The Murder Police Podcast
The Murder Police Podcast
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire! Part 2 of 4
Eddie Pearson pulls back the curtain on interrogation psychology, revealing that our feet—not our faces—often betray our true feelings. "The feet are the most honest part of the body," he explains, drawing from decades of experience reading subtle cues that most people miss. Far from the Hollywood portrayal of intimidating interrogators, Pearson describes a more nuanced approach focused on building rapport, managing cognitive load, and paying attention to clusters of non-verbal behaviors.
The conversation takes surprising turns, exploring how something as simple as offering water creates a psychological obligation that suspects often feel compelled to reciprocate with honesty. "I always bring them a bottle of water," Pearson notes. "Now I've given you something. Now you need to give me something." Another investigator adds, "If we had a 24-hour Burger King next to headquarters, our confession rate would probably increase."
Pearson shares practical techniques like watching for "anchor point movements"—when someone shifts multiple points of physical contact simultaneously in response to specific questions—and recognizing "smoke screening," where subjects overwhelm investigators with irrelevant but verifiable details. These tactics aren't just useful in criminal investigations; they apply to everyday situations from restaurant recommendations to business negotiations.
What makes this discussion particularly valuable is its balanced perspective on truth-seeking. While confession techniques are explored in depth, Pearson emphasizes that success isn't measured by getting confessions but by uncovering truth—sometimes exonerating innocent people. "My job is to get as much information as I can," he explains, highlighting cases where polygraph examinations helped clear wrongly accused suspects.
Whether you're fascinated by criminal psychology or simply want to better understand human communication, this episode offers rare insights into the subtle art of reading people beyond their words. Ready to detect deception in your daily life? Listen now and discover what people's bodies reveal when their words say otherwise.
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I always bring them a little bottle of water. I always bring them a bottle of water.
Wendy Lyons:Get that out of the way. Get that out of the way.
Eddie Pearson:Here's your bottle of water. Now I've given you something. Now you need to give me something.
David Lyons:Yeah, I always said if we had a 24-hour Burger King next to headquarters, our confession rate would probably increase. Pretty good, there's something to that. You walk in the room Maybe they just got tackled by patrol, maybe they rode in the back of that car and everything and you walk in and you're like, are you?
Wendy Lyons:hungry.
David Lyons:Do you need something to drink?
Wendy Lyons:Liar Liar Pants on Fire Body Language and Statement Analysis with Eddie Pearson, part 2 of 4. Warning the podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised.
Eddie Pearson:You know, and what I want to achieve is that you and I have a positive conversation at the end when we're done. It's a positive conversation. Do you think that's fair? They're like yes, sir, that's fair. And I just start. So that's how I usually start them and then, as I'm asking these questions, then again I'm looking at the body language and the statement analysis and how they're asking questions. Let's talk about feet. The feet are the most honest part of the body. Do you know why? No, because it's the furthest portion from the limbic portion of your brain. Nobody talks about feet. I tell my single friends. I say if you ever go to a bar and you want to try to pick up on a girl and she's sitting at a bar and she has her feet wrapped around the bar stool, just keep walking. She's either meeting somebody, she's not interested in you. She takes her legs and those feet and wraps around that bar stool. Just keep walking, just keep walking.
David Lyons:I think you just invented your own TikTok channel.
Wendy Lyons:Go ahead. Why? Why wrapping it? What's that mean?
Eddie Pearson:Because it's a security thing. She's waiting for somebody, she's not interested, she's not open. I said if someone is sitting at a bar stool and they're turned towards you and their toes are pointing towards you or out towards the open portion of the bar, that's like an invitation to hi, come talk to me. I said. But if they're turned around, their feet are under the bar stool, they're wrapped around, just keep walking. Interesting, it's a security thing. They do the same thing when they come into the polygraph room. There's a polygraph chair sitting there. I'll say, just have a seat right there and I'll have a chair on wheels and I'll kind of pull it up and you'll see them take those feet and wrap them right up around those polygraph legs.
David Lyons:Does that happen as you move in?
Eddie Pearson:Sometimes it does, or sometimes it does as soon as they sit down, they wrap their feet around.
