"The Honest To God Truth"

                                 The “Honest to God Truth”

by Peter Hyatt
 In the one hour interview with detectives, Casey Anthony used the word “truth” more times than I was able to count. In Statement Analysis, we flag anything repeated as “sensitive”, meaning, it has an importance to the subject which may be due to deception. 

For example, if you were talking to your friend, Bob, and wondered if he had a love interest in his co-worker, Mary, but did not want to ask him directly, you might have a general conversation with him, about work. Let’s assume Bob is a private person and you are not comfortable asking, “Hey Bob, do you have a crush on your co-worker, Mary?” but really want to know. While listening (not talking) to Bob, you note that as he talks of his co-workers, Mary’s name is repeated, and once he named co workers going out for a drink, you noted that Mary’s name came first. Since you are hoping Mary will go out with you, and not the wealthy and handsome, Bob, youu listen carefully.  "I work with some good people.  Mary is really helpful.  I think Sally gets her work done.  Jim is helpful. Mary has all her work done early.  I like to get reports done early and Mary is effecient.  We are going out for a drink.  Who?  Oh, me, Mary, Jim, Sally, Susie, John.  "

This highlighted two principles:

1. Repetition shows sensitivity and
2. order shows priority.

You may not know if he has a crush on Mary, but you do know that Mary holds some importance to your friend, Bob. The information came, not from you, but from Bob. You received it by careful (trained) listening. (You also noted that the name closes to "me" is "Mary"). 

The best interview is one where most of the talking is done by the subject, not the Interviewer. 80 to even 90 percent is a great interview balance where the person seeking information (Interviewer) talks only 20 to 10 percent of the time. Why? Because the subject has information, and even if lying, will draw her lies (notice the pronoun gender) from something or some place, and within that lie may exist valuable information.

Casey Anthony uses the word “truth” repeatedly, which in and of itself, indicates that “truth” is a sensitive topic to Casey Anthony. But she also highlights this sensitivity by giving additional words to support “truth.” These additional words are vital to us for analysis. For Casey, it is not just “truth”, it is the “honest to God truth” that she speaks of.

Deceptive people will often have accompanying words added to “truth” or and any word should be flagged by the analyst. So if the subject says “this is the honest to God truth” it should be immediately flagged for sensitivity as using the Name of God is, statistically, an indicator of deception. As with all analysis, we do not conclude deception based upon one indicator, but it must be noted.

The particular phrases notably used by deceptive people include: “honest to God, swear to God, honestly, swear on…, “ and so forth. Also note that when someone tells you “the real truth” to the subject, there are truths that are not as “real” as what they tell you; and you should be on guard that the subject is, as a norm or practice, deceptive.

The deception could be nefarious, or it could be the ‘polite deception’ of society which we have dealt with in other articles.


Those who interrogated Casey Anthony for one hour were exhausted, short tempered, and angry at being lied to. At one point, Casey goes silent for quite some time, as they took turns lecturing her.

This is tantamount to not only shutting off the valve of information, but to literally teaching her how to lie.

Interviewers must be careful that in the wording of their question, they do not teach the subject how to lie. Lying using reflected language (that is, using the Interviewer’s own words) is less stressful, therefore, in the micro second of which the subject’s brain tells her tongue what to say, the reduced stress is appealing. Casey repeatedly lied using the interviewers own words.

Casey Anthony did not crack, which was impressive. But her lies are not impressive. Her lies are rudimentary, with the overabundance of detail. Old school interrogation or interview would have included asking her to give chronological account, noting the red flagged words, and then asked her to go backwards.

Another technique would have been to have Casey take them through the entire account, flagging the sensitivity indicators, and then have her repeat the entire account again.

and again.

Because Casey was not working from experiential memory, we would have seen:

a. increase in self referncing
b. additional details

The self referencing would have increased as she would be working from memory, but not experiential memory. The words used to highlight this area include “like I said” and “as I said to you before” which would have allowed the investigators to flag these areas in which Casey was showing an increase in sensitivity.

Many have broken by the time they are finished with the 3rd account, with statistics telling us that few, if any, can survive going through it, completely, by the 5th account.

By the 3rd account, many additional words have entered into the subject’s story, which are then opportunities for the Interviewer to ask questions about these new words.

A skillful interviewer must avoid the introduction of a single new word, whenever possible.

Lies do not come from a vacuum.
Because lies come from somewhere in reality, the ‘slips’ or ‘leakage’ from the subject is a valuable source of information.

Even as Casey said “she is close”, it is that Casey’s rudimentary lies, lacking in experiential detail (this is see in sensory language; as experiential memory is closely associated with sensory impact; the subject will, for example, remember that the assailant had the smell of motor oil on his hands; that sort of thing) and can be discerned as lies. It is while Casey is telling lies that careful and discerning listening can possibly lead to valuable information, including at the time of the interrogation, the whereabouts of Caylee.

Because the detectives did most of the talking, Caylee had little opportunity to speak, and when she did, she took control of the situation, laughed, and sounded confident.

Laughing, sounding confident, and in control will make her look even worse in the eyes of the jury:

She was not an upset mother who had lost her child in a pool, or by kidnapping. She was cold and her lying had lots of detail, which shows that she knew what she was doing, and even admitted that lying was not helping.

Casey Anthony came across as a lying, scheming, cold-blooded, uncaring yonng woman, unafraid of the three detectives, confident in her own ability to keep the lies going, avoid giving direct answers and someone who is not to be believed.

The one hour interview revealed the "honest to God" deceiver and when (or if) Casey takes the stand, it is this personality that will come out for display to the jury.

She was unable to present as soft or caring to the jury, instead she is the glaring, deceptive killer of her child, capable of killing, and then lying in order to destroy what is left of her family. 

The jury will wonder how she had the ability to laugh with detectives after leading them on a day of deceit. 

I am still wondering what was so funny.

Even when Casey Anthony's brother, Lee Anthony attempted to deceive and propagandize by playing to the jail's video camera while visiting Casey,  it is still difficult to understand how she could laugh.