evidence is lining up, the
person's giving us this vibethat they're being resistant or
uncooperative, who wouldn't walkin the room with a presumption
of guilt?
We know that that makes sense.
The problem is that's not theright mindset for an
investigator.
(22:38):
An investigator, as youmentioned earlier, should walk
in with curiosity and shouldwalk in with, even if I've got
evidence that points in acertain direction, even if I've
got this, you know, spideysense, gut feeling, whatever you
want to call it, that theperson's not being truthful.
My job is not to try to be a liedetector in the room.
My job is to try to getinformation I don't already
have.
(22:58):
How can I get information thatcan go further investigate?
I think step one is let's justlet's change the goal of the
conversation.
And the same thing we're talkingto a survivor.
It's not necessarily how can Iprove that the survivor story is
wrong or how can I prove it tobe true?
It's how can I create asituation, an environment where
they are comfortable enough toshare as many details as
(23:20):
possible with me so I can go domy job and investigate?
That's the goal of theseconversations.
What's the purpose of thatoutcome can kind of change
what's the process we're goingto use to get there.
SPEAKER_02 (23:29):
Perfect.
So we have step one there.
What specific skills areinterrogators missing in order
to get this right?
SPEAKER_00 (23:39):
I think there's a few things, Era.
You mentioned earliertrauma-informed interviewing,
and really just talk abouttrauma-informed.
It's making sure investigatorsare aware and have the knowledge
of how trauma can impactsomebody's ability to recall
information, to be present andhow they present themselves in
the interview room, what thedetails are going to look like,
potentially how their behaviormay be off from what we suspect
(24:02):
to be or hope to be normal inthe conversation.
So I think one skill set a lotof investigators can learn more
about is being moretrauma-informed.
A second is how to actuallyproject empathy and develop
rapport from a science-basedperspective.
A lot of times people thinkabout rapport and they think,
well, I met my neighbor outyesterday cutting the grass and
(24:24):
we talked about the weather, sowe developed some rapport.
And that's nice.
That's just kind of breaking theice, and that's just having
these nicety conversations.
And you get a lot of people thatmight be advocates, it could be
sexual assault nurse examiners,that could be dealing with
survivors in a variety of ways.
There's a lot of differentfundamental ways where people
have needs-based rapport.
(24:44):
What do they need to feelcomfortable in this current
situation?
What do they need to feelcomfortable, not only just from
a mental health perspective, butalso comfortable enough to share
some pretty intimate andtraumatic experiences in their
life?
So I think investigators canlearn more skill sets on how to
effectively develop rapport andthen how to just be a better
listener.
(25:05):
We talked about active listeningall the time, but how to
actually listen to what somebodyis saying, reflect on the
answer, leave space and holdthat space for somebody, and
then respond appropriately withmore follow-up questions.
Again, that goes back to stepone of what's our purpose.
If we walk in with a singulargoal, you can feel that during
the interview.
Every question is going to beleading and guided towards one
(25:27):
specific goal.
If we change the goal, it canaffect the way that we question
and interact with somebodythroughout the conversation.
SPEAKER_02 (25:33):
So is rapport building effective even when you
believe someone committed aviolent crime?
SPEAKER_00 (25:43):
Rap building is not only effective, it's essential.
And even in the most high-stakesinvestigations, there was one of
the largest, if not the largest,field studies of interrogations
was done a few years ago,focused on rapport-based
interpersonal techniques andsome really high-stakes
(26:03):
interrogations withcounterterror suspects.
Lawrence Allison was one of theauthors on a book titled Orbit
to give them credit for all theresearch that they did.
But if I remember, I believethey re-reviewed over 2,000
hours of footage ofinterrogations and coded what
are the different elements ofrapport and kind of
interpersonal dynamics duringthe conversations.
(26:25):
And so if you think about it, inthe most high-stakes
conversations with people thatcouldn't have less in common,
you've got somebody who reallyjust terrible mindset of what
they want to do and someintelligence that could be
life-saving information that youneed to get.
So you have a lot of pressure onthe investigator.
And they found that havingrapport and treating people with
(26:45):
humanity and respect was themost efficient way to gain the
most actionable intelligence.
So if we're seeing it in thathigh-stakes conversation, you
can just understand, you cankind of extrapolate that to all
these other conversations of howessential rapport is to allow
somebody to feel comfortablesharing their truth.
SPEAKER_02 (27:04):
Good to know.
SPEAKER_00 (27:18):
Yeah, there's quite a few tactics we can talk about,
one of which is even insincererapport.
If you talk about, just to buildoff of the rapport concept,
there was a study recently done,and I just forgot the name of
the author of the study, but theconcept was when we talked about
these specific types of caseswith crimes against women.
They had participants review orwatch videos, like the sex ed
(27:42):
videos you might watch in gradeschool.
And then they watched thesevideos and then they had them
interviewed by people afterwardson what did you learn in the
video?
What were kind of some thingsthat you saw?
And these are uncomfortableconversations naturally.
SPEAKER_02 (27:53):
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (27:54):
But they had people broken into groups.
One group had a rapportcondition.
So when they were interviewing,they were following up with the
questions.
Hey, I know this might bedifficult to talk about.
I know this can be embarrassing,but just share it with me.
And that's interesting.
Can you tell me more about it?
And then the other group, norapport, right?
Just a line of questioning,answer, question, answer,
question.
And what they studied was notonly a survey afterwards of the
(28:16):
participants of how did youfeel, and you had a huge
increase in obviously thefeeling of rapport and comfort.
But they also, and of equalimportance, measured how much
information did they get.
And they had a significantincrease in the amount of
information and the accuracy ofinformation obtained in the
group that had rapport.
And so when you think aboutthat, if you're interviewing or
(28:38):
talking to somebody that's asurvivor, even a witness, about
a really intimate,uncomfortable, traumatic event,
it just shows you how essentialrapport is to allow people to
feel comfortable to share suchan event, right?
Or so many details about such anevent.
So some of the tactics that canlead to false confessions, one
of which is just not havingenough rapport to allow somebody
(29:00):
to feel comfortable to tell youtheir truth, right?
Instead, they feel like theyjust have to tell you what you
want to hear.
Another issue that we see oftenis called the false evidence
ploy, lying about evidence,essentially.
So in the United States, there'sa Supreme Court law in 1969,
Fraser versus Cup, whichactually allows investigators to
lie about evidence during aninterview.
So they could say, Maria, wehave your fingerprints on the
(29:23):
weapon, or we have your DNAhere, or we have video footage
of whatever.
Investigators, to a point, areallowed to lie about evidence.
We're actually seeing a changein that practice.
Right now, I think there's 10,maybe now 11 states that have
passed legislation where ifinvestigators lie to a juvenile
about evidence, that confessionis presumed inadmissible, which
(29:45):
is good, move forward.
But one of the tacticsinvestigators have always used
because they've been trained onit and it's been permissible is
lying about evidence.
So imagine talking to a survivorwho's being told, I hear your
story.
However, we've got video thatshows.
That you actually willinglywalked into that house, or we've
got your DNA in a room that yousaid you were never in, or
(30:06):
whatever the lie is.
Now you've got a survivor who'salready dealing with trauma, who
maybe let's say there's asituation where they were under
the influence.
So now the investigatorssuggesting things may have
happened, they don't remember ithappened.
And those types of things, thefalse evidence ploy, can cause
people to have what's calledmemory distrust and start to
think, well, if you're tellingme that you've got video, you're
(30:28):
telling me you have witnessesand you have DNA, maybe my
memory is wrong.
Maybe you're right.
Right.
And that can be one of thecauses.
And I'll just real high level,and you we can dig into these
further.
Some of the other issues areleading questions, a concept of
maximization and minimization,which is basically if you
cooperate with me, this will begood, this will go well for you.
(30:49):
If you don't cooperate with me,you're probably the worst of the
worst people.
And then the last of which iswhat we call contamination.
And that's where investigatorsmight be feeding too many
details to the person in theinterview that they just
regurgitate back to them.
SPEAKER_02 (31:02):
Wow, that is a lot to unpack.
But I appreciate all of thebackground information on that.
Now, just to illustrate, let'suse an example.
You had the opportunity tointerview Cecilia from the
Tinder Swindler, who was avictim of a horrible financial
abuse who fought to be heard andbelieved, as well as get justice
(31:23):
for herself and others.
Can you share some of thepitfalls you discovered during
her interview with lawenforcement?
SPEAKER_00 (31:30):
Yeah.
Cecilia, first of all, all thecredit in the world to her.
Cecilia, I've talked to as wellas Jamana Kidd, is another
person who is a victim offinancial abuse.
A con artist took advantage ofher.
And so both women, extremelypowerful and vulnerable people
to be able to share theirstories.
And so give them all the creditin the world for doing so.
And what I've learned in reallythe conversations with both of
(31:52):
them, and it's not just lawenforcement, it's when somebody
comes forward and they have totalk to maybe a bank that is
saying, hey, there's some fraudon your account.
They have to talk to maybe anattorney, a prosecutor, an
investigator.
It can be an uphill battle.
And a victim or a survivor oftencan feel isolated and alone, and
there's not a lot of supportthere.
(32:13):
And who's going to believe me?
And Cecilia shared some reallysome interesting perspectives,
and same with Jamana with me.
One of which, Cecilia, for thosethat didn't watch her story on
the Tinder swindler, and now shegoes around and is educating
other potential victims ofromance scams and financial
crimes out there.
