I: We did pick up a fingerprint on this box of matches. Would you have a problem with us taking your
fingerprints?
S: No, you can do it now. (holds out hands)
Score: þ1. Quick response and truthful nonverbal behavior.
This suspect’s FAINT score was a þ8, and she was correctly eliminated as a suspect in
the arson.
Employee 3
Posture/Demeanor
Hand over groin, leaning one elbow on desk, no movement, no illustrators.
Score: –1 First suspect to use support gestures.
160
10. TRADITIONAL SCORING OF THE FAINT INTERVIEW
MITT
Irrelevant Card (violin)
S: Before she wants to learn how to play the violin, and now she’s trying to figure it out (shrugs/slight
hand illustration as talks) . . . She gets good. Plays a concert.
Irrelevant Gender Specific Card (male in suit)
S: Uh . . . before the guy’s looking for dress clothes. (slight hand illustration as talks) Now he’s trying on a suit. Fits good and he gets it.
Relevant Card (arson)
S: Uh . . . before . . . I guess the kid’s playing with fire. (slight hand illustration as talks) Now the room’s on fire. (shrugs) Guess he calls the fire department. (slight laugh)
Guilt or Remorse Gender Specific Card
S: Before a kid’s having trouble. Now he’s just thinking. Gets it all settled.
Apprehension Card (polygraph)
S: Before he was witness to crime or something, now he’s on a polygraph test . . . after (shrugs) he’s guilty.
(slight snicker)
Score: –1. Very mild language (playing with fire) used in describing the relevant card,
and has the suspect deceptive in the apprehension card (polygraph test).
I: What is this interview about?
S: I guess about last night.
Score: –1. Fails to tell us what happened.
I: What about last night?
S: The fire that was started in the back.
I: Why were you selected to be interviewed?
S: Because I was working.
Score: þ1. Includes himself as a suspect.
I: How do you feel about being interviewed?
S: (shrugs) No problem.
Score: 0. Nonverbal behavior negates verbal response.
I: In your entire life, did you ever do anything out of anger?
S: Out of anger? Not that I can remember.
I: Did you start the fire?
S: No.
CASE STUDY 3: MULTIPLE SUSPECTS
161
Score: þ1. Comparison question shows resistance by structure and lack of commitment.
I: Tell me whatever you think about this, whatever you heard.
S: Well, all I know is it was started with matches, cause I saw them back there. And one guy was chewing
matches (open palm) . . . John. I saw the matches after the fire.
Score: þ1. He takes us right to his suspect.
I: Did you ever think about doing something like this?
S: (nods, “No”)
Score: –1. No verbal answer.
I: In your entire life, did you ever go out of your way to get even with somebody?
S: . . . Not really, but I guess everybody done something once in awhile.
I: Regarding that fire, did you start it?
S: No.
Score: þ1. Comparison question causes more emotional change than relevant
question.
I: Did you ever do anything here that you could be fired for?
S: Here? (tapping chair with fingers) No, not that I know of.
Score: þ1. Comparison question causes more emotional change than relevant question.
I: Who would you suspect?
S: Well I don’t think . . . (open palms) . . . John maybe, cause he’s the only one I seen with matches.
Score: þ1. He narrows investigation.
I: Who would you say definitely didn’t start it?
S: Uh . . . Tim. He was with the manager most of the night.
Score: þ1. He narrows investigation.
I: What should happen to the person who started the fire when we catch them?
S: (shrugs) I guess lose his job.
Score: 0. Lacks commitment.
I: Do you think they should get a second chance?
S: No.
Score: þ1. He now confirms punishment.
I: Would there be any reason evidence would turn up indicating that you did this?
S: No, there shouldn’t be.
162
10. TRADITIONAL SCORING OF THE FAINT INTERVIEW
Score: –1. Lacks commitment (“there shouldn’t be”).
I: For example we found this box of matches back there, any reason we’d find your fingerprints on it?
S: (nods, “Yes”) . . . I don’t know about that particular box, but I was hunting some matches for a lady
earlier.
I: And what did you do with the box you hunted for?
S: I brought them back on the shelf.
I: She didn’t want them?
S: (nods, “No”)
I: What did that lady look like?
S: Uh it’s an old black lady.
I: Does she come in the store often?
S: Yeah.
I: So, next time she comes in you can get her name so we can verify you hunted matches for her?
S: If I can recognize her.
Score: –1. Evidence may identify him.
I: Did you tell anyone at home about this?
S: (nods, “No”).
Score: –1. Does not tell anyone.
I: Why do you think someone would do this?
S: I don’t know, (shrugs) it could’ve been an accident.
Score: –1. Denies crime may have taken place.
I: Do you think it was accidental or deliberate?
S: Well, I don’t know, cause the guy I think done it, you know he was, he did get in some trouble earlier
that day. It was John.
