Confessions of a Lie Detector: years of theft, sex, and murder

by Jim Wygant

  My client was to be a 22-year-old woman who said that she had found two tiny needles from syringes in her Pepsi. The metal needles had been broken or cut from the plastic bodies of the syringes, which were not found.

  I carefully went over the exact circumstances of the discovery with the TV reporter. The woman’s husband, who worked at a convenience store, had purchased the can of Pepsi from that same store. He said that he bought a case of RC cola for himself and friends, and a single Pepsi for his wife, who did not like RC. She said that she opened the can herself but then left the room briefly, asking him to pour it into a glass for her. He did that while she was out of the room. When she returned and picked up the glass of dark bubbly liquid, she saw something in the bottom that looked like a crack in the glass. She and her husband then discovered the needles. That was their story.

  I pointed out to the TV reporter that a test only on the woman would not conclusively eliminate the possibility of a hoax. It was possible that she was being truthful about finding needles in her glass, but that her husband had put them there. I suggested that the husband was the better candidate for a polygraph test if only one of them was to be tested. There was nothing about the circumstances of this case that caused me to recommend the man, but I knew that statistically men are more likely to commit crimes than women. I also knew from experience that men are often less apt to share information with a woman than the reverse. A man might concoct his own private little con job without telling his lover, but she’d be more apt to share the idea with him if she originated it. I figured he’d know if either one of them was committing a fraud, but she might not know if he had done something on his own. It’s a “sexist” assumption, in the sense that it is based on presumed gender differences, but I had no other rationale of any kind available for making a choice between the two people. One of them had to be the first tested, and I had to assume that I might not have the opportunity to test both of them.

  The reporter agreed with my recommendation and said he would ask the man to be tested. A few hours later he called back and said that when he had approached the couple with an actual appointment for a test, they had both refused and were speaking to a lawyer.

  Later that afternoon I had a message from the same TV channel that they were attempting to get an agreement for a test on someone else. I looked forward to the possibility, a welcome break from the usual issues of sex and violence.

  It was that second call that actually materialized into an examination at 11 a.m. on the following day. The person I was to test was a 22-year-old man in a wheelchair. Alan Winkle had lost his lower left leg to cancer. He lived alone in a downtown Portland hotel in a single room with a shared bathroom. As I learned these circumstances my enthusiasm for the project began to evaporate. I did not want this unfortunate man to fail his test.

  Alan arrived dressed in a cheap soot-black suit. I presumed this was for the benefit of the TV crew, since the people I test usually affect a style of dress that is generously characterized as casual. Alan also wore a bicyclist’s fingerless gloves to protect his hands from the rigors of piloting his motorless wheelchair. He had not shaved well, missing small clumps of thin hair on his chin. He was skinny and wore glasses.

  He wheeled himself into my office with the TV reporter and cameraman right behind him. I set the rules: I would test Alan alone, no one else present, and I would disclose the results to Alan and the TV crew when we were finished. Everyone agreed. The TV crew departed.

  Alan’s attitude was upbeat. I had noticed as he led the TV crew into my office that he seemed to be enjoying the attention he was getting. He happily mentioned that a reporter from another TV channel had also interviewed him on the way to my office. Later, when Alan signed a form consenting to the examination, he wrote with a bold flourish without waiting for me to finish reading the form to him. In every way he appeared eager to take the test, although he admitted he had taken a polygraph test a few years earlier and done badly on it. His positive attitude began to look more like a veneer when I asked how much sleep he had gotten on the previous night. He estimated two hours. When I asked why, he said he had been under “a lot of stress” for about a month. When I asked the source of the stress he said he didn’t know.

  Following my customary practices, I explained to Alan what we would be doing. He was attentive and relatively relaxed. I reminded him that the TV reporter had already told me his story, but I asked him to tell me himself exactly what had happened.

  He had gone to a nearby Safeway store on Saturday night and bought a six-pack of Pepsi cola. He did not open the first can until Monday night. He was alone in his room. He said that he opened the can, poured most of the contents into a glass, and then left the glass and can unattended while he went to the bathroom down the hall. Although the TV reporter had said that Alan admitted leaving his door unlocked, Alan told me that there was a spring lock on the door that automatically engaged when the door closed behind him. He did not believe that anyone had entered his room during the three minutes he said he was gone. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed, and he was certain the door had been locked.

  The TV reporter had related that Alan first heard a suspicious rattle in his Pepsi can before going to the restroom, but did not check inside the can of soda until he heard a second rattle, after returning from the restroom. When I asked Alan when he first heard the rattle he said that it was only after he returned from the restroom. He said he had not heard anything before that.

  Alan said he poured out the rest of the Pepsi and shook the can until an intact syringe fell out.

  Although I was concerned about the discrepancies between what Alan told me and what the TV reporter had described, I recognized that such differences could be attributable to simple mistakes by the reporter or faulty recollection by Alan. (I later learned that the cameraman recalled hearing the same version that the reporter claimed).

