How Police Interrogation Works

Every year, police across the U.S. get thousands of criminals to confess to their crimes. The trouble is, the procedure that almost all departments use is grounded in bad science and can produce false confessions. Learn about ways of making you talk.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Uh and Noel.
I guess producer nol is over there, which makes this
stuff you should know. Jerry's on the beach. Good for her. Yeah,

(00:23):
and I'm Jelly. Yeah, it'd be nice to be on
the beach right now. Surewood podcasting on the beach. Yeah,
Jerry's a beach person for sure. In uh, is she okay?
She was flip pops like in the dead of winter. Yeah,
that's true, the beach person which got nice feet done.
Can I say that I fired for saying that. I

(00:45):
don't think so. If you said it, like alone in
a room or something she didn't feel like she could leave,
you'd probably get fired for that. But yeah, saying it
on the podcast to everybody's probably in the clear. Okay,
we'll find out. I mean, she edits these so she'll
say thanks. Jucker's there you go, So, Chuck, have you
ever been interrogated by the police. No, that's good. No,

(01:10):
it's a good way to be I was shaking down
on the street once, but they didn't ask us any
questions stopping frisk Yeah, in New York. In Athens, m
just walk into the car after being out, threw us
all against the wall. Fristus been left. I'm sure it
was a real cop. Yeah, they were cops. Man. I
was like, what's going on? Huh, I don't even know.

(01:31):
I still don't know what happened. Well, I guess they
were just stopping and frisking. A little known fact. Athens,
George is the real home of stopping frisk Well, five
minutes after it happened, we didn't care. You know, these
are college days. Yeah. Now, though you must be burning
with a sense of injustice over the whole thing. Well,
I ask you if you've ever been interrogated by the police,

(01:54):
because we're about to talk about police interrogation, so it
seems appropriate. And before we get started, I have some
side reading that I think might interest some people. Um,
there is a New Yorker article called the Interview. Um,
there's one called Joe Arty was the Happiest Man on
Death Row. It's in Westward. Uh, there's something called Brooklyn's Baddest,

(02:17):
which was in GQ. And then lastly, uh, looking left
or right doesn't indicate your lying in Smithsonian. So all
those articles are awesome, and they all have something to
do with this police interrogation, which is it turns out
becoming an increasingly controversial subject. Yeah, and I think this
probably brings our police suite to a close or close

(02:39):
to it, don't you think. I think so every time.
I know, and I didn't even know this existed, and
then I saw it and it turned out to be
one of the more interesting ones, I think. Yeah, and
it's kind of falls into this um law enforcement category,
into the subcategory of are largely debunked armchair psychology jical

(03:00):
or armchair psychology techniques like polygraph Yeah, we did that, fingerprints,
they did that, truth serum we did that. Yeah. Like
there's all these episodes that we've done out there about
just law enforcement techniques. We're doing them. We were like,
oh wow, this is this should not be the way
it is. And apparently police interrogations similar. Yeah, it's a

(03:24):
bit of a shakedown. So let's talk about this. Like
in in the United States, there is um a long
and storied history of rather intense interrogation. I think you
know this this comes before the United States too. We
did a medieval torture episode as well. There were plenty
of interrogations going on. We did the Spanish inquisition that

(03:46):
was pre United States. Yeah, I would I would say
that falls into the banner though, of our police and
crime interrogation. Yeah right, so, um, the United States, though,
has well carried on the torch of basically beating suspects
up to get confessions. This is where the term the

(04:06):
third degree comes from. Actually, Like when somebody's like, hey,
why do you give me the third degree? They may
or may not know it, but they're they're speaking about
interrogation techniques that CAPS used to use. Yeah, those third
degree techniques, a lot of them were involved deprivation, like
or you know the one where they shine the bright
light in your face. That's old school. Yeah, that's an

(04:27):
old movie trope. But you know, no access to food
and water, Um, long periods of isolation, we might beat
up a little bit, we might threaten you. That's the
third degree, right and then uh, starting in about the thirties,
the public started to say, I don't know if this
is such a good idea because I might end up
in a police interrogation one day, and I don't want

(04:49):
to get beat up and then the I guess the
straw that started to break the camel's back came in
nineteen thirty seven in the case Brown versus Mississippi, where
Brown said, uh, your thug cops tied me up to
a tree and with me more than once, not just
whip me more than once. Strung me up in a tree,
to whip me more than once has happened repeatedly, and

(05:11):
I don't think that the confession they got should stand.
The Supreme Court said, we agree with you. Yeah, it
was he and his two buddies were accused of murdering. Uh,
they were tenant farmers murdering their boss basically, And of
course they were black guys and the boss was a
white guy, so they were pretty determined. Then well, we'll
see over and over. A lot of these cases of
coerced false confessions h are mainly because someone really wants

(05:36):
to tab somebody as the criminal. Well, yeah, for a
lot of different reasons. There can be a sense of injustice.
There can be a genuine conviction that this person is guilty, um,
and then there can be the you know, the case
clearance um percentage that a cop needs to keep up.
But there's a lot of reasons why a cop might

(05:59):
say you need to confess. Yeah. I think a lot
of them too that I've seen documentaries on, at least
because of the public, Like, hey man, we really need
to finger somebody for this, because people are scared, and
who better than this person who might not be too
smart or might but might be kind of poor and
can't afford and doesn't you know, representation doesn't know what's

(06:20):
going on. So let's just run them up, run them up,
ring them up. Sure, run them up a flagpole, right,
and see if it sticks to the wall. Yeah. But
despite the fact that it is not easy to get
someone to confess, uh, they estimate between forty two of
suspects do confess and that's the one thing you don't

(06:41):
want to do, and up still do it. Yeah, so
we should say supposedly up to um eight percent of
suspects in in the United States wave their right to
silence and counsel. Yeah that's just wait, that's just agreeing
to be interrogated, right, not necessarily confessing. Yeah. So, but
you can get around the whole idea of a false

(07:03):
confession or of being coerced into confessing or whatever, just
by remaining silent, not being like part demand your lawyer.
I mean, we're gonna give you some tips, um, not
how to get away with a crime, but some tips
on if you if you are rounded up and put
in a room, there are some things you can do.

