The Police Polygraph with Detective Eddie Pearson | Part 2 of 2

Discover the truth behind polygraph exams with Detective Eddie Pearson, as we scrutinize the role of polygraph testing in criminal justice. From murder cases to personal disputes, this episode unveils how polygraphs do more than detect lies—they can uncover concealed truths and guide investigations into new territory. With Pearson's insights, we navigate the murky waters where legal intricacies, mental health conditions, and forensic science converge.

Detective Pearson illuminates the shadowy corners of deception, sharing a harrowing tale of a woman's murder and the polygraph's critical role in the investigation. We explore the delicate art of crafting questions that close semantic loopholes and the challenges posed by examinees with complex psychological profiles. Learn how polygraph results, while not universally admissible in court, can shift the scales of justice, providing either damning evidence or pivotal exonerations.

In a world where the truth is often shrouded in layers of secrecy, polygraph examinations emerge as a powerful tool. Through Detective Pearson's lens, witness the emotional and ethical weight of these tests, not only in apprehending the guilty but also in freeing the innocent. We traverse the entire journey—from the intense pre-test interviews to the profound impact a single examination can have on a person's fate. Join us for a riveting exploration into the heartbeat of forensic truth-seeking.

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Transcript

Eddie Pearson: 0:00

One case that I'm thinking about is there was a lady who died in a trailer. She was murdered and the trailer was set on fire and I tested the son and did horrible in a test. I tested the father and he still passed the test. But we are here. I'm sorry. He failed the test but he didn't do as bad as the son did.

Wendy Lyons: 0:20

Warning. The podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Your discretion is advised. The police polygraph with detective Eddie Pearson, part two of two.

Eddie Pearson: 0:55

So you have to take each person independently and adjust as you go, because not everybody's body language or statement analysis is the same and not everybody will respond on a polygraph the same. Now, having said that, let me kind of clear this up. A polygraph exam not only detects deception, it also detects the concealment of information, and there's a little bit of difference between the two. Let's say, for instance, you were accused of robbing a bank and I were giving you a polygraph test. I may ask you did you steal any of the money when you present, when the money was stolen? Were you in possession of any money after it was stolen? If I ask you all those questions and you say no which you would, because if you say yes you wouldn't be taking a test so you may say no to all those questions and tell be telling me 100% of the truth, but what you left out was that you were the getaway driver. So everything that I ask you, you told me 100% of the truth, but you can still fail the test because you concealed your participation in the bank robbery.

Eddie Pearson: 2:01

That's the problem with polygraph, because a lot of times people will say well, I told 100% of the truth and I still failed that test.

Eddie Pearson: 2:07

That proves that that polygraph test doesn't work. No, what it proves is that you probably didn't tell me something about your participation in this bank robbery and I may not have known to ask you the question about you driving the car because that information wasn't given to me before I give you the test. So the main focus I try to look at is I want to make sure that I'm asking everybody good qualifying questions and I want to get as much information as I can from the detective so I can do the best polygraph exam I can do, to get as much information as I can get. So a lot of times when detectives don't know this, what I'll do is I'll just ask like a participation, did you participate in any way? And this is what participation means you planned it, you did it, you helped cover it up, concealed it or failed to report it after you knew it was done, and that usually covers that. But if I don't know to ask that question, I can't ask it.

David Lyons: 3:04

That explains a lot.

Eddie Pearson: 3:05

Sure, it explains a lot, so a lot of people that you read on the internet and says well, I was 100% honest and I failed that test. Well, there's a reason you failed it and probably because there's more information you didn't provide, because maybe someone didn't know to ask you the question.

David Lyons: 3:21

Here we go. That's logical Because I remember we had one that they didn't see anything on the polygraph and it was a shooting and a murder and then the kid that did it ended up testifying and then he shot the person. And I'm going back in my mind now Probably what it was, because he had a code of finnit. He said it was probably something like that. And now, now, if they'll come back, that would be logical.