  I was more concerned with Alan’s responses on some of the simple assessments that I often incorporate into my pretest interview. I like to know what someone did right after a critical discovery, whether that discovery was finding a syringe in a can of Pepsi or being accused of some awful crime. I’m not as interested in what the person did later, after he’d had time to think about things. I want to know about the initial spontaneous response, if any.

  I asked Alan what he did after his own alleged discovery. He said that the next morning he called Pepsico, using a phone number he had gotten from TV. He said Pepsico did not take him seriously, kept him on hold, and finally hung up on him. I asked him if he had told anyone else about the syringe before calling Pepsico. He hesitated and then said that he had “joked” with some of his neighbors about finding a syringe in his Pepsi. Given the publicity already surrounding such discoveries at that time, Alan’s response seemed curiously inappropriate.

  I also asked Alan if he had opened the other five cans in the six-pack. I was already thinking that if I had been the one who found something other than cola in a can of Pepsi I would have immediately opened all of the other cans and examined the contents. He said that he had not opened the others because the FDA requested that he leave them sealed. I asked him when he had gotten that instruction from the FDA. He said Wednesday; but he had opened the suspect can on Monday night.

  I did not challenge any of Alan’s assertions, or point out any discrepancies, or otherwise imply that I either did or did not believe him. I explained to him that in a polygraph examination the only critical consideration is that the person answering the questions can identify his own answers as truthful.

  I offered my usual advice: it does not matter what anyone else in the world doubts or believes. I told Alan, “If you know that you are telling the truth that’s all that’s necessary for you to pass this test. If you know that you are not telling the truth, you are the one person in the world you can’t fool.”

  We put together a set of questions and I took Alan into the room in which the polygraph instrument was set up. He transf
erred himself from his wheelchair into the examination chair, fitted with extended arms. I attached the polygraph components around his thin chest and his arm, and gave Alan a few final instructions. Then I took my place at the instrument and inflated the blood pressure cuff.

  I ran three charts, meaning that I went through the test questions three separate times while the instrument recorded Alan’s physiological responses. I unfastened him and we returned to my adjacent office where I scored the charts.

  It had been apparent during the test that there were strong and consistent responses on a question that asked, “Did you make up what you told me about finding the syringe inside the Pepsi can?” Numerical scoring confirmed that Alan’s body responded to that question in a manner that indicated lying. Results on two other questions about the syringe were unclear, partly because I was forced to make assumptions in this first test just to eliminate certain possibilities. For instance, one of the unclear questions asked, “If you got that syringe out of your Pepsi can, do you know the identity of the person who put it there?” This question would clearly have no impact if the syringe had never been in the Pepsi can. On the other hand, I wanted to eliminate the possibility that Alan might have had someone else put the syringe in his open can. It was a long shot, but I did not feel I could disregard it. The weak response on that question convinced me that nothing like that had happened.

  I did not tell Alan the results of this first test. I decided, because of the gravity of the issue, to run a second test with slightly different questions. I told Alan only that the charts were a bit unclear and that I wanted to run a few more, just to confirm the unspecified results indicated by the first test. He agreed. We discussed the revised questions. I hooked him up again and got three more charts.

  The results were unmistakable. When I asked “Did you get that syringe from someplace else that you have not told me about?” Alan produced a strong indication of lying.

  I told Alan the results. He slumped in an attitude of defeat that I am accustomed to seeing. I suggested that he ought to withdraw his complaint, offering whatever excuse he liked, claiming he had been mistaken or that he was no longer sure. I pointed out that if he quit his claim, the news media would be finished with him. If he continued to insist that he had found a syringe, the media would continue to pursue him. I tried to interrogate him further, hoping to get him to admit any deceit, but he wanted to “get it over with,” meaning his interview with the TV crew who were in my waiting room. I summoned them in and explained that I had already told Alan that the test indicated lying.

  I thought that Alan might leave immediately. I guess I would have chosen to, even if relentlessly dogged by the TV crew. Whether he felt that such a hasty exit would be tantamount to an admission, or simply wanted to prolong his moment of fame, I don’t know. In any event the TV reporter asked Alan to return to the chair where I had conducted the test, and Alan consented. With lights blazing and camera recording, the reporter asked Alan about the test, pointing out that he did not seem as enthusiastic as he had earlier (a friend who saw the newscast later asked me what I had done to Alan to cause him to look so whipped). Ultimately Alan told the TV camera that he would stick by his original story.

  When everyone had packed up and left, I returned to other work, still troubled about participating in what had been a media event from the very beginning. If the initial stories about syringes in Pepsi cans had not received nationwide attention, people who were lonely or greedy would not have identified this kind of complaint as a route to fame and possible fortune. While I could have no sympathy for someone who tried to make a dishonest dollar by blackmailing Pepsico, I felt sorry for someone like Alan, who had repeatedly said that he did not intend to sue anybody, which I thought was probably true.