Essentially, she had somebodywho swindled her through a
(32:34):
version of a romance scam whobasically was who he was, but
then kind of trapped her intothis fake relationship,
essentially, made her feel likeshe needed to help him
financially for a variety ofreasons, and ends up taking
advantage of her and herfeelings towards him, and took a
whole bunch of money from her.
(32:54):
And in that process, she wasexplaining to me that when she
came forward, especially as awoman, that it felt different
than if a man came forward withthe same issue.
And what she explained to me onour conversation is if a man
came forward, and again, we'rekind of stereotyping and this
that may not happen all thetime, but generally speaking, if
a man came forward and said, Igot taken advantage by this, you
(33:16):
know, this attractive woman andshe stole my money, and you
know, what would be theperspective people would have of
the man?
Like, uh, I can understand howthat must have happened to you.
Like, I've seen what she lookslike, you know, I get it.
Right.
That's maybe the publicperception.
Cecilia shared with me when shekind of came forward that some
of the first impressions were,well, what the heck?
This ditzy blonde fell for thisguy.
(33:37):
What's wrong with her?
Was she just looking forsomething?
Right.
There's these kind ofstereotypes were victim blaming,
must be her fault.
You know, this must be thisditzy woman.
That's why it happened.
And for those of you, if you'rejust listening, not watching, I
used air quotes there.
But the concept was, and it wasreally powerful hearing it from
her is how investigators, thepublic, financial crime
(33:58):
investigators might look atthese issues differently if it's
a male or a female presenting asthe victim and all these
presumptions that are alreadybeing made.
And it helps you as aninvestigator.
And the reason I talked toCecilia is to try to educate
investigators, but what are thebiases that we're walking in
with?
And even if we're not, what isthat survivor walking in with
(34:19):
fearful of?
Even if the investor dideverything right, she may walk
into the interview thinkingthey're gonna think I'm an
idiot.
They're gonna think I was inthis for the wrong reasons,
they're gonna blame me and maybeI'm not even gonna come forward.
SPEAKER_02 (34:31):
And very often that is the case.
SPEAKER_00 (34:33):
Right, exactly.
And so as we talked earlierabout rapport, you know, I think
it's important for people tounderstand it takes a lot for
somebody to come forward andshare these things, a lot of
vulnerability.
And they more than likely aregoing through this process
internally themselves first,right?
Who they're not gonna believeme.
I don't remember the details, Idon't have any proof, all these
kinds of things.
We need to take that inconsideration as investigators
(34:55):
of understanding how much ittook for somebody to come
forward and have a little bit ofgrace in that interaction to
make sure we can continue tosupport them throughout the
process.
SPEAKER_02 (35:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
That was an excellent example.
Thank you for giving us theinformation on that one.
So just moving on a little bitfrom there, because domestic
violence or sexual assaultvictims and survivors often
suffer a variety of traumas, aswe've discussed.
And these can be physically,physiologically,
psychologically, or emotionally,and these may impact their
(35:26):
ability to effectivelycommunicate.
And you've kind of touched onthis already.
But how do factors like age,mental health, or intellectual
disabilities affect thelikelihood of giving a false
confession?
SPEAKER_00 (35:40):
There's a recent white paper that I recommend
people go if you're reallyinterested in this topic.
It's open source.
It's called Police InducedConfessions 2.0.
And in that paper, they talkabout factors that contribute to
the likelihood of a falseconfession.
And one category are thedispositional risk factors.
And this can be anything fromtrauma, it can be age, and age
(36:02):
is more than a number, right?
Developmental age is differentthan just numeric age.
And it can be life experiences,it can be other intellectual
disabilities and things likethat.
It can be the state thatperson's in that day if they're
under the influence, right?
If they're intoxicated.
We know that those things cancause a higher susceptibility
for people to falsely confess.
And I'll just kind of breakthese in two ways.
(36:23):
One is it makes them moresuggestible.
They're somebody of a youthfulage, for example.
And what the research has shown,it's not just this magic number
of 18, right?
We all know when you hit your18th birthday, you're not
magically an adult all of asudden.
SPEAKER_02 (36:35):
True, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (36:36):
Um what the research shows, it's more around the age
of 25 that people are more kindof developmentally mature,
especially males with the front.
I wasn't gonna say it, but yougot it, right?
SPEAKER_02 (36:47):
I couldn't resist.
SPEAKER_00 (36:48):
The research says it, so you're right.
But what's interesting, if youthink anybody that's listening,
if you know, imagine when youwere 16, 17, and a lot of you
probably listening, maybe socialmedia did not exist when you
were 16 or 17, which is probablya good thing.
And you think about how oftenyou have to educate people of
that age, don't post that,right?
(37:09):
Don't put that on Facebook orTwitter or Instagram or
whatever, because that mightcome back and haunt you 10 years
from now.
SPEAKER_02 (37:14):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (37:14):
But when you're 16 years old, you're not thinking
about 10 years ahead.
You're thinking about what'sthis gonna do for me today.
And that's one example of howthat same kind of immediate
gratification can happen in aninterview setting of somebody of
it, maybe a youthful age iswell, I don't want to be in the
interview.
I don't want to be sitting in apolice station.
I don't want to be in the backof a patrol car.
I don't want to be, you know, ata school resource officer's
(37:37):
office.
The easiest way to remove myselffrom an interview is tell the
investigator what they want tohear so I can go home.
And maybe the attorneys willfigure it out.
Maybe they'll realize I was, youknow, there's other evidence
that clears me.
Let me just get out of thesetting.
So investigators need to beaware of that, right?
What who am I talking to?
What vulnerabilities might theyhave?
The other issue, and there's avariety of things that can
(37:59):
happen when it comes tosuggestibility, but the other
perspective is not only whatincentivizes somebody to maybe
falsely confess, it's how dothey present themselves in the
interview that creates a biasnow from the investigator.
So we talked a little bit aboutthis before, but if you have a
survivor who has maybeexperienced trauma, you know,
maybe there's a trigger duringthe interview that causes them
(38:21):
to have a kind of a behavioralreaction that seems abnormal.
Maybe they tell their story andthey're stoic.
There's no emotion.
Maybe they laugh when they telltheir story.
An investigator who's not traumainformed might take each one of
those things as, hey, that'sweird, right?
Why is there no emotion whenthey're telling me about this
really terrible attack?
And so it's two things.
It's yes, it makes people moresuggestible.
(38:43):
People who've been in apartnership with intimate
violence exists, may feel thesame concept or context in an
interrogation where I betterjust comply with somebody
because I don't know what'sgoing to happen if I don't,
right?
That same kind of victimology.
And then on the other side, it'sagain how do they present
themselves to the investigator?
And how can we be moretrauma-informed in our
observation of these people?
SPEAKER_02 (39:05):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
And one thing that comes to mindfor me while you were explaining
that process is that victims of,let's say, domestic violence or
sexual assault, or even victimsof other crimes, and uh still
people who commit crimes havevirtually zero practice being in
(39:29):
an interview with lawenforcement or participating in
an interrogation.
So there is no training for thecivilian because no one ever
expects to be in that situation.
SPEAKER_00 (39:44):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
I mean, even think about to makethis really practical in real
life for people, walking throughthe metal detector at TSA or
going through customs whenyou're going to a new country,
some people you automaticallyfeel like you've got a kilo of
cocaine in your backpack orsomething.
SPEAKER_02 (40:02):
It can be very intimidating.
And even though, you know, I gotnothing going on, right?
But I'm like, gosh, they'regonna find something.
I know I did I packed somethingwrong today.
SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
Right.
And so now think about that.
Something with zero, very lowstakes.
You've done nothing wrong, butyou might be nervous because
it's just an uncomfortablesetting, you're not used to it.
Now, now, if we play this out,right, that nervousness could be
interpreted by a TSA agent orborder patrol as well.
Why is Maria looking a littleoff?
Why is she like looking aroundand sweating all of a sudden and
(40:34):
kind of crossing her arms?
She must have been up to nogood.
That's the same thing that canhappen in interviews.
So you're right.
This is something that youinvestigators have to realize.
We may conduct interviews everyday.
You're in this setting everyday.
The police station is youroffice, potentially.
The patrol car is your office.
Somebody's men maybe has neverbeen in there before, especially
(40:54):
a survivor.
You gotta think about howintimidating that can be to go
to somewhere you've never been.
It's the same reason when I goto the doctor's office, my blood
pressure, they think I'm aboutto die until they take it 15
minutes later and theneverything's fine.
SPEAKER_02 (41:06):
Yeah.
White coat syndrome is a wholeother story.
Just sidebar on that, is thereany training for individuals or
s a resource for individuals whomight want to understand what
that process is of policeinvestigation or interrogation
(41:31):
just for their own knowledge?
SPEAKER_00 (41:33):
There's there's a great book that just got
published, I think it was lastyear, called Duped by Saul
Casson.
Saul's a professor at John JayUniversity.
He's also one of the leadingscholars in police
interrogation, false confessionresearch.
The book was written in a waythat's for lay people to
understand what happens in aninvestigation.
(41:54):
The concept of the title, duped,is people kind of being duped
into falsely confessing.
And and Saul does a really greatjob in that book.
I highly recommend it of kind ofgiving case examples.
He worked on Amanda Knox's caseand he talks specifically about
that one and some others.
But how you, as a person, as aparent, can be just more
educated and informed as to whathappens.
(42:14):
You know, and the other thingthat's interesting, there's been
this just wave of true crimepodcasts, documentaries.
You know, it's good to watch,but all but just like anything,
watch it with an open mind,knowing that you may not be
getting all of the informationthat's relevant.
