Inge Sebyan Black Read online

  The Art of

  INVESTIGATIVE

  INTERVIEWING

  The Art of

  INVESTIGATIVE

  INTERVIEWING

  Third Edition

  INGE SEBYAN BLACK, CPP, CFE, CPOI

  CHARLES L. YESCHKE

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  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this book to my beloved 22-year-old daughter, Brittany

  Alexandra Larson, who was tragically and abruptly killed when she was

  thrown from her motorcycle and struck by another driver while in the

  process of being rescued by others, on June 6, 2012. This book is also

  dedicated to Brooke and Justin, my other two children, and my grandson, Ty.

  Brittany is sadly missed by everyone who knew and loved her,

  especially me.

  Brittany always believed in me and I will always remember how smart,

  passionate, and loving she was. Her free spirit and radiance will forever be

  my light.

  v

  MISSION STATEMENT

  My goal is to help educate interviewers, even those who only occasionally

  participate in interviews. I encourage you to prepare for each interview as

  though it is the interview of your life, because maybe it will be. You might

  only have one chance to talk to your subject, so make it successful. I hope to

  help you learn to do that.

  Inge Sebyan Black

  vii

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank Larry Fennelly, who has been my friend and mentor for the

  past 30 years. Since 1982 we have served on the ASIS Crime Prevention and

  Loss Council together as well as President Reagan’s Task Force on Rape and

  Violent Crime. Larry, president of Litigation Consultants Inc., is an expert

  witness and security consultant. Retired after 35 years as sergeant with the

  Harvard Police Department, Larry has written over 28 books on the subject

  of security and crime prevention. His guidance, knowledge, and expertise

  have been invaluable in my growth and expertise in the corporate security

  industry.

  I also want to thank the following people:

  Marianna Perry, training and development manager for Securitas Secu-

  rity Services, previously director of the National Crime Prevention Insti-

  tute and the Kentucky State Police

  John O’Rourke, CPP, security consultant, previously with the New

  Jersey State Police

  Joe Ditsch, Attorney with Fowler Law Firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota,

  who provided insight on the ethics chapter

  Raymond Andersson, who provided the Australasian Code of Conduct,

  endorsed in the spring of 2013, by the Australasian Council of Security

  Professionals

  Louis A. Tyska, CPP, past president of ASIS and former investigator

  with Pinkerton Detective Agency, for writing the forward with Larry

  Fennelly

  Pat Clawson, private investigator and former investigative reporter for

  CNN and NBC News. Pat has been a friend for years and I am grateful

  for his contribution of the Preface to this book.

  I also want to thank my dearest friends, Holly Higgs, Pat Morris, and

  Greg Carlson, for their love and support over the past three decades.

  xiii

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Inge is the Minnesota Manager

  for Apollo International, based

  in Walpole, MA. Apollo, pro-

  viding Uniformed Services,

  Security Consulting and In-

  vestigation Services.

  Inge earned her BA in

  Criminal Justice, along with

  her Law Enforcement Degree,

  both from Metropolitan State

  University

  in

  St.

  Paul,

  Minnesota.

  Inge’s security career started

  in 1977, joining ASIS Interna-

  tional in 1983. Inge earned

  both her CPP (Certified Pro-

  tection Professional) and CPO

  (Certified Protection Officer)

  in 1994 and CPO. In 2008, Inge became a CPOI (Certified Protection Offi-

  cer Instructor). Inge is a licensed Private Investigator in the State of Minnesota and has also held her license in Quebec and Ontario Canada. She earned her

  CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner) in 1995 and in 2000 earned designation as a

  Certified Emergency Manager by both FEMA and the State of Minnesota.

  For the past 35 years, Inge has worked in both the corporate and private

  security field, conducting interviews and investigations involving fraud,

  external and internal theft, corporate espionage, embezzlement, and work-
/>   place issues, including workplace violence and harassment. Inge successfully

  obtained hundreds of confessions for prosecution, knowing the criticality of

  preparation and the value of documentation. Her interviewing skills are a

  critical component when contracted for security risk assessments. Inge has

  conducted security and threat risk assessments for both government proper-

  ties and private corporations in both the United States and Canada. Besides

  investigations, she also conducts security audits, writes security/investigation policies and procedures, conducts Security Analysis, supervises investigation

  units and consults on physical security.

  xv

  xvi

  About the Author

  Inge is a certified security trainer in the state of Minnesota and has trained

  security personnel in the areas of investigations, contract security manage-

  ment, emergency planning, and physical security audits. She has been a secu-

  rity management instructor at St. Paul Technical College and Pine

  Technical College, both in Minnesota.

  Inge started serving on ASIS International committees early on when, in

  1983, she served on the Educational Committee as well as President

  Reagan’s Rape and Violent Crime Committee. In 2008, until 2013,

  she served on the Physical Security Council. Currently Inge serves as Chair

  for the Crime Prevention and Loss Prevention Council, through ASIS

  International.

  Inge has been one of the speakers at ASIS International conferences since

  1983. While serving as a council member on the Physical Security Council

  for the past 5 years, Inge served as Chair for the sub-committee on Security

  Force Management in 2009 and 2010, organizing, leading and speaking at

  the ASIS’s workshops on Security Force Management.

  She has co-authored many publications on security such as; security

  personnel selection, personnel deployment, handling complaints and griev-

  ances, workplace violence and domestic violence.