  About an hour after the test Alan returned to my office by himself. I had gotten on well with him throughout the test, and he held no obvious animosity toward me because of the results. He told me that reporters from two different TV channels were waiting outside his hotel for him to return. He was avoiding the place so he would not have to talk to them. He asked me for the name and phone number of another polygraph examiner, in case he decided to try another test. I wrote out the information on a piece of paper, but I suspected that Alan could not afford the fee to acquire his own test. I also predicted that since polygraph procedures were essentially the same from one examiner to the next, the results would be the same. Finally, I offered a word of advice.

  “Alan, don’t go see the FDA. Don’t sign any formal government complaint.” The FDA knew about the polygraph test from conversations they’d had with the TV station. They had made an appointment with Alan to see him later that day. He told me that he didn’t know what he would do about the appointment.

  The newscast that night revealed that Alan had decided not to give a formal signed statement to the FDA. The reporter said that Alan was afraid the FDA would not believe him. The same newscast announced that the number of persons arrested nationwide for false syringe reports had gone up to six that day. The FDA had issued a strong statement that they would prosecute all cases of false reporting.

  The next day, when the hysteria was only one week old, the number of persons arrested nationwide for false reports rose to 12, and Alan took another polygraph examination with a government examiner, arranged by the FDA. He told reporters that he had agreed to the FDA’s persistent requests for an interview and had signed their formal complaint. They had happily endorsed his demand for another polygraph examination. Alan told a TV news reporter later that he had flunked again. He told another reporter that his syringe incident had actually been a prank perpetrated against him by a friend, contrary to his original assertion that no one could have gotten into his locked room. By the end of that day the news media recognized that nobody was served by more stories about Alan. They moved on to fresher topics.

  The hoax died as quickly as it had been born. In the 24 hours after the second day of arrests, claims of contaminated cola ceased. The FDA declared that out of more than two dozen complaints nationwide, there was not one confirmed instance of a syringe actually being found in a sealed Pepsi can.

  Over the weekend nothing further happened. Government offices were closed. On Monday the U.S. Attorney’s office in Portland filed criminal charges against all three of the Oregon complainants. Court documents revealed that two of them admitted they had actually been “joking.” About Alan, the criminal charges alleged that he claimed to have been the victim of a practical joke but had been aware of it and not disclosed it when he signed his FDA statement. The government was willing to accept Alan’s claim that somebody else had put the syringe in his cola, but they alleged that he had still broken the law by concealing that information from the FDA. Nobody really believed Alan’s claim that he had not supplied his own syringe, but that no longer mattered.

  –––

  For one person to lie about finding a syringe in a can of cola would be bizarre. It is remarkable that so many people – more than two dozen nationwide before the media stopped counting – could tell the same lie. It was as though there was a great unspoken conspiracy. These people shared nothing except their exposure to the same newscasts.

  In Oregon all three alleged victims were in their early twenties and were living at or near the poverty level. One of them, the woman who said she had found two needles, had a history of filing workman’s compensation and insurance claims. It was discovered that Alan had a history of calling local TV stations with news tips.

  Are we to assume that most of the liars believed that the others were telling the truth and that a single lie among a field of genuine complaints would not be noticed? Or was it the opposite, each liar assuming that all the others were also fakes, so that one more would be of no consequence? Did they mostly act from greed, wanting a piece of the big Pepsico pie, or from the desire to be noticed, to be a part of the six o’clock news, the world that some of us know more intimately than the real one outside our door
s?

  Regrettably there are many among us who think it is morally acceptable to blackmail a corporation, just because it has money and is an impersonal entity of seemingly infinite resources. I suppose that some people saw this hoax as a kind of lottery, one in which their number had finally come up. Worse yet, this may be yet another sign that we have become a thoroughly litigious culture in which we equate injury with compensation rather than personal loss. Based upon the low economic status of the three complainants in Oregon, we might also speculate that in 1993 there was a stratum of young people in our country who saw no hope of attaining the comforts they saw so vividly depicted on television, except by deceit.

  One of the ironies was that the potential damage was not limited to some great, invulnerable corporation in some unknown location. The suspect bottling plants were often locally owned franchises. The colas sold to the people in Portland came from a locally owned plant in the small farm community of Mt. Angel. It was those employees, the line workers, the truck drivers, the people who lived and worked in the same area where the hoax was being perpetrated who were most directly threatened by the consequences of the fraud.

  Of all the possible contaminants to find in anything, a syringe must be one of the oddest. It is frightening because we associate it with the pain of getting poked; and we are familiar with it as an instrument for the use of illegal drugs. A syringe, from any consideration, is one of the most unpleasant things we encounter in life. On the other hand, it is conspicuous, not something we might overlook as it rattled around in a can or glass. If the whole business of the Pepsico hoax were not so sad – in what it told us about what some will concoct and what others are prepared to believe – it might otherwise have been too absurd to take seriously.