Last Minute Christmas Gifts? You've Found Them

by Stacy Dittrich

It’s that time of year again. Only three days until Christmas and — if you’re like me -- you’re scrambling to pick up the last minute gift you forgot to buy for your Aunt Sally. You know Aunt Sally; the at-home super-sleuth who takes her phone off the hook and locks her doors to ensure she never misses an episode of Nancy Grace or the FBI Files. She’s the one who insists that everyone she passes in the mall is on a wanted poster, or every child she sees has been recently abducted. “It’s the birthmark above the eye — I’m telling you, it’s her!”

She's the neighborhood Sherlock Holmes, complete with binoculars handily stationed at each window so she can quickly and efficiently determine who in her neighborhood is a pedophile, or who is having an affair. Everyone knows someone like Aunt Sally. She's tricky to shop for. There's always the highly regarded Spy Gear — located in the toy department and aimed at 5- to 12-year old boys, but it’s doubtful she could maneuver her way around the night vision goggles or laser alarms. Or, you can browse through the Women in Crime Ink bookstore (an excellent Facebook catalog) and overload her with a slew of true-crime books and thrillers. Most people are feeling the crunch of the economy this year and are cutting back on spending, so books make a great gift!

Caylee Anthony and Michael Jackson books dominated the year's crime shows. Get an up close and personal view; look deep into the facts of these cases with true-crime books like “Mommy’s Little Girl,” by WCI’s Diane Fanning and “Be Careful Who You Love: Inside the Michael Jackson Case,” by Diane Dimond. Kathryn Casey’s, “A Descent Into Hell,” and Lisa Cohen’s “After Etan,” are favorites.

Have a self-proclaimed criminal profiler in the family? Pat Brown’s “Killing for Sport” would make the perfect gift. Books make their way to even those family members that rarely keep up with crime. If your teen is a die-hard rap-music fan, Cathy Scott’s “The Killing of Tupac Shakur” would be a different twist to an ear-busting CD. If the perpetual macho-man in your household scoffs at girly crimes, my book, “Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill,” would make a great stocking stuffer. A history buff in the family? Laura James' theory that Jesse James' son was a cold blooded killer in "The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son," will keep them occupied for hours.

Between $8-$25 each, books are within this year's budgets and, contrary to popular belief, this print medium is not going away anytime soon. Prefer fictional mysteries to true crime? Many of WCI's versatile authors WCI have delved into the world of fiction. Kathryn Casey’s “Singularity” and “Bloodlines” are both-award winning novels. Diane Fanning and I both have created our own fiction series as well.

Aspiring law students could probably use Andrea Campbell’s “Legal Ease,” and Robin Sax’s “It Happens Every Day: Inside the Life of a Sex Crime DA” and keep them on a shelf close to the computer. Trying to figure out how to help a friend or relative who's suffering her domestic life with a dangerous boyfriend or spouse, or is enduring an abusive relationship? Susan Murphy-Milano’s “Defending Our Lives” or “Moving Out, Moving On” can help. Just make sure you give this gift discretely, where the abuser can't see!

Yep, our authors have it all. Your last-minute shopping is over. Click over to the Women In Crime Ink book store, find the books you want, and scoot on over to your nearest bookstore. Your friends and relatives will thank you for it—and so will we! Happy Holidays to all of you from all of us here at Women In Crime Ink!

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Fuhrman's Persuasive Polemic

By Laura James

There is much wrong with the portrayal of criminal justice in the media today. Even those who work for the crime media will tell you that the way it's done today, it's cheap, profitable, and wrong. In a scathing new book, FOX analyst Mark Fuhrman details his criticisms of "The Murder Business." "All the claims they make on these shows about justice and crime-stopping," he writes, "are a mockery of the English language." The book is The Murder Business: How the Media Turns Crime Into Entertainment and Subverts Justice.

He backs up his sturm und drang with compelling examples. Once I overcame the tinnitus caused by reading incendiary analysis by an insider who admits he played a "notorious role in the OJ Simpson trial," I found myself agreeing with many of his points.

Per Fuhrman, crime TV commits these sins. Do any of his criticisms ring true (or false) to you?

1. "They don't actually investigate... Facts have mostly been replaced with opinion, conversation, debate, and argument... Investigative journalists don't do much investigating. They stand in a pack outside Drew Peterson's house shouting, 'Did you kill Kathleen Savio?' I mean honestly, what did they expect him to say?"

2. They deliberately drag out stories, misrepresenting the facts if it helps to do so. It was obvious immediately that Caylee Anthony was dead, Fuhrman writes; but she was "missing" according to the press. "They want a big, loose time-line filled with "leads" and "possible suspects" and "persons of interest"... They didn't want a grim and depressing Search for Caylee Anthony's Body, but a suspenseful, heart-rending Search for Caylee Anthony. A story they could drag out for months, long after it was clear to me, the police, and every realistic observer or participant, that the child was dead."

3. They shell out huge sums for interviews and/or photos.

4. "They manufacture questions, but never try to answer them."