Eddie Pearson: 3:46

He said he probably just skated down on the nuances of semantics maybe or something, and it could have been the way the question was asked, because when I asked my questions I try to be as detailed as I possibly can. So if a person was stabbed and was murdered, that's the question I want to ask Did you stab that person? Did you kill that person? Because killing the person could you know? Well, no, I stabbed them, but I didn't kill them. They died at the hospital due to an infection. So that ain't on me. People try to justify it that way, I have no doubt. So I try to, you know, I try to talk to the detectives. I'm like what do you want to know? Well, I want to know if he stabbed him in the chest. Good, I'll ask that question. Did you stab that person in the chest? And that's a yes or no question versus did you kill that person. That's kind of vague. So I try to be as specific as I possibly can.

David Lyons: 4:40

So, and back to it again, just because I hear these kind of things, you know straight rumors out. Are there any diagnosed mental health conditions that people could be labeled with? That would be challenging. Like a common thing I hear a lot is if they're antisocial or sociopathic or psychopathic or maybe a narcissistic personality disorder. Are they more of a challenge? Do they have anything or any science that says that's true?

Eddie Pearson: 5:05

No, basically, what happens is I ask everybody the same series of questions. You know, do you know the difference between right and wrong? They say, yes, who taught you that? My grandmother. How did she teach you? Well, when I did something wrong, I got my butt spanked. Okay, so now you know the difference between right and wrong. Yeah, when I did something wrong, I got punished. You can take a polygraph. Oh, yeah, because you know the difference between right and wrong.

David Lyons: 5:29

There we go.

Eddie Pearson: 5:30

What it comes into is when people have mental conditions, they're not medically suitable to take a polygraph. Right, there's some other medical condition that an examiner doesn't believe that they're suitable to take a polygraph, Of course you don't give them a polygraph. But in my experience, if you ask somebody a series of questions and they can explain to you the difference between right and wrong especially when I did something wrong what would happen to me? I got punished. So you know, when you do something wrong, you get punished. Well, yeah, it happened to me as a kid. They know the difference between right and wrong.

Eddie Pearson: 6:01

So as long as you can establish it, you can test them.

David Lyons: 6:05

Cool beans. They're starting a lot of BS up in the long term. Speaking of another place that this comes into. There's a lot of misconceptions and stuff like that is because you talked about on a TV show the mock court kind of a thing when can polygraphs come into a courtroom and when can't they? If you can just get some general guidelines, well a lot of people say polygraphs are not admissible in court.

Eddie Pearson: 6:28

Right, that's true in most cases. I've testified in court a number of times on polygraph. Some of the judges say I want to know what you said in a pre-test interview, that's before I give them the test. I want to know what was said in the post-test interview. If they fail the exam, then I give them a post-test interview so they can explain what caused those physiological reactions that caused them to fail the test. So some judges only want to hear the pre-test and the post-test. They don't want to know anything about polygraph. What questions were asked, anything?

Eddie Pearson: 7:00

Other judges when I've been in court, they want to know everything. They want to know the questions you ask, why you asked that question. They want to know what the charts look like. They want to know everything. So In most cases polygraphs are not admissible in court. But it's kind of up to the judge. New Mexico is the only state as of right now that I'm aware of. New Mexico is the only state that actually has laws on the books when it pertains to polygraph. As far as the court appearance goes, I've been told a couple of weeks ago that Indiana is trying to start some laws, put it on their books, but, as of right now, new Mexico is the only one that actually has established laws when it comes to polygraph in courts.

David Lyons: 7:42

Interesting. Yeah, so it may not always be like a part of a proof case or anything, but it definitely is going to come in, I guess, as far as how we got somebody maybe to confess or something that would just go. Yeah, exactly, Based on their statements Gosh, cool stuff, cool stuff. Okay, back to exams, because you've thrown a couple of words out before criminally involved, I think was one of them, or something like that. As a polygraph examiner, what kind of exams do you do in any given year? What can we do?

Eddie Pearson: 8:13

For our specific department. We do pre-employment exams and we test the police department, the fire department. At one point we tested corrections officers. We test E911 operators, dispatchers, and we test anybody that's a civilian that works in police headquarters. We also do them for other agencies that request them. We also do criminal specific tests. If a detective is working a case and he thinks a polygraph would assist in the case, we can do a criminal specific test. And I also do ICAC testing. Icac is Internet Crimes Against Children. Basically, what happens is if a detective does a search warrant and they find child porn on a computer, I can do an ICAC test to determine if the suspect is hands-on offender. And we're doing that, looking for unreported victims. So those are the general tests that we do. We'll do probably 375 pre-employments a year and probably 30 to 40 criminal tests a year.

