Two Investigator Suspect Interviews
Should you?
My partner and I presented on interview related topics at a major conference in Dallas, TX this past week. After our presentations, the most common question was, “What do you think about two investigator suspect interviews?” so I’ll address it here.
Two investigator suspect interviews have a lot of potential, if you lay one essential ground rule: the secondary interviewer stays quiet until prompted by the lead interviewer. If I were going in with somebody I hadn’t worked with before, I would say, “When we are in there, please don’t say anything at all. Take notes. Observe. Watch for deception. Look for holes in the story. I will prompt you when I want you to step in. If I don’t prompt you, don’t talk. Cool?”
You can’t ballroom dance with two leaders. You can’t interview with two talking investigators either. With two talking investigators, it is inevitable that they will step on each other’s carefully laid plans. For example, they are destined to violate the voice vacuum (the technique of asking a question and not talking again until the suspect talks). This is a less than one minute video, and it illustrates the point well:
Ok, what happened there? It is two clips I extracted from a Red Circle Interrogation post on the Grant Amato killing. Grant has been convicted of killing his brother and their parents. The first clip shows how the second investigator thinks, “I’m not leading, I’ll just check this text message.” This clip is taken from perhaps the most important point in that interrogation. It is where the female investigator announces what they are actually doing there: “We got called to the house because Cody didn’t show up for work today.” There has been almost two hours of buildup to this point. They are about to talk about the bodies that Grant left in the house. Then the male investigator’s phone dings with a message, and he checks it! Have you ever tried to communicate to your better half, “I really care what you have to say” while checking your text messages? Your better half didn’t believe it. You need maximum credibility at these pivotal interview moments, and I would argue that these two missed the moment.
The second clip is even harder to watch. I hadn’t planned to show the cellphone again, it just happened to occur in a clip I chose for other reasons. Besides the cellphone, this is an example of why two investigator suspect interviews can go so wrong. The female investigator asks, “What happened at that home that you know?” I like this question. Let’s see what he says! Nope. After 7 seconds the male investigator talks and then the female investigator talks over top of him!
A common voice vacuum is maybe 30 seconds - 2 minutes. The voice vacuum puts the suspect under immense pressure to talk. It is uncomfortable. It CAN be done with two investigators IF you establish the rule - the lead investigator talks and the backup says nothing until prompted, no matter what - and both follow it. Here, the moment is destroyed when he talks. Then the suspect gets to look between investigators and decide who he wants to talk to.
If you haven’t experienced the voice vacuum, practice it with a friend. Prep your friend by telling them not to say anything for as long as possible. Then ask them, “What did you do last night?” while you continue to look at them and they continue to be silent. It’s awkward. It will make your friend want to talk. Feel free to ask them questions about who drank the last of the milk, stole your phone charger, or any other household mystery while you’re at it!
Side note: If you are watching a murder interrogation - or any interrogation for that matter - and hear your messages making that investigator’s phone ping in the room, STOP IT! As an investigator, you may need to explain this to your chain of command. “I won’t be answering any messages in there.” If you are the investigator, put it on silent and put the phone away.
I want to say that I mean no disrespect at all to these investigators. I think all in all they did a good job with a tough suspect. I know for certain that they could find all sorts of faults in my videos, but I think we need to learn from each other and they have their video posted on the world wide web.
Let’s discuss another negative aspect to two investigator suspect interviews: if one of you is less committed to getting the truth, it is likely that they will demonstrate this in a way that destroys momentum and rapport. A friend of mine in sex crimes asked me to watch a suspect interview they were going to do with a partner. I did, and they were doing great. I was on the edge of my seat watching how uncomfortable the suspect was. He was definitely lying, and my friend had them on the ropes. Then, out of absolutely nowhere, the second investigator thanked the suspect for coming in and shut the interview down. I immediately texted my friend, “What was that?!?” They said that their partner wanted to wait for DNA and call the suspect back. I looked at my watch, saw that it was noon, and I suspected that the second investigator just got hungry and didn’t care enough to keep going.
If you go in with a second interrogator: Lay. The. Ground. Rules.
There ARE some positives to having two investigators in a suspect room. You have a built in backup for safety, and there is another person watching without having to think of questions. The backup investigator can watch for non-verbals and can think about larger picture issues like “Did they ever actually answer that question?” That can be a great way to maintain the focus.
On the other hand, a benefit to having one investigator in the room is that there is a greater feeling of privacy. We are often asking people to admit to sexual felonies or felonies of violence in some other way. It’s often easier to admit to something one on one than in a group setting. Would you want to admit to being a screwup for the first time to one person in an intimate setting or two people? I think it’s pretty obviously one person.
If you have a unit or department policy of using two investigators, follow the policy. Establish the “no talk til I say so rule,” and go forth to do good things.
If you are a patrol cop, the issue is the same out there on the streets. Let your partners know what you expect from them if you are the lead. If you are the backup, pay attention, but don’t talk until the lead asks you to and don’t cause any undue distraction with your radios and cellphones.
Do y’all see it differently? Let me know! These are my thoughts, and I’ll never pretend to be the ultimate expert.
Hey readers! We have a few new people. For new readers, please check in the archives to catch up on previous topics. As soon as you sign up, you get access to all of the old posts too. There are some audio versions and some videos. My earliest posts laid the general groundwork for my approach to interview and interrogation. Feel free to share the posts to other investigators or officers.