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Are you 23 00:00:53.079 --> 00:00:53.880 feeling lucky? 24 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:54.280 No? 25 00:00:54.359 --> 00:00:57.960 Purchase necessary void We're prohibited by Law eighteen plus. Terms 26 00:00:57.960 --> 00:01:00.359 and conditions apply. See website for d Town. 27 00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:11.760 You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking 28 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:14.879 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 29 00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:22.239 written about him Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every 30 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:25.959 week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and 31 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:30.239 infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your 32 00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:33.439 host journalist and author Dan Zupanski. 33 00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:46.280 Good Evening. Late one evening in the summer of nineteen 34 00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:49.920 twenty two, Henry Wilkins burst through the doors of the 35 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:53.200 emergency room covered in his wife's blood. But was he 36 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:56.920 a grieving husband or a ruthless killer who conspired with 37 00:01:57.040 --> 00:01:59.840 bandits to have her murdered. To find out, the San 38 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.480 Francisco police turned to technology and a new machine that 39 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:06.959 had just been invented in Berkeley by a rookie detective, 40 00:02:07.239 --> 00:02:10.680 a visionary police chief, and a teenage magician with a 41 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:16.280 showman's touch. John Larson, Gus Volmer and Leonard Keeler hoped 42 00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:19.560 the lie Detector would make the justice system fairer, but 43 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:22.520 the flawed device soon grew too powerful for them to 44 00:02:22.639 --> 00:02:27.000 control it. Poisoned their lives, turned fast friends into bitter enemies, 45 00:02:27.199 --> 00:02:30.960 and as it conquered America and the world, it transformed 46 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:34.159 our relationship with the truth in ways that are still 47 00:02:34.199 --> 00:02:37.919 being felt as new forms of lie detection gained momentum 48 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:40.960 in the present day. Tremmer's in the Blood reveals the 49 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:44.759 incredible truth behind the creation of the polygraph through gripping 50 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:49.199 true crime cases featuring explosive gunfights, shocking twists, and high 51 00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:54.319 stakes courtroom drama. Touching on psychology, technology and the science 52 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:57.879 of the truth. Tremor's in the Blood is a vibrant, 53 00:02:58.039 --> 00:03:03.479 atmospheric thriller and a warning from history beware what you believe. 54 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:06.520 The book that ever featuring this evening is Tremors in 55 00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:11.240 the Blood, Murder, Obsession, and the Birth of the lie Detector, 56 00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:16.120 with my special guest journalist and author Ammitt Katwawa. Welcome 57 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:18.520 to the program and thank you very much for this interview. 58 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:21.520 Ammitt Katwawa, Hi Dan, thank you so much for having me. 59 00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:25.759 Thank you so much, and congratulations on this truly extraordinary book. 60 00:03:25.879 --> 00:03:26.240 Thank you. 61 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:29.199 Now tell us how you came to be the author 62 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:30.479 of this book. 63 00:03:30.599 --> 00:03:33.199 So this book was sort of born backwards, so I'm 64 00:03:33.240 --> 00:03:36.599 a science and technology writer and my background is in 65 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:39.520 psychology neuroscience. That's what I study at the university. And 66 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:42.560 about four years ago now, I was watching Making a 67 00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:46.080 Murder of the true crime documentary on Netflix with Steveen Avery, 68 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:48.120 and in the second season of Making a Murderer, in 69 00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:50.400 an attempt to clear his name, Stephen Avery does a 70 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:53.479 test with a brain fingerprinting test, which is a kind 71 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:56.080 of new form of lie detection test that uses brain 72 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:58.360 Scandal says that you can use brainscans to tell whether 73 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:01.280 someone's lying. And with my science, how and I was 74 00:04:01.639 --> 00:04:04.000 kind of thinking, this doesn't make any sense to me, 75 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:07.639 I don't I would initially quite skeptical of this test. 76 00:04:07.719 --> 00:04:09.400 So I