On Q Professional Investigations

Police inquisitors, detectives, and interrogators have long been taught that one method of getting to the truth is to have the subject recount events in reverse order. The theory appears sound: people like to fill in the blanks in a story with constructs, thoughts or images that did not actually happen, to make a tale run smoother. Remove the linear nature of storytelling and the tendency to confabulate should decrease. The theory is so sound, in fact, that police forces in Australia, Britain, New Zealand, Norway, and Spain, to name a few, have been using reverse recall as a matter of policy for years.

I attended a seminar on interviewing where the speaker actually said that this method of interrogation was the most useful way to elicit a truthful statement from an interviewee. “They don’t have the time or the creativity to make things up in reverse-recall,” my instructor said.

Well, as with many a fine theory, when put to scientific rigor, it falls short.

A brief story in September 2, 2011 issue of The Economist details a study by Lancaster University which basically debunks this theory. The researchers showed a short film depicting a cell phone robbery. Two days later the subjects of the test were separated into three groups: 1 – recall the events freely then in reverse order, 2 – recall the robbery in reverse order first then freely, 3 – (control group) recall the events freely both times.

The researchers found that the control group recalled the events correctly 48.7 percent of the time. The group that began with reverse-recall and then recounted the story freely scored 42.2 percent accuracy. The group that started with free recall then reverse-recall scored a pathetic 38.7 percent. I think it’s important to note that eyewitness testimony has already been proven to be less than reliable on several occasions. Seriously, none of the groups achieved even 50% correct recall.

The most interesting finding, however, was that the number of mistakes made among the three groups was roughly the same, but the group that recalled events in reverse order first, actually made up (pure confabulation) recollections 600% more often than the control group.

The majority of the confabulations were observed during the reverse recall portion of the exam. This flies directly in the face of what I’ve been taught in seminars and classes about interview and interrogation.

Why people, people who have no reason whatsoever to lie, make up events when using reverse-recall is a mystery. The Economist says that this study, “…does, however, point out the dangers of taking even logically plausible ideas on trust, rather than testing them.”

Those of you who testify as expert witnesses in court proceedings might want to check out the study here. It could come in handy one day.

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There is rarely a case made in the popular media about the good things PIs do. There are rarely stories like the recent case handled by Mark Feegel, of Feegel & Associates Investigative Solutions, a private investigator out of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Feegel has been in this business for more than 25 years. While attending college in Atlanta, where he was considering pursuing a career in law, he took a job as a runner for a local law firm.

“Which convinced me, no way, I don’t want to do that. I took the position of, ‘I don’t want to be married to the many problems each civil suit might bring on for years on end,’” Feegel said. “It’s very stressful.”

So instead he took a job as an insurance adjuster in 1985 and diligently worked as an investigator in that field until finally starting his own private investigation agency in 1994. Feegel said that when he started his agency the majority of cases he took were insurance defense cases, because that was familiar territory for him.

“Since then it’s been encompassing all types of investigations: Insurance defense, plaintiff work, mortgage fraud, criminal background, criminal investigation, criminal law, and some marital type things.”

But this recent case didn’t really fit into any of those categories…

Feegel said he was contacted by a man on the recommendation of a local law firm. This man, who we will call “Henry” because the court case has yet to be completely resolved, was fostering two young boys, three and four years old, and wished to adopt them. The children were placed into foster care by the state after their daycare center reported evidence of abuse.

“The kids would go to daycare with feces in their hair, reeking of urine. Just disgusting,” Feegel said. He added that they had lived for a time in a storage facility with their mother, and “her apartment that she’s been evicted from was inspected by the county. Roach infested, maggots.”

Henry wanted Feegel to find out if the children’s mother was still seeing her abusive boyfriend. She was seeking to regain custody of her children and told the court that she had cut ties with him as part of her bid to get her children back.

“And [the foster parents] didn’t believe it, but they were ready to accept whatever the truth is,” Feegel said. “He gave me the case, and didn’t tell me much about the boyfriend, just wanted to know if they ever got together.”

It didn’t take long for Feegel to confirm the foster parents’ suspicions.

“One day. Immediately,” Feegel said. “I set up down the street from her mobile home, and I followed her. She went to this guy’s mobile home and picked him up, and they went to lunch. Labor Day weekend they were partying together. So, there’s no question they’re definitely together.”

Feegel presented the evidence to the foster parents. It was then that Henry dropped the bomb.

“After I told them I have them on video, they’re definitely together, it’s documented and proven. He started telling me about the abusive boyfriend and that he’s a drug addict. I ran his background and he is definitely a drug dealer. Battery, assault, all this crazy stuff,” Feegel said. “Then he told me that the two-year-old, when he was one, received a fractured skull from this guy. He was arrested for it. And the four-year-old, who was three at the time, he slammed into a refrigerator. When I heard that I just went, ‘you know what? Your bill is zero. Let’s get these kids safe.’”

Feegel said that his bill would have been about $1,500 under normal circumstances.

“When it came down to billing time I’m thinking, ‘Why would I take money out of this guy’s wallet and get paid for saving these kids when that money can go to these kids and they can eat and be happy?’” Feegel said. “You know they’ve got a lot of responsibility having two kids. I don’t know if they have any more than that but they’re doing the right thing. At that point money isn’t always as important as doing the right thing.”

Feegel said that the children are being well taken care of by their foster family and, though no custody decision has been made, he has high hopes for the outcome and the betterment of the lives of these two beautiful foster children.

“The kids are going to church, they’re clean, they’re fed, they’re happy,” Feegel said. “Henry just sent me a picture of the kids at his father’s farm where they’re petting a pony. Showing that they’re happy and everything’s good.”

There’s no denying that a lot of what a private investigator does revolves around the question of money; whether it’s an insurance company trying to keep insurance claim proceeds from being paid to a fraudster, a spouse trying to catch a cheater so they can get a larger settlement out of the resulting divorce, or just getting paid for an investigative job well-done. However this assignment was different. The couple who hired Mark Feegel wasn’t looking for a payday… and, in the end, neither was Mark.

This wasn’t a case about money; it was about the welfare of two innocent children. For Feegel his reward was helping those kids, and he feels that says something about the PI profession that the public often fails to recognize:

“This is something that people should understand. We help people too,” Feegel said.