5. They relentlessly focus on attractive, middle class females as either culprit or victim. Haleigh Cummings' case fell from the TV screen because of the class of her family, which turned the story into "a white-trash nightmare, too much of a freak show."

Fuhrman goes on to analyze several recent cases of prominence.

Fuhrman on Drew Peterson: "He's got personality disorders they don't have a name for yet."

Fuhrman on Scott Peterson: "The media played along [with him]. They made his relationship with Amber Frey the centerpiece of the story, rather than the overwhelming evidence against him, mounting each day."

Fuhrman on his experiences as a true crime reporter in the Martha Moxley case: "I have never in my life been treated more shabbily than I was in Greenwich, CT. And that includes the Simpson trial."

Fuhrman on Nancy Grace: "She all but convicted the Duke University lacrosse players... and didn't apologize later when the accusations proved bogus... Grace flat-out declared suspect Richard Ricci guilty [of the abduction of Elizabeth Smart] several times on air... Grace didn't apologize for that one either... [Her interview of Melinda Duckett would] establish a new low, even by the standards of crime TV... Nancy Grace fired blindly. All she did was work herself into a lather and make Duckett clam up. The next day, Duckett was dead, and the investigation effectively died with her."

Fuhrman on the future of crime reporting: "Crime as entertainment has become so intoxicating, it's very difficult to go back. But all it takes is one person -- one journalist willing to step outside the circle and investigate the facts. One Woodward or one Bernstein could change the entire industry, remind reporters of their responsibility tot he public, and balance out the soap opera on the air."

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Season of Mystery

By Lisa R. Cohen


In recognition of the holiday season, the following was adapted from AFTER ETAN: The Missing Child Case That Held America Captive (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette May 09). This section takes place three and a half years after six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared from the streets of New York City's SoHo area, as he walked two blocks to the school bus stop on his own for the very first time.

In this section, the case, which had slowed to a dead halt after several years, suddenly lurched forward when the holiday season brought fresh, if confusing, clues to the forefront. Clues which led investigators in circles before inadvertently moving the case further along:

On the last day of school before Christmas vacation of 1982, Etan Patz's mother Julie did the usual volunteer stint at her younger son Ari's school in the morning, then hurried home to prepare for the holidays before picking up Ari at his bus stop in the afternoon. After a weekend of packing, gathering presents and doling out plant watering duties to the neighbors, the Patzes would make their annual holiday trek to Massachusetts, for a long-awaited week with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Twice a year, as the New York City skyline receded and they were finally on their way "home" – which is what Julie still called it – she could always feel the tension leave her body. The house Julie had grown up in, then escaped from, was now a refuge; there the Patzes would be surrounded by family. But by mid-afternoon Saturday, in a perverse twist of fate, news from Massachusetts would delay the family from traveling there. A Missing Persons detective was once again sitting in their front room with yet another photo to show them.

The cops typically didn’t tell them where these photos came from. If Stan and Julie made a positive ID, there’d be plenty of time to fill in the details; if not, why bother. But the detectives had received a report that two weeks earlier Massachusetts police had raided a summer cottage in the beach town of Wareham. Three missing area teenagers, one from the Bronx and two from New Jersey, had been found there amidst a cache of pornographic photographs, some depicting children in sex acts with adult men.

Among the photos was a headshot of a handsome blond boy, his arm stretched to the side, elbow bent, his hand propping up his head. He was wearing clothes and alone in the picture. He stared straight into the camera and wore a look that might be interpreted as sophisticated coy, with an ambiguous Mona Lisa curve to his lips. He had straight bangs that matched the ones in several pictures Stan had taken of Etan, and he bore a striking resemblance to the missing child.

Julie looked at the photo closely, and thought how hard it would be to recognize their son from a two-dimensional piece of paper with no life and no animation and to make a judgment without all the things you use to really know people. Etan was full of life and animation. This couldn’t be Etan, they said, this boy had a cleft chin and Etan didn’t. Julie and Stan looked at each other. Or did he? Julie was suddenly panic-stricken. What if they said no to a picture of their own son?

As the detectives walked them through the boy’s face, feature by feature, Stan and Julie became convinced this wasn’t Etan. Yes, agreed the Patzes, some features were similar but some were not. Besides, Stan had his own extra assurances. The style of the photography dated it at least back to the ‘70’s. And then there was the paper. They were looking at an original 8”x10” photo and the paper stock and borders just weren’t contemporary. The detectives were less sure. The photo would be sent to an FBI lab in D.C. where analysts would compare it to Stan’s pictures of Etan, examining facial shape and bone structure. Sorry to bother you folks, the detectives said, as they always did. We’ll let you know if anything further comes of it. The Patzes knew it wouldn’t.

But the next day, a reporter from the Boston Herald American called to ask about the picture, which she explained had been found in a Wareham, Massachusetts, police bust of a group who advocated for “consensual love” between adult males and boys and called themselves the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or NAMBLA.The acronym would soon enter the lexicon, but this incident was the first most people - certainly Stan and Julie - had ever heard of it.