David Lyons:Yeah, I was going to say because that was the thing I always watched, for is when you start to close that proximity and you'll probably get there is what. How that was. I think me and Billy had a guy almost back through the wall one day and we were slowly moving toward him and he just I mean it's a good thing, the wall was solid. I mean I've never seen my jump like that, like he got joked with five thousand votes, but you'll probably get there. But I was asking because it was neat if you're paying attention to watch those things as you get.
Eddie Pearson:Their chair that they're setting in, if at all possible, needs to be affixed to the wall, to the floor, so it can't move. Your chair needs to have wheels on it so you can move around. If you put them in a chair that has wheels on it, you're going to be going all around, You're going to be like a roller coaster going all around that room and you know, police departments work with what they've got.
David Lyons:But I've seen that and I think I've commented before is again, you'd see, and it's nothing on that, because they have to work with what they've got, but I've, I've walked through the room and somebody's doing an interview and they're in an office chair and that's what's going on, or they're swiveling and they're blowing that energy out while they turn it throws all that body language off, because you want them in a chair that's kind of uncomfortable and is affixed to the floor or the wall or something.
Eddie Pearson:Because when they move there's a thing called an anchor point movement. If you move two anchor points at one time, like you're sitting there and your feet and your legs and your back and your arms, it's all making contact with something. So if I ask you a question and you move two anchor points at one time, I need to take note of that because that's a body language cue that didn't happen until I asked you that question. So when you're looking at body language, you want to look at gestures Like me scratching my nose that's a gesture. So you want to take two gestures as one cluster. So you want to look at four clusters, because one of something is nothing. But if I scratch my nose and look down when you ask me a question, that's a cluster.
Eddie Pearson:So what was my question that made you respond that way? Well, I did that when you asked me about stealing the watch. So let's go back and talk about stealing that watch, because that's the only time I've seen that gesture or that cluster when I asked you about the watch. I didn't see it any other time. So now I'm going to go back and talk about this watch, so you have to take notes of those. That's the things you've got to keep kind of in your brain as you're going along, plus all the next questions you're going to ask.
David Lyons:It brings up a good point that I think has come up before. A little bit maybe, but taking notes Because, again, and this is not being overly critical, because you can't help but notice, but you'll watch an interview and most of the eyes are this, not to mention there's pauses, there's pardon me, while I write this and everything that coming up with some way of acknowledging that but not losing that focus, because you won't see all of that if you're buried inside of a piece of paper.
Eddie Pearson:I try not to take notes. Yeah, an interview, I'll take notes. Interrogation I don't take notes and I always, like I said, I always have the detectives watching me do it and I have them take notes for me. Because if I'm in an interrogation and you say something and I write it down, and then first thing I'm gonna think of well, maybe I shouldn't have said that because he wrote that down, or oops, I think that might have been important because he wrote that down.
Eddie Pearson:So I don't take notes Personally myself. I don't take notes during interrogation because I know as soon as I write something down that they said that's going to be an issue.
David Lyons:We can have a poker face too. Exactly, they don't have to be trained in this, but you're right, is one we're writing it and then and then we were probably going to express some body language while we're writing it, like, if it's good, you might kind of, oh shit, you know kind of that, you're screwed, don't roll your eyes.
Eddie Pearson:Yeah, what's he writing? Death penalty for you know. So, yeah, so, yeah, so. So I don't, I don't take notes, that's just me. I'm not saying saying it's good or bad, I just don't do it.
David Lyons:Well, we have the gift of recording now, exactly.
Wendy Lyons:We have that which is remarkable in that you have an indelible— you can go back and watch and look for the clusters.
David Lyons:in case you did look down, I mean thank God for audio and video recording because that gets around all the concerns of Miranda. That again, like you talked about, the statements you make? Is it's really hard to suppress something if we have our I's dotted and?
