"Okay, so what did you do the day before?" the detective asked. He didn't have any notes, but he sure rembered a lot of details and stuck to the narrative he was driving ho.
"That day, during the day, I was at the base and doing what was standard. Again, I don't rember the specifics. I went out in the evening after spending all my day at the base, there were no flights, though." Standard response. He didn't rember specific things. It was just a normal day.
"Do you rember what ti you left the base?"
"Make note that the thod of gathering pretext will be focused on the murder of the woman," Sebastian added quickly. We turned back to the video and watched closely.
"I want to take you back to the day of the death of Miss Wright. Do you rember how you ca to find out about the incident?"
"Yes, I do," he said confidently. The detective had put the question out in such a way that there was no suspicion in his voice and he was giving the suspect a leeway to make an alternative answer, to make an alibi which the detective could pick apart later on. "I rember receiving an email about the cruel incident and everyone was talking about it."
'The cruel incident,' he had said. This was a common technique to distance himself from the cri and subliminally say that 'he' was not capable of such a heinous act.
"How do you know her?"
"I rember once that she was on the sa crew as . We exchanged pleasantries." Richard went on to explain the encounter, giving details that he shouldn't have rembered from the single encounter they had.
It struck . He was overcompensating for the answers he didn't have by giving too many details for sothing he did rember. But the only thing he was doing was establishing that the single passing eting with the victim had left a mark on him and he vividly rembered it even though it had been months since it had actually happened.
"Do you rember roughly when that happened?"
"It was soon after I got to the base, so five or six months?" The number of months the break-ins and sexual assaults had been taking place in that region. How very convenient.
"Now, you received an email. Do you recall if there was anything scheduled that week? What was happening in your life?" The detective brought Richard back to the tiline of the cri.
"I can't rember in detail..." he repeated a few tis. He sounded apologetic. In contrast to the vivid detail of the eting, this paled in comparison. "I can't even rember the day of the week." He sighed. "There was a whole bunch of activities going on..." he said at last.
In quick succession, he had stated that he couldn't rember the answer to the question. The normal conversation between individuals would usually posit the person asking the question to reassure the individual it was directed at. Usually, they would say, 'don't worry if you can't rember. We'll move on,' or 'it was a long ago, it must be difficult to recollect' would be awarded as a form of consolation and to also break the uncomfortable silence. Even during so witness testimonials, so form of emotional assistance and encouragent will be given, especially to soone recollecting a disturbing event from the past. On this occasion, the detective provides no assurance, he only stoically gazes at the suspect and doesn't shift even a little bit during the mont of silence. The detective was clearly playing into the ga theory of interaction. Very basic tactics in interrogation and conversation situations.
The detective was trying to break into what little comfort Richard had left.
"So if we were to investigate into your background, is there anything you can think of that soone might have misinterpreted and say that you did this?"
"Absolutely not!" Richard answered imdiately.
"Okay..." the detective replied dispassionately.
"It would be very boring..." The words were mumbled but I could hear it as clear as day.
"Excuse ?" the detective asked.
"I said, that would be boring." There was a little reassurance in his voice, unfounded and hopefully soon to be broken down again.
"You seem like a very intelligent person and I know you can see that there are so alarm bells in the investigation..." The suspect nodded. "The next thing we need to ask given the types of cris we are investigating do you watch any cri shows?"
"I have watched a little."
"So you have an idea of the forensic capabilities out there. What would you be willing to give today to help move past you in this investigation?"
"What do you need?" Richard stamred.
"Do you want to supply fingerprints, blood samples?" The fact that the detective was letting the suspect decide gave the suspect a sense of power, a choice that he has to make for himself to either prove his innocence or to re-evaluate how he can dupe the system into thinking he was innocent.
"Sure."
"Wait, this actually worked? Shouldn't a man in the military know more about this and know that he can deny taking a test under many pretexts that doesn't look suspicious?" I asked, clearly confused.
"Though he is in the military, the information out there that is true about the forensic procedure is little. People don't know that there are other ways. But Richard wants everyone to believe he is innocent so he will concede to everything." Sebastian explained.
"This is known both in psychology and philosophy as a cross-road, a mont in your life when a single instantaneous choice will take you to multiple exceedingly different outcos. The only two pieces of evidence acquired at the ti were the tire-track and footprints. The DNA found on the body was not admissible as the body was highly decomposed at the ti and genetic analysis was not possible because the outcos could be wildly different from the truth. Rember that this was before the advent of the new DNA testing thod known as next-generation sequencing."
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