Mindhunter (27 page)

He had been interviewed to see if he had seen or heard anything, since he’d been trimming trees on the Stoners’ street for the power company for about two weeks before Mary Frances’s abduction. The police told me he was scheduled for a polygraph that very day.

That wouldn’t be a good idea, I told them. They wouldn’t get anything out of the exam, and it would only reinforce the suspect’s ability to cope with the interrogation process. At that time, we didn’t have a lot of field experience with interrogation, but from the prison interviews and the ongoing serial-killer study, I felt that I knew what I was talking about. Sure enough, when they called me back the next day, they told me the lie detector had been inconclusive.

Now that he knows he can beat the box, there’s only one way to get him, I said. Stage the interrogation at the police station at night. The suspect will feel more comfortable initially, making him more vulnerable to questioning. This will also give him a message about your seriousness and dedication. He knows there isn’t an arbitrary break point like lunch or dinner, and he knows he’s not going to be hung out as a media trophy if he caves in. Have the local police and the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office carry out the interrogation together to show a united front and to imply that the full weight of the government of the United States is against him. Pile up stacks of file folders on tables in front of him with his name on them, even if they’re just full of blank pages.

Most important: without saying anything about it, place the bloody rock on a low table at a forty-five-degree angle to his line of sight so that he’ll have to turn his head to look at it. Closely observe all his nonverbal cues—his behavior, respiration, perspiration, carotid pulse. If he is the killer, he will not be able to ignore that rock, even though you haven’t mentioned it or explained its significance.

What we needed to create was what I call the "high ass-pucker factor." I actually used the Stoner case as a laboratory for my theories. Many of the techniques we refined later had their experimental origins here.

He won’t confess, I continued. Georgia is a capital-punishment state, and even if he’s only sent to prison, his rap as a child molester could get his ass raped the first time he takes a shower. All of the other prisoners will be gunning for this guy.

Use low, mysterious lighting and have no more than two officers or agents in the interview environment at one time, preferably one from the FBI and one from the Adairsville PD. What you’ve got to do is imply that you understand the subject, understand what was going through his mind and the stresses he was under. No matter how disgusting it feels to you, you’re going to have to project the blame onto the victim. Imply that she seduced him. Ask if she led him on, if she turned on him, if she threatened him with blackmail. Give him a face-saving scenario. Give him a way of explaining his actions.

The other thing I knew from all the cases I’d seen is that in blunt-force-trauma or knife homicides, it’s difficult for the attacker to avoid getting at least traces of the victim’s blood on him. It’s common enough that you can use it. When he starts to waffle, even slightly, I said, look him straight in the eye and tell him the most disturbing part of the whole case is the known fact that he got Mary’s blood on him.

"We know you got blood on you, Gene; on your hands, on your clothing. The question for us isn’t ’Did you do it?’ We know you did. The question is ’Why?’ We think we know why and we understand. All you have to do is tell us if we’re right."

And that was exactly how it went down. They bring Devier in. He looks instantly at the rock, starts perspiring and breathing heavily. His body language is completely different from the previous interviews: tentative, defensive. The interrogators project blame and responsibility onto the girl, and when he looks as if he’s going with it, they bring up the blood. This really upsets him. You can often tell you’ve got the right guy if he shuts up and starts listening intently as you speak. An innocent guy will yell and scream. And even if a guilty guy yells and screams to make you think he’s innocent, you can tell the difference.

He admits to the rape and agrees with the interrogator that she threatened him. Bob Leary tells him they know he didn’t plan on killing her. If he had, he would have used something more efficient than the rock. In the end, he confesses to the murder and to the rape in Rome the previous year. Darrell Gene Devier was tried for the rape and murder of Mary Frances Stoner, convicted, and sentenced to death. He was executed in the Georgia electric chair on May 18, 1995, almost sixteen years after the murder and his arrest; that’s almost four more years than Mary Frances had on earth.

The key to this type of interrogation, I found, is to be creative; to use your imagination. I had to ask myself, "What would get to me if I were the one who did it?" We’re all vulnerable. It’s going to be a different thing for each of us. In my case, with my sloppy bookkeeping, my SAC could probably call me in, have me see one of my expense vouchers on his desk, and make me sweat. But there’s always something.

Everybody has a rock.

The lessons learned in the Devier case can have applications far beyond the sick world of sexual murder. Whether it’s embezzlement, public corruption, a mob investigation, a fencing scheme, or a corrupt union you have to penetrate, it doesn’t matter; the principles are going to be the same. What I would advise in any of these types of cases would be to target whomever you deem to be the "weakest link," figure out a way to bring him in and let him see what he’s up against, then win his cooperation in going after the others.

In any kind of conspiracy case, this is a critical issue. What you want to do is flip one guy to be a government witness, then watch the whole house of cards come tumbling down. The choice of whom to approach first is so important because if you pick the wrong guy and then can’t flip him, he’s going to tip off everyone else and you’re back at square one.

Let’s say we’re investigating a big-city public corruption case in which we suspect eight or ten people are involved from one particular agency. And let’s say the number one or two man in the agency is the best "catch." But when we profile the guy, we find that he has his personal act together despite the corruption. He isn’t a boozer or a womanizer; in fact, he’s a strong family man—no illnesses, no money problems, no obvious vulnerabilities. If he’s approached by the FBI, there’s a good chance he’d simply deny everything, tell us to go to hell, and alert the others.

The way you get to someone like this is to go through the smaller fish, just as with organized crime. As we go through all the records, maybe one candidate will stand out from the rest for our purposes. He isn’t a higher-up, but a clerk who fixes all the paperwork. He’s been at his job for twenty years, so everything he has is invested in it. He has financial and medical problems, both of which provide strong vulnerabilities.