Eddie Pearson:T's crossed. And the hard thing for us as investigators and all the other investigators we have to know this, all these details on the fly, because this may be the only time we get a chance to talk to this person, chance to talk to this person. So we sometimes we don't have the luxury of going back and watching the video five or six hours and then interviewing the person again. Sometimes we don't have that. So a lot of times you know this stuff, you really kind of have to have it down cold because this may be the only opportunity you have to talk to this one person. Especially if they use those magic words I want my lawyer, then you're done.
David Lyons:That's it, it stops.
Eddie Pearson:So yeah, so a lot of this stuff. And the reason it's very difficult, at least for me, is that you have to keep all this stuff in your brain because you can't hold on. Let me look at my notes. I mean you can't do that, so you got to continue on. So a lot of these body language cues and statement analysis cues. You've got to kind of really, really, really practice this stuff in order to be proficient at it, because when you're doing these interviews, you have to do it live and in person and you don't get a chance to go back. Now I always go back 99% of the time. I'll go back and I'll watch my own interviews and I hate doing it because I look stupid. Doing it, I'm like man, I shouldn't have said that, or that would have been a perfect time to ask this question then.
Wendy Lyons:Oh, yeah, but at least you're learning from it for next time.
Eddie Pearson:But I'm always self-critical, right, but I always do it and I hate doing it, but I make myself do it because you know, I've caught myself rolling my eyes. I'm like, yeah right, I can't believe we're going through this again and you can't. You know, like you said, they're watching your body language as much as you're watching theirs. So you really got to have this stuff down and you can use this body language. You can use it when you buy a car, book a vacation, ask your children how was school today? I mean, you can use it anytime, all the time. Go to a restaurant. The waiter comes up and says what do you recommend? And watch his body language. You know you're looking at I. Just I can't decide what do you recommend and watch his body language or her body language and see what the server does. I do it all the time.
Wendy Lyons:What do they typically do?
Eddie Pearson:They typically try to push what the chef told them to push. Right, we need to push chicken tonight. Okay, so the chicken is going to be, but you can usually tell I never give them. Well, how's the lasagna? I never say that because I already know the answer to that question. Servers are not going to say lasagna is horrible, don't eat it. I've only had it a couple times I've never had anybody say that to me. Like I'll give them an a or b and they'll be like don't get those, but that's right, that's yeah.
Eddie Pearson:I've never had anybody do that to me, but I would say what do you recommend? What's good, you know however you want, and just watch what they do interesting I do it all the time we'll have to try that.
David Lyons:We'll have to, we'll have to purposely go through.
David Lyons:Another thing that's neat and listening to you talk is again for the people that haven't been around this is the complexity and the weight when you go in that room.
David Lyons:I think a lot of people think that you go in that room and it's a conversation and, of course, people from the peanut gallery, which is natural they'd say I'd ask this, I'd ask this, why didn't I ask that?
David Lyons:But if you start with the complexities of the legal system and the structure that we have to have in place to understand where we're at when we go in, then you go with the idea that, like you said because I was the same way, especially if I was tired, absent, the body language focusing on what the hell they're saying, to not let that slip. So you don't miss that question because you will go back later. You'll be looking at your transcript and you're like that was a jump point, that was it. And even if you did, okay, but we're critical of ourselves because I'm remembering I'm living in interviews right now that went on for a long time with a lot of complex stories, one of them from Lexington to Nicholasville to Marion County, and I remember you're bringing that back alive again about how you're trying to follow this story, because you know in that story are the places where you're going to get the jam.
David Lyons:So I think that's good for people to hear this isn't going in and just speaking with somebody. It's a lot of work and it takes training.
Eddie Pearson:There's a lot of science behind it that's really break that down.
Eddie Pearson:There is a ton of science behind this and I've tried to tried to break it down as much as I can to make it as simple for me as I can, because, like I said earlier, I like to keep things kind of monkey simple. But there's just so much going on in your brain Because if you're asking a person about an incident and they want to be deceptive, they're going to make it as muddy as they possibly can. They want to give you so much untruthful information to try to confuse you or to try to throw you off the trail or to try to protect someone else from something that happened. So you know, it's depending on what the situation is. Most people, when they tell you a story and if they're telling you the truth, they don't take their honesty for granted they're going to say okay, david, this is what happened. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's it. Now, believe me, don't believe me, I don't care, but that's the truth, that's what happened, Right. So they will convey the information to you. People that are being dishonest or trying to omit information will try to convince you. They're not the kind of person that would do that.