David Lyons: 9:18

But just in those circumstances. So somebody at a department store can't come and say would you test these seven people for me? That, I think took a mink coat. Yes and no.

Eddie Pearson: 9:28

There's a thing out there called the EPPA Employee Polygraph Protection Act. It was signed by President Reagan in 1988. And what it does? It protects private companies, employees that work for private companies. So if a detective is working a case, we can do a polygraph exam on the employees if they agree to do it based on the investigation. But we cannot do it based on the employer requesting they do it. That applies to all private businesses except for government agencies and armored car companies and pharmaceutical companies. But everybody else falls under the EPPA Act. So if an employer came to you and you work for, say, a retail store and he says I think you've done something, I want you to go take a polygraph test, they can't do that because that's a violation of the EPPA. But if a detective is working that case, we can do it in reference to his investigation.

David Lyons: 10:31

Gotcha, but they can't make you take it All. Polygraph tests are volunteer, exactly. That's a good thing to put in there too, but it's not the same thing as the retailer holding her job over your head. It's what I'm getting at, it would be solicited by the detective to do that. Fascinating.

Eddie Pearson: 10:47

And if we do give that test under the EPPA Act we can only release the polygraph results to the detective. The employer is not allowed to have those results because they can't use the results to discipline the employee in any way. So we only release our test results in those particular cases to the detective. That sounds fair.

David Lyons: 11:09

Sounds fair for sure. Well, let's go into it. What about you, Wendy? I don't want to jump ahead on topics because in case you've got something that is picking your brain.

Wendy Lyons: 11:18

Well, I guess I think mostly what I was wondering you were talking about and I'm not necessarily referring to the employee polygraph but do you get with the detective that's working a particular criminal case to judge what questions? Or, because you've done this so long, do you already have kind of your series of questions that you like to ask?

Eddie Pearson: 11:43

Basically what I do is I don't have a set of questions, like I don't have rape questions, burglary questions. I don't have those set questions. What happens is the detective will call me and say, hey, I'm working a case. This is the synopsis of the case. Do you think you can do a polygraph? Absolutely. So he'll send me his case file and I'll read everything in his case file and then we'll bring in the individual that's been accused or whatever they've been accused, and I base my questions on what the detective wants to know and what I discovered during the interview. So if it's say a burglary, right Each burglary, I can't use the same exact questions on every single burglary because each burglary may be different. So I have to adjust the questions on what I think the best questions are to ask on this specific case.

Wendy Lyons: 12:36

So you kind of tailor each question for each particular interview Exactly yeah.

David Lyons: 12:42

Correct. It's not unlike. We interviewed Greg Davis and talked about medical and forensic pathology and the importance of having an investigator there at the autopsy or close to it, because that dictates the same thing with a forensic pathologist as to what they're going to look at and not look at Neat stuff. I guarantee people are out there shaking their heads right now because I am for sure enough to have a little closer to the game. It's almost embarrassing. So I knew how to send people to the box but I just didn't understand how it worked.

David Lyons: 13:12

You know what happened I was always on the side waiting for the big one. You know, come on bring it. Pull it home, call me and say that they fell on their knees and assume the fetal position.

Eddie Pearson: 13:21

What I do is and not everybody does this but what I do is, if the detective wants a polygraph, I make them come and watch me do the polygraph. Oh, I can't imagine not, because usually something comes out in a pretest interview that they didn't know about. So there's always not always, but usually more information, and I don't know what that information is that's important to them, because it's not my case. So there may be something that's very trivial to me. You know, the guy may have owned two cars and he told the detective he owned one, for instance. Well, that second car may have been the car that the crime was committed in and nobody knew about it, because he didn't tell anybody about it.

Eddie Pearson: 14:02

So then it comes out in the polygraph about the vehicles that he owns and the detectives will. I never knew he owned two vehicles. Well, that gives him another road to go down to continue their investigation. So, always have the detectives come and watch it, because you never know what they may say. That gives them additional information. Yeah, always watch.

Wendy Lyons: 14:20

No, is the detective in there with you, or you all take some breaks and you kind of.