(07:23):
This is a public service announcement with guitars. By the
nineteen fifties, they confessions that were involuntary. Um, they consider
it involuntary, not just if you were beaten and threatened,
but if you were all the deprivation third degree techniques
were no longer allowed, like even if you couldn't use
the bathroom, or if you've been promised something in return

(07:45):
for confessing, or we'll go easy on you, buddy, or
if you'd even just been threatened, that counts as coercion too,
And so in about the fifties, UM, the United States said, Hey,
this kindler, kinder, gentler interrogation technique thing is is starting
to work out. Let's put a bow on the whole
thing and say that for a confession to be admissible,

(08:06):
the the confess or has to sign it yeah and
say yeah, I didn't, I didn't do anything under coercion.
This is my own, full free confession. And here's my
signature and UM, which helped but certainly didn't stop false confessions. Right.
So the thing is is UM law enforcement replaced the

(08:30):
physical coercion with what amounts to plainly is psychological manipulation.
And it's predicated on the idea that you when you
are saying you didn't do something and you're guilty, you
are going to become stressed out. And then the that

(08:52):
stress is derived from anxiety over knowing you're guilty and
having to lie, because when you're being interrogated, you're denying
that you're guilty. The cops don't just say, oh, okay,
well thanks for coming by. If they think you're guilty,
they or they want to think you're guilty, They're going
to keep pressing you. Like interrogations aren't necessarily brief things, right,

(09:14):
So the more they press you, the more stressed you
should get. And the more stressed you get under this
idea of UM interrogation technique, the obviously the more obvious
it is that you're guilty, which means the more they
press So this feedback loop starts, right, Yeah. I mean
they're basically relying on a few basic human things inherent

(09:35):
to humans, tendencies, inherent to humans. Um. One is you're
gonna probably open up more to someone who is like you, uh,
to their If you start talking, it's gonna be hard
to stop. And three if you're if you're telling the truth,
it's gonna be harder to lie. Right. So they kind
of prey on that with some age old techniques like

(09:55):
the good Cop, Bad Cop. Right you you uh, If
you feel like you're being persecuted, but then you're also
being rescued by somebody else, you're going to identify with
the rescuer, trust them. That's a classic move. And here's
the thing like that, a lot of this stuff, like
the good cop part um, is predicated on this complete
and utter deception that that cop understands where you're coming

(10:18):
from and sympathizes with you. That cop does not sympathize
with you. That cop may understand where you come from,
but he or she probably despises that and they are
not your friend. But the whole one of the whole
points of um of interrogation is for the cop to
pretend like they're they're right there with you, they understand

(10:38):
where you're coming from, they feel for you. This is
just you're jammed up and I want to help you
get out of it. Oh yeah, you see. I mean
if if all this sounds super familiar from every TV
show or movie you've ever seen, is because they it's
been written so much that it's almost like they don't
need to do their own Like writers don't even need
to do their own research into how this is the

(10:59):
right because it's just how it is in the movies.
When it is in the movies is how it is
in real life. When I was reading this, I was like, oh, yeah,
I've seen that before. I've seen that technique before. Like
it made me actually researching this article made me appreciate
that there are some TV cop show writers out there
who like really do their homework, like The Wire, like

(11:20):
every it was a little more nuance like Law and Order. Um,
what is it? Uh? I don't watch those the one
vincent and offer you. I don't know. Oh, I can't
remember what it's called criminal minds something like that. It's
not it. Um like it's a little more overt, right,
but it's all the all the factors are there. Yeah.
Another one of the tried and true techniques is maximization.

(11:44):
That's when they try to scare you. Um, if you've
ever heard like, oh you're you're pretty Josh, they're gonna
love you in prisoner. I hear that almost every day.
That is a classic maximization or just you know, they're
going to throw the book at you for what you've
done your unless you, you know, start playing along, you're
gonna get the max exactly. Um. They may also go

(12:07):
the exact opposite route, which is minimization, which is to
create the idea that society will will commiserate with you
because anybody in your position would have done the same thing,
you know, like that that little lady was asking for
her person to be taken, you know, in this day
and age, in this economy, that kind of thing. Um.

(12:29):
Polygraph was used for a while, and they still used that,
but most times, um, if you listen to our show
on polygraphs, they're not admissible in court. So a man
named John Reid, he was a polygraph analyst, said, you
know what, there's a lot of things that happen during
a polygraph exam that we can use without the machine

(12:50):
just to root out the truth or lies. Yeah. Basically,
John Reid said, Hey, I've noticed through all of my
experience all of these things that a person who is
guilty or who confesses at least goes through. And here
are some ways to like really make this more efficient,

(13:10):
to make them react more strongly, to get them to
confess faster, more forcefully. And he came up with order
called the Read Technique. Nine steps of the Read Technique,
registered trademark of Johnny Reidon Associates. Yeah, really, because Johnny
Reidon Associates is like this business that's still very much around. Yeah.
I don't know if I need to say that, but

(13:31):
it is their technique. Yeah, and they trained the CIA,
the FBI, the local law enforcement there, like the in
the United States, the Red technique is the gold standard
for police interrogation. The problem is it is also being
increasingly proven to be based on basically armchair psychology and

(13:53):
not science. It's say, it's going through the same thing
right now that like a lot of the forensic sciences
are going through. There's like based on intuition that doesn't
really hold up to scrutiny. And I should say the
Read technique has not been across the board debunked, and
it makes sense in a lot of ways, but there

(14:14):
are studies out there that have said, like this doesn't
really this doesn't really hold up. Yeah, he defends it. Uh,
he says, it's very sound technique, but false confession comes
from improper use and bad police work. Yeah, and it's
not it's not necessarily like the read people are treated
like they're you know, they're out to get anybody and everybody.

(14:36):
The red technique is criticized because the whole foundation that's
built on is the presumption of guilt, and it has
been shown to prove or produce false um confessions. And
we'll get to the read technique in a minute, but
after this message, we're gonna talk a little bit about
some of the earlier, h earlier parts of the process.

(15:04):
All right, if you sit down in a in a
room to get interrogated by the cops, one thing that
they're probably gonna start doing is lying to you and
saying we have evidence that they may not have. We
have witnesses that put you at the scene that don't exist. Basically,
with a few exceptions, cops can lie and say whatever

(15:27):
they want in there, and that is going to make
someone nervous. Even though you were you know, surgical gloves
when you broke into that house. If they say your
fingers are all over the place. You're gonna start second
guessing yourself and get nervous. Yeah, and even if like
you weren't in that house ever, and you know that
you weren't in that house, you're gonna start to wonder
if maybe you suffer from blackouts and do horrible things

(15:47):
like this cop is saying, Wow, you're blacked out. Um,
and yeah, the courts of upheld the cops right to deceive. Uh.
And I've read about a study that found that of
six dirty detectives in the U. S. And Canada that
were pulled, say they use false evidence ploys where they're
saying surprises, Yeah, you would guess. I mean maybe the

(16:12):
other eight percent were just like they didn't even look
at what they were saying, you know, but yeah, they
you can and they do say we have your fingerprints,
we have a witness, we have d n A. They
can completely lie about what they have and that they
have it on you to get you to confess. It