ended up doing a lot of reporting into 77 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:13.000 new forms of live detection, so things like AI brain scans, 78 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:16.360 other new technologies and that people claimed him to detect lies. 79 00:04:16.439 --> 00:04:18.279 But while I was doing that reporting, which ended up 80 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:20.519 being an article for The Guardian and also being part 81 00:04:20.920 --> 00:04:22.920 of this book as well, I also found out about 82 00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:26.240 the crazy history of the polygraph and the men who 83 00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:28.120 created it. And actually what I found was that there 84 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:30.920 were parallels between what happened one hundred years ago when 85 00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:33.199 the polygraph was invented, and what's happening today with these 86 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:36.240 new forms of light detection? And I guess the purpose 87 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:38.680 of the book as well as to entertain, and the 88 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:41.040 former is also to maybe strike a warning. Though we 89 00:04:41.079 --> 00:04:43.399 don't learn the lessons of the mistakes that were made 90 00:04:43.399 --> 00:04:45.639 with the polygraph, then we risk falling into the same 91 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:48.439 chrap again with new forms of detection in the future. 92 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:50.439 Now, let's start as you do in the book. You 93 00:04:50.519 --> 00:04:54.959 take us to a very incredible scene. May thirtieth, nineteen 94 00:04:55.079 --> 00:04:58.480 twenty two. Henry Wilkins is with his family. He's a 95 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:01.000 thirty six year old and his wife is 'sanna, she's 96 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:04.160 thirty four, and they're with her two children, Henry Junior, 97 00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:07.439 an eight year old and Helen, three years old, and 98 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:11.160 they were just coming back from a Felton auto park 99 00:05:11.319 --> 00:05:14.600 in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains about seventy 100 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:17.399 miles south of San Francisco, where they lived. Take us 101 00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:20.160 to that incredible scene and what happens. 102 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:22.920 Yes, so they're driving north towards San Francisco where they lived. 103 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.399 It's kind of getting dark. Either's fog rolling in as 104 00:05:25.399 --> 00:05:28.079 there up in a San Francisco and Henry notices that 105 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:31.079 there's a car following them. Henry's car is this bright 106 00:05:31.160 --> 00:05:34.360 yellow car. He's a mechanic, so he loves cars, and 107 00:05:34.519 --> 00:05:36.519 he's driving home with his family. He nexes this car 108 00:05:36.600 --> 00:05:38.720 following them, and the car's been following him for a while, 109 00:05:38.879 --> 00:05:41.079 and Henry notices that whenever he speeds up, the car 110 00:05:41.079 --> 00:05:42.959 behind him speeds up. Whenever he slows down, the car 111 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:45.079 behind him slows down, And just to start coming into 112 00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:47.839 the city, the car kind of gets really really close 113 00:05:47.879 --> 00:05:49.639 to them, and he tries to speed up to get 114 00:05:49.680 --> 00:05:51.279 away from it, but the car kind of keeps nudging 115 00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:54.160 placer and closer and closer, and eventually the car forces 116 00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:55.879 Henry to the side of the road just in the 117 00:05:55.879 --> 00:05:59.480 western area of San Francisco, and Henry kind of hits 118 00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:01.600 the curbs, the lights go out, and then the next 119 00:06:01.639 --> 00:06:03.600 thing he knows is a guy standing at the window 120 00:06:03.639 --> 00:06:05.680 of the car pointing a gun at him, asking for money. 121 00:06:05.720 --> 00:06:08.720 Henry hands over three hundred dollars in cash, but then 122 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:12.240 when the bandit asks for his wife's jewelry, Henry gets 123 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:14.240 annoyed and he starts to reach for his gun, which 124 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:16.120 he's got in the side pocket of his car, and 125 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:18.600 then everything starts to happen very quickly. So what Henry 126 00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:20.839 says happened next is that as he's reaching for his 127 00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:23.480 gun to scare off the guy who's robbing him, the 128 00:06:23.519 --> 00:06:25.959 band that pulls out his own gun and shoots. And 129 00:06:25.959 --> 00:06:27.839 then what Henry says happens is that his wife, Anna 130 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:30.600 throws herself in the front of the bullet, takes the bullet, 131 00:06:30.680 --> 00:06:33.079 the guy runs off. Henry's left in the car. His 132 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.839 wife's bleeding from a wound in her chest or a stomach, 133 00:06:36.079 --> 00:06:38.279 and you