Eddie Pearson:So when you're talking about stealing a watch from a retail store and you're asking that question. I work 60 hours a week. I make $190,000 a year. I have five Rolexes. Why would I steal that cheap Timex watch? Well, that's all well and good, but you never answered my question Did you steal the watch? And you see it all the time and people would do that.
Eddie Pearson:So a lot of times when people are telling and that's all part of their body language as they're telling you this story, you're trying to listen to that and take in all this body language as they're doing it. So a lot of times people will do that. I've talked to people that. A lot of times people will do that. You know, I've talked to people that. You know a lot of some of the interviews. I do not a lot, but some of them I do have to do with child sexual abuse. And when you're talking to a 55-year-old grandfather that's accused of having sexual intercourse with his 9-year-old granddaughter, you know if they say you know that's disgusting, I would never do that. You know, I'm not the kind of person that would do this. I'm not the kind of person that would do this. I'm not the kind of person that would do that. And then they start laying out all these reasons why they wouldn't do something like that I have grandchildren.
David Lyons:I have grandchildren. I love my the entire time. You're saying that that's the scenario I've got grandchildren. Why would I ever do that?
Eddie Pearson:I love my grandchildren. Why would I? And I'm thinking we've got a problem here because you never told me you didn't- do it.
David Lyons:And let me ask you this Did you see what I saw when they would do that, where the drama level would increase, almost like they're?
David Lyons:looking for an Emmy, absolutely, and it would be more like really in there and I'm like man, you should have been on Broadway, you know, but it's. And the other thing I used to see and you'll probably get there too is when they're doing that is when they'll hang on and overly describe miniscule details that have no apparent value but they're provable, like if they know there's something in that story that if you went back and looked at video you'd see, but it means nothing to the case. Exactly and I see that unfortunately in the true crime genre is that when somebody is sometimes true crime people I hate to say this they'll start to buy a load of garbage, but they haven't been around it and usually what they're paying attention to is they start to assemble all these disconnected things and they believe it becomes circumstantial when they don't know that these are the results of somebody who's masterfully deflected you.
Eddie Pearson:Oh yeah, I call it smoke screening.
David Lyons:There we go. That's what I call it. That's a good name for it.
Eddie Pearson:I call it smoke screening Because I was interviewing a lady who stole some money from a. She was a bank teller and she stole money from the bank, a large amount of money from the bank and I was asking her about how the deposits when someone comes in to make a deposit, how does that work? Run me through that. She said okay. So she starts telling me all this other information, all this other details that has nothing to do with her stealing the money and I just call it smoke screening. And a lot of times people will do that and you have to bring them back to. Okay, that's all well and good, but that's not what we're talking about. What I'm talking about is you stealing this money from your employer and so you constantly have to bring them back to that. But people that are honest, you don't really have to do that and you can usually tell. I can usually tell pretty quickly after talking to somebody if what they're telling me is true or not. But what I do is I also let them talk about all that peripheral information, because that's verifiable information that I may need.
Eddie Pearson:Sure, if you're doing a homicide and the guy says I wasn't here, me and my girl were in Gatlinburg, that's yeah, exactly, that's gold. Okay, how did you get to Gatlinburg? Well, we drove her car, okay Okay. So now they got to eat, they got to get somewhere to stay, they got to put gas in it. So now I'm going to go look for food receipts, I'm going to look for hotel receipts, cabin receipts. I can get all that verifiable information. So when they're giving me all this other information, I'm taking note of it and then I'm going to tell the detectives. Well, he said he left on this date and they were in Gatlinburg when the homicide occurred. Let's find out where they got gas.
David Lyons:Let's look at the gas it, that's it. And I have missed it.
Eddie Pearson:That's it. I have missed it. I have done it. I've missed it. And I did an interview one time and it was actually on a theft, and I talked to this guy for two hours and I never asked him that he stole the money, never asked him, never ask him did he steal the money? I'm like I ask him every other question.