But there's just a lot more outthere to help educate, you know,
your juror today is a lot moreeducated on what happens in an
(42:35):
interrogation room than theywould have been 10 or 15 years
ago.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02 (42:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
And thanks to true crime, as youmentioned, podcasts and series
and so on, it's not always likethat.
So please do not take that for,or maybe take that for what it's
worth.
The community at large wantsoffenders held accountable and
wants to trust that the criminaljustice system gets it right.
(42:58):
But what happens to the fabricof society, to victims' sense of
security, cooperation, andjustice when suspects who did
not commit an assault, rape, orhomicide are wrongly convicted
based off of a false confession?
SPEAKER_00 (43:14):
There's a ripple effect that happens, right?
When we have a wrongfulconviction, let alone a false
confession, but when you have awrongful conviction, there's a
ripple effect.
We can talk about policecommunity relationships, which
we know are already strained insome spots throughout the
country.
And so when you haveinvestigators get somebody to
falsely confess and then convictsomebody, it can give this
(43:37):
perception that the entire kindof courtroom working group isn't
doing it right.
And what faith do we have in thesystem if they're gonna get it
wrong?
And and things like lying aboutevidence, like I talked about
earlier, that could cause orcontribute to a false
confession.
When investigators lie, that'sgonna continue to just tear
apart the police communityrelationship and the trust that
(43:58):
we need to have with lawenforcement.
It's also gonna create thisdisconnect between other
survivors or witnesses wantingto come forward in the future,
right?
If we have somebody who thewrong person was convicted, that
there's a couple things that aregonna happen here.
First of all, the wrong personbeing convicted, it's gonna
impact their life, theirfamily's life, their kids'
(44:18):
lives.
But let's think about the factif we've convicted the wrong
person, that means the actualguilty person has not been
brought to justice, which meansthey're potentially still out
there perpetrating more crimeand more victims.
That's not justice for thevictim.
And that's essentially theopposite of public safety of
what investigators want to do.
SPEAKER_02 (44:37):
Yeah, that's not good for anyone.
And everything that you justmentioned feeds the narrative
that is just gone on way toolong that law enforcement is
corrupt and cannot be trusted.
And thereby when people arevictim of a crime like domestic
violence, they may hesitate toreport it.
SPEAKER_00 (44:52):
Right.
And investigators want to get itright.
And if we if we think about thiswhole conversation, these are
really difficult cases because alot of times these types of
cases, there's not a lot ofphysical evidence sometimes.
Sometimes there is.
Sometimes it relies oninterviews and talking to people
who were present or who werethere.
And it can be really difficultfor investigators to represent
(45:15):
the survivor, but really theirgoal is how do I get as much
actionable information aspossible so we can figure out
what happened.
And in that process, biases comeinto play, right?
We're not getting the details.
The details don't make sense, orthere's confliction with the
evidence, or the person's beingresistant.
And all these things can lead tothese kind of miscarriages of
justice.
(45:35):
But law enforcement, andgenerally speaking, that's the
opposite of what they want,right?
They're they're out there to tryto protect the community and
make sure people feel safe andcomfortable.
One wrongful conviction cancontaminate that perception for
an entire agency.
SPEAKER_02 (45:47):
Yeah, and we've seen countless examples, and I could
list them here, but I'm suresome will come to mind for
people that it really only takesone incident to change the
perception for good or for bad.
SPEAKER_00 (45:59):
And and the investigator, right?
We've talked about how it'sgonna obviously impact the
survivor.
And now if we've convicted thewrong person and we eventually
determine that, that means wemay have to re-traumatize the
survivor because there may beanother trial, another
investigation down the road,appeals that they're gonna have
to deal with.
And I will also say, and peoplemay not appreciate this part of
it, but it does impact theinvestigator too.
(46:21):
I've met investigators who'vebeen a part of wrongful
conviction cases that arewell-intended, really good
people, good investigators, andthey missed something or they
didn't realize that they fed toomany details to somebody until
it was too late.
And so it's just it's got thisripple effect across the entire
criminal justice system and ofcourse to the people directly
involved in the case.
SPEAKER_02 (46:42):
Aaron Powell Yeah, those are really good points.
Are there any gaps of knowledgeor training that you have
observed within the legal realmthat helps facilitate
re-victimization of thosewrongly convicted?
SPEAKER_00 (46:56):
One of the things that I have seen is it's
interesting when people arewrongly convicted and they serve
time, and I've met again, thishas been just such a humbling
experience to meet people who'vebeen on death row and been
exonerated, who've serveddecades that were innocent and
been exonerated.
And what's really troubling thatyou know, people that watch
documentaries and they see thetrue crime stuff on TV is they
(47:19):
think, oh, this person they gotexonerated and now they filed a
$20 million lawsuit, or nowthey're on TV shows or whatever.
That is few and far between,right?
A lot of people who've beenwrongly convicted when they
finally are able to prove theirinnocence, which is not an easy
feat, and they're able to nolonger be incarcerated.
(47:41):
What support do they have then?
That that's the huge gap.
What support do they have to geta job?
You know, somebody who's beenlocked away for 20 years that
now they don't have creditscore, they don't have an email
address, they don't, how arethey going to fill out an online
job application when theyhaven't been online in two
decades?
You know, they don't know how toget their social security
number.
There's all these differentsimple things that we kind of
(48:03):
take for granted.
And then just natural socialskills, right?
You have somebody who's been,again, incarcerated for quite
some time.
Are they familiar with how tonavigate in today's world?
And so more support for folkswho are lucky enough to reach
the exoneration point.
When I say lucky enough, becausethere's some people that we know
(48:24):
are wrongly convicted and arestill locked away trying to
fight for their freedom.
So I think there's a there'sjust a gap in the re-entry plan
for those folks and the support.
SPEAKER_02 (48:32):
Absolutely.
Yeah, that there are some newprograms these days that address
the things that you mentioned,but there are probably nearly
not enough.
And it begs the question abouthow victims and survivors and
those who have been falselyconvicted and imprisoned cannot
afford legal representation oreven work with attorneys who
(48:57):
might or might not betrauma-informed.
So, what tips do you have forany of those populations to get
the support system that can helpthem either avoid a false
confession or challenge a falseconviction?
SPEAKER_00 (49:14):
Yeah, it's tough because like we mentioned kind
of at the onset, is a lot oftimes people feel alone, right?
A survivor feels alone, even inthe beginning of trying to
report something in the firstplace.
I can't advocate stronger thanto get an attorney, even if you
have to get a public defenderbecause you can't afford an
attorney.
A lot of investigators andpolice that may be listening,
(49:35):
you know, it's funny becausewhen we teach interview and
interrogation techniques, ofcourse, an investigator wants to
be able to talk to somebody andthey feel like the attorney is
always going to get in the way.
But if you asked aninvestigator, hey, if you or
your kids were ever pulled infor an interview, what would you
tell them to do?
And well, get an attorney.
Well, what if you were right?
If you were pulled in, if you'rean investigator listening and
(49:56):
internal affairs pulled you intoa conversation, you're not doing
that without your unionrepresentative in the room with
you.
Right.
And so I think people just needto know that you do you have
rights in these settings and youshould you should leverage those
rights, right?
Is making sure you have theproper support.
There's a lot of great advocategroups out there that can help,
you know, even help throughoutthe trial process to make sure
(50:19):
that you feel comfortable andprepared and kind of help
throughout the trial and evenpost if that happens.
But uh don't be shy and askingfor help, I think is the
simplest way to put that.
But you have rights, make surethat you use them.
SPEAKER_02 (50:30):
Yeah, that's always good advice.
Where can people learn moreabout your work and this topic?
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Yeah, our website is w-z.com.
So that's really, really easy.
We got a lot of stuff on there,free resources.
I'm very active on LinkedIn, sothere's probably a million Dave
Thompsons out there.
But if you find Dave Thompsonand then a CFI, certified
forensic interviewer, you'llfind me.
And as we were talking earlier,we've got a podcast as well for
people that are podcast junkies.
(50:56):
Once you listen to all of thepodcasts on crimes against women
episodes, then check out TruthBe Told.
We also have a podcast where wetalk to people just about
communication in general, butall free resources.
SPEAKER_02 (51:08):
I could not agree with you more.
Dave, thanks so much for beingon the show.
SPEAKER_00 (51:13):
Absolutely.
Thanks for having me, and thanksto all for listening to such an
important topic.
SPEAKER_02 (51:17):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 21st Annual Conference onCrimes Against Women will be
held May 18th through the 21st,2026, in Dallas, Texas.
Learn more at conferencecaw.organd be the first to know about
all conference details, as wellas the latest on the Institute
(51:41):
for Coordinated CommunityResponse, Annual Conference
Summit, Beyond the Bounds, andthe National Training Center on
Crimes Against Women when youfollow us on social media at
NationalCCAW.
The subject matter of this podcast will address
difficult topics, multiple formsof violence, and identity-based
discrimination and harassment.
We acknowledge that this contentmay be difficult and have listed
specific content warnings ineach episode description to help
create a positive, safeexperience for all listeners.
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
In this country, 31 million crimes.
31 million crimes are reportedevery year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutes,there is a murder.
Every five minutes, there is arape, every two to five minutes,
there is a sexual assault.
Every nine seconds in thiscountry, a woman is assaulted by
someone who told her that heloved her, by someone who told
(00:41):
her it was her fault, by someonewho tries to tell the rest of us
it's none of our business.
And I am proud to stand heretoday with each of you to call
that perpetrator a liar.
