10 - هر کسی یک نوسان دارد

Chapter 10

Everybody Has a Rock

One evening years before, when I was back home after my ill-fated college experience in Montana, I was having dinner with my parents at a pizza and beer place in Uniondale, Long Island, called Coldstream. Just as I took a bite out of my slice of everything-with-extra-cheese, my mother—out of the blue—said, “John, have you ever had sexual relations with a woman?” I swallow hard, trying to gulp down what I had just bitten off. This isn’t the kind of question nineteen- or twenty-year-old kids are used to being asked by their mothers in the mid-1960s. I turn to my father for some sign of support, but he’s stone-faced. He’d been caught as much off-guard as I had.

“Well, have you?” she persists. She wasn’t a Holmes for nothing.

“Uh . . . yeah, Mom. I have.”

I see this look of revulsion come over my mother’s face. “Well, who was she?” she demands.

“Ah . . . Well . . .” I’ve sort of lost the healthy appetite I’d come into the place with. “Actually, there’ve been several.”

I don’t tell her one had been in her mid-teens in a home for unwed mothers in Boseman. But you’d have thought I just told her where I’d hidden the bodies after I’d dismembered them, and it had been right in their basement. “Who is going to have you as a husband now?” she laments.

Again I turn to my unusually silent father. Come on, Dad, help me out!

“Oh, I don’t know, Dolores. It’s not a big deal these days.”

“It’s always been a ‘big deal,’ Jack,” she counters, then turns back to me. “What would happen, John, if your future bride someday asked you whether you had had relations with another woman before you met her?”

I pause in mid-bite. “Well, Mom, I would tell her the truth.”

“No, don’t say that,” my father pipes up.

“What do you mean, Jack?” my mother asks. Okay, Dad, let’s see you get out of this one.

The interrogation session ended in an uneasy stalemate. I’m not sure if I got anything out of the encounter. I either told Pam of my past or she suspected it. At any rate, she did agree to marry me, despite my mother’s fears. But when I thought back to that grilling from my perspective as a federal law enforcement official, profiler, and expert on criminal behavior and psychology, an important realization did dawn on me. Even if I’d had all the training and analytical experience that I have now, I still wouldn’t have handled my mother’s inquisition any better!

Because she’d gotten to me on a vulnerable point of truth.

I’ll give you another example. Ever since I became the FBI’s chief profiler, I personally selected and trained all of the other profilers. For that reason, I’ve enjoyed a particularly close and cooperative relationship with all the men and women who’ve been on my team. Most of them have become stars in their own right. But if I could ever be said to have had a true disciple among them, it would be Greg Cooper. Greg left a prestigious job as chief of police in a town in Utah while still in his early thirties and joined the FBI after hearing Ken Lanning and Bill Hagmaier speak at a law enforcement seminar. He distinguished himself in the Seattle Field Office, but always had the dream of coming to Quantico to work in Behavioral Science. He had requested and studied all of my profiling and analysis of the Green River Killer, and when I flew out to Seattle to appear on a viewer-participation television special called Manhunt Live, Greg volunteered to be my chauffeur and guide. When I became chief of the reorganized Investigative Support Unit, Greg was working in an FBI resident agency in Orange County, California, and living in Laguna Niguel. I brought him back to Quantico, where he became an outstanding performer.

When he first came into the unit, Greg was assigned to share an underground, windowless office with Jana Monroe, a former police officer and homicide detective in California before she became a special agent who, among her many other fine qualities, happens to be a smashingly attractive blond. In other words, she puts it all together. Now, not too many men would find this a hardship assignment, but Greg happens to be a devout Mormon, a very straight and devoted family man with five lovely children and a stunning wife named Rhonda, to whom it was a major sacrifice to move from their sunny California paradise to sleepy, hot, and humid Virginia. Every time she asked about his office mate, Greg would hem and haw and try to change the subject.

Finally, about six months after he’d been on the job for us, Greg brings Rhonda to the unit Christmas party. I’m not there because I’m working a case out of town, but the naturally vivacious Jana is. And typical for her in a party situation, she’s wearing a subtle, understated, short, and form-fitting bright red dress with a plunging neckline.