know, he's left not knowing what to do. 134 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:40.600 So then he drives to the nearest hospital, which is 135 00:06:40.680 --> 00:06:42.879 just further up in nineteenth Avenue, and someone's estating in 136 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:46.279 the middle of the park. Rushes to hospital. They can't 137 00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:48.079 do anything for that hospital, soil they take her to 138 00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:50.680 another hospital. Henry follows in his car. By the time 139 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:53.639 he arrives at the other hospital, the doctors tell her 140 00:06:53.800 --> 00:06:56.040 tell him that his wife has died, and you know, 141 00:06:56.079 --> 00:06:58.720 he is a straw. I think he collapses. You know, 142 00:06:59.199 --> 00:07:02.120 it's traumatic event for him. So this is the kind 143 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:04.120 of central crime. At the first half of the. 144 00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:09.360 Book, there was a witness, a father and son Jacob Gorfinkel, 145 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:13.800 who's an attorney. What does he witness related to this attack. 146 00:07:14.199 --> 00:07:16.399 Yeah, so he's kind of driving along and he witnesses 147 00:07:16.600 --> 00:07:19.399 two cars kind of speeding past him in close succession. 148 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:22.360 So Henry's yellow car and then this other car following them, 149 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:24.959 and then he sees and then and then Henry kind 150 00:07:24.959 --> 00:07:26.920 of comes a few minutes later, comes driving along, pulled 151 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:29.680 up alongside him and says, help me. I need to 152 00:07:29.720 --> 00:07:31.319 help me get to the hospital. I don't know where 153 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:33.560 the newest hospital is. So that's that's how it looks 154 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:36.160 from this witnesses perspective, except that, and this is one 155 00:07:36.199 --> 00:07:38.959 of the first inconsistencies that been inter creaking to Henry's 156 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:43.079 story that Henry describes the car differently to Gorfinkle. Right, 157 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:45.639 So Henry says it's a particular type of car, and 158 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:47.639 Golfre says it's a different type of car. And this 159 00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:50.120 might seem like a minor point, but obviously in those 160 00:07:50.199 --> 00:07:53.759 days the police lead on how solvers crime was looking 161 00:07:53.759 --> 00:07:56.120 for a red Dodge, but it wasn't a red Dodge. 162 00:07:56.120 --> 00:07:58.639 It was a dark blue Hudson car. So that's one 163 00:07:58.680 --> 00:08:01.240 of the first insonsistencies Henry's story and then over the 164 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:03.759 following weeks, Henry's story about what happened on the night 165 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:05.800 in question actually begins to unravel. 166 00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:09.279 What was the initial story about how much was stolen, 167 00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:12.040 and then the denomination of the bill. 168 00:08:12.279 --> 00:08:14.399 Yeah, so Henry said that there were three one hundred 169 00:08:14.439 --> 00:08:16.560 dollar bills which were taken from him. This was the 170 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:19.360 equivalent of about five thousand dollars in cash today, and 171 00:08:19.399 --> 00:08:22.040 that ends up being important because that's another way that 172 00:08:22.279 --> 00:08:25.720 the police try and track down who did this, because 173 00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:28.199 back then, one hundred dollars bills were pretty rare and 174 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:30.120 a lot of people weren't earn in the minimum wage was, 175 00:08:30.120 --> 00:08:31.879 you know, twenty five cents an hour or something like that. 176 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:33.600 So if you're walking around with one hundred dollar bill, 177 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:36.919 then you very wealthy or there's something suspicious about it. 178 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:40.120 So then what happens next is there's this kind of 179 00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:43.159 police hunt for these bandits. You know, Henry says there's 180 00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:45.200 kind of three men that were involved in this shooting 181 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:47.159 because he saw them as the car was pulling up 182 00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:48.759 alongside him and forcing to the side of the road. 183 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:50.879 He said he saw three men in this car. So 184 00:08:50.919 --> 00:08:53.799 there's this kind of statewide hunt for these men. And 185 00:08:53.840 --> 00:08:57.639 eventually they find these two brothers called Arthur and Walter Casta, 186 00:08:57.840 --> 00:09:02.639 and Arthur and Walter Caasta are all characters, just absolute villains, 187 00:09:02.679 --> 00:09:04.240 I guess, is any way you can put it, you know, 188 00:09:04.559 --> 00:09:09.320 sort of violent, prone to making terrible decisions. Their father 189 00:09:09.399 --> 00:09:11.519 was actually a police officer. Princes their police officer, so 190 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:13.759 if they'd been murdered, and then after that, this family 191 00:09:13.799 --> 00:09:15.399 sort of went off the rails a little bit, and 192 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:18.200 they're kind of in their twenties and thirties. Walter in 193 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:21.879 particular is the I guess, loose cannon of the family. 