They were astounded an association existed that actually sought to legitimize child molestation. Stan considered himself as tolerant as the next New York liberal, but the idea made his skin crawl. Thank God the boy in the picture wasn’t Etan, so the thought of their son being in NAMBLA’s clutches wasn’t something they dwelled on.

The phone started to ring sometime after dawn on Monday, just after the Boston Herald American ran the photo beside a headline nearly filling its front page, “Did Sex Club Trap this Boy?” At 6:45 a.m. New York Post reporters were ringing the Patzes’ front buzzer, but the family had rules – no advance request, no interview.

Ten pages of press calls were recorded in the Patz logbook that day, as the family pushed back their vacation plans, waiting to hear from the cops if anything had come of the photo. Camera crews and reporters milled around in the street below, in front of the door that still bore the Etan’s missing poster, one of the few left hanging in the neighborhood. It was a full-on siege, for a story that until the NAMBLA connection hadn’t warranted more than a passing mention in months.

Late in the day, Stan finally ducked out the stairwell entrance to the building, eluding the crowd. As he reached the end of the block and slipped around the corner onto Greene Street, he heard the sound of high heels pounding the cement sidewalk behind him and realized he’d been spotted. He registered the strange sensation of being chased – by a woman no less.

He turned around finally and recognized her as an on-air personality at one of the local TV stations. As she drew nearer, he realized she was older than she looked on television, where the strong lights and heavy powder erased the fine lines he could see now starkly etched around her eyes and forehead.

He was embarrassed – to be sneaking out of his own home, and to be evading her, someone he’d almost certainly invited into his living room on an earlier occasion, eager then to get exposure for Etan. He was embarrassed for her, too. She was the one driven to loitering on street corners in the winter chill, chasing people up the street. He dispatched her quickly with a few succinct quotes – no there’s really nothing new here today – and went on his way. The next day, having heard nothing further from the cops, he and Julie set their answering machine, and fled for safe haven in Massachusetts.

As the Patz family were driving their rental car up the northern coastal route to the Boston area the next day, a 69-year-old retired cabbie named Chester Jones walked into the newsroom of the Daily News and told a reporter that the old photo of Etan they’d run in their paper next to the NAMBLA story had prompted him to come forward. He may have been, he said, one of the last people to see Etan Patz.

“I believe that I’m the cabdriver who picked up that boy in SoHo the morning he disappeared,” said Jones, pulling on a cigarette. "I have very little doubt in my mind that he was the boy I picked up.”

Daily News police reporter Jerry Schmetterer had covered the Patz case since the beginning, and he was skeptical to hear this lead coming in three years late, but he checked out the story through his sources. He was surprised to learn that there had been a very early report of a sighting that day, one of the hundreds that could never be substantiated, of a little boy and man getting into a cab. Why had Jones waited so long? He'd doubted his own memory, he said, and worried about getting involved. And he had didn’t think anyone would take him seriously anyway.

“Who’s going to believe an old black man like me?” he asked Schmetterer.

According to Jones, the two got into his cab and he overheard the man say something like, “I see you every morning from across the street. It’s a shame your mother lets you stand here on the street corner all alone.” The boy said, “My mother told me not to talk to strangers.”

They rode a few blocks north on West Broadway, and at Houston Street, Jones said, when the boy suddenly exclaimed, “This isn’t the way to go to school.” The man and the boy then got out of the car without paying and walked away.

Police questioned the cabbie for several hours. At the time they judged him a “credible witness,” although the conversation Jones had related between the man and boy didn’t match up with Etan's taking his first trip alone to the bus. This news, combined with the NAMBLA bombshell, brought Missing Person Case #8367 roaring back to life. The Missing Persons Unit recast the Patz task force, bringing in homicide detectives to start fresh, and adding back old hands. NYPD Detective Bill Butler was two days into a 16-day Christmas break when he got a call.

“Would you mind putting off your vacation to return to Missing Persons as part of the rejuvenated MPU task force?” the head of the force asked him.

“Of course not,” he said. Suddenly the new group was eight strong, up from one detective just a month before.

The Patzes passed a relatively oblivious holiday week in Massachusetts, hanging close to the house and watching the two kids reconnect with their cousins. Uncle George, the former Marine and now a Sudbury fireman, took Shira and Ari for a tour of the station, and they were delighted to sit up in the open cab of the lemon yellow firetruck and ring the bell. Julie might have converted to Judaism, but the Massachusetts family celebrated Christmas with all the trimmings. Her kids woke expectantly on Christmas morning to tear through stockings and gift-wrapped presents, welcoming neighboring cousins throughout the day, as each arrived with a new round of presents.

The family saw the newspaper accounts of Chester Jones’ story while still in Sudbury, and talked briefly to the police about it over the phone, but otherwise they worked hard to maintain a wait-and-see attitude so as not to spoil the holiday. But the Patzes arrived back in New York to a filled answering machine of media calls. Finally, an awkward press conference at One Police Plaza was convened, where Stan informed a room full of reporters that there was nothing to report.

