Interviewing and Interrogation

Questions for the witness
Question 1: Whose cars are these in the parking lot?
Answers to these questions that would be a pointer to the possibility of other people having
been involved in the attempted burglary, especially if the cars are not owned by the witness
and the victim.
Question 2: Is that all you saw, Ms. Jones?
This question would help ensure that the witness missed no detail in her narration of the
incident.
Questions for the suspect (asked with the help of a sign language interpreter)
Question 1: Mr. Smith, will you please tell me what happened at the Go-Shop this morning?
Question 2: Why were you at the shop before it was opened?
Questions for the victim (asked with the help of an English-Spanish translator)
Question 1: Mr. Gonzalez, will you please tell me what happened at the Go-Shop this
morning?
Question 2: Is that all?
Note: Using a sign language interpreter and an English-Spanish interpreter would help me
get the suspect’s and victim’s sides of the story at a later time, something that was impossible
to do at the crime scene because of the suspect is deaf and the victim speaks only limited
English.

INTERVIEWING AND INTERROGATION 3
Non-verbal cues
While interviewing the three people, I would look out for the following non-verbal
cues: whether an interviewee’s eyes widen so that the white above the irises becomes visible;
whether their eyebrows are twitching; and whether they maintain direct eye contact
These non-verbal cues would be important because it reveals much about the
interviewee and what they are saying with their body language, usually unconsciously. The
widening of the eyes such that the white above the irises is visible is a proven sign of
concealed fear (Matsumoto, Skinner, & Hwang, 2014). Twitching eyebrows and avoidance of
eye contact are invalidated but widely believed signs of lying.

INTERVIEWING AND INTERROGATION 4

Reference

Matsumoto, D., Skinner, L., & Hwang, H. C. (2014, March 5). Reading People: Behavioral
Anomalies and Investigative Interviewing. The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, p.
Unpaginated.