SPEAKER_02 (01:07):
Today's conversation will be about false confessions
and wrongful convictions,primarily of domestic violence,
sexual assault, or traffickingvictims and survivors, women
who, in moments of desperation,either engaged in criminal
activity to cope or survive,were the victims of a crime and
not believed or who killed theirabuser.
Survivors are especiallyvulnerable to coercive police
(01:30):
interrogation tactics, includinglong high-pressure questioning,
false evidence, or promises ofleniency.
Many others falsely confess outof fear, hopelessness, or
misunderstanding, believing thatthey can clear it up later in
court.
Today we'll explore howinvestigative interviewing, the
initial phase where trust andopenness are built, can make or
(01:52):
break the ethical foundation ofan interview.
When done right, it encouragesaccurate, detailed disclosures.
When done wrong, it can lead todevastating consequences.
David Thompson, an expert ininterviewing and interrogation
techniques, will help us examinehow trauma-informed approaches
can protect survivors fromfurther harm.
David Thompson is a partner andpresident of Wicklander Zulowski
(02:15):
and Associates, responsible forthe company's strategic vision
and oversees the business'sday-to-day operations.
Mr.
Thompson also leads theevolution of interview and
interrogation curriculumdevelopment to provide
research-based investigativetools to practitioners while
driving change in the industry.
He is a highly requested speakerwho has presented customized
(02:36):
training sessions to clients inboth the private and public
sectors.
Additionally, Mr.
Thompson has presented at publicsector training sessions,
including multiple organizedcrime associations, as well as
the U.S.
Immigration and CustomsEnforcement, U.S.
Marshall Service, New York StateOffice of Attorney Generals,
U.S.
Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment, and many others.
(02:59):
Mr.
Thompson has also deliveredseminars domestically and
internationally for multipleFortune 500 companies.
He hosts the Truth Be Toldpodcast that focuses on
mastering the art of strategicconversations.
Dave, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (03:18):
Thanks for having me.
I'm excited to talk about suchan important topic.
SPEAKER_02 (03:21):
Today we'll be discussing your work in the
field of strategicconversations.
And it may be important to makethe distinction that there are
interviews and interrogations ofperpetrators or offenders, and
then interviews andinterrogations of victims or
survivors that can lead to afalse confession or a wrongful
conviction for both parties.
(03:42):
So for the purpose of thispodcast episode, we would like
to focus on how victims andsurvivors can end up falsely
confessing to the commission orcomplicity of a crime, or can be
re-victimized or re-traumatizedwhen they are recalling details
of a crime against them and theyare not believed or being taken
(04:02):
seriously.
So that being said, before wereally dive into the whole
topic, help us understand yourbackground.
What led you to the interviewand interrogation space and
ultimately to the work thatyou're doing now?
SPEAKER_00 (04:18):
My background is kind of a little bit of all over
the place.
I worked in the field conductinginvestigations.
The company that I'mrepresenting here, Wicklander
Zelowski, has been in the fieldof training and teaching
interview and interrogationtechniques for over four
decades.
So really a long time ofteaching effective communication
strategies.
And I know what we'll get intotoday is how much of that has
(04:40):
changed over the last fourdecades and really more
specifically the last 10 years.
But for me, I was somebody whowas in the field as a
practitioner conductinginterviews and investigations
and just took a passion and aninterest into how research can
impact science and practice andlearned a lot about wrongful
convictions and falseconfessions in the most recent
years and brought that into ourtraining curriculum.
SPEAKER_02 (05:02):
So how has that become your niche topic?
SPEAKER_00 (05:06):
I grew a passion for how powerful communication can
be sometimes in the wrong wayand understanding the impact
that investigators can have withgood intent, but maybe the wrong
outcome.
And really the kind of turningpoint for me, like most people
nowadays, I got hooked onwatching Netflix documentaries
(05:27):
and I saw the Making a Murdererdocumentary back almost 11 years
ago now about Brendan Dassey'scase up in Wisconsin.
And I saw this interrogation ofa young, vulnerable person,
interviewee, Brendan, andimmediately was frustrated and
aggravated and also felt like,hey, if we've got this platform
of training investigators, wealso have a responsibility to
(05:48):
stand up for when we don't feellike it's being done right.
And at that time, I kind of tooka passion of learning about
what's the impact of improperinvestigation techniques, and
since then have really learned alot more about how this impacts
survivors, interviewingwitnesses and then interviewing
maybe suspects or people ofinterest in different crimes.
SPEAKER_02 (06:08):
This is a topic that has not been talked about very
much until recently.
This is kind of more currentinformation, and listeners may
not realize the magnitude offalse confessions and wrongful
convictions, especially as itrelates to domestic violence
survivors.
Can you share some statistics ofhow pervasive this phenomenon
(06:32):
is?
SPEAKER_00 (06:33):
Yeah, you know what's crazy when whenever I
discuss false confessions,whether it's in a training room
or in a courtroom, peopleimmediately think, well, I would
never falsely confess.
This is probably just somethingI see on a TV show or a
documentary or Law and Order.
But in the last three decadesnow, thanks to groups like the
Innocence Project and othergroups, DNA has been able to
(06:54):
show us tangibly andsubstantially how many proven
innocent people have also beenwrongly convicted and falsely
confessed.
And what they have found, andthe numbers change as we
continue to get more data, butapproximately 30% of DNA proven
wrongful convictions, meaningthese are not cases turned over
on appeal.
(07:14):
These are cases where DNA hasbeen able to prove these people
were innocent.
Between 25 and 30% of thosecases contained a false
confession.
And these are from suspects ofmaybe rape or homicide cases.
And so when we think about thatnumber, which is pretty
staggering, that means courtshave allowed those confessions
to be admissible.
That means jurors have heardthose confessions.
(07:36):
And when we relate that tosurvivors or people who've
experienced trauma, the researchshows that anybody who's been
exposed to trauma, especiallymaybe like a domestic violence
survivor, is even moresusceptible or vulnerable to
falsely confessing.
A lot of those same elements inan interrogation room can be
what they've experienced in thetraumatic events leading up to
(07:57):
that in their life.
So things like being moreaccommodating, being more
complicit in order to avoidpotential punishment.
So that's the numbers that wehave.
And with a number we don't knowis how many false confessors are
out there that we haven'tidentified yet because the
evidence hasn't proven.
SPEAKER_02 (08:11):
So yeah, and that could be very difficult to
ascertain.
Before we get into the fulldetails to false confessions and
wrongful convictions, let's getsome definitions out of the way.
Could you explain to us thesimilarities and differences
between interviewing andinterrogating?
SPEAKER_00 (08:29):
Aaron Powell Scary word, right?
Interrogation.
The immediate implication iswe've got somebody in this kind
of cinder block room with alight hanging and a phone book
and all these kind of crazythings.
And so I think there's twodifferent ways to look at this.
If we look at it from more of alegal definition, right, a lot
of different things apply whensomebody is in a custodial
(08:49):
interrogation.
Miranda may apply, right?
Somebody is not free to leave.
They're being accused of acrime.
They're being directlyquestioned about that crime by
somebody of law enforcement or asworn officer.
Typically, when you're lookingat an interview, are more
non-custodial.
These might be more witnesses,maybe a complainant, a victim
interview.
It could be a survivor, it couldbe somebody that's more
(09:11):
fact-gathering.
And so when you look at it kindof from a legal aspect, you can
categorize is this an interviewand it's non-custodial, or is
this a custodial interrogation?
However, as we're going tocontinue to explore kind of
false confessions and theevolution of interviewing,
really what we're trying tofocus on is that every
conversation should be aninvestigative interview,
regardless if the person you'retalking to is suspected of
(09:34):
wrongdoing, or they're the onecoming forward to complain of
some type of wrongdoing.
Changing the goal of why am Iwalking in that room?
Is it to get an admission or aconfession, or is it just to get
information?
And our goal is to move everyconversation to the latter is
let's just try to get as muchactionable information as we
can.
SPEAKER_02 (09:52):
So I don't know much about interrogation practices or
strategies or interviewstrategies as they relate to
this particular topic, but Iwould assume that approaching
anything from the position ofcuriosity may give you the
results that you're looking for.
SPEAKER_00 (10:08):
Yeah, you're right.
Curiosity is such an importantmindset to walk in with.
We call it an investigativemindset what details can we get
to help us maybe eliminatepotential options or maybe
narrow down or find moreevidence.
What you often see in eitherfalse confession cases, or as
we're talking specifically aboutmaybe survivors being
(10:30):
interviewed and being eitherforced or compelled to give
information that's not true, iswhen an investigator lacks
curiosity and instead replacesthat with assumption, assumption
of guilt, assumption ofownership, biases, those types
of things, a premeditated kindof mindset instead of allowing
the interviewee to tell thestory themselves.
SPEAKER_02 (10:52):
Yeah, and that could be particularly difficult for
when interviewing survivors,right?
And that's why it's so importantto use those trauma-informed
survivor interview techniques,which is something that we are
going to get into as well inthis conversation.
Now, when we talk aboutcommunication, a lot of us have
heard the old adage,communication is key, and that
(11:13):
can mean a lot of differentthings to different people.
How does that apply to your workand how crucial is this adage in
the world of effective andsuccessful interviewing and
interrogation?
SPEAKER_00 (11:24):
It's everything, right?
I mean, when an investigatorwants to get information out of
somebody, it's the same conceptif somebody wants their kids to
tell them the truth, or theywant their friend to feel
comfortable to share somethingawful that happened in their
life, or their significant otherto share what happened during
their day.
