Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Many Faces of Joran van der Sloot

By Dr. Lillian Glass

Joran van der Sloot’s body language does not match his words or voice pattern. His voice pattern is a one-note monotone, devoid of emotion. It is the voice pattern that one usually hears when listening to a sociopath. It is understandable to hear a monotonous voice among sociopaths because they have no emotions. They merely mimic the emotions of others. That is why you will often see fake crying as suspects wipe away non-tears.

One of the most disturbing aspects of watching Joran’s jail-house interview, from the Castro Castro prison in Peru, was to see the flash of coldness in his eyes from time to time as he spoke. It was chilling. They were eyes devoid of compassion and humanity.

In one photo, you see an example of Joran’s inappropriate emotion. When stating that he was angry after he was arrested because "things happened that shouldn’t have happened," you do not see the emotion or facial expression of anger in his face. Instead, you see a half smirk with down-turned lips on one side and a cold icy stare. The fact that his head is cocked to the side is indicative of deception. His voice and body language are not reflecting the emotion -- anger -- that he felt at the time.

When discussing Stephany Flores Ramirez, you see how detached Joran is from both the event and from any emotion. He speaks of Stephany in the third person. He says, “I feel bad that her family had to lose a daughter that way.” He immediately shrugs a shoulder after he speaks those words, verifying that he did not feel badly at all for her family.

Joran is the main suspect in the Natalee Holloway disappearance five years ago in Aruba and has been charged with the murder of Stephany found dead in May 2010 in a hotel room Joran had taken her to. Stephany was murdered on the fifth anniversary of Holloway's disappearance.

Even though Joran’s words most likely speak the truth when he says that he was scared when he was arrested for the murder of Stephanie, you would never know it from his voice or body language. He juts his jaw forward in arrogance. He raises his eyebrows as though he were relaying an amusing story. He does not express the emotion of fear as he describes what happened. Again, Joran van der Sloot’s words do not match his body language.

4 comments:

Leah said...

Its even more than being emotionless. When I see him on television I always come away thinking that he has never met a camera that he didn't love. I believe he really gets off trying to explain himself when he has an audience.

Anonymous said...

A little peeve of mine - her name was Stephany.

It took us five years to finally learn how to spell Natalee's name, lets not repeat with Stephany!

I despise that boy, he really needs to be put in the public part of the prison.

Kim Cantrell said...

Since Daddy isn't here to save him, my guess is he was hiding a lot of more fear than even he's willing to admit.

Anonymous said...

Interesting, I know absolutely nothing about that case but tried to follow your explanations and looked at some of the videos available on youtube. I have trouble to really see what you are seeing.

Here, for instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioMJ6dpa50g&feature=related

At first he seems hysterically glad to meet someone from his country, then he looks truly upset and trying to not burst into tears of dispair when talking about the mother, who in turn seems like a psychopath to me.

I wonder why I get this impressions, is he playing this and how does one know?