Confessions of a Lie Detector: years of theft, sex, and murder
Page 24
Police at that time had an open case on the murder of a 14-year-old girl who had been dragged off the street into the backyard of a neighbor’s home, raped, and choked to death. The murder had happened in late 2001, about six months before Stephens’ rape arrest and more than three years after I saw him. He had not been a suspect in the murder case, nor had anyone else been identified by the police. Murders done by one person and committed against a stranger are notorious for being among the most difficult to resolve. Fortunately they are also the least likely to occur.
As a consequence of Stephens rape arrest, police obtained a DNA sample and ran it through their forensics lab to see if any old cases matched. When a rape occurs, police routinely obtain vaginal swabs from either a hospital or coroner and attempt to match the DNA derived from recovered semen against the DNA of known persons already on file. Stephens had never before provided a DNA sample, so he was not already in the databank. As a consequence, his identity had not popped up during the original rape and murder investigations over the preceding five years. After his arrest, the lab reported back that Stephens’ newly submitted DNA had produced hits. The DNA preserved from the unsolved murder of the 14-year-old six months earlier matched Stephens, as did three other rapes, including the two that Stephens did in the month before I saw him.
An obvious question arises about polygraph. Why did Stephens produce inconclusive results instead of clear indications of deception when tested only a few weeks after committing two new rapes? It seems as though such recent activity and the threat of being returned to prison for violation of parole should have made the issue as strong and clear as possible. We would only know why the examination did not produce the expected results if we could somehow get inside Stephens’ mind to learn how he regarded the rapes, the possible consequences, and the polygraph examination itself. His test results at least demonstrate the fallacy of a common assumption among examiners that a strong issue – something that occurred recently and is freighted with serious consequences – will always produce the best and clearest examination results. One possible explanation for Stephens’ unclear results rests with the time frame of the examination questions, covering most of Stephens’ life, a practice I have repeatedly tried to discourage but which treatment providers and probation officers have often insisted upon. The questions used in the test asked if he had ever forced sexual contact on anyone, besides what he had already admitted. A narrower time frame might have worked better, perhaps limited to the period of his parole – which at that time was less than three months but which already included two undiscovered rapes. Perhaps Stephens had become so angry about authority and at the same time so numb to the consequences of his behavior that no polygraph approach would have produced more solid results. I would like to be able to say that I had an answer to this dilemma, but everyone we test is different and we rely upon the fact that most will respond on a polygraph examination in expected ways and will match expected patterns. A few will not, just as someone occasionally responds in a dramatically unanticipated way to a commonly prescribed drug.
At trial, the prosecutor asked for the death penalty, but the jury decided on a life sentence without possibility of parole, which the parents of the murder victim indicated they preferred. The prosecutor identified 19 girls and women whom Stephens had sexually assaulted during his lifetime, including two women who had experienced brief consensual relationships with him, gave birth to his children, and then obtained restraining orders to keep him away. In addition to his life sentence, Stephens got several 30-year sentences, to be served separately, for the rapes.
In 2008 Stephens was 40 years old when the Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction. He had by then spent more of his adolescent and adult years behind bars than as a free man. Assuming there is no unforeseen change in his status, he is due to spend the rest of his life in custody.
18. Epilogue
I have conducted over 6,000 polygraph exams during a career that has spanned more than 30 years. I have spent time conversing with people I would not have encountered in any other profession: murderers, drug dealers, thieves, and the wrongly accused. Some of them I loathed, some I found pathetic, and for many I felt sympathy, even some of the liars. Almost all of my examinees were either facing new criminal charges or were on probation or parole for something already adjudicated. I have met people in the midst of what for most of them is the most unpleasant time of their lives.
It has not escaped me that many of us become who we are through accident, a chance meeting, an unexpected need, the influence of others. When you see the grief that some people experience through their own faulty judgment or impulsive behavior, while others escape consequences through simple luck – undiscovered events, lack of evidence, a reticent victim or witness, a criminal charge bargained away in exchange for testimony against another – you tend to become less judgmental of those who face formal criminal proceedings..