Communication is so important,and it's more about talking.
(11:45):
It's more than just listening.
It's being an engaged listener.
It's developing rapport in aneffective and genuine way.
It's projecting empathy withsincerity.
It's asking questions andactually reflecting on
somebody's answer.
So, yeah, communication isfundamental in the investigative
interview and really ineverything that an investigator
(12:06):
does.
But for people that arelistening that aren't in that
occupation, you communicateevery day, whether it's with
your coworkers, it's with yourfamily members, it's with your
friends.
And we all kind of fall into thesame traps.
We all walk in with assumptions,we walk in with sometimes
outside voices, you're having abad day, and you take that into
a meeting at work.
And so communication isfundamental, but it's really
(12:27):
focusing on what is the mosteffective strategy to be
sincere, genuine, and try to getas much actionable information
out of that conversation aspossible.
SPEAKER_02 (12:35):
Yeah.
And also don't always approachit.
I'm not an expert in this, butI'm going to offer my opinion.
Okay.
Don't approach it as if everyonewould understand what you mean
maybe the first time around.
Use terms that really tell yourstory in a way that is both
meaningful to you and can bereceived by others, right?
SPEAKER_00 (12:56):
Yeah.
I had somebody I was talking toabout something similar to this.
It's almost called like thecurse of knowledge, right?
When you feel like you have somuch information about something
or you work it every day andyou're talking to somebody, you
think they know what you'rewhat's in your head already.
And yeah, it's recognizing youknow everybody that we talk to
has a different background,different experiences, different
knowledge level of what you'retalking about.
(13:16):
And even in the investigativespace, if you hang out with a
bunch of cops for the day,there's a lot of lingo and
jargon and 10 codes that you'regoing to hear that most people
have no idea what they'retalking about.
And when those things can creepin to a conversation with a
survivor, they can beintimidating, they could be
potentially misleading, and theycan be confusing.
SPEAKER_02 (13:34):
Aaron Powell That is exactly what I was trying to
say, but didn't say very well.
You clearly know how to do thisjob, right?
Having conversations andinterpreting what other people
say.
SPEAKER_00 (13:44):
Aaron Powell You get credit for thinking of the idea.
So that's how this works.
SPEAKER_02 (13:48):
Oh, that's fair.
Yeah, thank you.
You mentioned empathy a coupleof minutes ago, and it can be
difficult to understand or evenempathize with someone who
falsely confesses because manypeople believe that a person who
would not admit to committing acrime that they did not commit.
So let's get into that part ofthis conversation and that
topic.
(14:08):
Can you share with us some ofthe common reasons as to why
people falsely confess and howthe training that you offer
helps to address those factors?
SPEAKER_00 (14:19):
Yeah, I think I mentioned this a little bit
earlier.
It's so hard to communicate topeople that have never been in a
position like that.
Why would somebody falselyconfess?
It's the same thing, you know,when we talk again about
survivors of domestic violenceor sexual assault or these
terrible crimes, people think,well, why didn't you leave?
Why didn't you do this?
And it's like, unless you're inthat situation, it's so hard to
(14:40):
describe the pressure and theemotional kind of overbearing of
your will in thosecircumstances.
Where I've gained the mostempathy for people that have
falsely confessed is having theopportunity to talk to people
who've actually been in thatsituation.
And there's a ton of research,and we can talk about the
research and what the sciencesays, but sitting down and
having a conversation withsomebody who was in an interview
(15:03):
room or an interrogation roomwho had to make a decision, a
risk versus benefit decision ofdo I confess to something I
didn't do, or do I continue totry to assert the fact that I'm
innocent where it's not goinganywhere?
What's the best choice here?
And some false confessions wecan talk about are voluntary.
(15:24):
People come in and they justsay, hey, I did this because
maybe they want credit.
Maybe they want to takeownership for something so
somebody else doesn't get introuble.
But the majority of falseconfessions are a source of some
type of coercion by theinvestigator.
So you've got a person who'seither feeling like they have to
be compliant with theinvestigator because they're
refusing to accept denials ortheir own narrative.
(15:46):
And then you also have falseconfessions that can be a source
of contamination.
And we can dig into both ofthese things, but that's more so
where a person starts to almostbelieve that they could be it's
a coerced internalizedconfession where they actually
start to believe what theinvestigator is saying is true,
right?
Well, maybe I blacked out.
Well, maybe I don't rememberwhat happened, and maybe what
(16:07):
they're telling me is the actualnarrative.
So you've got kind of twocategories that we can dive
into, one of which is thecoerced confession where
somebody knows coercedcompliant.
They know they didn't do it, butthey feel like there's no choice
other than complying.
The other is they start toself-doubt maybe what the
investigator is saying isactually true.
SPEAKER_02 (16:24):
Aaron Ross Powell And anyone who's watched any of
these true crime shows on TV hasa feel for what those interviews
look like and interrogationslook like.
And to be clear, it's not justwith alleged perpetrators that
these conversations arehappening, it's also with
victims.
So a woman who is beinginterviewed by police about a
(16:47):
sexual assault can be talked outof the fact that it actually
happened to her, even though shejust reported it, right?
SPEAKER_00 (16:55):
Right.
Yeah, and let's kind of breakthat down.
So when you look at what theresearch shows on how a false
confession kind of transpires,there's really three main
errors.
And these can apply, as youmentioned, in a suspect
interview, or it can apply in aninterview with a survivor.
The first of which is calledmisclassification.
And so this means what caused aninvestigator to classify the
(17:18):
person they're talking to aseither guilty or as a liar or
being untruthful.
The second is coercion, which wecan dive into.
That's kind of the tactics beingused.
And the third is contamination.
But let's stick with the firstof misclassification.
What happens often withsurvivors is investigators are
observing physical behavior andthey're listening to the verbal
(17:40):
behavior, and somebody's storyis kind of out of sync and some
of the details are missing.
And what we know, obviously,from what the research has shown
us, is that's a directreflection of somebody who's
experienced trauma, where we allreact differently, our behavior
is different.
But an investigator who's maybenot properly trained or not
trauma informed, or any layperson that's listening, right?
(18:02):
You've all talked to somebody inyour life, or they're telling
you a story about something, andyou think, I don't think that
story's true.
They shouldn't laugh when theytold a story about something bad
that happened, or I would havebeen more angry than they were
if that happened to me.
Those are all assumptions.
We don't know how we would reactunless we were in that
situation.
So the first thing to thinkabout is how are we improperly
(18:23):
assessing somebody's credibilitybased off of their maybe
physical behavior or theirmemory?
The research shows us that justtalk physical behavior, for
example, our accuracy atidentifying deception based off
of somebody sneezing andscratching their face and
crossing their arms is about54%, which means we may as well
flip a quarter and have just asgood luck.
(18:44):
And so kind of step one is howdo we remove this bias of this
person feels guilty, it smellslike they're lying to me, I
don't really like the waythey're telling the story.
That means they're a liar.
And let's convert that to, hey,let's be trauma-informed and
understand that that can happen.
What information can they giveme and how can I investigate
those details?
SPEAKER_02 (19:05):
Yeah, those are all excellent points.
And anyone who's in this type ofwork as part of their career
would understand some of thenecessary training that needs to
be taken in order to participatein these interviews in the most
appropriate way.
So maybe we can talk for aminute about that.
What practices and protocols canlaw enforcement and legal
(19:26):
agencies implement to helpmitigate these types of
confessions and these behaviorsfrom investigators?
SPEAKER_00 (19:34):
Training is obviously important, and I'm
going to stand on that.
One thing that's kind ofinteresting, when you think
about all the training thatinvestigators get, and there's
so many responsibilities thatlaw enforcement has, we
sometimes underestimate how manyareas a law enforcement
professional has to be an expertin day to day.
And so there's a lot oftraining.
But what's interesting is whenyou think about, you know, they
(19:55):
got to carry a firearm and theygo through training in the
academy and they probably haveto re-qualify annually, or
depending on what state they'rein.
Um maybe if they carry a taser,they have to go through training
on the taser to be certified andthen have to requalify.
When you talk aboutcommunication, de-escalation,
interviewing, interrogating,most states, most agencies don't
(20:16):
have requirements for how muchcontinued education does
somebody have to have, right?
A lot of agencies will say forlaw enforcement, you mean?
For law enforcement, right.
So you might go to a two-day ora three-day or five-day course,
and then that's it for 15, 20year career, maybe a couple of
random trainings here and there.
But one thing is when we sendsomebody to training, first of
(20:37):
all, making sure it's current.
Imagine going to your doctor andhaving surgery, and they told
you they graduated medicalschool 20 years ago, but they
don't believe in any researchsince then, right?
You'd probably find anotherpractitioner.
SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
Yeah, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00 (20:49):
Right.
So I think it's continuededucation, but it's also making
sure, just like anything inlife, you can send somebody to
training, but are we followingup?
Are we evaluating, are werecording the conversations if
possible?
If they're with a survivor,maybe depending on the
situation, maybe not the righttime to do it.
But is there a secondaryinterviewer?
Is there people that are givingfeedback?
Um, so training is one.
(21:11):
Recording documentation isanother.
Evaluating the processconsistently and providing
feedback is really important.
And then it's really making surewe know what we're evaluating.
And so we can dig into that.
But you know, we talked aboutmisclassification as kind of the
first error of a falseconfession.
What you're talking about now iswhat is the investigator
actually doing in the room withthat information, right?
(21:32):
What, how are they askingquestions?
What's that process look like?
And that's the part we can spendsome time on.
