Forensic Transmissions

51-year-old Stephanie Lazarus was a respected 26-year veteran of the L.A.P.D. who had worked her way up from an ordinary police officer to a specialist in high-profile art theft. On June 5, 2009, she was taken aside by two colleagues and led downstairs into an interrogation room, where she was told she was needed to interrogate a suspect. But once in the room, the tables turned, and it was Stephanie Lazarus who was interrogated – about her part in a long-ago murder. Unbeknownst to her, Lazarus had been identified from a bite mark as the murderer of nurse Sherrie Rae Rasmussen 23 years ago. Rasmussen had been married for only three months to John Ruetten, an old boyfriend of Stephanie’s with whom she was very much in love. Listen to the way the interrogator eases Lazarus gradually along towards discussing the case. In March 2012, Stephanie Lazarus was convicted of the murder of Sherri Rasmussen. She was sentenced to 27 years.

Listen to the interrogation here (1 hour 12 minutes)

Interview Transcript

Stephanie Lazarus Appeal Opening Brief

Court’s Response to Stephanie Lazarus Appeal

Watch the interrogation on Youtube

Dennis Rader, better known as the BTK (bind, torture, kill) serial killer, stalked and murdered ten people in Kansas, wrote taunting letters to the police and newspapers, and collected items from each murder scene. He was married with children, a member of Christ Lutheran Church, a cub scout leader, and had been elected president of the church council. In this recording from his trial on June 27 2005, Rader described his murders in detail and offers no apology. In January 1974, he killed a family of four; in April 1974 he killed a 21-year old woman. Two more women were killed in 1977. There were no further killings for eight years, then one in 1985, another in 1986, and a third in 1991, all women between the ages of 24 and 62.

As in the Bundy confession, Rader’s description of his crimes is notable for the speaker’s flat affect, emotionless tone, and the way he glosses over the most important details of the crimes (emphasizing how he made his victims comfortable, brought them water or cushions before “putting them down”) yet has a semi-autistic memory for insignificant details–numbers of houses, the places he parked his car). He also uses a lot of police report terminology and often explains the way “serial killers” think, and the stages of their operation, as if he were describing  someone other than himself. Listen for his mispronunciation of “ruse” as “russ,” which he quickly corrects, and the judge’s confusion between “trolling” and “patrolling.”

Listen to the confession here.

Philip Markoff was a well-bred medical student at Boston University with no criminal record when he was arrested by police, who had evidence that he was the “Craigslist Killer.” In this interview, police present Markoff with security camera footage, cell phone activity, and email accounts as evidence that he committed the armed robbery and kidnapping of two escorts in hotel rooms on April 10, and the murder of a third on April 14. Markoff always claimed to be innocent, and on August 15, 2010, one year and one day after the date his wedding was to have taken place, he committed suicide in his prison cell by cutting his major arteries with a primitive scalpel, and swallowing toilet paper to be sure he would not be revived. In this interview which led to his arrest, Markoff, who has just been pulled over on his way to Foxwoods Casino with his fiancee Megan McAllister, is initially friendly, denies all knowledge of the crimes, gradually becomes suspicious and hesitant, then clams up and asks to speak to a lawyer. He continued to claim innocence of the crimes.

Listen to the police interrogation here.

Suffolk District Attorney’s Press Release on Markoff’s Suicide

Megan McAllister was the fiancee of Philip Markoff, sometimes known as the “Craigslist Killer,” who who was charged with the armed robbery and murder of Julissa Brisman in a Boston hotel room on April 14, 2009, as well as other armed robberies of escorts he met on Craiglist. Megan met Markoff when they were both hospital volunteers. Markoff was in Boston University Medical School, and the couple had planned their wedding planned for August 14, 2009. Markoff and McAllister were arrested on April 20 2009 on their way home from to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. McAllister had no idea of Markoff’s secret life, and continued to believe in his innocence until she broke off their relationship after a prison visit in June 2009.

Listen to the police interview here.

In June 2008, Petra Davis, 15, was 13 hours into a 24-hour trail-bike race in Far North Bicentennial Park in Anchorage, Alaska, when she was attacked by a grizzly bear. She survived the attack and crawled back to the trail, where she was found by her friend and coach Peter Bassinger, who called 911 and stopped other cyclists in the race as they passed. The bear punctured a lung, broke eight ribs, mauled her right leg and nicked Petra’s carotid artery. Despite these injuries, she recovered quickly and reports that she has almost no memory of the attack.

Listen to the 911 call here.