(16:34):
doesn't matter. You can't say, well that cops said he
had evidence doesn't matter. And the whole legal basis for
this idea for the cops being letting the cops deceive
is this UH longstanding notion that no innocent person would
ever sign a confession even if they were lied to
about physical evidence of their guilt being at the scene

(16:57):
of the crime, because there they know they're not guilty.
The problem is that long standing idea is coming under
more and more scrutinous is being found to be not
the case. Like people, it's been shown people will when
lied to in situations like that, they will confess to
things that they did not do. I know it seems
crazy for people like you and me, UM, because I

(17:19):
know I would never do that, but you know, I'm
not mentally challenged or I'm not poor, and I haven't
you know, there's a lot of reasons why someone might
falsely confess. Yeah, and I think though also it's not
just necessarily like going how you are going into it. Like, Yes,
the a lot of the like mentally ill people UM

(17:40):
make up a decent amount of UM false confessions. Same
with UM, mentally handicapped, cognitively impaired people, UM, people of
low socioeconomic status. There are a lot of a lot
of factors that set you up to be more likely
to have a false or give a false confession. Knowing
your rights, but if you took if we took you

(18:02):
and ran you through a long enough um interrogation with
people who knew what they were doing. Yeah, they who
knows what you would sign? I'd be all right, we'll
see because I understand this all. I know my rights.
I have a very strong mind. You would probably say
I want a lawyer. Well, yeah, I just ended all.
And then I'd be like, m I don't know any lawyers.

(18:24):
Do you know a lawyer? Have an entertainment attorney? Does
that count? Um? They know lawyers? Yeah, exactly. This is
the whole network. So um, once they bring you in
the room, the room itself h and this is all
from Read's manual. He wrote a manual nineteen sixty two
with a Northwestern law professor named fred In Mao called

(18:45):
Criminal Interrogation and Confessions. I imagine every writer in Hollywood
has a copy of that on their shelf. Um. But
the room that you see on TV, that's what there.
They suggest you know. Nothing on the walls, a very
plain desk, a very un comfortable chair on one side,
two chairs on the other for the detectives. Um, that
one way mirror that's gonna serve a purpose of letting

(19:08):
people spy on you and just to make you nervous,
even if there's no one on the other side, and
put you out of reach from this one. I didn't
really uh, I had never really noticed. But out of
reachs from just light switches and maybe the the a
c uh what do you call those thermostat thermostatic just
to make you feel powerless. It's all a mind game
to make you feel helpless. So far seems pretty intuitive,

(19:32):
pretty logical, Like if you can't flip the lights on
and off, it's not something I would think that I
would want to do right then, but maybe knowing seeing
that it was that far away, Yeah, woid just give
me this reinforced the idea that like, I couldn't even
if I wanted to, because it's all the way over there.
That's probably a small detective in between me and that,
like exactly, but it makes sense. But I point that

(19:52):
out because that's that's the read technique. Stuff like that,
keep the light switches away from the criminal because it'll
make him feel helpless. Does It sounds a little hinky,
but it it makes sense in a way. That is
the red technique encapsulated. So let's continue, Chuck, So that
was that's just the room that they suggest there there

(20:13):
if you follow the re technique to a t, and
this is one of the saving graces of it. Um,
you're supposed to do what's an initial interview. And if
you're the detective and you go into in an initial
interview of an interrogation, you are the red technique tasks
you with going in without a presumption of guilt. Yet

(20:35):
that's the point of the initial interview, is you're supposed
to be sizing your guy up and determining for yourself
as a seasoned investigator, whether you think initially they're guilty
or innocent. I'm sure that happens some Yeah, there was
another study that found that it's often skipped as well. UM,
and that's they just start like hammering right away. Well, yeah,

(20:56):
you're throwing out the the the potential for this um,
this person to be treated as possibly innocent. Right, you're
not sizing up. You're going in assuming they're guilty. So
but if you if you do go through that initial interview,
the other point of it is that you're supposed to
be creating a baseline yea, which I think is that
showed up in the polygraph one too, which isn't surprising

(21:19):
because John Reid was a polygraph expert for a while too. Yeah,
and you've been gratiated yourself, you know, in the first
few minutes by this point, like, uh, if if you're
if you're in Philadelphia and your suspect has on like
a Phillies cap, you might talk about the game last night,
right exactly, And that that throws back to, um, the
suspect being more likely can you trust someone that shares

(21:39):
their same views that they feel they can identify with,
So the detective will do whatever they can to make
it seem like, oh, you're a Catholic, I'm a Catholic too,
that kind of thing, you know. Yeah, And so once
you've got a little bit of rapport going on is
when you're gonna set your baseline. And I thought this
is pretty interesting. You don't and I'm gonna start looking
for this on cop shows to see if they don't

(22:01):
overtly talk about it, if they're just how good they
are with their you know, uh, with their acting, because
if they're looking at the eyes, um, then they're gonna
be accurate. Because that's one of the ways supposedly you
can create a baseline um, you're gonna ask some some
questions that require memory recall, and you're gonna ask other

(22:22):
questions that require more creativity, and you're gonna look at
where their eyes go. Supposedly, if your eyes moved to
the right, that is just recall, because you're I guess,
looking in the direction of your memory center of your brain.
If it's more creative, you might look to the left.
And then then you're gonna use these later on to
see if your suspect is creatively making up a lie,

(22:44):
they might look to the left, or if they're just
truthfully recalling something, they might look to the right. Is
that bunk? Yes, all right. It's very dangerous too, because
they that is incredibly widespread. It's a popular misconception. If
you ask anybody if you move your eyes a certain
way doesn't indicate your lying, most people are gonna say, yes, yeah,
it totally does. I can't remember if it's right or left,

(23:05):
but if you look a certain way, it means you're lying.
So that's a longstanding thing that's based actually on a
self help philosophy from the seventies that's nothing to do
with science. And actually Richard Wiseman, who we um incorrectly
said did some research that proved that ghosts exist in

(23:26):
our ghost episode. That guy, he's done someones to debunk this.
He did a couple of studies and in one of
the studies he found, um he he used footage of
people who were holding press conferences searching for lost relatives.
But the person pleaing for their relatives return was later
convicted of like killing or kidnapping their their relatives, so

(23:49):
they were obviously lying. They were committing a huge lie
in front of the public, and he found that they
were just as likely to look to the left or
the right. There was no correlation whatsoever. Yeah, I'm sure
there are facial cues of pantomimes if you're Christopher walking,
but um, it all depends on the person to write.
Like you could be really good at line or really