This is where people need to bebetter interviewers every day in
life, better communicators, sothat we're allowing people to
feel like they can cooperatewith us versus have to be
compliant with us.
SPEAKER_02 (21:48):
Yeah, great points.
There are many law enforcementdetectives and investigators who
believe that they are doing theright thing in the name of
justice by aggressivelyconfronting suspects, especially
if the evidence appears to lineup or the suspect seems to be
uncooperative.
So I have several questions toexplore around this topic.
(22:09):
So we'll just take them one byone.
And to begin, where dointerviewers possibly get this
wrong?
SPEAKER_00 (22:18):
Step one, I think, is what is the goal of the
conversation?
And a lot of times if you'rewalking in with somebody based
off what you just said, right,the evidence is lining up, the
person's giving us this vibethat they're being resistant or
uncooperative, who wouldn't walkin the room with a presumption
of guilt?
We know that that makes sense.
The problem is that's not theright mindset for an
investigator.
(22:38):
An investigator, as youmentioned earlier, should walk
in with curiosity and shouldwalk in with, even if I've got
evidence that points in acertain direction, even if I've
got this, you know, spideysense, gut feeling, whatever you
want to call it, that theperson's not being truthful.
My job is not to try to be a liedetector in the room.
My job is to try to getinformation I don't already
have.
(22:58):
How can I get information thatcan go further investigate?
I think step one is let's justlet's change the goal of the
conversation.
And the same thing we're talkingto a survivor.
It's not necessarily how can Iprove that the survivor story is
wrong or how can I prove it tobe true?
It's how can I create asituation, an environment where
they are comfortable enough toshare as many details as
(23:20):
possible with me so I can go domy job and investigate?
That's the goal of theseconversations.
What's the purpose of thatoutcome can kind of change
what's the process we're goingto use to get there.
SPEAKER_02 (23:29):
Perfect.
So we have step one there.
What specific skills areinterrogators missing in order
to get this right?
SPEAKER_00 (23:39):
I think there's a few things, Era.
You mentioned earliertrauma-informed interviewing,
and really just talk abouttrauma-informed.
It's making sure investigatorsare aware and have the knowledge
of how trauma can impactsomebody's ability to recall
information, to be present andhow they present themselves in
the interview room, what thedetails are going to look like,
potentially how their behaviormay be off from what we suspect
(24:02):
to be or hope to be normal inthe conversation.
So I think one skill set a lotof investigators can learn more
about is being moretrauma-informed.
A second is how to actuallyproject empathy and develop
rapport from a science-basedperspective.
A lot of times people thinkabout rapport and they think,
well, I met my neighbor outyesterday cutting the grass and
(24:24):
we talked about the weather, sowe developed some rapport.
And that's nice.
That's just kind of breaking theice, and that's just having
these nicety conversations.
And you get a lot of people thatmight be advocates, it could be
sexual assault nurse examiners,that could be dealing with
survivors in a variety of ways.
There's a lot of differentfundamental ways where people
have needs-based rapport.
(24:44):
What do they need to feelcomfortable in this current
situation?
What do they need to feelcomfortable, not only just from
a mental health perspective, butalso comfortable enough to share
some pretty intimate andtraumatic experiences in their
life?
So I think investigators canlearn more skill sets on how to
effectively develop rapport andthen how to just be a better
listener.
(25:05):
We talked about active listeningall the time, but how to
actually listen to what somebodyis saying, reflect on the
answer, leave space and holdthat space for somebody, and
then respond appropriately withmore follow-up questions.
Again, that goes back to stepone of what's our purpose.
If we walk in with a singulargoal, you can feel that during
the interview.
Every question is going to beleading and guided towards one
(25:27):
specific goal.
If we change the goal, it canaffect the way that we question
and interact with somebodythroughout the conversation.
SPEAKER_02 (25:33):
So is rapport building effective even when you
believe someone committed aviolent crime?
SPEAKER_00 (25:43):
Rap building is not only effective, it's essential.
And even in the most high-stakesinvestigations, there was one of
the largest, if not the largest,field studies of interrogations
was done a few years ago,focused on rapport-based
interpersonal techniques andsome really high-stakes
(26:03):
interrogations withcounterterror suspects.
Lawrence Allison was one of theauthors on a book titled Orbit
to give them credit for all theresearch that they did.
But if I remember, I believethey re-reviewed over 2,000
hours of footage ofinterrogations and coded what
are the different elements ofrapport and kind of
interpersonal dynamics duringthe conversations.
(26:25):
And so if you think about it, inthe most high-stakes
conversations with people thatcouldn't have less in common,
you've got somebody who reallyjust terrible mindset of what
they want to do and someintelligence that could be
life-saving information that youneed to get.
So you have a lot of pressure onthe investigator.
And they found that havingrapport and treating people with
(26:45):
humanity and respect was themost efficient way to gain the
most actionable intelligence.
So if we're seeing it in thathigh-stakes conversation, you
can just understand, you cankind of extrapolate that to all
these other conversations of howessential rapport is to allow
somebody to feel comfortablesharing their truth.
SPEAKER_02 (27:04):
Good to know.
SPEAKER_00 (27:18):
Yeah, there's quite a few tactics we can talk about,
one of which is even insincererapport.
If you talk about, just to buildoff of the rapport concept,
there was a study recently done,and I just forgot the name of
the author of the study, but theconcept was when we talked about
these specific types of caseswith crimes against women.
They had participants review orwatch videos, like the sex ed
(27:42):
videos you might watch in gradeschool.
And then they watched thesevideos and then they had them
interviewed by people afterwardson what did you learn in the
video?
What were kind of some thingsthat you saw?
And these are uncomfortableconversations naturally.
SPEAKER_02 (27:53):
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (27:54):
But they had people broken into groups.
One group had a rapportcondition.
So when they were interviewing,they were following up with the
questions.
Hey, I know this might bedifficult to talk about.
I know this can be embarrassing,but just share it with me.
And that's interesting.
Can you tell me more about it?
And then the other group, norapport, right?
Just a line of questioning,answer, question, answer,
question.
And what they studied was notonly a survey afterwards of the
(28:16):
participants of how did youfeel, and you had a huge
increase in obviously thefeeling of rapport and comfort.
But they also, and of equalimportance, measured how much
information did they get.
And they had a significantincrease in the amount of
information and the accuracy ofinformation obtained in the
group that had rapport.
And so when you think aboutthat, if you're interviewing or
(28:38):
talking to somebody that's asurvivor, even a witness, about
a really intimate,uncomfortable, traumatic event,
it just shows you how essentialrapport is to allow people to
feel comfortable to share suchan event, right?
Or so many details about such anevent.
So some of the tactics that canlead to false confessions, one
of which is just not havingenough rapport to allow somebody
(29:00):
to feel comfortable to tell youtheir truth, right?
Instead, they feel like theyjust have to tell you what you
want to hear.
Another issue that we see oftenis called the false evidence
ploy, lying about evidence,essentially.
So in the United States, there'sa Supreme Court law in 1969,
Fraser versus Cup, whichactually allows investigators to
lie about evidence during aninterview.
So they could say, Maria, wehave your fingerprints on the
(29:23):
weapon, or we have your DNAhere, or we have video footage
of whatever.
Investigators, to a point, areallowed to lie about evidence.
We're actually seeing a changein that practice.
Right now, I think there's 10,maybe now 11 states that have
passed legislation where ifinvestigators lie to a juvenile
about evidence, that confessionis presumed inadmissible, which
(29:45):
is good, move forward.
But one of the tacticsinvestigators have always used
because they've been trained onit and it's been permissible is
lying about evidence.
So imagine talking to a survivorwho's being told, I hear your
story.
However, we've got video thatshows.
That you actually willinglywalked into that house, or we've
got your DNA in a room that yousaid you were never in, or
(30:06):
whatever the lie is.
Now you've got a survivor who'salready dealing with trauma, who
maybe let's say there's asituation where they were under
the influence.
So now the investigatorssuggesting things may have
happened, they don't remember ithappened.
And those types of things, thefalse evidence ploy, can cause
people to have what's calledmemory distrust and start to
think, well, if you're tellingme that you've got video, you're
(30:28):
telling me you have witnessesand you have DNA, maybe my
memory is wrong.
Maybe you're right.
Right.
And that can be one of thecauses.
And I'll just real high level,and you we can dig into these
further.
Some of the other issues areleading questions, a concept of
maximization and minimization,which is basically if you
cooperate with me, this will begood, this will go well for you.
(30:49):
If you don't cooperate with me,you're probably the worst of the
worst people.
And then the last of which iswhat we call contamination.
And that's where investigatorsmight be feeding too many
details to the person in theinterview that they just
regurgitate back to them.
SPEAKER_02 (31:02):
Wow, that is a lot to unpack.
But I appreciate all of thebackground information on that.
Now, just to illustrate, let'suse an example.
You had the opportunity tointerview Cecilia from the
Tinder Swindler, who was avictim of a horrible financial
abuse who fought to be heard andbelieved, as well as get justice
(31:23):
for herself and others.
Can you share some of thepitfalls you discovered during
her interview with lawenforcement?
SPEAKER_00 (31:30):
Yeah.
Cecilia, first of all, all thecredit in the world to her.
Cecilia, I've talked to as wellas Jamana Kidd, is another
person who is a victim offinancial abuse.
A con artist took advantage ofher.
And so both women, extremelypowerful and vulnerable people
to be able to share theirstories.
And so give them all the creditin the world for doing so.