There really was nothing to report. Ultimately, police concluded Chester Jones was one more dead end. After repeated sessions, they had begun to feel his story was changing -- including his description of the man -- enough to undermine his credibility. Jones couldn’t even give enough details about the man’s features to create a police sketch, and in one subsequent interview he told police the boy had actually given his name as Etan. Authorities considered hypnotizing Jones but anything he said under hypnosis might jeopardize his testimony in court.

The NAMBLA picture was discounted by police as well, but not before two outraged NAMBLA representatives held a press conference at a midtown Holiday Inn to indignantly assert that the police were on a witch hunt. They held up a 1968 "Boyhood Calendar" issued four years before Etan's birth, with the same photo of the boy who looked like Etan -- posing as January's model.

But both leads, fruitless as they were, served a critical purpose. As the New Year began, two homicide detectives on loan to the newly energized task force to provide fresh eyes sat in the Patz apartment one afternoon for a whole new round of debriefs. At their behest, Julie had compiled a fresh list of friends or colleagues for them to re-interview, although she was surprised to learn later some had never been questioned to begin with.

She particularly stressed the connection between Sandy Harmon* and Jose Ramos that had emerged the previous spring after an episode in a Bronx drainpipe. Ramos, an itinerant junk salesman, had been arrested living in the drainpipe after two young boys accused him of trying to entice them inside. Police had questioned the man after photos of blond boys were found among his belongings, and Ramos himself had volunteered that he'd dated a woman who'd taken care of Etan.

Yes, Julie said now, this woman had never been his babysitter, per se, but Julie explained the bus strike and Sandy’s temporary part-time hours walking Etan and his two friends home from school. That was the time frame directly preceding Etan’s disappearance, Julie pointed out, and if this woman was connected to Ramos as well as to Etan, then she was a direct link.

The cops were now eager to learn Ramos’s whereabouts and question him again. They looked for him in Brooklyn, at the address he’d given authorities back in March. They talked to acquaintances of Ramos in lower Manhattan who reported last seeing him at a New Year’s Eve party a few days earlier, looking fit, well-dressed and clean-shaven.

On January 12, 1983, Missing Persons detectives brought Sandy Harmon to police headquarters to ask about her relationship with both the Patzes and Jose Ramos. She later gave an angry account of this interrogation to authorities and described how police put her and her then-eight-year-old son Brendan into separate rooms and grilled them both for hours.

At one point, Sandy said, they led Brendan in and informed Sandy her son had just revealed years of sodomy at the hands of Jose Ramos. Sandy told the cops she was shocked to hear this, but they didn’t believe her. According to Sandy’s later account they then threatened to have her son taken from her. Seven hours after they’d brought her in, they told her they needed her back the next day, and she and Brendan were driven home to her East Village apartment at 2:30 a.m.

After less than five hours of sleep, Sandy was back at One Police Plaza, where she was questioned again. Still dissatisfied with her answers, police polygraphed her. Although she'd agreed to the test, she showed “signs of deception” as she denied any knowledge of Etan’s disappearance.

Polygraphs are not lie detectors, and Stan Patz hadn’t done so well on his either, but based on Sandy’s results, police certainly wanted to pursue her role in the case, as well as that of her ex-boyfriend Jose Ramos. She claimed to no longer see or know where Ramos was, although she did disclose they’d been together for a last sexual encounter less than two months earlier, over Thanksgiving. Again, police ended this round of questions by telling Sandy they had more to ask, but by this point, she’d had enough.

“I have a lawyer now,” she said when they came to get her the following day. “Any more questions – you go through him.” Sandy Harmon had little more to say about the case after that, but investigators couldn’t help seeing her as a nexus point leading to tantalizing clues beyond their reach. At the very least, authorities thought, she knew more than she was saying.


*Sandy Harmon's name has been changed, because her son turned out to be one of Ramos's victims.

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Your DNA frightening? Could Be

by Kathryn Casey

Imagine being Dr. Jim Fallon, a Fulbright Scholar and professor emeritus in neuroscience at the University of California - Irvine. He set out to find out if psychopathic killers have certain biological traits that will show up on brain scans. When he finished his testing, he found the signs in a member of his own family.

The article about Fallon that caught my attention ran in the November 27th edition of the Wall Street Journal under the headline: What's on Jim Fallon's Mind? A Family Secret That Has Been Murder to Figure Out. On his bio, Fallon says: "I am interested in the neural circuitry and genetics of creativity, artistic talent, psychopathology, criminal behavior, and levels of consciousness."

Over the years, Fallon has analyzed the brains of more than 70 murderers. His interest in looking into the minds of dangerous criminals comes from an honest curiosity. The 62-year-old scientist started out by trying to assess his relatives' risk of developing Alzheimer's, which killed his father. The hitch was that his father came from a rather unusual family. Early ancestors included Thomas Cornell, who was hanged in 1673 for murdering his mother. (The WSJ describes this as one of "the first recorded acts of matricide in the Colonies.") There were others, seven men suspected of murder on Fallon's family tree, and, it appears, one infamous female. It turns out that Professor Fallon is a distant cousin of Lizzie Borden. Yes, that Lizzie Borden. (Are there others?) To be fair, let's remember that Borden was acquitted of killing her parents with an ax. Although many, including our own WCI historian, Laura James, believe Borden was the culprit.