Eddie Pearson:So, like you were saying, there's just so much to remember and sometimes you miss it. And so I say, well, that's why I want my detectives to say watch me do this, because I am by no no means perfect and I miss stuff all the time. But the way I look at it and like you was talking about an ego thing it doesn't matter to me if the person is lying and we get him to confess, I don't care if I get him to confess. If Wendy gets him to confess, if you get it, doesn't matter. Right, right, the guy came in, we spoke with him. These are the results of the interview, interrogation and now we can move forward with the case, whatever it may be. I've had people look at me and say, well, if I can't get him to to confess, nobody can.
David Lyons:I'm like really yeah, I know that chemistry and we were big on that too that if and I think, here we go you have to have humility and check yourself. Because I think and you know the group of people I work with is one of the things that I loved about it is, if one of us sat down and that chemistry wasn't clicking like you could tell that I don't like you, boom, we were gone, oh yeah, and we'd go out and we'd say, you know, hey, billy, can you run in on this one, can you run in on this one, whatever it was, because it was like, instead of going there and trying to push the chemistry if they didn't like you at all maybe I wore glasses, I was short or whatever, whatever it was boom, we switched out and not everybody there Again people think I've done polygraphs and I've sat there and the guy fails the polygraph, or girl, guy, girl, whoever fails a polygraph, and I've talked to him for two hours Can't get anything out of him.
Eddie Pearson:Another examiner come in, sit down, talk to him for 15 minutes Got a confession, that's it. So then I'll go back. Well, why did you tell him that? Well, he looks like my great. He reminds me of my grandfather, or you know my brother, and he knows my brother because they went to high school together. There we go and I'm like okay. That's it I mean great, we got the confession, we can move forward. Well, can I?
David Lyons:throw something in too, because we're talking about confessions and everything. I think another thing that you've experienced a lot, and we've all experienced too, is when you actually are able to exonerate and remove somebody from a case. I want to make sure we put that balance in, because it's about the truth, and the truth takes you where it's going to go and everything. But the other thing too is that if we do this correctly, if somebody's not involved, we can articulate a very good, clear record, and then you're back to that thing where you're helping that person, and so the truth is what we're out for.
David Lyons:But I will say too that in the true crime world, you'll hear people I've seen it before that the only reason the cops put people in a room is to make them confess. I'm like well, sort of. But the reality of it is we're also not going to go in that room and waste our time just fishing. Does that make sense? So by the time we're sitting down with people, we feel pretty strongly about it. But I wanted to throw in there too that you.
David Lyons:Exactly that. There's a neat feeling in taking somebody off the hook and removing them solidly as a suspect. That's pretty cool.
Eddie Pearson:The way I approach it is this, and not everybody does this, but this is how I do it. My job as a polygraph examiner is to get as much information as I can from this person. Truthful information, deceptive information I want to get as much as I can. If it's deceptive information that they've provided, I want to give them an opportunity to correct it, because we don't remember everything in detail in our entire life, like what's the sixth word of the Star Spangled Banner? You got to think about that.
Eddie Pearson:If you say I don't know, and then 20 minutes later you say oh, it's bye, okay, well, great, I want to get as much information as I can and give this person every opportunity that I can to fix whatever issue they're looking at. If they decide to do that, wonderful, I will help them. If they decide not to do that, wonderful, I've done everything I can do to help them. It's on them. So, like you said, I'm not always in there looking for a confession, but if you failed a polygraph test, there is a reason you failed it and we need to find out what that reason is. And so if you can say well, the reason I failed the polygraph test is because I didn't tell you about this. Okay, let's talk about that. Maybe I didn't ask you a question about it because I don't know what I don't know.
David Lyons:Right.
Eddie Pearson:So if someone comes in and they are accused of stealing a watch and they fail a polygraph test because they stole a watch from another retail store not the one we're talking about, and it was a different watch if I don't know about that, I can't talk about it, no-transcript. Oh really, that store? Well, where else have you stole a watch from? Because I did a test one time on a burglary and a guy was accused of breaking into his neighbor's home and stealing his flat-screen TV and taking it to a pawn shop and pawning it.