In my profession, which is populated by many current or retired law enforcement officers, I am one of the few liberals. I have great affection for most of my colleagues, and I think the feeling is mutual, but we don’t talk politics. It would be irrelevant to what we do. I am deeply impressed with the dedication of most polygraph examiners, who simply want to help correctly identify where the truth lies. They want to produce accurate results that will pass review by another examiner. Private examiners, who test for defense attorneys, don’t want every case to indicate truthfulness; and police examiners don’t want every examinee to flunk. Like any profession, including doctors and lawyers, there are a few who let their vanity override sound judgment, but they will always be with us in all areas of life.
In most states, polygraph testimony is not admitted at trial. New Mexico is an exception, but it requires that any polygraph testimony admitted at trial must be derived from a test conducted under a set of specific guidelines. Elsewhere, judges have made it known repeatedly that they don’t like polygraph. The best of them have been quick to admit that their dislike is not related to accuracy. After all, testimony is routinely permitted from many other experts who express opinions that have demonstrably less accuracy than occurs in polygraph. Eyewitness testimony, notoriously unreliable and ultimately responsible for more wrongful convictions than any other form of evidence, according to DNA reversals, still forms the basis of many criminal prosecutions. But the courts believe that it is essential that society adhere to the almost ceremonial process of bringing together the accused and the accuser. It is an ancient tradition that does not tolerate the intrusion of a third party, the polygraph examiner.
Polygraph presented properly in court could never be accused of trying to misappropriate the role of the jury or judge. No examiner can determine truthfulness or deceit. In the general population none of us can do that, except with regard to ourselves, and we don’t always get that one right. A polygraph examiner can only report that he or she has found a significant pattern. An examinee may have produced charts that matched the pattern most people produce when they are truthful or when they are lying. This is a game of averages. We can say that most people respond physiologically a certain way when lying or telling the truth, but we can not say with certainty that any particular examinee is like most other people. The odds suggest that he is likely to be, but a few are not and we seldom know who they are.
Presented in those terms, competent polygraph testimony should not alarm any reasonable judge. Several decades of research have repeatedly demonstrated accuracy in the range of 85 to 99 per cent, depending on the type of test. The accuracy of polygraph is well established, but it will never be perfect, which anyway is a standard we do not impose upon any other discipline in courtroom testimony.
Banning polygraph from court proceedings is equivalent to a ban on appendectomies because many are known to be unnecessary and are a mistaken remedy for symptoms that do not involve the appendix. Fortunately, we do not apply the same standards to medicine that we do to polygraph.
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I am grateful for the work I chanced upon and for my acquaintance with other examiners, and with lawyers, criminals, and the innocent. For someone with an English degree who planned to be a newspaper reporter, this is not what I would have imagined for myself when I was 21. I can not think of a better, more honorable, profession. I have come to believe that most of us – on our various life paths – maintain some bright element of innocence in our souls, even if the light flickers and dims a little occasionally.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jim Wygant has been editor of a small weekly newspaper, a police reporter for a large daily, an investigator in a District Attorney’s office and an Attorney General’s office, an independent licensed polygraph examiner for over three decades, a web site designer, an instructor and lecturer, publisher of a professional newsletter, and an adult education teacher.
He has published two novels, The Spy’s Demise and Jessica’s Tune. He also has two other books available in Kindle e-book format only. White Buffalo is a collection of short stories; and Gossamer Afternoons is a book of poetry. They are available from Amazon.com.
Jim and wife Sandy live in Oregon. They have visited the U.K., France, Italy, Greece, China, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Cook Islands, Russia, and Poland, as well as many U.S. cities.
Jim’s official web site is www.jimwygant.com.
The Spy’s Demise:
“An exciting spy thriller looking at the time of turbulent intelligence following the fall of Soviet Union, ‘The Spy’s Demise’ is not to be missed.”
- Midwest Book Reviews
Jessica’s Tune:
“With Jessica at the wheel, you will find yourself spinning into an exciting adventure, one that keeps you guessing.”
- TicToc Book Reviews
Table of Contents
1. Please Don’t Tell Me The Truth
2. Hatching An Examiner
3. The Great Soda Pop Hoax
4. Mucking Around In Truth
5. The Machine
6. Thieves Among Us
7. Rape Suspects
8. Murder Suspects
9. Wrongly Accused
10. Why We Lie
11. Reputations At Risk
12. Dangerous Men
13. The Francke Case
14. Prisoner Schemes
15. Mistakes
16. Betrayers Of Trust
17. Some Of The Worst
18. Epilogue
ABOUT THE AUTHOR