Making Interview Sandwiches

When my wife makes a sandwich, she is a virtuoso in the kitchen. She can take a heel of week-old bread and a refrigerator full of half-eaten veggies and make a sandwich that is worthy of a magazine cover. I’ve watched her do it. I see all of the actions she takes, and it still seems magical when the savory creation is set out for me. She just grabs random ingredients that I never would have thought of using. In fact, I know about all of the same ingredients we have on hand when she goes into the kitchen. I see an empty fridge and say “no food here, Chik-Fil-A” she makes the aforementioned masterpiece. 

When there’s nobody else around, I manage to feed myself. That heel of bread might get some cold cuts and mustard to make it a “sandwich.” Does it still feed me? Yes. Would I serve it to anybody else? No. 

Interview and interrogation is like making a sandwich. Anybody can do it. Some can do it better than others. In a perfect world, we’d always have the expert do it, but in the real world that task falls to us more often than not. Like making a sandwich, the recipe for interview and interrogation is not hard. A sandwich is (perhaps) bread, meat, cheese, and bread. An interview is (more or less) rapport building, interview, behavior provoking questions, accusation. 

I write because I want investigators to gain the confidence to get into the interview room. I want everybody reading this to know that the recipe for interview and interrogation is not complicated. No matter how unpracticed you are, if you follow the recipe, you will eat. In this analogy, simply eating would be, perhaps, advancing your case by learning something you didn’t know before. Eating well is getting a confession. 

As I continue writing, I want to provide you all with ingredients that I use in my interviews. The more I work on interview and interrogation, the more I try new techniques, strategies, and monologues. The successful ones stay on as new ingredients in my pantry. The unsuccessful ones get tossed out. I want to share with you what works for me so that you can add it as an ingredient. The more ingredients you have, the more likely you can take an empty fridge (a difficult interview subject) and still eat well (get the confession). 

Today’s ingredient: The Ungenerous Might Say

I thought about this one the other day. I read a story about Republican representative Matt Gaetz being investigated for human trafficking. The story read that he had a 17 year old girlfriend, which is the age of consent in his state. He flew with her to another state where he paid for a hotel room and had sex with her. Because there was a monetary exchange (paying for dinner / hotels) and she was under 18 (not sure if it was a federal age of consent or had to do with the specific state they were in), he is being investigated for human trafficking. If you’re interested, read his kinda not real sounding story about a missing FBI agent and a 25 million dollar Iran Contra style mission that led to being blackmailed.

Either way, when I read this story, I thought, “man, human trafficking sounds kinda harsh for having consensual sex with your 17 year old girlfriend.” I don’t know all of the specifics of this case. If he did something illegal, he should go to jail. Whatever the facts of his case are don’t really matter. My reaction made me think of something I could use in the interview room. 

The Ungenerous Might Say: 

“Listen, Hector, your daughter is accusing you of putting your penis in her vagina. That’s a serious thing to say, and we both know it. From my perspective in the interviewer chair, I know that sometimes what really happens sounds terrible when somebody else describes it. 

I bet that when you think about what happened, you see it as a series of barely connected events. For example, I spoke with a man once who was in his room masturbating all by himself. He closed the door. He thought he locked it. He had his favorite porn clip going. At that very moment, his daughter walked in. She was curious. He was in a bad spot. One thing led to another and the same thing that happened to him happened to you. Now, I don’t know if that’s what happened to you. 

What I DO know is that a series of unfortunate events sounds like a fair way to characterize that. It really mattered later on that he explained to us how that happened to him. If we hadn’t been able to piece together exactly how it happened, when family or news get ahold of the basic facts, they wouldn’t have known the context and they would have used a lot of harsh words. A series of unfortunate events becomes aggravated sexual assault. That’s pretty harsh. 

You know, I saw a story the other day on the news about a congressman. The news said that he had engaged in prostitution and human trafficking of a child. I thought to myself, “wow! What a scumbag!” That was just my initial reaction to the story. Then I read into it some more. When the congressman told his side of the story, it made complete sense what happened. According to him, when he was 25 years old, he had a 17 year old girlfriend, which is the age of consent in his state. He had meetings in another state. He and his girlfriend got on a plane, and they flew across state lines. They checked into their hotel room, had sex, and went on about their day. How would you describe what happened there? A normal consensual relationship? That seems fair to me. But when ungenerous people got hold of that, they said that the federal age of consent is 18. Since they crossed state lines knowing they would have sex, it was human trafficking. Since he paid for her room and hotel, it was prostitution. 

Hector, this is why it is so important to hear your side of the story. Why things happen matters. Context matters. Something that might be technically illegal makes perfect sense when the reasons are known.”

Depending on how the suspect is reacting, it might be appropriate to close this out with an alternative question (always remember to close an alternative question with a leading question). It might be necessary to keep talking. You’ll have to decide. Each case will be different. 

This is an ingredient I’ll be adding to my pantry. It provides a really good reason for why your suspect would want to talk and explain himself. Look through that monologue. There is no promise of leniency. There are no bargains or promises being made. Nothing shocks the conscience. I will use this soon, and I’ll let y’all know how it goes. 

The reason I like to think of these techniques as ingredients is that these and others I’ll describe are chunks of thought, explanation, or information that can be brought out as needed. You can grasp the concept and riff on it easily. Then you keep an eye on your suspect and grab other ingredients as needed. 

So get in that room and make yourself a sandwich.