Eddie Pearson:And so during my interview the guy says you know, I've stole a lot of stuff in my life, but I did not break into my neighbor's house and steal his TV. He's just trying to set me up. And I said well, listen, a polygraph exam doesn't only detect deception, it detects the concealment of information. So if you've stolen stuff from somewhere else and we don't talk about that, that can cause you to have a reaction on this test, because you know you're not telling me 100% of the truth, 100% of the time. The guy admitted to six other burglaries that we never knew about.
David Lyons:Oh wow, that's a score.
Wendy Lyons:So yeah, Did he really not steal the TV?
Eddie Pearson:No, he didn't steal it, no, and he passed. He took his top polygraph test and passed it. Yeah, because I was asking him specifically about that. One, like David, said we don't go fishing If you didn't do this, did you do this, did you do that, did you do this but Stole some stuff, but I didn't steal nothing from that house. Okay, well, what else have we stolen? Let's talk about that. That way, you're not thinking about it during the test. That way, it's not an issue. There we go, oh, okay, well, I've done this and I've done that and I've done this, but I was never okay.
Eddie Pearson:I'm only worried about this house and this TV. I don't care about any.
David Lyons:Wow.
Eddie Pearson:So, the way I look at it, my job is to get as much information as I can. There you go, there's your information, detective and detect. Do what you need to do Because, like I tell them, I'm a civilian. I can't charge you. I'm not going to arrest you, I'm just here to help you. That's all. I'm here to help you.
David Lyons:Yeah, I'm here to do it.
Eddie Pearson:That's a neat perspective, yeah. So that's kind of the way I look at it and I take all that body language in there and I've told people. I said, listen, I and, like you said, or you kind of BS them a little bit. I said I know you're not telling me the truth just by how you're sitting in that chair. You're like, what are you talking about? I, I don't do this at the beginning, I always do it at the end. Right, because I don't want to give them this information until I'm almost done. And I say, well, honest people don't wrap their feet around the chair, honest people don't cross their arms and do this. And I'll start talking about all this negative body language. I'll say honest people sit like this and I'll have them put your feet flat on the floor, turn your hands up, lean forward, and I'll have them sit like that. I said that's how an honest person sits when they have a conversation. So did you steal that watch? I didn't know. And they'll go right back to the negative body language that they have.
David Lyons:That's what I was going to say. I knew that was going to be. I knew that would happen.
Eddie Pearson:They go right back to it. One of the most misunderstood body language cues is this arms crossed. Everybody says, well, you're sitting in a room, you're talking to somebody and your legs are crossed and your arms are crossed. That's a barrier? It could be, but it could be because I'm cold. So you got to kind of look at this stuff. And why is this person's arms crossed this whole time I'm having this conversation? Why are their arms crossed? Are they cold? Are they comfortable sitting that way? Am I not asking the right questions? Because you start asking questions and you start building that rapport, you're going to see the center portion of their body open up. You'll see that when you see that center portion of that body open up, the chair that you're sitting in that has wheels you need to start to close that distance. Some of my interrogations we are knees to knees. My knees is touching his knees or her knees, whatever it is.
Eddie Pearson:There was a research paper that was done at the University of Minnesota years ago and it came out and says that if you're physically touching someone, it's much harder for them to lie to you. So a lot of times if people are sitting in a polygraph chair and they got their hands on their arms, on the arms of the chairs. I'll reach out and just touch the back of their hand and say, listen, I'm here to help. Everything's going to be okay. We all make mistakes Kind of pet them on their hand or maybe touch them on their elbow. That's the only place I'll ever touch anybody.
Eddie Pearson:But so that you know, they say that touching someone is much harder for them to be deceptive while you're touching them. So a lot of times when I'll start closing that distance and when I start doing that, I always make sure my chair is lower than their chair because I don't want to look down on them, I want to look up at them and I always lower my voice and I start talking much slower. There's a book out there called Never Split the Difference. A gentleman by the name of Chris Voss wrote this book. It's an amazing book. If you get a chance to read it, I highly recommend it. But he uses what he calls his late-night FM DJ voice. It gets real low.