(24:10):
good at throwing people off with facial cues. Yeah, or
the idea that your eyes move in a certain direction
at all because you're coming up with a lie or
because you're remembering something might not It doesn't mean anything necessarily. Yeah,
we also did one of micro expressions. This is a
culmination of a lot of shows, I'm realized. Yeah, it
really is. Yeah, So Um. That was another one. You

(24:30):
you've got the baseline set. You're watching the eyes even
though you really shouldn't be. Um. But for the most part,
you're you're seeing what your suspect appears like when they're
stressed or I'm sorry, when they're relaxed. And and the
reason you're creating this baseline of what they act like
when they're relaxed is because if you ask them questions

(24:54):
and they answer them and appear relaxed, then supposedly they're
telling the truth. A in this is predicated on some
faulty ideas, because here's the problem. Anxiety is not necessarily
linked to lying. Like, yes, you may appear anxious if
you're lying, but that doesn't mean that if you're anxious,

(25:15):
you're lying, right. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah,
I would do that. I would do the Chuck Chuck technique.
Would be the fast thing, like I would set him up.
I'll calm and be like, Hey, do you watch the
game last night? Yeah? How cool? Why did you kill it?
Old lady? Yeah? You like the Phillies? Yeah, it was
a pretty good game. How do you think they're gonna
go far? Yeah? Did you kill your wife and boom.

(25:35):
That was pretty good. You almost said yes, yeah, really
and you didn't kill your wife? No, I meanez, that
was thrilling. The chuck technique. I I like the Colombo.
What's that? Oh, well, you're just like that's that's great.
I'm glad you like the Phillies. I just want to
thank you for coming by. That's it was good to
meet you. Write if we if we need anything, can

(25:56):
we call you? And they're like yeah, they're so relieved
that they get to eat, and then you, oh, I'm sorry.
One more thing, Why did you kill your wife? That
Colombo did? Yeah, here's a little better at it than
I was. He would say, there's there's just there's one
of the things just not making sense to me. If
you didn't kill your wife, why were you found standing
over with the knife? Yeah, so that's how Colombo would

(26:18):
catch him off guard, like really get them to let
their guard down. Yeah. I like that. So you said,
he I know what Colombo was. I was about to
say he went on and killed his wife. But that
was Robert Blake. Yeah, that was Barretta. What was his technique?
I don't know. I never watched Barretta check your gun
with the maitre D. And then isn't that what he did? Know?
What did you do? I think he left his gun

(26:40):
with the matred D. Supposed that's what he said he did,
Like you know, I'm here table for two, here's my
coat and here's my gun. Yeah, well you hang onto
that for me? Will you be my alibi? Um? I
think we're at the read technique now, right we are.
So the the other stuff was from the book that's
based on the read technique criminal interrogation and confessions. But

(27:03):
now we are at the actual read technique, the nine
point technique that is designed to maximize um discomfort which
leads to more frequent confessions. Yeah, and it's actually it's
illegal and a lot of European countries for children, um,

(27:23):
which which it should because that's another risk factor going
in that can produce false confessions is age, of course,
and we'll get to some of those later. Those are
kind of uh maddening when you read about like a
fourteen year old it's interrogated without their parents for like
a full day, but it happens. So step number one
and the read technique is the confrontation. Uh. And this

(27:45):
is after the initial interview you have, you're going to
present the facts of the case. You're gonna tell them
about the evidence, um, what they're faced with, the all
the evidence against them, even if you're making some of
it up. You might want to invade their personals based
at this time if you're Matthew McConaughey, uh, and then
you start looking for things like fidgety, uh, suspect they

(28:08):
look in their lips, are they like muscle with their hair, um,
And then if you're an investigator, you might say, all right,
I've got this guy just where I want him. That
guy ran his fingers through his hair, he's guilty, exactly.
And that's kind of part of the part of the
issue that a lot of critics of the re technique
bring up, um, is that basically, if you stripped non
verbal stuff out, then you've got some sound stuff there. Right.

(28:33):
The biggest problem is when you're trying to read nonverbal
cues because there's it's not rooted in science. Its rooted
in armchair psychology and pop science totally. So the idea
that somebody's fidgeting meanings they're guilty and they're lying. Not
necessarily they could be fidgeting because any human being would
be really uncomfortable when placed in that situation and interrogated

(28:56):
by cops who are experts at it. Right. Uh So,
step number two is theme development, and you're gonna be
a little more soothing here with a softer voice. And
this is when you come up with some some theories
and a story maybe of why they committed this crime,
Like you know, you just couldn't go on any longer. Know,
when your best friend at sex with your wife. You

(29:18):
just couldn't live with that, could you. And if the
suspect latches onto that and some verbal or nonverbal ways
and they'll continue they don't, then they'll just create another theme. Yeah,
and the the detective will basically just kind of while
they're creating the story for the for the suspect to
latch onto, they're also actively listening to the suspect to

(29:41):
see if the suspect will latch onto it in any way,
shape or form, and if they don't, they try another one.
If they do, then they start to kind of beat
that one up and that leads alternatives, which actually comes later.
But in the meantime, one of the main techniques of
the read technique is stopping denials. But I didn't do it, Josh, listen,

(30:03):
I'm telling you I was. But imagine my finger on
Chuck's lips right now. That's why you would never do that. Now,
you stopped the Niles because it creates a sense of hopelessness,
like the like, don't you feel hopeless with my fingers
on your lips? So hopeless you have no idea? Uh,

(30:23):
it makes you feel hopeless that you don't even have
the opportunity to to reason with this cop. You can't
defend yourself, not at all, so you have a sense
of hopelessness. Plus, the other upside if you're an interrogator
is that you're keeping the person from talking, meaning they
also can't ask for counsel. Then I don't see why

(30:44):
people don't just do that the first thing, over and
over say I need a lawyer, I need a lawyer,
I need a lawyer. I read this article in I
think this stranger aren't the oddest Seattle. I don't know.
It wasn't a great article. It was kind of um.
It was just kind of misleading, like the author really
wanted you to to sympathize with the guy who was

(31:05):
guilty and really revealed that he really was pretty guilty
towards the end, but it had this this really great
explanation for why people don't ask for a lawyer in
this article. Yes, and I've seen it before, but this
article really got the point across that this guy was, like,
I mean, he'd done some stuff before, like I think

(31:27):
like he um, he was, he dabbled in drugs and
like ran an illegal like poker game and stuff like that,
like mouthfeasance. Yeah, and he so enough so that he
was like he knew he was technically guilty in the
eyes of the law, but not for this thing that
they wanted him on. Um, so he was he had

(31:50):
that guilt to begin with. And then these cops saying like,
you're gonna really look guilty if you if you ask
for a lawyer. That's one. And then the other aspect
was if you lawyer up, we can't help you. Oh yeah,
I've seen that one. If you talk to us, that's
the only way we can help you get out of
this jam. We want to get jam like we we

(32:11):
know we might we would have done the same thing
you did. Yeah, but the cops never want to get
you out of a jam. No, that's not what they're
trying to do, and so what they were saying was
like if you clam up this, like, who knows what's
going to happen to you. They were doing all sorts
of really effective psychological manipulation. And the guy they were
talking to was a lawyer's son. And this guy who

(32:31):
like forty years old, a lawyer's son, so he'd known
his whole life to ask for a lawyer. And even
this guy didn't immediately ask for a lawyer because these
cops got him. You know, I probably wouldn't either. Actually,
if I was if I was arrested today after work
and obviously completely innocent of anything, would that be mind blowing?
If that happened and I was completely innocent, I would.