Anyway, it appeared there could be some particularly interesting genes floating around in Fallon's family. Thus, perhaps, it wasn't surprising that Fallon decided to look for evidence of violent traits by comparing his family's brain scans with those of the violent criminals he'd been analyzing.

Through his research, Fallon had found that violent offenders' scans often displayed areas of diminished activity in important areas of the brain, including the section thought to monitor self-control. You may remember that awhile back on WCI, I reported on different theories regarding why certain folks become violent criminals. Fallon's work suggests a three-pronged explanation for violence: a combination of genetics, brain damage, and childhood trauma. What Fallon was looking for was evidence in his family's scans of the presence of factor number one, what one might call "violent genes." The most accepted one, MAOA, is the so-called "warrior gene."

When Fallon examined the brain scans of his family, he found the same abnormalities he'd noted in killers in one member. And the scan that was on the screen that day was of his own brain.

Yup, Jim Fallon's brain scan suggested he'd inherited the genetic risk factors he'd documented in dangerous psychopaths. On his scan, the areas of his brain involved in social adjustment, aggression and impulsivity, the orbital cortex, which lies just above the eye sockets, appeared dark or turned off. For Fallon, that moment must have been chilling.

So how did Fallon end up a respected scholar instead of a serial killer? Here's the final paragraph from the WSJ article: "Dr. Fallon thinks that one vital factor may have prevented him from becoming a killer. 'I had a charmed childhood,' he says. 'But if I'd been mistreated as a child, who knows what might have happened.'"

Interesting, don't you think?

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The Truth of the Matter

by Pat Brown

On December 6th in Salt Lake City, Utah, Josh Powell's wife, Susan, went missing sometime in the wee hours of the morning. It wouldn't be too unusual if she had been out jogging in the dark at midnight or was last seen drinking in the parking lot behind a bar with some sketchy character; serial killers look for victims that are easy prey and female joggers and intoxicated women are two of their favorite targets.

But, Susan Powell didn't spend the last evening before her disappearance involved in any high risk behavior (and I mean behavior that one should have a right to engage in, but could get you killed nonetheless). She had friends over for dinner with her husband and two children, and then, as far as we know, settled in for the night. Her hubby, on the other hand, must have been a bit restless.

When the clock struck twelve, Josh Powell got a bit of wanderlust, so he says. He woke their two young boys (and I say woke because a two-year-old and a four-year-old are unlikely to still be up when both parents have work in the morning) and, with no argument from his wife or his sleepy boys, took them on a 'just us guys' adventure, one they were sure to be excited about! A trip into the desert in a freezing cold snowstorm! Woo hoo! I hope they had a great time, because when Mr. Powell finally brought the boys home at 5 PM Monday afternoon (well, he didn't go to work because he forgot what day it was), his wife wasn't there. Josh found his wife had gone missing in the middle of the night, leaving her purse and cell phone behind (no wonder she never called Josh to remind him what day it was).

Susan's family, on the other hand, knew it was Monday. They were called when she never dropped her kids off at day care. They found out Susan had never shown up at work. They couldn't find Josh and the children. They called the police. The police came to the home and found a wet spot on the carpet with two fans blowing on it. Apparently Susan must have spilled something after Josh and the kids went off on their camping trip.

I can see what all of you are thinking, but don't jump to conclusions. The police have clearly stated Josh Powell is not a suspect. When I slipped up yesterday morning on the Today Show, Matt Lauer promptly corrected me, as he should; Mr. Powell is not a suspect. The family also does not view Josh as a suspect. They say there were no problems between him and Susan and that his middle-of-the-night camping trip was not so strange for him. He also often forgets what day it is. They think the police should broaden their investigation to include scenarios other than a domestic homicide.

Let's get real. I don't know when this silly rule showed up where the police can't say someone is a suspect when he clearly is. In this case, the police haven't looked at any other possibility than that Josh Powell killed his wife in the middle of the night. They have not reached out to the public for information or informed them that Susan was kidnapped. They said she is unlikely to have run off, since her purse and phone were still in the home. They won't, however, say Mr. Powell is a suspect. They won't even say he is a person of interest. Obviously, the legal climate has dampened the ability for folks to be forthright and honest. Well, let me do it for them. Josh Powell is the one and only suspect in the disappearance of Susan Powell, unless some other information or evidence comes to light that takes the focus off of him.

Let's look at the three most likely scenarios in the disappearance of Susan:

1) Josh Powell killed her.

2) Susan ran off with a lover or was sick of taking care of her kids and working.

3) Someone kidnapped her in the night.

Scenario Two goes like this: In spite of the fact Susan has a good character, that she is a stockbroker with good career, that she loves her little boys, and that no one has said she acted in any bizarre way in the past, she just took off. She is running off to meet her lover or abandoning her family or she is seeking attention by staging a domestic murder or abduction a la Jennifer Wilbanks, the Runaway Bride. I would have to vote for the attention-getting motive for disappearing since the other two reasons would mean she would probably take her purse and phone along and her car (unless her lover was picking her up). But, that night she decided she wanted to worry everyone and vanish without a trace. Lucky for her, Josh decided to take the boys on a camping trip at midnight allowing her to slip away on foot into the night, with nothing on her person.

