During the recent presidential race, how many of the candidates’ statements did you look up to see if they were true? Did you find some lies? In a world filled with misinformation and deceiving appearances, we have all essentially become fact checkers. Never trust a...
Blog
Finding Motivation During the Arsonist Interview With the Use of CVSA
When I was a teenager babysitting my five-year-old brother, he came out of the bathroom one day, and I saw a strange, flickering light emanating from the room. He had set the toilet paper roll on fire. Luckily, there was plenty of water within reach. That boy is now a...
A New Year and New Challenges for Truth Verification With Evolving Cybercrimes
If you are reading this, you probably didn’t heed the future President’s warning that using a computer isn’t safe. Maybe, like me, you are still sending emails instead of using a costly courier service. We can laugh at such talk, but the truth is that cybercrime is a...
The Outcome of High Stake and Low Stake Lies: CVSA Testing in the Lab vs the Field
Remember when you were a child and you told what your mother called “a fib?” Technically, that’s an unimportant lie, but as a kid, the consequences of getting caught felt huge. Over time, we become comfortable with those relatively inconsequential lies and casually...
Using CVSA to Clear Innocent Suspects During the Interview Process
Over the holidays, while you have been celebrating surrounded by the warmth of family and friends, someone else is eating dinner with murderers, rapists, and thieves. This person isn’t one of them; he or she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or perhaps...
The Effects of Psychological Priming and Ethical Considerations in Interrogations
In the early 1970’s, young men who sometimes got in trouble with the law would mention with horror…the phonebook. The city I lived in had a three-inch phonebook. Rumor was, some cops used it as a cushion to dissipate the energy from a baton blow over a larger area....
Use of the CVSA in Analyzing Covert Voice Recordings
The image of the police detective or PI lurking in dark corners to secretly record a conversation is the stuff of film noir. But while it may not be as melodramatic, real law enforcement officials also, on occasion, have to act surreptitiously in their investigations....
Mike DeFrancisco Discusses the Use of CVSA in Arson Investigations
Oxygen, heat, fuel, and a chemical chain reaction—this is the fire tetrahedron that sparks a devastating flame capable of destroying lives. A family is left homeless. Children perish while sleeping in their beds. A young person caught in a fire of their own making...
Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) Leading Into The CVSA Interview
I consider myself to be pretty good at catching lies. But maybe my self-perception is distorted because even though I spent years working as an investigator, anyone can be fooled by a good liar. In fact, a study by researchers Bond and DePaulo at Texas Christian...
How CVSA Overcomes Cultural and Language Challenges in Terrorism Intelligence Gathering
It was the day our innocence was smashed into pieces smaller than DNA molecules. I was at home on 9/11 when my brother, a firefighter, called and told me to turn on CNN. I remember the exact moment because time stood still. All those people were in the towers—innocent...