  FOREWORD

  It has been said that when an investigator finds herself in a position of work-

  ing on an investigation, it’s like working a math problem backward. There

  are several phases that comprise phases in an investigation. These phases are

  reports taken, photographs taken, forensics gathered, and all the data

  assigned to an investigative team. After a considerable amount of time spent

  gathering additional evidence, interviews, and statements collected, the leg-

  work has been completed and hopefully the criminals or suspects have been

  identified as well as located. After being arrested and Mirandized, they are

  processed. They then are either released on bail or perhaps indicted by a

  grand jury, incarcerated, or given instructions to appear. As investigators

  with more than 30 years’ experience, we have learned that it is our goal

  to obtain admissions or a confession in this process.

  The title of this book is apt: The Art of Investigation and Interviewing. The

  subject is an art form composed of a combination of psychology and soci-

  ology, but most of all, street smarts. Cases rarely have eyewitnesses who

  come forward and state, “I saw the suspect commit the crime. I know

  who he is and where he lives.”

  At times you have been faced with a very complex investigation that has

  an enormous amount of diverse evidence to be reviewed. The 2013 Boston

  Marathon bombings is such an example. Numerous hours of professional

  video and amateur cell phone video and photos had to be combed through.

  Reporters conducted interviews with victims, witnesses, and authorities, all

  of this being broadcast and published. At the same time there was evidence

  to be gathered and catalogued, DNA gathered and safeguarded, and the

  chain of evidence logged and controlled. Of course, we also had to go thor-

  ugh the process of identifying all witnesses and information documented

  throughout the stages of the investigation with statements taken and reports

  made.

  Inge Sebyan Black has done a terrific job with this third edition of

  Charles Yeschke’s book. Students of investigations will learn much from this

  xvii

  xviii

  Foreword

  text. We believe that most of the crimes that have been solved were success-

  ful due to proper investigative and interviewing protocols. We highly rec-

  ommend this book, which documents all the acceptable procedures detailed

  in Ms. Black’s rewrite.

  Lawrence J. Fennelly

  Litigation Consultants Inc.

  Louis A. Tyska, CPP

  Past President of ASIS and former investigator,

  Pinkerton Detective Agency

  PREFACE

  This wonderful book, The Art of Investigative Interviewing, is a classic and

  timeless reference work that belongs in every investigator’s library. I am

  humbled and grateful to write the introduction for this new edition. Past

  editions have enriched my life and professional prowess. I am certain this

  new edition will do the same for you.

  Over my 40-plus years of experience as a network TV investigative

  reporter, major-market radio talk show host, and private investigator, I have

  interviewed a remarkable cross-section of society: presidents, senators,

  movie stars, NFL quarterbacks, Mafia hit men, Ku Klux Klansmen, skid-

  row drunks, Middle Eastern terrorists, captains of Industry, union leaders,

  professional deadbeats, illegal migrant workers, destitute welfare mothers,

  ordinary moms and pops, and criminals of every description. Most of these

  interview subjects had something to hide. My job was to ferret out their

  secrets to support TV news reports or courtroom litigation. I quickly learned

  that even the most cautious people will say damning things when skillfully

  questioned by a prepared and professional interviewer.

  I learned how to do investigative interviews the hard way—through

  daily practice and lots of trial and error in newsrooms and on the streets,

  under the mentoring of tough-nosed editors and hard-boiled private eyes.

  I wish The Art of Investigative Interviewing had been available when I started

  my career, because it would have prevented many errors and humiliating

  embarrassments I experienced along the way. Believe me, there’s nothing

  like bungling an interview on live TV to cut you down to size in a hurry!

  I heartily recommend this book to both the novice and veteran inter-

  viewer. With the proliferation of pop psychology fads in our media and col-

  leges, it is remarkably difficult to find solid information on interviewing

  techniques that is both time-tested and reliable. The information revealed

  in The Art of Investigative Interviewing is worth its weight in gold, and no successful investigator can ever afford to stop learning.

  I have learned repeatedly throughout my career that every investigation

  is only as good as the information it gathers and you can never ignore the

  human factor. Though an enormous number of facts can be determined

  through examination of written records and physical evidence, the informa-

  tion from human sources is always of critical importance to provide us with

  the full truth of events. Interviewing is a form of communi
cation and

  xix

  xx

  Preface

  evidence-gathering. Getting accurate and truthful information out of peo-

  ple is always a challenge, even for the most highly trained investigative

  interviewer.

  This book will help you learn how to develop and discover the human

  intelligence information that solves cases. Furthermore, learning investiga-

  tive interviewing skills will help you in all aspects of your personal and pro-

  fessional life, because the techniques will help you distinguish fact from

  fiction and give you a competitive edge over others.

  The job of an investigative interviewer is tough under the best of cir-

  cumstances. The mission is to have a structured conversation that elicits

  information useful to establishing facts and determining culpability from

  interview subjects who are often evasive, reluctant, or hostile. It is an art

  to persuade any person to let us into his or her mind at the critical moments

  of an event so that we can get an insider’s view of the action. The best inves-

  tigative interviewers allow the person to talk about himself and describe a

  situation step by step from his own perspective and to talk about how he

  overcame obstacles along the way, all while guiding him into disclosing sig-

  nificant facts or admitting culpability he would otherwise conceal.

  In my experience, a good investigative interview yields information that

  can be divided into “hard” and “soft” categories. Hard information stated in

  an interview consists of the simple facts that often can be independently cor-

  roborated to help build a case. But interviews that generate only those facts

  usually lack richness and depth.

  Often more important is the “soft information” of human experience

  revealed during an interview, the complex tapestry of personal dramas, emo-

  tions, intentions, thoughts, reactions, values, and degrees of commitment or

  determination. It is the soft information that helps us establish motive and

  develops the color that provides us with a truer understanding of any event

  or situation. In trying to ascertain fact, there is no substitute for observing

  human behavior.

  There is an old Chinese adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.