Russell Williams was a 47-year -old married Colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force whose sex crimes has increased in severity from peeping through windows, to stealing underwear, to forcible restraint, to sexual assault and murder. By February 7, 2010, when this interrogation took place, the Ontario police had enough evidence to place him at the scene of the home of Jessica Lloyd, a 22-year-old woman who had recently gone missing. The interrogation took place over 10 hours. In the interrogation, Detective Sergeant Jim Smyth uses what’s known as  “the Reid technique,” which involves bonding and forming a relationship with the person being interrogated, finding their weak points and pressing on them very subtly.  In this first hour, Smyth treats Williams with respect and deference, but slowly begins to present a series of increasingly damning connections between Williams and the death of Jessica Lloyd.

Williams, too, remains relaxed at first. He begins the interview by blithely noting that the previous officer who came to interview him was also named Russ, and appears eager to co-operate, but his nervous quick responses make him sound very much like Norman Bates being interrogated by Arbogast in Hitchcock’s Psycho. He clearly grows increasingly agitated, his answers getting shorter and shorter, until at last he clams up entirely,  giving nothing away (at times, he is silent for almost five minutes).

Finally, Smyth hits the right button. He says that even as they speak, officers are tearing apart Williams’s wife’s new “dream home.” This is Williams’s fatal weakness. He agrees to co-operate to “minimize” the effects of his crimes upon his wife.

In the second stage of the Reid interrogation technique, the goal is to make the suspect progressively more and more comfortable with acknowledging the truth about what they’ve done. Williams remains in denial at first, unable to believe the situation he’s found himself in, but as soon as he says, “Call me Russ,” Smyth knows he has broken through the Colonel’s terrible wall of silence.

In this part hour of the interrogation, Smyth is most urgently interested in finding the body of Jessica Lloyd as soon as possible. Once he has the location of her body, he sends out officers to find it, then he moves on to talk to Williams about her murder and the other crimes he’s suspected of (the murder of Marie-France Comeau and the sexual abuse of two other women, whom he tied up and photographed). Although Williams’s responses are shocking and Smyth is clearly disturbed by them, he continued to remain composed, understanding, patient, and non-demeaning. As in similar criminal confessions (such as those of Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader), Williams is monosyllabic when it comes to the most important details, which have to be forced from him by Smyth, but is happy to talk about related issues such as the number of kilometers) he drove from Jessica Lloyd’s home (he’s obsessed with numbers, as well as underwear).

Once Williams has confessed to Jessica Lloyd’s murder, Smyth goes on to ask Williams about the murder of Corporal Marie-France Comeau.

By now, Detective Smyth has developed a rapport with Williams, using friendly and understanding conversation to create a non-threatening atmosphere. In the final section of the interrogation, Smyth asks Williams for details about other crimes he sexually-related offenses he’s committed, and continues to ask him where to find evidence of the crimes. Smyth tries to remain impartial and non-judgemental even when Williams tells him where to find videos of his crimes, as well as chests full of stolen lingerie, and even photographs of himself wearing it.

Listen to the episode here

On May 3, 2010 22-year-old UVA student Yeardley Love was found unresponsive in her dormitory bedroom. She had been dating fellow student and lacrosse player George Huguely over the course of the last two years, but the couple had recently broken up. Huguely, who had been drinking, was the last person to see Love. That night, he was taken to the Charlottesville police station, where he waived his Miranda rights and talked about an argument he had with Love earlier that evening that became physical. Whatever you may think of Huguely’s responses to the officer’s questions and his minimizing of the relationship’s violent breakdown, it is clear that he is telling the truth about what happened, or as much of it as he can recall (he admits to being very drunk). There’s no question that he is  genuinely horrified, even disbelieving, when he’s told that Yeardley Love is dead.

Listen to the episode here.

In August 2008, two families were hiking along a mountain creek southwest of Bellevue, Washington when a shelf of thick snow collapsed on two teenage boys. The boys’ mothers called 911 and the dispatcher  stayed on the line with them for over an hour, until help arrived. Both boys had serious injuries, but survived.

The two mothers, Joni and Chrissie, seem to take it in turns to panic. Both of them seem to go from hysterical to uncannily calm in a heartbeat. Listen carefully to the dispatcher. Her calm and determined sympathy comes across in every word she says. Although the two women sometimes become impatient and yell at her, she stays with them throughout the whole terrible hour-long ordeal, helping them to remain focused. She takes care to continually ask which woman she’s speaking to, so she can address them by name, as they hand the phone to one another in their panic. She prevents Joni from fainting with fear by making her think about her young daughter, who’s present at the scene.

Listen to the episode here.