When I get back, Jim Wright, the unit’s second-in-command who has taken over for me as profiling program manager, tells me there were real fireworks between Rhonda and Greg after the party. She’s none too happy about his spending his days in such close confines with a beautiful, tough, charming agent who knows her way around a firing range and dance floor with equal facility.

So I have my secretary get Greg out of a meeting and tell him I want to see him right away. He gets to my office looking somewhat concerned. He’s only been here six months, this unit has been his dream, and he really wants to make good.

I look up from my desk and say, “Close the door, Greg. Sit down.” He does, even more disturbed by my tone of voice. “I just got off the phone with Rhonda,” I continue. “I understand you’ve had some problems.”

“You just got off the phone with Rhonda?” He’s not even looking at me. He’s staring straight at the call-director phone on my desk.

“Look, Greg,” I said in my most soothing counselor tones, “I’d like to cover for you, but when you and Jana go on the road together, I can’t make any special provisions. This is something you’re going to have to deal with on your own. Rhonda obviously knows what’s going on between you and Jana and—“ “Nothing’s going on between me and Jana!” he splutters.

“I know there are a lot of stresses in this job. But you’ve got a beautiful, terrific wife, nice kids. Don’t throw it all away.”

“It’s not what you think, John. It’s not what she thinks. You have to believe me.” And all the time he’s still staring at that telephone, maybe thinking if he concentrates hard enough, he’s going to be able to burn it right through the desk. He’s broken out in a cold sweat. I can see the carotid artery pounding in his neck. He’s heading south fast.

So at that point I let up. “Look at you, you miserable wretch!” I grin triumphantly. “You call yourself an interrogator?” At the time he was preparing a chapter on interrogation for the Crime Classification Manual. “Have you done anything to be guilty about?” “No, John. I swear!”

“And look! You’re putty in my hands! You’re completely innocent. You’re a former chief of police. You’re an experienced interrogator. And yet I was able to play you like a yo-yo. So what do you have to say for yourself?”

At that particular time, as the sweat of relief rolled off his balding head, he didn’t have anything to say for himself, but he got the point. I knew I could jerk him around like that because it had been done to me with equal success and could be again if the situation arose.

We’re all vulnerable. It doesn’t matter how much you know, how experienced you are, how many suspect interrogations you’ve handled successfully. It doesn’t matter if you understand the technique. Each of us can be gotten to—if you can just figure out where and how we’re vulnerable.

I’d learned this during one of my earliest cases as a profiler, and I put it to use many times thereafter—not only in demonstrations to my own team. It was the first time I actually “staged” an interrogation.

In December 1979, Special Agent Robert Leary from the Rome, Georgia, Resident Agency called with the details of a particularly horrible case and asked me to give it my top priority. The week before, Mary Frances Stoner, a pretty and outgoing twelve-year-old girl in Adairsville, about a half-hour from Rome, had disappeared after being dropped off by the school bus at the driveway to her house, approximately a hundred yards back from the road. Her body was later found about ten miles away in a wooded lovers’ lane area by a young couple who noticed the bright yellow coat over her head. They contacted police and did not disturb the scene, a critical consideration. The cause of death was determined to be blunt-force trauma to the head. Postmortem examination detected skull fracturing consistent with a large rock. (There’s a bloodstained one right near her head in the crime-scene photos.) Marks on the neck also indicated manual strangulation from the rear.

Before I looked at the case materials, I wanted to know as much as possible about the victim. No one had anything other than wonderful things to say about Mary Frances. She was described as friendly to everyone, gregarious, and charming. She was sweet and innocent, a drum majorette in the school band who often wore her uniform to school. She was a cute twelve-year-old who looked twelve, rather than trying to look eighteen. She wasn’t promiscuous, she’d never been involved with drugs or alcohol. The autopsy clearly indicated she’d been a virgin when raped. All in all, she was what we would characterize as a low-risk victim taken from a low-risk setting.