Eddie Pearson: 14:23

No, we record everything. Every one of our polygraphs are both record audio and video. So when I'm given a polygraph test, it's just me and the examiner in the room and then the detective, or whoever's watching the polygraph, usually watches it from my office so and we record everything and then, once we're done, we get to the detective and he books it into evidence or whatever they whatever they do with it, but they watch the whole thing from it.

Wendy Lyons: 14:47

So if he comes up with another question, do you all maybe kind of pause and take a break so we can say I need for you to ask about this when you go back.

Eddie Pearson: 14:55

Yeah, what I do is, once I've done my pre-test interview and that can be anywhere from 45 minutes to two and a half hours, just depends on how much we talk about we generally take a break. I'm getting older, so I need a little break every now and then. So then I'll go in and I'll let the examiner take a break, go to the bathroom, get a drink of water If they want to go outside and smoke a cigarette, whatever they need to do, and then while they're doing that, taking their break, I'll go talk to the detective. I'll say is there anything else you want me to ask about, anything we need to follow up on? Is there something that you didn't know about that you want me to dig into? So we always talk to the detective to find out if there's anything else we need to talk about.

Eddie Pearson: 15:39

I develop the questions while the examiner is on the break. He comes back in the examiner, I go over all the questions and I go over all the answers before I even give him the test, because I don't want the questions to surprise him. So we go over everything. Everything's 100% transparent. The detective knows the questions, the examiner knows the questions. We talk about everything. For instance, if I'm going to ask a participation question, I'll say this is what I mean by participation. You plan it, you do it, help cover up concealment, fail to report it. That way they can't come back and it's happened. I've learned from experience. I wasn't really too sure what you meant by participation, and so a lot of times I'll ask them what's participation mean to you, what's the word voluntarily mean to you, and I'll have him explain it to me, because that way I am sure that they know exactly what we're talking about and there's no thoughts about. Maybe he understands it, maybe he doesn't, because if I start thinking that, then I stop and say what does this word mean to you?

Eddie Pearson: 16:44

Just to make sure we're all on the same sheet of music.

David Lyons: 16:48

Exactly too cool A lot of times in rape cases.

Eddie Pearson: 16:51

I'll have him explain to me what consent is. What's consent to you? What does the word consent mean to you?

David Lyons: 16:58

Oh, this is what it means, and then okay, yeah because you're just thinking off the top of my head, yeah, what that means from being in the interview room with people who have been accused of that too, there's a wide degree of, or a wide spectrum of what people think consent is.

Eddie Pearson: 17:14

Oh yeah, and I'll just ask what's consent mean to you? That's what it means, and so if I'm satisfied with their explanation, we're good.

David Lyons: 17:20

Oh, you know, and you know, one of the things you deal with in sexual assaults is well, they didn't say no.

David Lyons: 17:25

Yeah, exactly, but aside from the point that they were passed out on Xanax, I mean with liquor at Wild Turkey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm not making light of that. But that's what you deal with is that there's a lot of powerful stuff. Powerful, Well, you kind of danced around this a little bit too. Let's take it into it and just to kind of firm it up a little bit. What a polygraph is not. We've talked a lot about what we do and you've kind of hit a couple of things that it doesn't do. But what are some of the misconceptions on that, or what it is and it's not?

Eddie Pearson: 17:52

You know a lot of people call a polygraph a lie detector. A polygraph is not a lie detector. There's no instrument that I'm aware of that will detect a lie. All right, what a polygraph does it? Monitors and measures those physiological reactions when you answer a question. Okay, so a lot of times you know people refer to it. As I'm going to go take a lie detector, Sure. We all know what that means.

David Lyons: 18:14

All right.

Eddie Pearson: 18:15

So it's not a lie detector. That's basically what it is not.

David Lyons: 18:20

Gotcha Good deal and we've talked about cord and stuff like that. So we're there. Let's go back to this a little bit, because I've seen and heard things over the years too. When people are coming to take a polygraph, is there a little niche crowd out there that believes they've got the answers on how to deceive you as a polygraph and how to beat the machine? And I say that because I remember over the years remember you, remember this because we were on patrol about the same time as that with the intoxilizer that Zima wouldn't activate it. Or if you put a silver dime on your tongue before you're blue in the XA, it wouldn't negate it, and people have that. Do you see that same kind of line of BS at polygraphs when people come to try?

