Last week I ran across the book, Criminal Interrogation: A Modern Format for Interrogating Criminal Suspects Based on the Intellectual Approach, by Warren D. Holmes. The author spent his early career in law enforcement and now runs a private polygraph company in Miami Florida. He has interviewed many psychopaths including murderers and child molesters. I was anxious to read this book and understand a law enforcement officer’s view of psychopaths. I was happy to see that the book is very well written and I would recommend it to Lovefraud readers who want to know how a law enforcement officer approaches interrogation of psychopaths/sociopaths.
Many Lovefraud readers have expressed the desire to know how to “out” a psychopath/sociopath. In this book Mr. Holmes gives his ideas about this subject. In his Chapter “How People Lie” he discusses the neurotic liar and compares lies told by these people to psychopathic liars. He has also listed and categorized what he calls “liar statements.” These are statements that signal someone is lying. In reading his list, I found that psychopaths/sociopaths use many of these.
Here are his categories of liar statements:
A. Loophole statements like, “To the best of my knowledge.” By using these statements a person can easily have wiggle room to excuse any lies he/she tells.
B. Over-sell expressions like “honestly” and “Believe me.”
C. Thinking time expressions like “can you repeat the question.” Liars use these to give them time to think up lies.
D. Brooklyn Bridge remarks “I need to know if I did it.”
E. Offense statements like “Are you calling me a liar.”
The book discusses each of these in detail. If you have spent time with a psychopath I’m sure you have heard every one of these. Although he is not a psychologist, Mr Holmes discusses his theory of why neurotic, almost sociopathic people lie and what tactics they use. This discussion might be beneficial for those who have a family member who has sociopathic traits but who may not have the full disorder.
The book also discusses what it is like to interview a psychopath. Mr Holmes says what I have said here on this blog and in my books, that is that psychopaths/sociopaths are preoccupied with power and dominance. They show this in every aspect of their behavior. They violate personal space, make inappropriately personal remarks and attempt to control the interview. He says, “When they enter my office, they generally jump into my secretary’s lap.”
I am very grateful for the fact that Mr. Holmes also granted me a brief interview. He is a friendly and wise man, who is certainly an expert on psychopathy/sociopathy. The question I most wanted to ask him was what he thought about the estimates of only 20% of people in prison being psychopaths. He agreed with me that this estimate is too low. He also expressed concern that there is an increase in the prevalence of psychopathy in America.
I asked him if he had any words of wisdom for Lovefraud readers regarding sociopaths/psychopaths and avoiding them. He said that we should always be suspicious of any person who tries too hard to sell himself. He said to beware of people who are overpowering. That sounds like great advice and right on the money to me!
Dr. Leedom, Very interesting…but on the mark, my x SP
used to brag about “interviews” and how you have to sit in the right seat to control the scene, repeat certain things the
interviewer asked, if the interviewer sat back he would sit back and so on..I remember thinking it was kind of creepy
the way he explained this to me, but I also thought he had
taken some class in how to interview right or something, he
was overpowering with everyone and extremely cocky, at
the time I thought it was great self confidence ha, the liar
statements, heard every one plus some more…..I took psych
in nursing school and had a “borderline” pt, she freaked me
out in my short 20 minutes with her…pretty much the same
thing I had invited into my home my bed and to share a life
with me and my children…what a wake up call, thank you so much for this site!!!
Dr. Leedom: Wonderful post, I will order the book.
Invigorated: ANOTHER nurse? LOL it seems so many of us are nurses or others in the “healing professions.”
Someone e mailed me a list years ago of “how to detect a lie” and the list was quite good and contained all of the above mentioned things, one that my Trojan Horse P used almost 100% of the time was to AVOID answering the qutestion directly. When I asked him “Did my mother give you the money for the truck?” He replied. “I have friends in TExas.”
When I finally confronted him about his answer, which I defined as a LIE, he vigorously defended himself by saying the statement “I have friends in TExas” was a true statement, therefore he did not “lie,” he just didn’t answer the question I ASKED. Of course, I believe a “half truth” is a “whole lie” and that a lie=deception=lie.
So now when I am talking to people I do keep in mind the “lie red flags” as well as body language, and words vs. body language, and still it is difficult to detect liars, but I did make one “rule” for myself and that is ONE LIE AND YOU ARE OUT OF MY CIRCLE OF TRUST.
Thanks for bringing this essay, Dr. Leedom.
Dear Oxdrover, I had to laugh, not at you, but at the reply, its like the perfect deflection. I asked my ex (whom I suspected of setting me up to meet one of his girlfriends in the market) ‘When we went to the market, did you meet anyone you knew?’ He replied ‘Who would I know in Camden market’. Also when I asked him how he had gone through £600 in less than a week, he said ‘I dont know, I dont keep receipts’. In my mind, these were all NON REPLIES, because they didnt actually make sense, they didnt DIRECTLY ANSWER the questions. When I asked him, ‘Why havent you text me in two days?’ he replied ‘Why didnt you text me?’. His replies were just ways of batting the ball back to me.
I was always inundated with the words, sometime, someplace, something, someone, maybe, could be, we’ll see, wait and see, wasn’t me, I don’t remember, I never said that, etc. Lots of uncommitted comments, evasive words, statements that couldn’t be checked out that most likely were lies. I finally reached the end of the line and said I quit. I no longer want to speak to this man and have him in my life. I’m tired of inane conversations that have no substance. I don’t want to ask questions because I know the answer will be very vague. There really isn’t any sense in wasting my time with a person who lives in a vacuum.