Scenario Number Three goes like this. A serial killer or an obsessed stalker decided he wanted to grab Susan. Rather than pick a time when she was home alone or out taking a jog or a walk by herself, he decides to go to the house on a Sunday evening hoping to find her alone. But, alas, the whole family is at home. However, he is a patient man and waits, hoping he will get lucky. And, whaddya know? The husband decides to take his boys on a camping trip at midnight and drives off leaving Susan alone for her abducter to grab. He is really good at not leaving any evidence around, too; no sign of a break-in, no sign of a struggle, no footprints in the snow, and if he did leave evidence, he must have scrubbed it away and set the fans out to dry the carpet because he really cares about leaving a house the way he found it.

Now to Scenario Number One: Josh Powell killed his wife, tried to eliminate the evidence, and took her body in the van to some remote location. He may or may not have taken the children with him at that point in time. He may have left them alone like Bobby Cutts did with his son while he drove to a park to dispose of his pregnant girlfriend. Then again, he may have brought the kids along so they wouldn't wake up and start screaming and alert the neighbors that something was amiss in the home. The police say they went to the location where Josh says he was camping, but we have no way of knowing if he really went there or if he went there after he made a detour. Josh had all night to find a good hideaway for his wife's body.

I don't think it is too difficult to figure out which scenario is likely the right scenario. But, if most of us see this, then what of Susan's family? Why do they disbelieve Josh couldn't have anything to do with what happened to their daughter? Well, if I were them, I would want to believe more than anything in the world that my son-in-law is just an oddball and has a bad memory and communication problems, because the alternative is too awful to consider. They know Susan isn't any Jennifer Wilbanks, so they have to hope she was abducted and is being held somewhere to eventually escape or be found and saved. They have to hope their son-in-law is really not a person of interest or a suspect and the police are failing to due their job diligently.

Sadly, in spite of the family's support for Josh Powell and the police refusal to call him a suspect, the odds of this case not being a domestic homicide are about as good as Natalee Holloway living a life of blond girl slavery in Guyana. It might be a distant possibility, but no police detective is really entertaining alternative theories when the evidence in front of them all supports the same scenario.

I hope some evidence shows up that changes this bleak picture, and Susan Powell can come home to her boys, but in spite of all the effort to avoid calling her husband a suspect, we all know in our hearts he is.

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Reading Body Language with Joe Navarro

by Andrea Campbell

I am happy to share my new friend, Joe Navarro, with my readers. I think you'll enjoy my interview with Joe and take him into your thoughts.

Q.: Joe, for Women in Crime Ink readers, please describe your background.

 A.: I was born in Cuba, but as with so many, we fled communism and the cult of Fidel Castro and found refuge in America. I grew up in Miami and went to school at Brigham Young University to play football. Upon graduation, I was hired by the FBI, where I served for twenty-five years in counter-intelligence. In essence, I was a spy-catcher.

 Q.: What are non-verbal communications?

 A.: Non-verbal communications encompass anything we do as humans that share thoughts, feelings, or intentions, or that appeal to our aesthetic as well as comfort needs. Everything from art, to soothing colors, to good behavior, comes under that broad umbrella, including body language, which is exactly that: what we communicate with our bodies. 

 Q.: Your book, "What Every Body is Saying," is the result of what type of experience?

A.: What Every Body is Saying is based on thirty-plus years of study, training, and teaching, along with hands-on experience. I wrote it to share with others what I learned the hard way by studying non-verbals for many years and by using  that knowledge in a forensic and intelligence setting, where few mistakes are allowed.
(At right above: A man with compressed lips. Compressed lips are always associated with negative emotions or with something we dislike.)

Q.: In "Every Body," you mention that your family and childhood are partly responsible for your instinct for this discipline. How so? 

A.: As with most children, I learned to read those around me. In doing so, I learned to look for their most-useful behaviors, and I learned to look for the things I saw them look for. My mother always insisted on making others comfortable; in doing so she garnered friends from many walks of life and faith. I learned the power of making others comfortable to achieve better interpersonal relationships. Coming to a country where I did not speak the language meant I had to rely heavily on learning to read others. So I became very sensitive to body language.

 Q.: What are some key principles readers should keep in mind about speed-reading others?