And what I've learned in reallythe conversations with both of
(31:52):
them, and it's not just lawenforcement, it's when somebody
comes forward and they have totalk to maybe a bank that is
saying, hey, there's some fraudon your account.
They have to talk to maybe anattorney, a prosecutor, an
investigator.
It can be an uphill battle.
And a victim or a survivor oftencan feel isolated and alone, and
there's not a lot of supportthere.
(32:13):
And who's going to believe me?
And Cecilia shared some reallysome interesting perspectives,
and same with Jamana with me.
One of which, Cecilia, for thosethat didn't watch her story on
the Tinder swindler, and now shegoes around and is educating
other potential victims ofromance scams and financial
crimes out there.
Essentially, she had somebodywho swindled her through a
(32:34):
version of a romance scam whobasically was who he was, but
then kind of trapped her intothis fake relationship,
essentially, made her feel likeshe needed to help him
financially for a variety ofreasons, and ends up taking
advantage of her and herfeelings towards him, and took a
whole bunch of money from her.
(32:54):
And in that process, she wasexplaining to me that when she
came forward, especially as awoman, that it felt different
than if a man came forward withthe same issue.
And what she explained to me onour conversation is if a man
came forward, and again, we'rekind of stereotyping and this
that may not happen all thetime, but generally speaking, if
a man came forward and said, Igot taken advantage by this, you
(33:16):
know, this attractive woman andshe stole my money, and you
know, what would be theperspective people would have of
the man?
Like, uh, I can understand howthat must have happened to you.
Like, I've seen what she lookslike, you know, I get it.
Right.
That's maybe the publicperception.
Cecilia shared with me when shekind of came forward that some
of the first impressions were,well, what the heck?
This ditzy blonde fell for thisguy.
(33:37):
What's wrong with her?
Was she just looking forsomething?
Right.
There's these kind ofstereotypes were victim blaming,
must be her fault.
You know, this must be thisditzy woman.
That's why it happened.
And for those of you, if you'rejust listening, not watching, I
used air quotes there.
But the concept was, and it wasreally powerful hearing it from
her is how investigators, thepublic, financial crime
(33:58):
investigators might look atthese issues differently if it's
a male or a female presenting asthe victim and all these
presumptions that are alreadybeing made.
And it helps you as aninvestigator.
And the reason I talked toCecilia is to try to educate
investigators, but what are thebiases that we're walking in
with?
And even if we're not, what isthat survivor walking in with
(34:19):
fearful of?
Even if the investor dideverything right, she may walk
into the interview thinkingthey're gonna think I'm an
idiot.
They're gonna think I was inthis for the wrong reasons,
they're gonna blame me and maybeI'm not even gonna come forward.
SPEAKER_02 (34:31):
And very often that is the case.
SPEAKER_00 (34:33):
Right, exactly.
And so as we talked earlierabout rapport, you know, I think
it's important for people tounderstand it takes a lot for
somebody to come forward andshare these things, a lot of
vulnerability.
And they more than likely aregoing through this process
internally themselves first,right?
Who they're not gonna believeme.
I don't remember the details, Idon't have any proof, all these
kinds of things.
We need to take that inconsideration as investigators
(34:55):
of understanding how much ittook for somebody to come
forward and have a little bit ofgrace in that interaction to
make sure we can continue tosupport them throughout the
process.
SPEAKER_02 (35:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
That was an excellent example.
Thank you for giving us theinformation on that one.
So just moving on a little bitfrom there, because domestic
violence or sexual assaultvictims and survivors often
suffer a variety of traumas, aswe've discussed.
And these can be physically,physiologically,
psychologically, or emotionally,and these may impact their
(35:26):
ability to effectivelycommunicate.
And you've kind of touched onthis already.
But how do factors like age,mental health, or intellectual
disabilities affect thelikelihood of giving a false
confession?
SPEAKER_00 (35:40):
There's a recent white paper that I recommend
people go if you're reallyinterested in this topic.
It's open source.
It's called Police InducedConfessions 2.0.
And in that paper, they talkabout factors that contribute to
the likelihood of a falseconfession.
And one category are thedispositional risk factors.
And this can be anything fromtrauma, it can be age, and age
(36:02):
is more than a number, right?
Developmental age is differentthan just numeric age.
And it can be life experiences,it can be other intellectual
disabilities and things likethat.
It can be the state thatperson's in that day if they're
under the influence, right?
If they're intoxicated.
We know that those things cancause a higher susceptibility
for people to falsely confess.
And I'll just kind of breakthese in two ways.
(36:23):
One is it makes them moresuggestible.
They're somebody of a youthfulage, for example.
And what the research has shown,it's not just this magic number
of 18, right?
We all know when you hit your18th birthday, you're not
magically an adult all of asudden.
SPEAKER_02 (36:35):
True, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (36:36):
Um what the research shows, it's more around the age
of 25 that people are more kindof developmentally mature,
especially males with the front.
I wasn't gonna say it, but yougot it, right?
SPEAKER_02 (36:47):
I couldn't resist.
SPEAKER_00 (36:48):
The research says it, so you're right.
But what's interesting, if youthink anybody that's listening,
if you know, imagine when youwere 16, 17, and a lot of you
probably listening, maybe socialmedia did not exist when you
were 16 or 17, which is probablya good thing.
And you think about how oftenyou have to educate people of
that age, don't post that,right?
(37:09):
Don't put that on Facebook orTwitter or Instagram or
whatever, because that mightcome back and haunt you 10 years
from now.
SPEAKER_02 (37:14):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (37:14):
But when you're 16 years old, you're not thinking
about 10 years ahead.
You're thinking about what'sthis gonna do for me today.
And that's one example of howthat same kind of immediate
gratification can happen in aninterview setting of somebody of
it, maybe a youthful age iswell, I don't want to be in the
interview.
I don't want to be sitting in apolice station.
I don't want to be in the backof a patrol car.
I don't want to be, you know, ata school resource officer's
(37:37):
office.
The easiest way to remove myselffrom an interview is tell the
investigator what they want tohear so I can go home.
And maybe the attorneys willfigure it out.
Maybe they'll realize I was, youknow, there's other evidence
that clears me.
Let me just get out of thesetting.
So investigators need to beaware of that, right?
What who am I talking to?
What vulnerabilities might theyhave?
The other issue, and there's avariety of things that can
(37:59):
happen when it comes tosuggestibility, but the other
perspective is not only whatincentivizes somebody to maybe
falsely confess, it's how dothey present themselves in the
interview that creates a biasnow from the investigator.
So we talked a little bit aboutthis before, but if you have a
survivor who has maybeexperienced trauma, you know,
maybe there's a trigger duringthe interview that causes them
(38:21):
to have a kind of a behavioralreaction that seems abnormal.
Maybe they tell their story andthey're stoic.
There's no emotion.
Maybe they laugh when they telltheir story.
An investigator who's not traumainformed might take each one of
those things as, hey, that'sweird, right?
Why is there no emotion whenthey're telling me about this
really terrible attack?
And so it's two things.
It's yes, it makes people moresuggestible.
(38:43):
People who've been in apartnership with intimate
violence exists, may feel thesame concept or context in an
interrogation where I betterjust comply with somebody
because I don't know what'sgoing to happen if I don't,
right?
That same kind of victimology.
And then on the other side, it'sagain how do they present
themselves to the investigator?
And how can we be moretrauma-informed in our
observation of these people?
SPEAKER_02 (39:05):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
And one thing that comes to mindfor me while you were explaining
that process is that victims of,let's say, domestic violence or
sexual assault, or even victimsof other crimes, and uh still
people who commit crimes havevirtually zero practice being in
(39:29):
an interview with lawenforcement or participating in
an interrogation.
So there is no training for thecivilian because no one ever
expects to be in that situation.
SPEAKER_00 (39:44):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
I mean, even think about to makethis really practical in real
life for people, walking throughthe metal detector at TSA or
going through customs whenyou're going to a new country,
some people you automaticallyfeel like you've got a kilo of
cocaine in your backpack orsomething.
SPEAKER_02 (40:02):
It can be very intimidating.
And even though, you know, I gotnothing going on, right?
But I'm like, gosh, they'regonna find something.
I know I did I packed somethingwrong today.
SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
Right.
And so now think about that.
Something with zero, very lowstakes.
You've done nothing wrong, butyou might be nervous because
it's just an uncomfortablesetting, you're not used to it.
Now, now, if we play this out,right, that nervousness could be
interpreted by a TSA agent orborder patrol as well.
Why is Maria looking a littleoff?
Why is she like looking aroundand sweating all of a sudden and
(40:34):
kind of crossing her arms?
She must have been up to nogood.
That's the same thing that canhappen in interviews.
So you're right.
This is something that youinvestigators have to realize.
We may conduct interviews everyday.
You're in this setting everyday.
The police station is youroffice, potentially.
The patrol car is your office.
Somebody's men maybe has neverbeen in there before, especially
(40:54):
a survivor.
You gotta think about howintimidating that can be to go
to somewhere you've never been.
It's the same reason when I goto the doctor's office, my blood
pressure, they think I'm aboutto die until they take it 15
minutes later and theneverything's fine.
SPEAKER_02 (41:06):
Yeah.
White coat syndrome is a wholeother story.
Just sidebar on that, is thereany training for individuals or
s a resource for individuals whomight want to understand what
that process is of policeinvestigation or interrogation
(41:31):
just for their own knowledge?
SPEAKER_00 (41:33):
There's there's a great book that just got
published, I think it was lastyear, called Duped by Saul
Casson.
Saul's a professor at John JayUniversity.