(32:53):
I would at first My first instinct would probably be
like I need a lawyer and I didn't do anything, Yeah,
like why why curred that expense? Well, I think that's
another aspect of the initial um, initial consultation, that initial
discussion where it's like, oh, it's all friendly, we're talking
about the phillies. Why would you need a lawyer for that? Right,
I retract my statement, I get it now, but you

(33:15):
should stick to your original statement no matter what, Like
you have a right to counsel, and there's no reason
you should not invoke it. Your your punishment is not
going to be worse for asking for a lawyer. Yeah,
you should open up. You sound like one of those
legal commercials called Josh Clark. That reminds me we should
do and we should mention the A c l U

(33:35):
episode that was a pretty good in too. Yeah. Man,
this thing is just so many tangential podcasts. So the
stopping denials, that's a big part of the read technique.
And then, um, there's something that's similar that John Reid noticed,
but it is a little nuance. There's a difference, uh,
and that's objections to to to read. Denials were different

(33:59):
than object actions, and objections were something to be treated
differently as a result. Yeah, an objection that example they
gave here was like I would never rape somebody because
my sister was raped and it destroyed our family. Of
course I wouldn't do something like that, right. So to
a cop, that's not a denial. A denial is like
I didn't do that. I didn't do that that that's

(34:20):
not me. You got the wrong guy. Those are denials,
and the cop would try to stop you from completing
those sentences. That objection you just said is a denial,
but it's encapsulated with um, a reason, yeah, a justification,
something to it. Do you remember when you used to
take multiple choice tests in high school they always said

(34:40):
that if you don't know the answer, usually the one
with the most verbiage, the one with the most words,
is the right one. I never heard that's true. That
works out. It's not good at taking tests either. Well, no, wonder,
we need to get in the way back machine. You
can go take some more multiple test tests. Knowing that now,
But the the I think that's kind of the same
prem us for an objection. It's like, it's not just

(35:03):
a denial, it's there's more to it. And the fact
that somebody put that much more thought into it means
that there's something to that. So a cop will take
that and cultivate it and try to turn that around,
and they would say, we, I know you love your sister,
and you know you you stood by her while she
was raped, so of course this wouldn't be like a

(35:25):
recurring thing. This is just a one time thing that
you did and you were out of your head or whatever,
because you care about your sisters, so you would never
do this all the time or something. And so all
of a sudden, you're you're kind of like you're giving
the suspect like a something to latch onto, something for
them to to basically re enter society to an extent,

(35:48):
because at this moment, especially if they're guilty, they are
totally on the ounce with society, and the sole representative
of society and who's speaking with them right now is
the cop that's interrogated them, and everybody wants to be included,
and if you don't, then your associopath and they're gonna
get you anyway. They're well, yeah, but they're gonna have

(36:09):
a hard time through interrogation. So number five is getting
the suspects attention. Is I don't know these the real
titles or is this just the liberties of the author
of this article? I don't know what We'll call it
getting the suspects attention. And uh, this is when you
pretend to be the ally of the suspect um because

(36:29):
at this point they're probably looking for a way out,
and that's when you might go, hey, man, I get it.
If I call it my best friend having sex with
my wife, I'd kill him too. I understand where you're
coming from, and uh, maybe a little pad on the shoulder,
a little rub on, a little rub on the back,
or maybe a pad on the back and just some
reassurance like I get to where you're coming from. Man,

(36:52):
it could have could happen to any of us, and
you're in big trouble at that point. Yeah, and that's
probably going on like throughout. Yeah, and of themes run
These all overlap quite a bit. But if if there's
an objection that you've noticed that you're working, you've turned
around and you're working that objection with an extra layer
of compassion and commiseration. Uh, can I guess really kind

(37:14):
of start to ensnare the suspect a lot more. It's
weird because I'm I'm repulsed by a lot of this,
but I'm also very impressed by like what I've seen
on TV. What you can tell is someone who's really
good at it. Oh yeah, it's an effective it's like
an art form. There's UM. I believe something like eight
percent or seventies six percent of UM suspects who are

(37:37):
interrogated in this manner. When you take out people who
UM invoke their miranda rights, uh confess like it has
an enormous confession rate, and there's a lot of people
who the vast majority the study I saw or the
number I saw six of those confessions are from guilty people.

(38:03):
That something like point zero four percent are false confessions.
The problem is there's still such a thing as false confessions.
There's no safeguards. It's just it just so happens that,
like the false confessions are in that small of an amount. Yeah,
and that percentage isn't high. But if you think about
how many people are interrogated, that's like several hundred per
year in the US, up to several hundred per year.

(38:26):
That's a lot of people. Yeah, And it's not like
that that those people just it gets found out at
trial or somewhere down the road that they're innocent. Like,
those people may spend the rest of their lives in jail.
At the worst case, they may be executed, which has
probably happened in the history of the US, although it
hasn't been um irrefutably proven yet. Yeah, and you can

(38:49):
listen to how the Innocence Project works. From June, we
interviewed Paula is On. Oh, yeah, that's right. I wish
i'd known a lot more about the Innocence Project back
when we did that episode, Like I kind of got
it and understood it. But just over the last few years, Um,
I've kind of I understand it even more. Yeah, I

(39:11):
wish I would have known better than It's still a
good episode. We talked to Paul Paul is on Yeah
she's a real pro. Yeah no it's not, is it? Okay,
that's how rumors get made. Well, I just liked her
like more after you said that. Oh yeah, yeah, I
love Steve's on. Um, all right, and back to the

(39:32):
red technique. At this point number six, the suspect might
lose resolve, And uh, this seemed really obvious to me.
If the suspect is has his shoulders hunched, or is
got his head in his hands, or is crying, then
you've got them just where you want them as an interrogator, right,
you were going to get your confession, whether it's a