Eddie Pearson: 19:00

Yes, there's a lot of people and one of the questions I talk about is during the pre-test interview. I'm like let's talk about the research that you've done on the polygraph. You ever looked it up on the internet? Red Bull you ever seen a TV show?

Eddie Pearson: 19:14

Oh yeah, I know this, I know that, I know this, I know that. Okay, well, let me explain to you how that works and they'll come up with. Yeah, I've seen on the internet put a penny under your tongue or put a tack in your shoe or they come up with all these crazy things. Well, one of the advantages I have that when I'm not actually giving polygraph tests, I do the same research everybody else does, and the advantage I have is I have four interns that I'm currently teaching. So I'll take the interns in the polygraph room and I'll try those countermeasures to see if they can pick them up, and then I'll have them try to see if I can pick them up. So we do a lot of research on countermeasures and we're kind of trained to monitor those kind of things.

Eddie Pearson: 19:59

Most people who come in they don't try to beat the polygraph. What they do is they'll try to use countermeasures to enhance their physiological reactions, to help themselves. They think it helps them. Well, the problem is it actually hurts them, because if we think that they're using countermeasures, we'll stop the test and disqualify them Because they can't follow simple instructions. We tell them not to do it and we give them very specific instructions on what they need to do during the test, and so when they start a lot of things that they read on the internet or some things that maybe somebody told them to do or whatever, when we see all that, we immediately stop the test.

David Lyons: 20:36

Gotcha Interesting.

Eddie Pearson: 20:37

Because it's not fair for everybody who didn't do it. So we stop the test and recommend that they're eliminated.

Wendy Lyons: 20:44

Have you ever had to eliminate?

Eddie Pearson: 20:47

It doesn't happen very often, but there are some people who come in and I basically tell them in the polygraph if you try to manipulate this test in any way, I'm going to recommend that you're terminated from the hiring process, because it's not fair to people who follow the instructions.

David Lyons: 21:02

Oh sure.

Eddie Pearson: 21:03

So as long as you tell 100% of the truth and that's the key telling 100% of the truth, not 95% of the truth and you follow my instructions, you shouldn't have any problems. Most people don't have an issue.

Wendy Lyons: 21:15

What about on the criminal aspect? Do you tell them as well?

Eddie Pearson: 21:18

Tell them the exact same thing, because it's their test. A lot of times they'll say well, I'm just here to help you out. Well, this has nothing to do with me.

Wendy Lyons: 21:26

It's not helping you. This is your test. It's paying a bill with it, doing a carving, exactly.

Eddie Pearson: 21:31

And I ask them at the very beginning, I say why are you here? Why are you here to take this test? Well, I want to clear my name. Okay, let's move forward.

David Lyons: 21:39

There we go.

Eddie Pearson: 21:40

And so when they come in and say, well, I'm just here to help you out, well, no, this has nothing to do with me. This is all about you. You're here voluntarily. This is your test.

David Lyons: 21:48

Yeah.

Eddie Pearson: 21:49

And so, as you know, not telling them. As long as you tell 100% of the truth, you won't have any issues. When you start telling 97% of the truth, well, that's a problem.

David Lyons: 21:58

True.

Eddie Pearson: 21:59

And it's an integrity issue is what it is.

David Lyons: 22:01

Yeah, because usually you'll see people with it if they get a positive a decent, a good one, like if you come back, whatever your terminology, and we can hit that, they'll hold on to that like Willie Wonka's golden ticket. I mean, that's the integrity part. Oh yeah yeah, if they don't get a good one, then they've got different names for what happened and usually they're blaming you all for screwing them or lying to them or something.

Eddie Pearson: 22:26

Yeah, it's. You know that wasn't a good question, but well, you answer the question and I allowed you to come up with your own answers to the question. So they'll come back and you know well, it's the instrument's fault or it's my fault or it's. You know it's some, it's never there. Yeah it's always, and there's always another issue. There's got to be another problem. Yeah, the problem is you're not telling the truth. That's the problem.

David Lyons: 22:47

Yeah, and the opportunities because of the pre and the post. I mean it's not because, again, a lot of people, I think, that you're thrown into a chair, you're strapped in, you know they put the blood pressure cuff on, they ask you the amount of questions and goodbye, and that there's so much more. Like you said, a pre might run 45 minutes to two hours and whatever, and so you've got tons of opportunity to come to the foot of the cross, as they say I've been in.