David Lyons:And you know who Barry White is? Yeah, I was going to say it's Barry White.
Eddie Pearson:That's the Barry White voice you want to use when you want someone to confess. You kind of lower it, go into your Barry White voice and you talk nice and slow, kind of deep. Don't mock him, but just slow down, talk. You know, I know this is a mistake. This is not anything you intentionally did.
David Lyons:Something more maternal than driven. There we go again, where people I think they really think you just yell at people until they break that quote-unquote break.
Eddie Pearson:But yeah, to get inside that social creature they are I try to avoid using the term I understand.
Eddie Pearson:I try not to say that because the word I is a neuro receptor interrupter. You're changing the context of the conversation from the person you're interviewing to you. Like some of the real estate agents that I teach, I always say don't say I understand why you're selling your house. Let's say you have a lady that's going through a divorce and part of divorce is that she has to sell her home. So a real estate agent may say I understand what you're going through. Well, my very first question is, if I hear that is, how many divorces have you been through? Well, I've never been divorced. Now, can you understand what I'm going?
David Lyons:through.
Eddie Pearson:Or if you're talking to a 52 year old man that's accused of having sex with his granddaughter. You know, you say I understand. When were you accused.
Eddie Pearson:Yeah, when were you? Oh, I've never been accused, so I get away from that. So I try not to say I understand, because I want to avoid that. Anytime I start an interview, an interrogation, I always do what's called an accusation audit. I always say something to the effect listen, I understand you're busy. This is not a good time for you to come sit down and talk to me. This is going to be painful. We're going to talk about some very, very embarrassing things. We're going to be adults about it, we're going to be professional or we're going to move on. You know, taking a polygraph test sucks. This is a horrible thing you have to go through and I always talk about all the negative aspects of talking and having a conversation with someone about whatever we're going to talk about. The reason I do that is because they can't come back later on and throw it up in my face and use it as a defense because I've already talked about it.
David Lyons:There we go.
Eddie Pearson:I always get it out in the open. So I always do that right from the get-go and so we always talk about that and get that going. But one of the main things is that once I get that cognitive load increased in their brain, I want to keep it increased. I don't want to take a break and let it come back down. I let them reset. Let them go smoke a cigarette. Short of them going to the bathroom on themselves, we'll stay in there and we'll continue to talk. I always bring them a little bottle of water. I always bring them a bottle of water.
Wendy Lyons:You need something to drink.
Eddie Pearson:Get that out of the way. Here's your bottle of water. Now I've given you something. Now you need to give me something.
David Lyons:Yeah, I always said if we had a 24-hour Burger King next to headquarters, our confession rate would probably increase. Pretty good, there's something to that that you walk in the room Maybe they just got tackled by patrol, maybe they rode in the back of that car and everything and you walk in and you're like are you hungry, do you need something to drink? And I'm telling you I think I'm with you on that. That's a human thing of doing that. So that's a big deal.
Eddie Pearson:I tell everybody when they come in I say listen, while you and I are together, if you need anything, you need to take a break, you need a glass of water, you want something? You let me know, I will get it for you.
David Lyons:There we go, Provide Talking about that cognitive load winning. I think that's why I hit on that minuscule smoke screen. Is that? What I saw is that if they ran too hard, they're reducing that load that way and they get a lot of comfort because they're telling really solid truths in that moment.
Eddie Pearson:Cause they'll shut down. That's it. That's it.
David Lyons:So as soon as you said that about the cognitive load, I was like you could feel that that they were getting more comfortable from that, and I think that's why it's important to bring them in. But providing is a big deal.
Wendy Lyons:What do you say instead of I understand, I don't say anything.
Eddie Pearson:You just say nothing. Yeah, I don't say anything, just let it go.
Wendy Lyons:There's a technique out there called elicitation.
David Lyons:Hey, you know there's more to this story, so go download the next episode, like the true crime fan that you are, the Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of like the true crime fan that you are, 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 and a written review. On Apple Podcasts 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.
Eddie Pearson:Lock it down.
David Lyons:Judy.