(39:53):
false confession or not. That's not guaranteed by these outward signs. Again,
if you strip away the non terrible stuff from the
re technique, it's it's pretty pretty good stuff. And apparently
this is where you really want to regain their attention.
Like if they start crying, like forced them to look
you in the eye. Uh, because I guess that works.
That increases the stress level. Um. So remember we talked

(40:15):
about that theme development. It's like here, here's what happened,
you know, and they object to that, and then you
take that objection, you turn it around and they start
to latch onto that theme couched in that objection. You
take that next, and as you're developing it, it becomes
one of two or more alternatives. But basically you're taking

(40:39):
the theme that the person latched onto and you're making
that the minimal um example. It's almost like a good
cop bad cop version of reasons why you did it? Exactly,
So it's it's, um, you you you shot that lady
in the back because she was a horrible person. Nobody

(41:01):
is going to think that you did it because you
just wanted the insurance money, exactly that anybody in your
position would have done this, And everyone's gonna understand this
is why you did it, not this horrible reason. This reason,
this reason society can live with. Maybe you'll go to
jail for a year, two, who knows, but when you

(41:22):
come out, everybody's gonna say, hey, that Bernie guy is okay,
I would have shot that old lady in the back too. Yeah. Uh,
it's not Hey, that Bernie guy needs to burn in
hell for the rest of his life because it killed
some poor old lady for her insurance money. You know.
So with the cops sitting there saying, here's what we're saying,

(41:42):
you're agreeing to. Here's this horrible interpretation that I can't control.
But this I've created and sculpted with your help. So
let's throw this horrible, big thing away and this thing
that doesn't seem nearly as bad is what the press
will hear. I will start to put it on paper. Yeah,
but here's what you're not thinking about what you're doing,

(42:04):
is it's the same in both cases. If you're confessing
to a murderer and you are just at a point
to where you're you think, man, that sounds way better
in a newspaper than this other thing. And also it's
coming out of the mouth of this detective that is
um that is appearing to commiserate with you, that has
empathized with you, that maybe told you on the side
like hey, I hated that old lady too, and I'm

(42:26):
glad you did it the cop can totally say that
and and to win the trust of the suspect. So
all of these factors combine all of a sudden. You
have a story, you have a narrative, you're working out
with the cops. You may not even realize that that's
what's going on. And then the cops going to say,
I have a piece of paper and a pen here,

(42:48):
and I want you to write down what we just
talked about. I want you to write down your confession. Yeah, well,
they're gonna bring someone else in there first, Well, there's
probably already someone else in there. They may bring a
third person, new person in there, uh, to try and
force them to retell their story, which they probably won't
want to do. Uh. And that's when you can introduce like, hey,

(43:09):
you don't want to tell the story again to this
new detective. I know you're tired, just here to take
the spend exactly, don't stab me with it. By this time,
the person will likely want to do just about anything
to get out of that room and from writing and
signing this this confession their salvation. On the other end,
there's a light at the end of the tunnel, even

(43:31):
if it's possibly jail Yeah, they can get out of
this room. They can get out of this horrible interrogation. Yeah.
They may promise like a hot meal, like something as
simple as that can can get someone to sign a
confession at the end of a long, long day. So
you've got the written confession, you haven't signed. Uh. They

(43:52):
probably have to sign an additional waiver that says I
didn't write this under coercion or else. They'll include that
in the confession, and you have basically what amounts to
a slam dunk conviction in court. And that is the
red technique. Uh. And we're gonna talk about some real
cases of interrogation right after this break, all right, Chuck.

(44:18):
So that's the red technique that your purpose super effective. Um,
and it has been used in plenty of cases. Like
we said, the number that I saw was like point
zero per point zero four of confessions or false confessions, um,
which is extraordinarily small, which means that a lot of

(44:39):
truly bad guys get caught through the red the red technique, right. Um.
And there's this one in this article on how stuff works, um,
how police interrogation works, and it's with a woman named
Nicole Michelle Frederick it's between her and a detective named
Victor Lauria, and it takes place in Detroit in September

(45:00):
two thousand three, and um Nicole Michelle Frederick was the
step mom to a two year old daughter, and the
two year old daughter had shown up in the hospital,
I believe, unresponsive with bruises all over her body had
clearly been physically abused, and the step mom was saying,
she falls down a lot, like I don't think anybody

(45:21):
heard her, Like, she just gets bruised like that, and uh,
it certainly wasn't me. But not only was it not me,
I don't think it was anybody. The little girl just
falls down, she does it to herself. And with that,
Detective Lauria took her to be blaming the victim that
she was trying to go free. By blaming this little

(45:42):
girl for being clumsy, momsy and difficult, yes, which a
detective can then latch onto is reprehensible as that sounds, uh,
by trying to get some empathy going like, hey, I
get it, you know, like this is a tough baby, yes,
and it's I'm sure it's trying, and it's very off
cult so all of a sudden, uh, detective Lauria has

(46:04):
has this I guess this theme, this justification that was
set up by the suspect, and he starts to play
it out. He's saying, like this, this girl, she was
a difficult baby. She's crying. You lose your head for
a minute and you get a little rough, and you know,
it could happen to anybody, and um uh ms. Frederick says, no,

(46:29):
that's not right at all. Nobody hurt this kid. I
don't understand why you don't believe me. You seem to
be not listening to me, which is from what I understand.
That's you're in the danger zone right there, and your
a derogation. If somebody's saying, if they're pressing back their
own reality on the you, the detective, you're not in
control right then they are, so uh. Laurias started to

(46:51):
look for another theme, and it was along the same lines,
but rather than losing your head for a minute, it
was a split second. Something happened in the flash of
him minute or flash of a second, and she perked
up a little. Yeah, she started to latch onto that one. Yeah.
So then he knew he had her, you know, in
a pretty tough spot and Um. She started nodding her head.

(47:11):
He sets up the alternative and said, you know what,
if you don't explain this thing, every he's gonna everyone's
gonna just assume that you're this awful, abusive person. Um.
I think people might understand more though, because everyone's been there.
If we paint, you know, if if it was just

(47:31):
a split second thing and he lost control, people are
going to get that. So those are the alternatives. All
of a sudden, and then it came uh, it came
out that the her daughter had had had brain damage,
it was likely not gonna die. And then all of
a sudden, the suspects started saying, oh I I they're
gonna get me for murder. Yeah. Well, he pointed out

(47:52):
to her, He's like, by the way, you haven't even
asked about the condition of your daughter. And she was like, no,
I haven't totally have and he's like, no, you really haven't,
and she's like, well how is she He's like, she's
not gonna make it, and that's when she goes, oh, no,
I'm gonna be tried for murder. And she was and
found guilty. Um, she she confessed, I believe right, Yeah,

(48:14):
she admitted to shaking, shaking a baby and then said
out loud, I killed the little girl. I killed her
right So, Um, she was convicted of killing her two
year old stepdaughter. And last I saw, I found an
appeal in two thousand five that was denied. That was
the last I saw of her after her conviction. So
it does work, and Detective Lauria followed all of these steps,

(48:38):
um and got a bad guy in this case. Yeah,
and so a lot of times it goes down just
like it should. But it is super controversial, which we've
talked about some and you mentioned at the beginning. One
of the biggest problems is it's guilt presumptive. Is they
go in there thinking, all right, this person's the goal
of the of the interrogation is to get a confession,

(49:01):
not to find out whether or not someone did something.
In most in many cases, they go in there thinking
this person is guilty. And if you're going in there
thinking you're guilty, even if you don't mean to, you're
gonna start to filter out any reasons why they might
be innocent, even if they're good reasons and valid reasons.