Eddie Pearson: 23:11

I've been in criminal tests that take five, six hours.

David Lyons: 23:14

Sure.

Eddie Pearson: 23:15

So it just, you know, it just depends on how they do and what we talk about, and some of them take four hours, some of them take six hours, five or six hours, and it disqualifications is especially in employment.

David Lyons: 23:25

That's probably you know that would be like. You know that would be like not going for the drug test or you know anything else, that you just stop on the process or don't participate. That's reasonable too, and they probably got a reason they're doing that as well. Neat stuff that's it, and probably intelligent people are listening and putting this together. What advice would you give to anybody who is going to take a polygraph, really for any reason, either pre-employment or, let's say, God forbid. They're in an environment where they're suspected or people are looking at their involvement in a case. What advice would you give to somebody?

Eddie Pearson: 24:02

There's two things I would say. One is that tell 100% of the truth, regardless of how painful or how embarrassing it is. Do not conceal anything. And the second piece of advice I would give is follow the examiner's instructions. Don't try to manipulate the test. Tell 100% of the truth 100% of the time. We all make mistakes, we all do embarrassing things in our lives. So talk about it, get it out in the open and don't try to conceal it. And just follow the examiner's instructions. Those two things. If you do that, you shouldn't have any issues.

David Lyons: 24:36

Yeah, it's kind of like what we hear from our parents or grandma just tell the truth and whatnot. Fascinating stuff Now have you covered?

Wendy Lyons: 24:45

I know you've done a gamut of things you mentioned criminally. I guess you've covered everything from child abuse to murder.

Eddie Pearson: 24:53

Pretty much, yeah. Child abuse, murder, rape, rape yeah, If you can think of it, I've probably done it.

David Lyons: 25:03

If you move the ball forward legitimately and ethically, which I know would be on an investigation. How's that feel for you as Eddie, when you go in and you spend all this time with this and you learn that the investigation advanced and the right person. And, maybe just as important, when we exonerate? Somebody, I mean we never want to let that feeling, let that go, that that's an important part of this whole thing that you're still doing and I used to do. How's that feel inside?

Eddie Pearson: 25:30

You know, it feels good to me, because not everybody who takes a polygraph test is guilty of what they said they've been accused of.

Eddie Pearson: 25:39

So, when someone comes back and say it's a sexual assault and someone was accused of doing this, and we give them a test and they passed lack of a better term they passed the test with flying colors.

Eddie Pearson: 25:52

I go to the detective and I say, listen, I don't think this is your man, right, based on his body language, his statement analysis, his polygraph exam. And I usually have a pretty good ideal about, based on what they tell me and how they tell me the incident occurred, how they're gonna do on the test, because I've done probably over 3,000 polygraph tests, so I usually have a pretty good ideal. But it's very satisfying to me when you can go to the detective and say, yes, I would concentrate on this guy, this is the road I would go down if it was me. Or I don't think this is your man, I think you might wanna look at someone else or maybe go down another avenue. So I think it's very helpful to the detective. Or I like to think it's helpful to the detective because a lot of times they'll call me back and say, hey, after we did the polygraph test, the guy said this or the guy said that. So we get that additional information which is very helpful to them.

David Lyons: 26:47

Oh for sure. And again, like you said, it's not everybody takes a polygraph as guilty of something. Exactly the whole business is the search for the truth, or the closest we can get to the truth at any given moment, and I think it's always powerful. There was always a good feeling for me too, when we had somebody that was either we suspected or somebody suspected or hell came in and falsely confessed and you could rule them out. That's a pretty damn good feeling.

David Lyons: 27:12

It's right up there with actually charging them or putting them in prison or whatever too.

Eddie Pearson: 27:16

Sometimes that will occur in a polygraph. Somebody will have a reaction to a test and then you start interviewing them, and one case that I'm thinking about it was there was a lady who died in a trailer. She was murdered and the trailer was set on fire and I tested the son and did horrible in a test. I tested the father and he still passed the test. But we are here. I'm sorry. He failed the test, but he didn't do as bad as the son did, and so we went back and we discovered that later on that they admitted that the father was protecting the son.