Score: þ1. Brings us back to his suspect.
I: Is George a friend of yours?
S: Not really, we go to school together.
I: Have you talked to him since last night?
S: A little while ago.
I: Did he tell you anything?
S: (nods, “No”)
I: Did you ask him anything?
S: Just what you doing here.
I: Did he say anything about it?
S: (nods, “No”)
I: How does he look?
S: Nervous.
I: In your entire life, did you ever lie to someone who loved you?
S: . . . Not really.
I: Did you lie to me today about whether you started the fire?
S: No.
CASE STUDY 3: MULTIPLE SUSPECTS
163
Score: þ1. Comparison question caused greater emotional change than relevant
question.
This suspect’s FAINT score was a þ2, and he was not eliminated as a suspect pending
the interview of the final suspect.
Employee 4
Posture/Demeanor
Hand on leg, backward lean with one elbow in an akimbo position and the other elbow
leaning on the desk, unsettled body movements, no illustrators and slight stutter.
Score: –1. Support very unsettled nonverbal behavior.
MITT
Irrelevant Card (violin)
S: She wants to learn how to play the violin and she’s sitting there studying studying studying the
chords, the pictures and stuff (illustrates with hand). And the outcome is she learns how to play it.
Irrelevant Gender Specific Card (male in suit)
S: . . . A guy walked in a room and sees someone’s sitting there. And there’s suspicion . . . the guy sitting there don’t know him and he’s suspicious and it
turns out to be one of his old Army buddies.
Relevant Card (arson)
S: . . . Boy came to see his father, but his father’s not there. So the boy assumes he went home.
Guilt or Remorse Gender Specific Card
S: (touches nose) . . . The boy heard his father passed away and he’s sobbing about it, but it turned out not to be his father but a friend of his father.
Apprehension Card (polygraph)
S: It looks like a person wanting to . . . it’s a person testifying in court . . . he’s got some wires hooked up to him, like a lie detector test . . . he’s calm . . . and . . . he’s telling the truth.
Score: –2 Only suspect not to see fire in the relevant card makes this suspect’s MITT more
deceptive than other suspects who have already received a –1 for their MITT. Stories do not
always make sense, and sees himself and interviewer in the second irrelevant card.
I: What is this interview about?
S: (breaks eye contact/eyes up and right) A fire that happened last night. I was the person here when the fire took place.
Score: 0. Timely breaking of eye contact and then entering neurolinguistic eye pattern not
indicative of memory cancels verbal content.
164
10. TRADITIONAL SCORING OF THE FAINT INTERVIEW
I: Why were you selected to be interviewed?
S: I was the one that . . . smelled the smoke in the stockroom. I thought it was a customer smoking a cig
arette. Uh, when I turned around there was no customer around me so I walked off. I came back . . . to the
same spot and s . . . s . . . s . . . still smelled smoke. That’s when I decided to go . . . into the stockroom and found the smoke. Then I went and told the manager and helped put the fire out.
Score: –1. Too long of an answer (shortest answer is the best answer and any deviation
must be questioned), actually had given us his “how and why.”
I: How do you feel about being interviewed?
S: Well . . . you got to catch the person who started the fire, so . . . I feel it’s my civic duty to tell you everything that happened last night.
Score: 0. Is the suspect telling us we cannot find the perpetrator without talking to him?
I: Tell me whatever you think about this, whatever you heard.
S: I was walking the store for loose items. . . . I passed in front of the stockroom doors. I smelled some
smoke. I thought it was a customer. So I turned around. There was no customer behind me or beside me
so I kept on walking. I came back to the same spot again, and I smelled the same smoke again, so that’s
when I decided to go into the stockroom see what was in there . . . And I went and got the manager, went
back there and put the fire out.
Score: –1. Excessive pronouns, indicating the story is rehearsed and edited.
I: Did you ever think about doing something like this?
S: No sir. (exaggerated eye contact)
Score: 0. Nonverbal behavior cancels verbal answer.
I: In your entire life, did you ever go out of your way to get even with somebody?
S: No sir. My brother once.
I: Regarding that fire, did you start it?
S: No sir. (exaggerated eye contact/nods, “No”)
Score: –1. Nonverbal behavior of deception is repeated.
I: Did you ever do anything here that you could be fired for?
S: No sir.
Score: –1. No emotional change to comparison question.
I: Who would you suspect?
S: (touches nose) Well, Ron . . . Ron Powell, that boy’s always walking the floor. He was sitting behind the meat counter. He was near the stockroom. It may have been him, it may not of. That’s who I suspect.
Score: 0. Nonverbal behavior cancels verbal response.
I: Who would you say definitely didn’t start it?
S: . . .(breaks eye contact/left and up) I don’t know the people in the store that good. I don’t know each
employee personally. I don’t know.
CASE STUDY 3: MULTIPLE SUSPECTS
165
Score: –1. Only suspect not to narrow investigation to this question.