 A.: 1. Our bodies are constantly transmitting information about our thoughts, feelings, and intentions. There is no such thing as a body that says nothing. The body is always “on.” Even when someone is deep in REM sleep, their body tells us when they're having a nightmare.
 2. Everyone has different but consistent ways of displaying comfort and discomfort in real time. You may bite your lip when you are stressed, while I press my lips together. Each action and expression serves the same purpose: to pacify us.
 3. We can improve our interactions with others, from children and spouses to workmates and friends, by reading their body language accurately.
 4. Being able to read and interpret body language is key to success in any venture and what Daniel Goleman talked about when he wrote Emotional Intelligence.
 5. Body language alerts us to dangers or potential dangers. When Gavin de Becker wrote The Gift of Fear, he was talking about body language that warns us of danger. It's something we should teach our children and loved ones. For example: Teach children to summon an elevator themselves and to stand far back from the doors while waiting. Only once they've read and quickly summed up the body language of those inside as safe should they enter. Children who wait too close to the doors may feel compelled to step inside as soon as the car stops, without taking a moment to assess others around them.
 6. We can use body language to enhance leadership qualities as well as communicate more effectively. The best leaders have great body-language skills.
 7. Body language is a world-wide lingua franca. When all else fails, our body language will save us.
 8. Non-verbals are all around us, from the curbside appeal of your local bank to your own, personal appeal.
 9. Body language can assist us in detecting deception, but that's very tricky.
 10. Learning to read others accurately enhances our lives and those of the people we care for.

Q.: How were you able to use these skills with the FBI?

A.: In the FBI, body language is the one element you use every day, whether for surveillance or for interviewing.  We watch as a criminal leaves his house. How do we, as observers, know he is up to no good? We look at how often he looks at his watch, how often he peers inside the store he is considering robbing, how many cigarettes he smokes every thirty minutes as his stress level builds, how often he touches the belt on his strong-arm side, where he's hidden his weapon. All these non-verbals tell the trained eye that he's “casing” a place to rob, and that he is armed. 
(At right: Here a woman is touching the neck dimple, or suprasternal notch, which we do when we are insecure, concerned, anxious, afraid, or emotionally troubled.)

Q.: What exactly is counter-intelligence? How many people are in this profession?

A.: Counter-intelligence is that part of the intelligence community that looks for spies and terrorists. It attempts to identify, recruit, penetrate or neutralize them through legal means. The number of people who work counter-intelligence is always classified, but I can tell you we never had enough help. At any one time, we have 20 or more countries spying aggressively against the United States; counter-intelligence agents try to block such spying. 

Q.: What are the benefits of knowing body language and its signs?

A.:  The benefits are that you can read people’s feelings, thoughts, intentions. For instance, while you are talking to someone, you notice their right foot is pointed toward the exit. You know they would like to talk more, but the foot is very accurately saying "I have to leave -- now, in this direction." It allows you to say, “I know you have to get going; we'll talk later.” Or, you see that someone immersed in a cell-phone conversation is holding his heel to the ground and toes in the air. When he's through, you ask: “Good news?” The question is safe because the posture of his foot already answered you. Reading body language makes you look smart, sensitive and caring, at times almost clairvoyant.

Q.: How could we, as ordinary people, interpret and use these signals? How do we learn to do that? How long does it take to become proficient? 

A.: The beauty of body language is that we come elegantly equipped to study it and put it to use immediately. It's not like trigonometry. If I tell you, accurately, that we only touch or massage our necks when something is troubling us, you can put that knowledge to use immediately. And the beauty of it is that you can learn to read and empirically validate more unconscious cues every day. It's a skill that can be learned but is perishable if not practiced. Every study I've read says we can always hone these skills, and that women are usually slightly better than men at reading non-verbals. How long it takes to become proficient depends on how much effort you put into learning and practicing. I've had people take my online course and become highly proficient and professional within four months.

An interesting phenomenon is today's high incidence of autism in children. Autistic children are innately unable to read body language, including basic facial expressions. They must be taught to recognize non-verbal cues and to understand what they mean. That training may help them work with other people and even develop empathy, breaking through their internal isolation.

Q.: Would you relate a particularly interesting criminal case to illustrate this discipline?

A.: I interviewed one spy for over a year. During that time, he confessed, but we didn't arrest him because we wanted him to lead us to others. As in most spy or terror cells, each member knows as little as possible. This spy didn't have the particular information we were looking for, but he likely knew someone who did. He refused to identify anyone involved with him. So we assembled a stack of index cards with the names of each person who might have access to that information.

Twice he reacted to a name; his pupils constricted and the orbits of his eyes narrowed. Out of 32 names, his unconscious eye behavior accurately revealed the two who later confessed. Our pupils constrict and our eye orbits narrow in response to things that can hurt us or make us uncomfortable. (At right, above: This man is rubbing his hands with his fingers intertwined. That reveals a high degree of concern or worry. It usually shows up when someone is trying to explain something very complicated or dense, or when someone is receiving bad news.)

Q.: How have you used these skills outside of criminal applications?

A.: In business, knowing body language is imperative. At one meeting where two sides were negotiating and a contract was being read aloud, I noticed opposing counsel purse his lips when he got to one particular paragraph. Because I caught the signal in time, our lead negotiator used the information then and there, saving us almost $13 million. Pursed lips mean "I disagree" or "I'd rather we do something else."

Q.: What is “concerted observation”? How do we learn to use it, and how hard is it to learn? Is it beyond the reach of some people no matter how hard they try? 

A.: Concerted observation means that we see, observe, interpret, and then use the knowledge body language gives us. It's the opposite of passive observation, where we see cues but don't interpret them or use them. 