(49:22):
And that ain't no good, No, it's not that's um.
That's well it's pretty huge flaw really, even if it
does result on only point zero four percent of false confessions. Yeah,
and you also mentioned that, Um, the whole purpose of
the interrogation is to make someone stressed and uncomfortable. And
then when you notice people behaving stressed and uncomfortable, that's

(49:43):
the presumption an indicator of guilt Supposedly, when it's like
you said, would you call a feedback loop, So you know,
I want to make you stressed and uncomfortable, you're being
stressed and uncomfortable, that means you're guilty. Yeah, it's an
odd you to approach things. It's coercion. Um. And then
there's also been a lot of people to point out

(50:05):
that a lot of these techniques are the same thing
that are used in brainwashing, which we did a show
on July two thousand nine, did a brainwashing show invading
a personal space, not allowing the person to speak, um,
using contrasting alternatives to have them come to uh, make
them feel like they're making a decision or that they

(50:27):
have a choice or some sort of power. I think
you brainwashed me in that episode two, right, Yeah, we
did a little role play. Yeah, it was awesome. Man,
I turned you into a prep that was five years ago. Yeah,
and then um position and confession as a means of escape.
Oh yeah, that was like the last step I think
before resolution was to say like just like denounce your

(50:50):
family or whatever and you will be saved or something.
Right in this case, it signed this thing and man,
you're gonna get that hot meal and that cigarette. I
promised you. The thing is is like we said, it's uh.
It does produce false confessions. And I saw somewhere that
of people who have been exonerated with DNA evidence, UM

(51:12):
gave a false confession. So people go to jail for
years for this kind of thing. Well, here's a few
of the more famous cases. Peter Riley in nineteen seventy three.
It's an eighteen year old who is whose mother was murdered. UM,
I think no siblings and no father, so like the
only parent he'd ever known, And after eight hours of

(51:32):
interrogation by Connecticut police, he confessed to brutally murdering her.
Murdering her and UH was convicted on manslaughter based on
the confessional loan was no evidence, no motive. Medical findings
suggested that there were at least two attackers and UH
the town really got behind him, apparently, and like, so
this kid didn't do this, He's not that kind of guy.

(51:53):
And let's have bake sales and raise money. And Arthur Miller,
the famous playwright, lived in the town and he championed
it because he did a lot of work with a
c l U. And Um. Eventually new evidence came out
that exonerated him and he was set free after three
years in prison. Three years not too bad. It's better
than Earl Washington Jr. Who in nineteen eighty two he

(52:16):
was described as in police everybody, I'm using scare quotes here.
He was described by psychologists as mildly retarded. He had
an i Q of sixty nine, which is a whole
other kettle of fish that mean anything anyway, But um,
he confessed to raping and murdering a nineteen year old
woman under interrogation. He was convicted on the confessional loan

(52:38):
right just on the confession. A lot of these are,
and spent eighteen years in prison, some of them on
death row, and was apparently rescued from the um executioner
with like nine days to go. Yeah, But at the
same time, like, as a jury, what are you to
do when someone says I did this, you know, I

(52:58):
mean hopefully you don't know, maybe maybe add some other evidence.
I agree. The thing is is Earl Washington's UM thing.
He he was somebody else was caught doing it using DNA.
That's that's been a huge change to this kind of thing.
It's at least exonerated people like free and clear. But

(53:19):
that's that brings up another problem with false confessions. Not
only do innocent people go to jail, guilty people stay free,
and they accumulate more victims over time, you know, like, um,
how how how many more children would that that lady
in Detroit have abused if like she gotten off or something,
you know, I mean like the and the guy who

(53:39):
created UM the read technique actually had a false confession
and wrongful conviction under his belt, a guy. If you
read the article um the uh the interview in the
New Yorker, the first thing he talks about is this
guy in the fifties who was in jail for twenty
years for murdering his wife even though he didn't do it,

(54:00):
who was um interrogated by John Reid himself. Wow. Yeah,
So the guy who actually did do it went on
to rape pregnant women and UM commit all these other
horrible crimes that he wouldn't have he wouldn't have done
had he been caught the first time, or had the
cups still been looking for him. Wow. So yeah, it's

(54:22):
a huge point. I mean, like, it's not just innocent
people in prison, it's guilty people out still. Yeah, if
you really want to see uh this all firsthand, I
highly recommend the documentary from Ken burn Sarah Burns and
David McMahon, The Central Park Five. And this is the
famous story in of five young African American men who

(54:44):
were set up the river for a rape in Central
Park and they did not do it. And uh, it's
a great documentary and it's it just summarizes how you
can get a false confession very nicely and it all
plays out and you see these interviews and get really
angry and uh, but that was definitely a case of UM,

(55:05):
sort of like with the Atlanta child murders. Like people
are scared to go into Central Park now and we've
got these five use who aren't so smart and they're poor,
and we can we think they did it and I
don't care what the evidence says. We need to finger
them for the crime and put them all over the
news so people will feel safe again. But they were
eventually exonerated thanks to DNA again. Um. And they spent

(55:30):
depending on which guy, between six years and twelve years
in prison. And really great documentary and I think it's
on Netflix. It is it is. Have you seen it? Yeah? Yeah,
that's a good one. Um. So chuck this. We've basically
been talking mostly about the Red technique, that there are alternatives.
There's some law enforcement agencies have lost faith in, um,

(55:53):
the red technique. Uh. And in Britain, apparently in there's
a bunch of false confess since that came to light
and the British government said, we need to figure something
else out. So they created a Blue Ribbon task force
and said, come up with an alternative to the re technique,
which ironically is a technique in the re technique. But

(56:16):
what they came up with was called peace, which this
is the worst acronym of all time, but preparation and planning,
engage and explain, account closure evaluate clearly spells peace. Yes, Um.
So they came up with it after a couple of years,
and by two thousand and one it was pretty widespread