After being briefed, listening to Leary, and studying the files and crime-scene photos, I jotted down the following half-page note:

Profile

Sex—m

Race—w

Age—mid-twenties-late twenties

Marital—married: problems or divorced

Military—dishonorable, medical

Occupation—blue collar: electrician, plumber

IQ—average-above average

Education—H.S. at most; dropout

Criminal Record—arson, rape

Personality—confident, cocky, passed polygraph

Color Vehicle—black or blue

Interrogate—direct, projection

This was a rape of opportunity, and the murder had not been planned or intended. The disheveled appearance of the clothing on the body indicated that Mary Frances had been forced to undress, then was allowed to redress hurriedly after the rape. I could see from the photos that one shoe was untied, and the report noted bleeding in her panties. No debris was on her back, behind, or feet, which suggested she was raped in a car, not on the wooded ground where her body was found.

Looking intently at the rather routine crime-scene photos, I began to understand what had happened. I could imagine the whole thing.

Because of her youth, as well as her outgoing and trusting nature, Mary Frances would have been easily approachable in so nonthreatening an environment as the school bus stop. The UNSUB probably coaxed her up to his car, then grabbed her or forced her in with a knife or gun. The remoteness of the area in which her body was found indicated that he knew the region well and knew he wouldn’t be disturbed there.

From the abduction scene I could tell this wasn’t a planned crime, but rather one that took form as he drove past. Just as in the Odom and Lawson case, had anyone else happened upon the scene at the right time, the crime wouldn’t have gone forward. Because of the young girl’s cuteness and sunny disposition, in his own mind the fantasy-fueled offender had made over her innocent friendliness into promiscuity and the desire to play sexually with him.

Of course, in actuality, nothing could have been further from the truth. Once he assaulted her, she would have been terrified, in severe pain, crying out for help, and begging for her life. The fantasy he’d been nurturing for years was one thing, but the reality wasn’t pretty. He’d lost control of the situation with this little girl and realized he was in one hell of a mess.

At this point, he realizes the only way out for him is to kill her. But since she’s in fear for her life, controlling her is much more difficult than he’d imagined. So to make it easier on himself, to make her more cooperative and compliant, he tells her to get dressed quickly and he’ll let her go—either he’ll let her run away or maybe he’ll tie her to a tree and leave the scene himself.

But as soon as she turns her back on him, he comes up behind her and strangles her. He’s probably able to render her unconscious, but strangulation requires a lot of upper-body strength. He wasn’t able to control her before, and he can’t finish the job. He drags her under a tree, picks up the nearest large rock he can find, and drops it down on her head three or four times, killing her.

I didn’t feel the offender knew Mary Frances well, but they had seen each other around town enough for her to have recognized him and for him to have formed fantasies about her. He’d probably seen her going to school in her little majorette uniform.

I knew from the placement of the coat over her head that our UNSUB didn’t feel good about the crime. I also knew that time was against the police. In this type of crime and with this type of intelligent, organized offender, the longer he had to think about it, rationalize it, and justify it as the victim’s fault, the more difficult it would be to get a confession. Even if he were polygraphed, the results would be inconclusive at best. And as soon as he felt the heat was off and he wouldn’t arouse suspicion by leaving, he’d be off to another part of the country where he’d be difficult to trace and where some other little girl would be in danger.

To me, the UNSUB was clearly from the area and the police had almost assuredly interviewed him already. He’d be cooperative but cocky, and if the police accused him, he wouldn’t break. I told them a crime with this degree of sophistication would not be a first, although there was a good chance this was his first murder. His blue or black car would be several years old because he could not afford a newer one, but it would be functional and well maintained. Everything in it would be in place. From my experience, orderly, compulsive people like that generally favored darker cars.

After hearing all this, one of the officers on the phone said, “You just described a guy we released as a suspect in the case.” He was still a suspect in another crime and he fit the profile to a T. His name was Darrell Gene Devier, a white male, twenty-four years of age, who’d been married and divorced twice and who was currently living with his first ex-wife. He was a tree-limb trimmer in Rome, Georgia, where he was a strong suspect in the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl, but had never been charged. He had joined the Army after his first divorce but had gone AWOL and was discharged after seven months. He drove a three-year-old black Ford Pinto that was well maintained. He admitted to having been arrested as a juvenile for possession of a Molotov cocktail. He dropped out of school after eighth grade, but IQ tests listed a range of 100 to 110.

He had been interviewed to see if he had seen or heard anything, since he’d been trimming trees on the Stoners’ street for the power company for about two weeks before Mary Frances’s abduction. The police told me he was scheduled for a polygraph that very day.