He's also one of the leadingscholars in police
interrogation, false confessionresearch.
The book was written in a waythat's for lay people to
understand what happens in aninvestigation.
(41:54):
The concept of the title, duped,is people kind of being duped
into falsely confessing.
And and Saul does a really greatjob in that book.
I highly recommend it of kind ofgiving case examples.
He worked on Amanda Knox's caseand he talks specifically about
that one and some others.
But how you, as a person, as aparent, can be just more
educated and informed as to whathappens.
(42:14):
You know, and the other thingthat's interesting, there's been
this just wave of true crimepodcasts, documentaries.
You know, it's good to watch,but all but just like anything,
watch it with an open mind,knowing that you may not be
getting all of the informationthat's relevant.
But there's just a lot more outthere to help educate, you know,
your juror today is a lot moreeducated on what happens in an
(42:35):
interrogation room than theywould have been 10 or 15 years
ago.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02 (42:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
And thanks to true crime, as youmentioned, podcasts and series
and so on, it's not always likethat.
So please do not take that for,or maybe take that for what it's
worth.
The community at large wantsoffenders held accountable and
wants to trust that the criminaljustice system gets it right.
(42:58):
But what happens to the fabricof society, to victims' sense of
security, cooperation, andjustice when suspects who did
not commit an assault, rape, orhomicide are wrongly convicted
based off of a false confession?
SPEAKER_00 (43:14):
There's a ripple effect that happens, right?
When we have a wrongfulconviction, let alone a false
confession, but when you have awrongful conviction, there's a
ripple effect.
We can talk about policecommunity relationships, which
we know are already strained insome spots throughout the
country.
And so when you haveinvestigators get somebody to
falsely confess and then convictsomebody, it can give this
(43:37):
perception that the entire kindof courtroom working group isn't
doing it right.
And what faith do we have in thesystem if they're gonna get it
wrong?
And and things like lying aboutevidence, like I talked about
earlier, that could cause orcontribute to a false
confession.
When investigators lie, that'sgonna continue to just tear
apart the police communityrelationship and the trust that
(43:58):
we need to have with lawenforcement.
It's also gonna create thisdisconnect between other
survivors or witnesses wantingto come forward in the future,
right?
If we have somebody who thewrong person was convicted, that
there's a couple things that aregonna happen here.
First of all, the wrong personbeing convicted, it's gonna
impact their life, theirfamily's life, their kids'
(44:18):
lives.
But let's think about the factif we've convicted the wrong
person, that means the actualguilty person has not been
brought to justice, which meansthey're potentially still out
there perpetrating more crimeand more victims.
That's not justice for thevictim.
And that's essentially theopposite of public safety of
what investigators want to do.
SPEAKER_02 (44:37):
Yeah, that's not good for anyone.
And everything that you justmentioned feeds the narrative
that is just gone on way toolong that law enforcement is
corrupt and cannot be trusted.
And thereby when people arevictim of a crime like domestic
violence, they may hesitate toreport it.
SPEAKER_00 (44:52):
Right.
And investigators want to get itright.
And if we if we think about thiswhole conversation, these are
really difficult cases because alot of times these types of
cases, there's not a lot ofphysical evidence sometimes.
Sometimes there is.
Sometimes it relies oninterviews and talking to people
who were present or who werethere.
And it can be really difficultfor investigators to represent
(45:15):
the survivor, but really theirgoal is how do I get as much
actionable information aspossible so we can figure out
what happened.
And in that process, biases comeinto play, right?
We're not getting the details.
The details don't make sense, orthere's confliction with the
evidence, or the person's beingresistant.
And all these things can lead tothese kind of miscarriages of
justice.
(45:35):
But law enforcement, andgenerally speaking, that's the
opposite of what they want,right?
They're they're out there to tryto protect the community and
make sure people feel safe andcomfortable.
One wrongful conviction cancontaminate that perception for
an entire agency.
SPEAKER_02 (45:47):
Yeah, and we've seen countless examples, and I could
list them here, but I'm suresome will come to mind for
people that it really only takesone incident to change the
perception for good or for bad.
SPEAKER_00 (45:59):
And and the investigator, right?
We've talked about how it'sgonna obviously impact the
survivor.
And now if we've convicted thewrong person and we eventually
determine that, that means wemay have to re-traumatize the
survivor because there may beanother trial, another
investigation down the road,appeals that they're gonna have
to deal with.
And I will also say, and peoplemay not appreciate this part of
it, but it does impact theinvestigator too.
(46:21):
I've met investigators who'vebeen a part of wrongful
conviction cases that arewell-intended, really good
people, good investigators, andthey missed something or they
didn't realize that they fed toomany details to somebody until
it was too late.
And so it's just it's got thisripple effect across the entire
criminal justice system and ofcourse to the people directly
involved in the case.
SPEAKER_02 (46:42):
Aaron Powell Yeah, those are really good points.
Are there any gaps of knowledgeor training that you have
observed within the legal realmthat helps facilitate
re-victimization of thosewrongly convicted?
SPEAKER_00 (46:56):
One of the things that I have seen is it's
interesting when people arewrongly convicted and they serve
time, and I've met again, thishas been just such a humbling
experience to meet people who'vebeen on death row and been
exonerated, who've serveddecades that were innocent and
been exonerated.
And what's really troubling thatyou know, people that watch
documentaries and they see thetrue crime stuff on TV is they
(47:19):
think, oh, this person they gotexonerated and now they filed a
$20 million lawsuit, or nowthey're on TV shows or whatever.
That is few and far between,right?
A lot of people who've beenwrongly convicted when they
finally are able to prove theirinnocence, which is not an easy
feat, and they're able to nolonger be incarcerated.
(47:41):
What support do they have then?
That that's the huge gap.
What support do they have to geta job?
You know, somebody who's beenlocked away for 20 years that
now they don't have creditscore, they don't have an email
address, they don't, how arethey going to fill out an online
job application when theyhaven't been online in two
decades?
You know, they don't know how toget their social security
number.
There's all these differentsimple things that we kind of
(48:03):
take for granted.
And then just natural socialskills, right?
You have somebody who's been,again, incarcerated for quite
some time.
Are they familiar with how tonavigate in today's world?
And so more support for folkswho are lucky enough to reach
the exoneration point.
When I say lucky enough, becausethere's some people that we know
(48:24):
are wrongly convicted and arestill locked away trying to
fight for their freedom.
So I think there's a there'sjust a gap in the re-entry plan
for those folks and the support.
SPEAKER_02 (48:32):
Absolutely.
Yeah, that there are some newprograms these days that address
the things that you mentioned,but there are probably nearly
not enough.
And it begs the question abouthow victims and survivors and
those who have been falselyconvicted and imprisoned cannot
afford legal representation oreven work with attorneys who
(48:57):
might or might not betrauma-informed.
So, what tips do you have forany of those populations to get
the support system that can helpthem either avoid a false
confession or challenge a falseconviction?
SPEAKER_00 (49:14):
Yeah, it's tough because like we mentioned kind
of at the onset, is a lot oftimes people feel alone, right?
A survivor feels alone, even inthe beginning of trying to
report something in the firstplace.
I can't advocate stronger thanto get an attorney, even if you
have to get a public defenderbecause you can't afford an
attorney.
A lot of investigators andpolice that may be listening,
(49:35):
you know, it's funny becausewhen we teach interview and
interrogation techniques, ofcourse, an investigator wants to
be able to talk to somebody andthey feel like the attorney is
always going to get in the way.
But if you asked aninvestigator, hey, if you or
your kids were ever pulled infor an interview, what would you
tell them to do?
And well, get an attorney.
Well, what if you were right?
If you were pulled in, if you'rean investigator listening and
(49:56):
internal affairs pulled you intoa conversation, you're not doing
that without your unionrepresentative in the room with
you.
Right.
And so I think people just needto know that you do you have
rights in these settings and youshould you should leverage those
rights, right?
Is making sure you have theproper support.
There's a lot of great advocategroups out there that can help,
you know, even help throughoutthe trial process to make sure
(50:19):
that you feel comfortable andprepared and kind of help
throughout the trial and evenpost if that happens.
But uh don't be shy and askingfor help, I think is the
simplest way to put that.
But you have rights, make surethat you use them.
SPEAKER_02 (50:30):
Yeah, that's always good advice.
Where can people learn moreabout your work and this topic?
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Yeah, our website is w-z.com.
So that's really, really easy.
We got a lot of stuff on there,free resources.
I'm very active on LinkedIn, sothere's probably a million Dave
Thompsons out there.
But if you find Dave Thompsonand then a CFI, certified
forensic interviewer, you'llfind me.
And as we were talking earlier,we've got a podcast as well for
people that are podcast junkies.
(50:56):
Once you listen to all of thepodcasts on crimes against women
episodes, then check out TruthBe Told.
We also have a podcast where wetalk to people just about
communication in general, butall free resources.
SPEAKER_02 (51:08):
I could not agree with you more.
Dave, thanks so much for beingon the show.
SPEAKER_00 (51:13):
Absolutely.
Thanks for having me, and thanksto all for listening to such an
important topic.
SPEAKER_02 (51:17):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 21st Annual Conference onCrimes Against Women will be
held May 18th through the 21st,2026, in Dallas, Texas.
Learn more at conferencecaw.organd be the first to know about
all conference details, as wellas the latest on the Institute
(51:41):
for Coordinated CommunityResponse, Annual Conference
Summit, Beyond the Bounds, andthe National Training Center on
Crimes Against Women when youfollow us on social media at
NationalCCAW.
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