(56:38):
but the peace technique is predicated on the idea that
you're not going after a confession. This technique, like you
as a an investigator an interrogator, you're going in to
just get the whole story out and as much detail
as possible, and you're not going after a confession. You're
not accusing the person of the crime, being polite and

(57:01):
you're here's another thing, and a lot of people think
that this will cure false confessions almost in and of itself,
videotaping the confession from beginning to end. And so what
the cops do is they interview the the suspect. They say, well,
what about this, here's a discrepancy, what about this? And
they're not being accusatory, they're just putting everything out there

(57:22):
and letting this person explain it in front of the
video tape or in front of the video camera. And
then the tape is shown to a jury and the
jury apparently decides whether the person is lying or not. Yeah,
And this is all built on the what I think
is a pretty rock solid theory that it is really
hard to lie and lie and lie and keep it

(57:43):
all straight and keep it all and that that congruous
line that's believable. At some point, if you keep talking
and you're lying a bunch, you're gonna mess up. And
that's what they prey on, especially if you've just spent
the last eight hours like drinking cruddy coffee and eating
a few ho hoes and being asked questions by interrogators,

(58:06):
even if they're being polite like yeah, you're you're gonna
have a really hard time keeping up with what you've
already said. Yeah, Like you've got to be a real
skilled sociopath to lie for hours and hours and hours. Uh,
and then they'll bring him again and again. A week later,
let's say, you know, let's have some more tea and
let's sit down and talk and uh, a week later,
you might forget some of the things you said. And um,

(58:28):
and the cops have the video and they're writing down
all the details. Seems pretty solid to me. Yeah, so
good on you, Brittain. And um, there are some people
here in the US trying to teach it the cops here,
but apparently it's just like word of mouth and the
particular jurisdiction has to be down with it and support it,
and it's just not super widespread here. Yeah. Well, I mean,
the read technique isn't the force of law. It's just

(58:50):
the gold standard. It's the one that everybody uses and there, like,
I want to be like the cops on the shows. Well, yeah, exactly,
I want to do the piece technique. Um, the in
can it? I found a completely different technique too. It's
called the Mr. Big technique. Have you heard of it?
It's it's extremely involved. Basically, you the suspect, will meet

(59:12):
an undercover cop who's posing as a criminal while you're
out and about and free and easy or whatever, maybe
while you're being booked whatever, and you guys are gonna
become friends and over the course of the next several months,
this undercover cop is going to gain your trust and
get you to ultimately confess. That's just how little crime
there is. They're like, so would you cut down your

(59:33):
neighbors street? Right exactly? Like they can spend like three
months on a single confession, you know. Yeah. But it's
called the Mr. Big technique, and it actually the reason
it's called Mr biggess Uh. In its ideal form, you, um,
the suspect are become like kind of criminal compatriots with
this this undercover cop who then introduces you to Mr Big,

(59:55):
this crime boss who wants you to step up to
the next crime level. But it's gonna you to talk
about this murder that you did or whatever, and then
you confess it and you're being secretly taped and you
don't know it, and you've just entrapped yourself. Man, I
love Canada, Mr I might have to move there, man,
yea A you're gonna stick around after a Toronto or

(01:00:15):
Vancouver one country. So we said earlier we were gonna
give some tips. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't. Um.
They seem a little silly, but they recommend you just
don't talk. You don't talk, they said. Imagine the words
I invoke my rights to remain silent painted on the
wall and stare at them. Uh, ask for counsel, ask

(01:00:37):
for a lawyer. And then the number five thing they
say to do is cultivate hatred for your interrogator. Who
who's that from Peace Help Beagle or something weird like that.
It's yeah, it's for recommendations for animal rights activists who
get arrested. So yeah, he seems kind of basic to me.
It is, but I think it's one of those things

(01:00:58):
where they can't easily go out the window when you're
in that situation, you know. Yeah, and again, if you're
in the United States and you invoke your right to council,
that's that like the cops are they have to stop,
and if they don't, that's a that's a big problem.
I kind of perversely want to know how I would
hold up. I know it's no laughing matter and I
shouldn't joke around about it, but I would like to

(01:01:19):
be interrogated just to see. Uh so, Uh, I guess
that's If you want to learn some more about UM
police interrogation, check out this article police interrogation on how
Stuff Works dot Com. It's a good one UM and
you can find that by using the search bar, of course.
And since I said that, it's time for listener mail,

(01:01:42):
I'm gonna call this Jittery Joe's Oh yeah coffee. Hey guys,
So Paul as well my wife Catsy now are big
fancy y'alls, and uh we've been listening for years. This
summer we took a two month honeymoon to Southeast Asia.
It was a blast. Your podcasts kept the sane. Thanks
for that. You've sent you a postcard from uh Angkor
Watt and Cambodia. Uh. It was bought there, written in Borneo,

(01:02:05):
and mailed from Malaysia, so it was well traveled. Um. Anyway,
we live in Athens and love to hear your stories
about Athens. We actually live in five Points on the
Shortcut road where Chuck told about his mystery creepy old
Lady ghost story. I drive by there every day and
I always keep an eye out for her. But my
day jobs with Jittery Joe's Coffee Roasters, a local Athens institution,

(01:02:27):
And um, he brought a huge box of coffee and
shirts and hats and hand delivered it to the office.
And uh, I think he was surprised to know that
I remember when Jittery Joe's first opened, because he was like, oh, well,
that was before my time. I think he I didn't
think I was as old as I was. But I

(01:02:49):
remember Jittery Joe's opening up. It was a big deals,
like the first kind of good indie coffee house in Athens.
I didn't know they were the first, but I'm not
surprised the first one I remember at least. But he
suggests the Sumatra Wahana. He said it's unlike any coffee
I've ever had, people either love it or hate it.
So um, that is from Mike Lord and you can

(01:03:09):
just look up Jittery Joe's online. I'm sure you can
order this stuff. Yeah, you definitely can. Thanks for the coffee, Mike,
it's good. Yes, and thank you to your wife Cassidy
for all the support. Uh. If you want to give
Chuck and Eye free stuff, we are happy to accept it.
You can get in touch with us to ask for
our physical mailing address and we'll give it to you. Okay. Yeah,
I have to say showing up at the office and

(01:03:30):
announced was a little weird, but since you had a
huge box of coffee, h it was all forgetting. Oh yeah,
so your comparing gifts, it's like yeah, yeah, it's social lubricant. Yeah, gifts, sorry,
especially good one. It's like Jittery Joe's coffee. You can
get in touch with us via Twitter at s Y
s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com.

(01:03:51):
So I Stuff you should Know. You can send us
an email at stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot
com and as always joined us at home on the
web Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on
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