That wouldn’t be a good idea, I told them. They wouldn’t get anything out of the exam, and it would only reinforce the suspect’s ability to cope with the interrogation process. At that time, we didn’t have a lot of field experience with interrogation, but from the prison interviews and the ongoing serial-killer study, I felt that I knew what I was talking about. Sure enough, when they called me back the next day, they told me the lie detector had been inconclusive.

Now that he knows he can beat the box, there’s only one way to get him, I said. Stage the interrogation at the police station at night. The suspect will feel more comfortable initially, making him more vulnerable to questioning. This will also give him a message about your seriousness and dedication. He knows there isn’t an arbitrary break point like lunch or dinner, and he knows he’s not going to be hung out as a media trophy if he caves in. Have the local police and the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office carry out the interrogation together to show a united front and to imply that the full weight of the government of the United States is against him. Pile up stacks of file folders on tables in front of him with his name on them, even if they’re just full of blank pages.

Most important: without saying anything about it, place the bloody rock on a low table at a forty-five-degree angle to his line of sight so that he’ll have to turn his head to look at it. Closely observe all his nonverbal cues—his behavior, respiration, perspiration, carotid pulse. If he is the killer, he will not be able to ignore that rock, even though you haven’t mentioned it or explained its significance.

What we needed to create was what I call the “high ass-pucker factor.” I actually used the Stoner case as a laboratory for my theories. Many of the techniques we refined later had their experimental origins here.

He won’t confess, I continued. Georgia is a capital-punishment state, and even if he’s only sent to prison, his rap as a child molester could get his ass raped the first time he takes a shower. All of the other prisoners will be gunning for this guy.

Use low, mysterious lighting and have no more than two officers or agents in the interview environment at one time, preferably one from the FBI and one from the Adairsville PD. What you’ve got to do is imply that you understand the subject, understand what was going through his mind and the stresses he was under. No matter how disgusting it feels to you, you’re going to have to project the blame onto the victim. Imply that she seduced him. Ask if she led him on, if she turned on him, if she threatened him with blackmail. Give him a face-saving scenario. Give him a way of explaining his actions.

The other thing I knew from all the cases I’d seen is that in blunt-force-trauma or knife homicides, it’s difficult for the attacker to avoid getting at least traces of the victim’s blood on him. It’s common enough that you can use it. When he starts to waffle, even slightly, I said, look him straight in the eye and tell him the most disturbing part of the whole case is the known fact that he got Mary’s blood on him.

“We know you got blood on you, Gene; on your hands, on your clothing. The question for us isn’t ‘Did you do it?’ We know you did. The question is ‘Why?’ We think we know why and we understand. All you have to do is tell us if we’re right.”

And that was exactly how it went down. They bring Devier in. He looks instantly at the rock, starts perspiring and breathing heavily. His body language is completely different from the previous interviews: tentative, defensive. The interrogators project blame and responsibility onto the girl, and when he looks as if he’s going with it, they bring up the blood. This really upsets him. You can often tell you’ve got the right guy if he shuts up and starts listening intently as you speak. An innocent guy will yell and scream. And even if a guilty guy yells and screams to make you think he’s innocent, you can tell the difference.

He admits to the rape and agrees with the interrogator that she threatened him. Bob Leary tells him they know he didn’t plan on killing her. If he had, he would have used something more efficient than the rock. In the end, he confesses to the murder and to the rape in Rome the previous year. Darrell Gene Devier was tried for the rape and murder of Mary Frances Stoner, convicted, and sentenced to death. He was executed in the Georgia electric chair on May 18, 1995, almost sixteen years after the murder and his arrest; that’s almost four more years than Mary Frances had on earth.

The key to this type of interrogation, I found, is to be creative; to use your imagination. I had to ask myself, “What would get to me if I were the one who did it?” We’re all vulnerable. It’s going to be a different thing for each of us. In my case, with my sloppy bookkeeping, my SAC could probably call me in, have me see one of my expense vouchers on his desk, and make me sweat. But there’s always something.

Everybody has a rock.