Beverly, it is funny, isn’t it?!!! Don’t worry about “laughing at” me, I do it all the time and so do my sons! Laughing at mama is their biggest joy in the world I think. LOL
Yes, the Trojan HOrse P was sooooo good at “evading” the answer, but he didn’t see that as a “lie.” Well I DO SEE THAT AS A LIE. Now that is one of the things I look for when I ask someone a question.
Ann Landers had a good “come back” and “non answer” for people who asked “nosey questions” that you didn’t want to answer, like “how much money do you make?” Her response was “Now, WHY would you ask such a question?” Turn it back on them instead of answering. I use that stock phrase quite a bit when folks ask questions that are NUNN’YA (none of yer bizness, jerk!)
Another one of Ann’s that I like is when someone is gossiping about someone and saying “tacky” things about someone, when they pause to get their breath you say “Well, that is strange, they always speaks so WELL OF YOU.”
I miss Ann Lander’s funny snippets. The “new” Ann and Abby don’t have the pizzzaz that the older ones had. LOL
Dear OxDrover. Ha Ha ha. If only I WAS THAT CLEVER!!!
OxDrover, Im still laughing.My mother who had that kind of ‘steel boot’ humour, would say similar. It was a way of SHUTTING PEOPLE UP!!
Beverly,
My husband was the pure master at the appropriate “one line come back” that could shut people up, oh, he cracked me up so many times with his humor. Though one time I did threaten to kill him if he ever embarassed me again like that. LOL
While he could dish it out, though, he wasn’t always able to “take it” back. ONe time when the kids were teenagers we were at the dinner table and one of the boys told some tasteless joke that wasn’t even funny, and my husband, who had a HUGE NOSE, reached up with his hand and held his nose to show his distaste at the “smell” of the joke. My P-son, who also has a cutting sense of humor replied, “Well, you can’t hold THAT NOSE with just ONE HAND.” I cracked up, literally hysterically rolling and I couldn’t even get my breath for laughing, and I kept on and on and couldn’t stop, and before long I was braying like a jack ass being strangled trying to laugh, stop laughing and breathe at the same time, all unsuccesfully, and the madder my husband got, the more I laughed. The more I laughed the madder he got, and the more I laughed at him. Whew! Fortunately for us, we loved each other and didn’t hold grudges, but even he eventually got to where he could laugh about that story.
After 9/11 attack, my P-son started calling me “Osama my mama”—which actually is kind of cute. I am sure it is NOT in jest though as he doesn’t like me setting limits for him. My other sons though call me that now just as a joke and we all laugh.
I figure if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at. So we spend a lot o f time laughing at ourselves and each other’s foibles. It’s good to be able to laugh again I think, and to not take too much too seriously. There is enough really serious stuff in the world that we can’t laugh at, that ANY opportunity to see the humor, even gallows humor, in life gives us a bit of a respite from the bad times.
My ex-sociopath-husband’s favorite answer to all of my “why did you lie” questions was “I don’t know, I just DID”. Surprised, I hadn’t heard that response since 3rd grade. He was totally serious!
Not being that familiar with SP’s at that time, I kept asking for an answer and he would get furious. I thought this guy was nuts! But it was too late. I had already married him.
My ex was a sociopath who only defrauded foreign-born Asian women. Lovefraud helped me understand what he did to me after he got arrested by the police after I was registered as a missing person. He took all my money and messed up my credits. The scary thing is that he only targets foreign-born Asians so that they should mess up their visa status and should go back to their country.
I am his 4th victim and I am the only one who can still stay in the US with the help of US detective who found out about this horrible person and arrested him.
Asians, in general, trust partners once they are engaged. We don’t generally play with wedding or engagement. Once we are engaged, we trust that person because we don’t usually believe that that kind of bad person exists. Yes… But that kind of person exists.
He lied that he had cancer. He was very good in making fake documents. His cancer diagnosis letter was sent to me by Fedex with a legal letter format (with Boeing logo). He made me to scared to death by accusing me that he would stay with me if I had cancer. He took money from me and from my parents over cancer treatment.
He lied that he was an ex-CIA, and had a gun. He made me afraid to ask anybody to help me and force me not to check any of my bank accounts and contact to anybody.
He made me to sign the lease and buy the car under my name.
With my money and his lie, he never paid any bill and now I am receiving phone calls from the car company like everyday.
Yesterday, I found from his stuff that he did not pay any of rent, and I received an eviction note.
I cry everyday with anger and frustration that I don’t know what to do. I am in the us to study and for my dream.
Now, I am facing to declare a personal bankruptcy because I have anything even to pay my study in the US.
I’ve been received all the scholarship and assistantship so far to study in the US. I worked real hard like everyday. I didn’t know that there are that many people in the US like him.
I only have two more years to study to get my degree. However, with my mess, I don’t know whether I will be able to even find a job. Well, I could not even find a place to stay because of eviction note that I didn’t even know.
I really don’t know what to do.
Donna helps me to understand this situation over emails and lovefraud helps me to see I am not the only person who have hard time because of sociopath.
But still, I have a dream and I worked really hard with all my effort. How can he target a person from other countries? He even accused me that what he could take from me because I am a poor student whenever I asked him to answer about financial issues.
My life is in a mess…..
My story doesn’t sound right.
People accused me that “you are a smart kid that’s why you could study in your level…. but how you didn’t know that he was a bad person when you signed on your lease and car?”
I really want to commit suicide with my shame