Eddie Pearson: 27:49

Nah, that was good, and that was the issue, and so they were both looked at as a suspect. But later on down the road they discovered that you know the son is the one who actually committed the crime, but the father was trying to take the blame to protect the son. So we worked all that out in polygraph Gotcha so we can use it for that. We can also use a polygraph A lot of people don't understand this to locate missing people and the way we do that.

Eddie Pearson: 28:14

Say, for instance, there's a murder that's occurred and you're looking for the body and you know the body's in the state of Kentucky. So we get a map of the state of Kentucky. We divide it into four parts. We ask them is the body in section A? Is the body in section B? Is body in section C? Is the body in section D? And we can look at those reactions and start eliminating the section. So if they had a reaction to section D, then we get a map of Kentucky and blow it up just for section D and we divide it into four parts again and we can narrow it down. One of the things they teach the new polygraph examiners is they'll hide a set of keys or something in a building and you start testing the person that you think that hid the keys, and you can locate the keys in whatever room they're in by narrowing it down. So a lot of times you can use a polygraph to locate items, locate bodies. We can use it for a lot of different things, holy moly.

Wendy Lyons: 29:11

I never really thought of that. It makes complete sense, though I'm gonna just be honest on floor.

David Lyons: 29:15

Yeah, it's a lot of stuff that I just didn't do. How about Ed? Can you think of any other like and you don't have to go into detail on names or anything like that but can you think of any other anecdotal stories of cases you participated in that were shocking or that the polygraph really played another strong role in?

Eddie Pearson: 29:34

Um, sexual assault and a divorce. People were going through a divorce. One person was accused of sexually assaulting the 12 year old daughter and we test the suspect and exonerated it did not happen, didn't happen. Based on body language statement analysis, polygraph tests look great, say it didn't happen. Then they go into court and the other individual says, yeah, I made it up so I could get more child support, or I made it up so I could get more custody or whatever. And so when you do those kind of tests and you discover that a person did really well on the test they passed the test it feels really good for me to kind of help those people out, because I can only imagine what they're going through. And so when you use those polygraph exams to and a lot of people say, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, so it's good.

Eddie Pearson: 30:29

So we don't use it. I don't use it in that way. I use it to get as much information as I can and maybe to either say, yes, this is the person that did this, this is who I would look at, or, most definitely, I don't think this is the person that did it. Based on these results, based on how they answered the questions based on their body language, because I've discovered that people that are honest will give you the information that you ask for and they don't take their honesty for granted because they're expected to be believed. But when someone's trying to convince you they're not the kind of person that would do that, that's a problem. So we start digging into that.

David Lyons: 31:06

It's kind of cute when because I think I told you- and everybody knows that the only thing on our televisions in this house probably is true crime. But that's just true, right? That's just always true when you talk about Paris Island. The last couple of days I got her to count and watch Full Metal Jacket a little bit with me and she got tickled over that. But while I watch her watching a show and she'll comment when they're interviewing somebody and I've said the same thing is that they'll be in a box with somebody and they'll say like they'll do a qualifier, they'll do a distance thing and I'll look over and say, well, that's a liar, right there.

David Lyons: 31:43

Is it because of what you just said? And it's fun to kind of watch that and be able to pick that out to where, when they're trying to present themselves as somebody, they're not. They work a little too hard at it. That was my experience.

Eddie Pearson: 31:54

Yeah, and I usually can pick that up on the statement analysis on how they say something, cause most people they'll rehearse a story but they won't rehearse how to say the story or how to present the story, and then they most definitely don't rehearse going backwards. So people will rehearse what they wanna say but not how to say it. So a lot of times I can pick stuff up just by someone saying something like well, I parked the car versus I parked a car. There's a difference between the two.

David Lyons: 32:24

Oh, yes, yes.

Eddie Pearson: 32:25

And so a lot of times when people start mentioning these things in statement analysis, I can pick this up and then I start going back and I'm like, okay, let's talk about this car again, and I just start digging in on whatever they're talking about. So it's a lot of times on these TV shows and my wife's really, really good at it. Actually, women not to get off topic, but women generally are better at body language than men are, and the reason why is women have 14 to 16 emotional receptors in the brain. Men have about six to eight.

Wendy Lyons: 32:56

I knew you all were lacking.