The lessons learned in the Devier case can have applications far beyond the sick world of sexual murder. Whether it’s embezzlement, public corruption, a mob investigation, a fencing scheme, or a corrupt union you have to penetrate, it doesn’t matter; the principles are going to be the same. What I would advise in any of these types of cases would be to target whomever you deem to be the “weakest link,” figure out a way to bring him in and let him see what he’s up against, then win his cooperation in going after the others.

In any kind of conspiracy case, this is a critical issue. What you want to do is flip one guy to be a government witness, then watch the whole house of cards come tumbling down. The choice of whom to approach first is so important because if you pick the wrong guy and then can’t flip him, he’s going to tip off everyone else and you’re back at square one.

Let’s say we’re investigating a big-city public corruption case in which we suspect eight or ten people are involved from one particular agency. And let’s say the number one or two man in the agency is the best “catch.” But when we profile the guy, we find that he has his personal act together despite the corruption. He isn’t a boozer or a womanizer; in fact, he’s a strong family man—no illnesses, no money problems, no obvious vulnerabilities. If he’s approached by the FBI, there’s a good chance he’d simply deny everything, tell us to go to hell, and alert the others.

The way you get to someone like this is to go through the smaller fish, just as with organized crime. As we go through all the records, maybe one candidate will stand out from the rest for our purposes. He isn’t a higher-up, but a clerk who fixes all the paperwork. He’s been at his job for twenty years, so everything he has is invested in it. He has financial and medical problems, both of which provide strong vulnerabilities.

Next comes the choice of who is “cast” to lead the interrogation. My preference is usually for someone a little older and more authoritative than the subject, a sharp dresser with a commanding appearance, someone who can be friendly and outgoing and make the subject relax, but become absolutely serious and directed as soon as circumstances call for it.

If there’s a holiday coming up in the next few weeks, or perhaps the subject’s birthday or anniversary, I advise postponing the interrogation to take advantage of that. If you get him in the room and he realizes that, if he doesn’t cooperate, this might be the last holiday season he’ll be spending with his family, that can give you some added leverage.

“Staging” can be just as effective in dealing with a nonviolent offender as it was in the Stoner murder case. For any large or ongoing investigation, I suggest concentrating all of your materials into one place, whether or not this was actually done for the case. For example, if you take over a conference room for your “task force,” gathering all your agents, staff, and case files together, you’ll be showing your subject just how serious you are. If you can “decorate” the walls with, say, blowups of surveillance photos and other signs of just how wide-ranging and official this ongoing investigation is, the point will be driven home all the more forcefully. A couple of video monitors playing tapes of your targets in the act are icing on the cake.

Among my personal favorite touches are wall charts showing the penalties each person would face if convicted. There’s nothing terribly profound about this, but it does tend to keep the pressure on the subject and remind him of the stakes. I want to get that “ass-pucker factor” as intense as I can.

I’ve always found that the late-night or early-morning hours are often the best time to conduct an interrogation. People tend to be more relaxed and at the same time more vulnerable. Again, if you and your guys are working through the night, you immediately send the message that this case is a big deal and you are very committed to it. Another practical consideration of a nighttime interrogation in any conspiracy case is that your subject should not be seen by any of the others. If he thinks he’s been “made,” then there’s not going to be any deal.

The basis of any successful deal is going to be the truth and an appeal to your subject’s reason and common sense. All the staging does is call attention to the key elements. If I were conducting the interrogation of our representative subject in the public corruption case, I might call him at home late at night and say something like, “Sir, it’s very important that I talk to you tonight. FBI agents are walking up to your door even as we speak.” I would stress that he wasn’t under arrest and didn’t have to go with the agents. But I’d strongly suggest that he accompany them downtown because he might not have another chance. There would be no need to Mirandize him at this point because he isn’t being charged with anything.

Once he arrived at the office, I’d let him cool his heels a while. When the other football team has to make a long-yardage field goal on the last play to win the game, you call a time-out to give their kicker time to think about it. Anyone who’s had to wait to see the doctor before an important appointment knows how effective this can be.

Once he was ushered into my office, I’d close the door, trying to seem warm and friendly, very understanding, everything man-to-man. I’d call the guy by name. “I want to make sure you understand you’re not under arrest,” I’d reiterate. “You’re free to leave any time you want and my men will drive you back home. But I think you should listen to what I have to say. This could be the most important date in your life.” I might have him say the date with me to make sure we’re on the same wavelength.