Some people can't read others, so they behave in ways that drive others away. They stand too close, don’t know when to stop talking, touch too much instead of observing the other person's unspoken reactions. When someone violates those rules, they make us uncomfortable. In turn, making others uncomfortable burdens the violator with a lifelong handicap that keeps desires and ambitions out of reach.

Q.: What are “multiple tells”?

A.: Multiple tells are clusters of behavior. I see or hear something I don’t like; I tense my jaw, compress my lips and squint my eyes. I don’t have to say a word. That cluster of behaviors, or multiple tells, reveal  attest to something negative no matter what my mouth says.

Q.: Do people have micro-expressions that are so natural, they don’t even realize they are doing them? Feel free to share a case.

A.: Think of micro-expressions as tiny leakage. We all leak something. Maybe it’s a fleeting smirk or a quick squint. The fact that it is small suggests that I am trying to suppress it. Ironically, trying to suppress it is what reveals it. Micro-expressions are very accurate. I interviewed a man who pushed his glasses up his nose with the middle finger of his right hand every time he was asked a question about his travel to China. This let me know he really didn't like those questions; otherwise, he'd have pushed his glasses up with his index finger. 

Q.: What are the most important features to fix on? And how do you observe someone without letting them know they're being watched?

A.: You have to relax your own eyes so people don’t feel you're stalking them. When your eyes relax, they take in more information. Learn to observe the whole body. Most people focus on the face, yet the feet are more accurate in revealing true feelings. For instance, if you walk next to someone you don't like, your feet will not step anywhere close to them.

Q.: Are all of us hard-wired to do one obvious thing?

A.: We're all hard-wired for emotional behavior and anything limbic in nature, such as the sense of smell. The limbic system, also known as the Paleomammalian brain or primitive brain, controls emotions such as anger, fear, and pleasure, along with motivations including those related to basic survival. So if you walk near the edge of a cliff, your limbic system makes you move carefully, protecting you from falling off.  This is hard-wired in. So is covering or closing our eyes when we hear something we don't like. Even children who are born blind cover their eyes.  

Q.: Asked a list of questions, such as “Did you do A? Did you do B?", do people always give themselves away with their body language?

A.: General questions don't usually elicit reactions that reveal the truth. Specific questions often do. For example, asked "did you kill her with a gun?" and "did you kill her with an ice pick?", the murderer knows he used an ice pick, so he'll show signs of discomfort only in reaction to the ice-pick question.

 Q.: Do you analyze people you meet, as a matter of habit?

 A.: It never stops. And it shouldn't for you. Always look for signs of comfort and discomfort. Like software, the search for signs runs in the background and alerts you when necessary. No, I never shut it down.

 Q.: Can parents use body-language knowledge to know their children better?

 A.: Absolutely. The ability to note and interpret body-language cues will help you see when a child is struggling with something, for example. You can use it to defuse tension between you and your child just by standing to the side when you ask questions rather than directly in front of him. When you stand directly in front of someone, they stop wanting to talk to you. People talk more honestly when sitting or walking side-by-side than when directly in front of each other. You can teach your children body language, as already described, to avoid dangers by reading others. There's much more, similarly useful, information in my book. 

Q.: So you blog? Where and why?

Yes. On Psychology Today.  It broadens my exposure to people interested in the subjects I write about; some 10,000 people read the blog articles.  

Q.: What are some of your other books about?

A.: Advanced Interviewing Techniques is about how to best shape questions, your own body language, and other factors to elicit the most information. 
Hunting Terrorists explains the terrorist mind and gives clue to identifying terrorists. 
Read ‘em and Reap is about the "tells" of poker players.
Louder than Words is about the non-verbals of business. 

I also have short, to-the-point books on Kindle. They deal with a variety of subjects including spotting psychopaths, body language of dating, and the psychology of body language. They can be found at:  http://tinyurl.com/y8nsmhv

Q.: What do you think of the popular television show "Lie to Me"? How about The Mentalist?

A.: The science behind Lie to Me is excellent, but I can assure you it's never as easy as they make it seem. Never. Many of the behaviors associated with deception are also associated with discomfort or stress. That’s why so many people who've since been exonerated by DNA had earlier confessed. They suffered so much stress under police questioning that they looked guilty; they signed confessions to relieve the stress. Best example of this: the New York Jogger case, in which five innocent teens were convicted of the rape and nearly fatal beating of a 28-year-old woman based on their videotaped confessions. They confessed after long hours of stressful police interrogation; they withdrew the confessions and pled not guilty at trial. The boys spent years in prison, and were only exonerated 13 years later when the real attacker confessed. Using the only DNA found at the scene, police verified his confession; the DNA matched him. Oops, people do become stressed when not properly interviewed.

As for the Mentalist, good TV I suppose, but not very accurate when it comes to the reality of it all. The shows are interesting but not realistic. 

Q.: What's on your agenda for the future?

A.:  I have eight books in my head waiting to be written. I'm scheduled for some 45 speeches a year, all over the world, for the next three years. I'm also hoping to make a new video with the BBC.  

If you have any questions about body language, write me at www.jnforensics.com. I try to answer all my e-mails.
Photos courtesy of Harper Collins

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