I: What should happen to the person who started the fire when we catch them?
S: Well, it depends upon the manager. If I was the manager I’d fire him and put it in police hands
because that’s a major arsonist.
Score: 0. By referring the decision to the manager, he negates any punishment he would
offer.
I: Do you think they should get a second chance?
S: If he had a good reason to start it, yeah.
Score: –1. Only suspect that would give the perpetrator a second chance.
I: Would there be any reason evidence would turn up indicating that you did this?
S: No sir.
Score: þ1. Fast denial.
I: What will it tell us about you?
S: The way I answered each question?
I: The whole process, what’s it going to tell us about whether or not you did it?
S: Well it can prove I’m guilty or not guilty, which I think is unfair. The fingerprints could be mine or
could not be; they could be someone else’s.
Score: –1. Does not answer the question.
I: For example we found this box of matches back there, any reason we’d find your fingerprints on it?
S: I found a box of matches up front (looks at box found at scene). I put them on the shelf. I put them on the shelf and walked off letting them sit there.
Score: –1. Failure to deny incriminating evidence.
I: We found this box at the fire.
S: I put them on the shelf.
I: We found this box in that room.
S: I put that box there on the shelf.
I: This box?
S: Yes sir.
Score: –1. Claims to have touched the exact box of matches used to set the fire and found
at the crime scene.
I: How do you know it was this box?
S: It was one like that box.
I: We found this box at the fire. Any reason your fingerprints would be on this box?
S: No sir. It’d be on one like that on the shelf. If it ain’t been sold.
I: Did you tell anyone at home about this?
S: I told my mother.
166
10. TRADITIONAL SCORING OF THE FAINT INTERVIEW
Score: þ1. Told someone what happened.
I: Why do you think someone would do this?
S: The prices in the store might be too expensive, or they might not be expensive enough, or they might
not like the manager or something.
Score: –1. Broadens the investigation and gives understanding explanation.
I: Do you think it was accidental or deliberate?
S: Well, where it was set, where I found it, it was definitely set.
Score: þ1. Believes crime took place.
I: Would there be some reason someone would say they seen you come out of that stockroom, start to
walk down the aisle, then reenter the stockroom, and then come out yelling fire? (Challenge of the suspect’s
“how and why”)
S: . . . (leans in) Repeat the question, I didn’t hear.
I: Would there be some reason someone would say they seen you come out of that stockroom, start to
walk down the aisle, then reenter the stockroom, and then come out yelling fire?
S: No sir.
I: No reason at all?
S: No sir. I went back there to put some damaged goods back there. Then when I came back out I walked
the store and found some more damages, I went back in there, that’s when I really smelled the smoke.
Score: –1. Changes his “how and why”; an automatic sign of deception.
I: Did you set i
t?
S: No sir. (exaggerated eye)
I: In your entire life, did you ever tell a deliberate lie to get out of trouble?
S: No sir.
Score: –1. Greater reaction to relevant question.
This suspect’s FAINT score was a –12, and he was identified as the perpetrator. He con-
fessed to the crime during the Integrated Interrogation Technique.
SUMMARY
• The FAINT interview score is composed of the following five components:
1. Posture/Demeanor
2. MITT
3. Projective/Relevant/Comparison Questions
4. The Suspect’s Written Statement
5. The After-Interview Interview.
• Using a traditional 3-point scoring system, items are scored þ1 if they appear truthful,
0 if it is not clear, and –1 if they appear deceptive.
• When there is a conflict between the verbal answer and nonverbal behavior, a score of
0 will be given.
C H A P T E R
11
The Validation of the Forensic
Assessment Interview (FAINT)
As part of a graduate research project at the University of South Africa (UNISA), a study
was performed by one of the authors to determine the accuracy of the FAINT interview [1].
Four professionals trained at the Academy for Scientific Investigative Training volunteered
to independently perform blind evaluations of fifty-one actual interviews of criminals in
both multiple-suspect (i.e., employee theft) and single-suspect cases (i.e., rape), where
ground zero truth* had been established in investigations conducted at Keystone Intelli-
gence Network, Inc., a long-established private investigation firm in Philadelphia, Pennsyl-
vania. The interviews accurately recorded the original FAINT interviewer’s nonverbal and
verbal observations, as well as the suspect’s written responses to the questions on the
structured FAINT form (Appendix A). The four evaluators were required to read, assess,
score, and make conclusions regarding the truth or deception of each of the fifty-one
suspects.
Thirty-nine of the suspects were male, and twelve were female. The responses of the
fifty-one suspects were recorded during interviews resulting from twenty-two investiga-
tions, which involved six different categories of crimes. The suspects and categories of
crimes appear in Table 11.1. The scoring process to be used was the same as outlined in
the previous chapter:
Nathan J Gordon, William L Fleisher Page 23