“I also want you to know that we’re aware of your medical history and we have a nurse on stand-by.” This would be true. One of the reasons we targeted this guy was because of this particular vulnerability.

Now we start talking turkey. I would stress that the FBI realizes he’s a little fish, that he’s been underpaid for what he’s done, and that he’s not really the one we want the most. “Right now, as you can see, we’re interviewing many of the people involved in this case. The ship is going down; no question about it. You can go down with it or you can reach up for the third time before drowning and grab for a life preserver. We know you’ve been used, manipulated, taken advantage of by others much more powerful than you. We have a U.S. attorney standing by to offer a real deal if you want to take it.” As a parting shot, I would stress, “Remember, this is the only time we’ll be able to make you this offer. I’ve got twenty agents working this case. We can go out and arrest everyone if we have to. Don’t you think someone will roll if you don’t? And then you’ll go down with the ship. If you want to go down with the big guys, that’s your choice. But tonight is the last time we’ll be able to talk like this. Will you cooperate?” If he does—and it really is in his best interests if he does—then we Mirandize him and let him contact an attorney. But as a good-faith gesture, I’d probably ask him to get on the phone and arrange a meeting with one of the other players. You don’t want him having second thoughts and backing out. Once you’ve got your first guy’s commitment, the rest of the pieces start falling into place.

The reason this works so effectively, even if you understand our complete approach in advance, is because it’s mutually beneficial to the investigator and the targeted subject. It’s based on truth and tailored to the subject’s life and situation and emotional needs. Even knowing how it was staged for maximum impact, if I were the subject presented with this deal, I’d take it, because it does represent my best chance. The strategy behind this type of interrogation is the same as the one I developed for the Stoner murder case. I keep thinking to myself, “What would get to me?” Because everybody has a rock.

Gary Trapnell, the armed robber and airplane hijacker I interviewed at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois, is just about as intelligent and insightful as any criminal I’ve studied. He’s the one who was so confident in his own abilities that he assured me he could fool any prison psychiatrist into believing he had any given mental condition I specified. He was also confident that if he were out of prison, he’d be able to evade the law.

“You just can’t catch me,” he asserted.

“Okay, Gary,” I said hypothetically, “You’re out. And you’re smart enough to know you have to break off all contact with family members to keep away from the feds.

“Now I know your father was a high-ranking, decorated military officer. You really loved and respected him. You wanted to be like him. And your crime spree began when he died.”

I could see from his facial reaction that I was on to something; that I’d hit a nerve.

“Your dad is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. So suppose I have agents staking out his grave around Christmas, on his birthday, and the anniversary of the date he died?”

In spite of himself, Trapnell broke out into a sardonic smile. “You got me!” he announced.

Again, the reason this occurred to me was because I tried to put myself in his place; I tried to figure out what would get to me. And my experience tells me that there is a way to get to everyone, if you can only figure out what it is.

In my own case, it might be something similar to what I would have used on Trapnell; that is, a particular date might be the emotional trigger.

My sister Arlene had a beautiful blonde daughter named Kim. She was born on my birthday, June 18, and I always felt a special bond with her. When she was sixteen, Kim died in her sleep. We were never able to find out the exact cause. To compound the pain and joy of her memory, it happens that my eldest daughter, Erika—now college age—looks very much like Kim. I’m sure that Arlene never sees Erika without seeing Kim in her mind, picturing what Kim would have grown up to become. My mother feels the same way.

If I were to target me, for instance, I’d plan the approach right before my birthday. I’m emotionally up, looking forward to the celebration with my family. But I’m also thinking about my niece, Kim—the birthday we shared, how much she resembles Erika—and I’m going to be feeling vulnerable. If I happen to see photographs of the two girls on the wall, I’m likely to come even more unglued.

It doesn’t matter that I know what the overall strategy is in approaching me. It doesn’t matter that I’m the one who came up with it. If the triggering stressor is a legitimate, valid concern, it will have a good chance of working. This one could be mine. Yours would be something else and we’d have to try to figure out in advance what it would be. But there would be something.

Because everybody has a rock