Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Statement Analysis and Text-Speak





Text speak (or social network speak)  is a form of communication, and as such,  can be analyzed.


Clay Waller had posted on Facebook and was indicated for deception here in our analysis of his posting.  He has since confessed to the murder of his wife.  See analysis here: 


http://seamusoriley.blogspot.com/2011/08/statement-analysis-clay-waller-posts-on.html

It is very difficult for the guilty to be quiet.  For some, lying is as natural as breathing and when they are not believed, they become insulted and will take to the new media even when defense attorneys plead with them to stop speaking.  In doing so, they reveal more and more even when a great deal of time has passed.  It is one of the reasons why many of us, including Chuck Cox, father of missing Susan Cox, has remained confident that Susan will be found, as Josh Powell, who said "they underestimate my discipline" could not contain himself and continued to speak out.  It reminds me of Edgar A Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" in which the guilty conscience drives the subject to madness.  


In Text speak, the goal remains to communicate a message and words are used, although spelled differently, they are for the purpose of communicating a message.  In Statement Analysis, the same principles apply.  We establish a pattern, or baseline, and work forward.  


For example, "u have no idea who u are dealing with" uses the letter "u" in place of the word "u" which is then noted.  Following after principle, does the subject consistently use "u" in the message?  We have found statements using "u" but then changing to "you" at various points.  We note that "you" takes more time to type, and likely shows an increase in importance.  It is the change that we note.  (for more analysis, please see Waller Facebook analysis)


Hailey Dunn, 13, was last seen by her brother at about 9PM on December 26, 2010, and was not seen again.  Her mother and mother's boyfriend both failed polygraphs and child pornography and bestiality were found in computers and computer memory sticks.  Both were reported by police to be drug abusers and are "Persons of Interest" in the ongoing investigation, and are not cooperating with police. 


The mother continues to speak out publicly which gives investigators additional information.  Recently, she engaged in a social networking discussion in which readers here requested analysis:

Billie D6unn: "now IM not gonna sit here & say nobody has ever sent me a sick ass beastiality pic mes to gross me out. Ive gotten quite a few & they do nothing 4 me other than gag me!"

Please note that we follow the same principles in text-speak as we do in full English analysis.  Here is the statement repeated, with emphasis. 

Billie D6unn: "now IM not gonna sit here & say nobody has ever sent me a sick ass beastiality pic mes to gross me out. Ive gotten quite a few & they do nothing 4 me other than gag me!"



1.  Caps:   Please note that "IM" is capitalized showing emphasis.  If all letters were capitalized, it would not be emphasis indicated.  Note that the emphasis is the subject herself, and not the topic of her missing child.   This may indicate why she continues to speak out even though a criminal defense attorney would strongly advise against it. 


The subject  later thanked people for prayers for "me or my daughter" listing herself first and a distinct separation between the two, suggesting a choice between herself or her daughter.  For most parents, it is instinctive to put the child first, but in the case of a missing child, we would expect instinct to put child first given the present duress of the missing child. 


2.  Negative:  Note that which is said in the negative as sensitive.  She is "not gonna" is in the negative.  


Anything told to us in the negative, that is, "what is not thought, what is not done" and so on, is highly important to the subject and marked as sensitive.  Anything reported in the negative is of high importance to the speaker. 


3.  Body posture:  Note "sit" shows tension, as does all inclusions of body posture during a statement ("sit, sat, stood, standing, etc").  


Note the difference in a statement that has body posture and a statement without body posture:  


"My boss said that I need to be at work at 9." is very different than:


"My boss stood and told me..."  By adding in the body posture, we see an increase in tension.  In the case of the social network posting, it shows a tension in the subject as typing.  The tension is felt by the subject, who communicates by writing. Remember, there is no need for the subject to tell us the body posture, so by telling us body posture, the subject is revealing his or her own tension.  


Note also the language, including "ass" as the subject frequently employs language that has sexual reference, even when attempting to insult.  This should alert the analyst to the connection with inappropriate sexual material.  It should be noted that police have let the media know that child pornography, pornography, and bestiality were found on the subject's and/or the subject's boyfriend's computer and memory devices.  The use of body parts and sexual references, even when used to taunt, insult or degrade are noted.  


4.  Note the pronoun:   "nobody" is also in the negative increasing sensitivity indicator:  this is an attempt to withhold the identity of the person who sent the bestiality.  "Nobody" didn't send bestiality, somebody actually did.  She identifies the sender as "nobody" which may suggest a view point held by her as towards the sender.  


4.  Note the phrase:  "quite a few" is highly sensitive (overall) as even we expect an attempt to minimize as the norm. If she is willing to admit to "quite a few", one can only imagine the high volume of material she received. 


5.   What is missing?  


Statement Analysis not only takes note of what the subject tells us, but what the subject does not tell us.  In this, we are able to obtain more information than a polygraph.  Is there something in this short statement missing that we would expect to hear?


 Note that she did not report after receiving the first bestiality image  that she told anyone, including her "nobody" to stop sending them ---if the material was offensive, she would report so telling us that she demanded "nobody" to stop sending the objectionable material, rather than telling us of a large number of bestiality images received.   Since she did not tell us that she told him to stop, we cannot assume that she wanted him to stop.  Does the language justify this?


6.  Note the negative:  "they do nothing for me"  indicating that they do something but more importantly, since doing "nothing" is impossible (she says it did do something to her)  but of far more importance is the verb tense.  


7.  Note the verb tense:  present tense verb. 


She did not write concerning the bestiality images:   "they did nothing for me" in the past tense; something that we may have expected to hear from her.  She did not tell us that this was something that took place in the past. 


"they do nothing" is present tense, meaning present, ongoing, at the time of the writing.  


This is an indication of ongoing activity and ongoing impact from pornographic material; specifically bestiality. 


Questions:  


In Statement Analysis, we ask readers to answer questions:


How would you answer this question?  (pick question) 


How would you report this topic, or that topic?  This allows someone who is uninvolved in a case to answer a question without sensitivity indicators.  The response can help the reader understand why additional words are important in analysis.  


An example is found in murder cases:


"Did you kill your wife?"


The best answer is, "No, I didn't" and similar responses.  Yet we often find in guilty statements additional words such as:


"I would never hurt my wife?    Please note that this does not answer the question, and the verb tense is future or conditional, but it must also be noted that "kill" has been minimized down to "hurt"  (This answer was given by Josh Powell recently regarding the disappearance of his wife, Susan, when Powell reported that he went 'camping' at midnight, in a blizzard, with his toddler and 4 year old.  Ask yourself, how would you answer a question, in any of the criminal cases we cover. 


Here are some questions relevant to the subject's response, using the subject's topic:  


Q.  How many bestiality pictures have you received?  
Q.  Have you ever received even one?


Q.  If you had received a single picture of bestiality, what would you have done?  
Q.  Would you have reported it to the police?  
Q.  Would you have demanded the sender to stop, immediately? 
Q.   How is it that you could have received "quite a few", meaning one after the first, and so on?


Now the analyst can understand the verb tense used by the subject. 


 It is not an old (past tense) hobby.   
  




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