Eddie Pearson: 32:58

So yeah, sorry guys, it's just the way we're wired.

David Lyons: 33:01

I just wanted to talk about polygraphs and blow her head up to get out of her room.

Wendy Lyons: 33:05

Thank you.

Eddie Pearson: 33:05

Let the man continue All right, so a lot of times women can pick up on the emotional aspect of body language quicker than men do, so my wife's very, very good at it, yeah, and so it's just one of those things, so you learned all these good techniques from your wife. I don't know if I'd go that far but, yeah, she's very good at it.

David Lyons: 33:23

That's why they call me motionless Dave in the house. I just like get real still. That way she can't read me.

Eddie Pearson: 33:29

Don't look at her. Yeah, don't make eye contact. Yes, I'm on the yard.

David Lyons: 33:33

Yeah, I keep my hands in my pockets and don't fidget Right, exactly, it's amazing stuff. And again, because we share a lot about what that's like to interview somebody, and one of the things I was just thinking about the other day is when you're interviewing somebody and you're getting tired, how you have to fight the fatigue Because if you don't fight it, you'll miss what you just said. The exchange of one word and how they refer to a person or a thing will take you in a completely different direction. And I still remember that when you were really tired, you'd been out and everything is every time you went in there because you never knew how long you're gonna be in there is making your stuff. Stay awake so you could focus Because, man, you could lose so much on just one word. You could walk right past an opportunity or a window.

Eddie Pearson: 34:20

And you gotta remember that when you're conducting the interview, you're watching their body language, but they're also watching yours, oh sure, so you really gotta. When I do my interviews, at the end of the day I mean I am mentally drained, I just go home, take a shower and take a nap.

David Lyons: 34:35

Sure sure.

Eddie Pearson: 34:37

Because you're in that box as you say two, three, four, five hours, it just mentally just beats you up and you gotta really control your body language because they're watching you, just like you're watching them.

David Lyons: 34:49

Oh for sure, absolutely Cool stuff, cool stuff. This has exceeded all the expectations. Not that I didn't think we'd be, I didn't think we'd it wouldn't enjoy it.

Wendy Lyons: 34:57

Right, you know, I'm sitting here, I'm over the moon right now I'm just as blown away as I was when we interviewed the corner, because you don't realize all these fine details, that's it.

David Lyons: 35:10

I mean, I knew what Polygraph was, and I think our listeners and viewers will say the same thing, because it's one of those things that just gets beat up. Well, the fact it's ever called a lie detector Somebody didn't do it in any favors when they did that but just the other points on that simply amazing.

Wendy Lyons: 35:27

Well, eddie, thank you so much for coming in. We have learned so much about what you do. You know you always. I know you said that don't refer to it as lie detector, but I think he's the human lie detector man Might be. I think he might be.

David Lyons: 35:42

Yeah, be careful. I mean, you've done it for years. I think there was a guy on YouTube who had a movie one time that called himself the human lie detector.

Wendy Lyons: 35:48

I think we've got him right here, yeah, but anyway, Eddie, thank you so much for coming in sharing with us your career, your past career. I had no idea about the Navy than the Marines and after sitting there with David watching full metal jacket the other night, I don't know whether to be scared of you or just real. Real, all my best behavior. I think I'll go with best behavior.

David Lyons: 36:11

Yeah, she's probably going back to the drill sergeant, the gunny and the insults. That's what we were laughing at. Aside from that, thanks again for being here.

Wendy Lyons: 36:19

Thank you so much.

David Lyons: 36:20

I guarantee you and the listeners you need to share this with your friends. You need to turn people onto this. When you hear people talking about a polygraph, give them the Murder Police Podcast and the channel on YouTube and on whatever your podcast player is, and share this, because it's one of those things. Life would be a lot easier if we just all understood this stuff a little bit better. And again that last sage advice just tell the truth. Just tell the truth Amen Well, thank you, Eddie.

Eddie Pearson: 36:46

Thank you, welcome. Thank you, thank you.

David Lyons: 36:51

This podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims, so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android Podcast platform, as well as at MurderPolicePodcastcom, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police Podcast swag. We are also on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars in a written review on Apple Podcast or wherever you download your podcasts. Make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop, and please tell your friends.

Wendy Lyons: 37:50

Lock it down, Judy.