Next comes the choice of who is "cast" to lead the interrogation. My preference is usually for someone a little older and more authoritative than the subject, a sharp dresser with a commanding appearance, someone who can be friendly and outgoing and make the subject relax, but become absolutely serious and directed as soon as circumstances call for it.

If there’s a holiday coming up in the next few weeks, or perhaps the subject’s birthday or anniversary, I advise postponing the interrogation to take advantage of that. If you get him in the room and he realizes that, if he doesn’t cooperate, this might be the last holiday season he’ll be spending with his family, that can give you some added leverage.

"Staging" can be just as effective in dealing with a nonviolent offender as it was in the Stoner murder case. For any large or ongoing investigation, I suggest concentrating all of your materials into one place, whether or not this was actually done for the case. For example, if you take over a conference room for your "task force," gathering all your agents, staff, and case files together, you’ll be showing your subject just how serious you are. If you can "decorate" the walls with, say, blowups of surveillance photos and other signs of just how wide-ranging and official this ongoing investigation is, the point will be driven home all the more forcefully. A couple of video monitors playing tapes of your targets in the act are icing on the cake.

Among my personal favorite touches are wall charts showing the penalties each person would face if convicted. There’s nothing terribly profound about this, but it does tend to keep the pressure on the subject and remind him of the stakes. I want to get that "ass-pucker factor" as intense as I can.

I’ve always found that the late-night or early-morning hours are often the best time to conduct an interrogation. People tend to be more relaxed and at the same time more vulnerable. Again, if you and your guys are working through the night, you immediately send the message that this case is a big deal and you are very committed to it. Another practical consideration of a nighttime interrogation in any conspiracy case is that your subject should not be seen by any of the others. If he thinks he’s been "made," then there’s not going to be any deal.

The basis of any successful deal is going to be the truth and an appeal to your subject’s reason and common sense. All the staging does is call attention to the key elements. If I were conducting the interrogation of our representative subject in the public corruption case, I might call him at home late at night and say something like, "Sir, it’s very important that I talk to you tonight. FBI agents are walking up to your door even as we speak." I would stress that he wasn’t under arrest and didn’t have to go with the agents. But I’d strongly suggest that he accompany them downtown because he might not have another chance. There would be no need to Mirandize him at this point because he isn’t being charged with anything.

Once he arrived at the office, I’d let him cool his heels a while. When the other football team has to make a long-yardage field goal on the last play to win the game, you call a time-out to give their kicker time to think about it. Anyone who’s had to wait to see the doctor before an important appointment knows how effective this can be.

Once he was ushered into my office, I’d close the door, trying to seem warm and friendly, very understanding, everything man-to-man. I’d call the guy by name. "I want to make sure you understand you’re not under arrest," I’d reiterate. "You’re free to leave any time you want and my men will drive you back home. But I think you should listen to what I have to say. This could be the most important date in your life."

I might have him say the date with me to make sure we’re on the same wavelength.

"I also want you to know that we’re aware of your medical history and we have a nurse on stand-by." This would be true. One of the reasons we targeted this guy was because of this particular vulnerability.

Now we start talking turkey. I would stress that the FBI realizes he’s a little fish, that he’s been underpaid for what he’s done, and that he’s not really the one we want the most. "Right now, as you can see, we’re interviewing many of the people involved in this case. The ship is going down; no question about it. You can go down with it or you can reach up for the third time before drowning and grab for a life preserver. We know you’ve been used, manipulated, taken advantage of by others much more powerful than you. We have a U.S. attorney standing by to offer a real deal if you want to take it."

As a parting shot, I would stress, "Remember, this is the only time we’ll be able to make you this offer. I’ve got twenty agents working this case. We can go out and arrest everyone if we have to. Don’t you think someone will roll if you don’t? And then you’ll go down with the ship. If you want to go down with the big guys, that’s your choice. But tonight is the last time we’ll be able to talk like this. Will you cooperate?"

If he does—and it really is in his best interests if he does—then we Mirandize him and let him contact an attorney. But as a good-faith gesture, I’d probably ask him to get on the phone and arrange a meeting with one of the other players. You don’t want him having second thoughts and backing out. Once you’ve got your first guy’s commitment, the rest of the pieces start falling into place.

The reason this works so effectively, even if you understand our complete approach in advance, is because it’s mutually beneficial to the investigator and the targeted subject. It’s based on truth and tailored to the subject’s life and situation and emotional needs. Even knowing how it was staged for maximum impact, if I were the subject presented with this deal, I’d take it, because it does represent my best chance. The strategy behind this type of interrogation is the same as the one I developed for the Stoner murder case. I keep thinking to myself, "What would get to me?"

Because everybody has a rock.

Gary Trapnell, the armed robber and airplane hijacker I interviewed at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois, is just about as intelligent and insightful as any criminal I’ve studied. He’s the one who was so confident in his own abilities that he assured me he could fool any prison psychiatrist into believing he had any given mental condition I specified. He was also confident that if he were out of prison, he’d be able to evade the law.

"You just can’t catch me," he asserted.

"Okay, Gary," I said hypothetically, "You’re out. And you’re smart enough to know you have to break off all contact with family members to keep away from the feds.

"Now I know your father was a high-ranking, decorated military officer. You really loved and respected him. You wanted to be like him. And your crime spree began when he died."

I could see from his facial reaction that I was on to something; that I’d hit a nerve.

"Your dad is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. So suppose I have agents staking out his grave around Christmas, on his birthday, and the anniversary of the date he died?"

In spite of himself, Trapnell broke out into a sardonic smile. "You got me!" he announced.

Again, the reason this occurred to me was because I tried to put myself in his place; I tried to figure out what would get to me. And my experience tells me that there is a way to get to everyone, if you can only figure out what it is.