194 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:24.519 His kind of friends and family would say things like 195 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:27.840 he makes bad decisions. His friends called him dizzy. He's 196 00:09:27.879 --> 00:09:30.320 like impulsed, he's like a child, he's prone to these 197 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:33.360 violent outbursts. And then there's his younger brother, Arthur, who's 198 00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:35.879 kind of the more level headed of the two brothers. 199 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:40.000 And they're actually like I think seven seven boys and 200 00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:43.840 also huge family. So that they get picked up basically 201 00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:46.759 at a garage in the mission, having tried to pay 202 00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:49.840 a bill player pay for a repair bill with one 203 00:09:49.919 --> 00:09:53.000 hundred dollars bill and the garage. Enna thinks this is suspicious, 204 00:09:53.039 --> 00:09:55.039 so he calls the police, and the police know the 205 00:09:55.080 --> 00:09:56.799 Caster brother's very well because they've been in trouble with 206 00:09:56.840 --> 00:09:58.840 the police before, so they bring them into questioning and 207 00:09:58.919 --> 00:10:03.080 then they bring Henry Wilkins in to identify the brothers 208 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:06.240 in a police lineup. But Henry comes in and he 209 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:09.000 says that he doesn't actually recognize either of the brothers 210 00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:11.000 as the men who robbed him and shot his wife. 211 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:13.200 So the police let the to let the brothers go, 212 00:10:13.600 --> 00:10:15.639 that's the next step. And you know, Henry is still 213 00:10:15.639 --> 00:10:18.120 at this point kind of playing this innocent victim, this 214 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:20.960 brief husband, this guy whose wife has been taken from 215 00:10:21.039 --> 00:10:22.840 him by this kind of random act of violence. 216 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:28.960 Police do further investigation into the background and the marriage 217 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:30.480 and what do they find. 218 00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:34.039 Yeah, so as the police are digging around this case, 219 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:36.000 they find out that, you know, Henry was kind of 220 00:10:36.080 --> 00:10:39.039 portraying the marriage as happy, but actually they find out 221 00:10:39.080 --> 00:10:40.639 that it wasn't a happy marriage and that a couple 222 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:42.759 of weeks before she died and I had actually filed 223 00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:45.879 for a divorce. They talked to and his friends and family, 224 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:48.799 and they find out that Henry was sometimes violent, sometimes 225 00:10:48.879 --> 00:10:52.240 he would hit Anna, and that this supposedly happy marriage 226 00:10:52.279 --> 00:10:54.919 had actually been unraveling, and I had been drinking more 227 00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:57.720 and more and more. Henry had been allegedly seeing other women. 228 00:10:57.879 --> 00:11:00.960 So there was a sense that things were bad in 229 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:04.200 the marriage even before this happened, and that perhaps this 230 00:11:04.600 --> 00:11:07.000 patriots agree and husband that Henry was putting forward was 231 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:07.919 a bit of a front. 232 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:11.600 The detectives also talked to a garage owner that has 233 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:14.799 something very interesting to say when they ask them if 234 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:17.440 the Caster brothers had ever rented a vehicle. 235 00:11:17.679 --> 00:11:20.120 Yeah, that's right. So obviously the car was like a 236 00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:22.840 real red herring because the description that Henry gave led 237 00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:25.600 the police completely down the wrong path. They were looking 238 00:11:25.639 --> 00:11:28.039 for the wrong car essentially. But then when they asked 239 00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:31.360 this garage owner whether the brothers had ever rented a car, yeah, so, well, 240 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:32.600 I should say that. The other thing that the police 241 00:11:32.639 --> 00:11:35.440 did was they showed Henry the Caster brother's car and 242 00:11:35.679 --> 00:11:37.200 they said, you know, was this the car that you 243 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:38.960 saw at the scene of the crime, And obviously he 244 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:41.200 said no, but because it wasn't. So what happened was 245 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:43.320 that the Caster brothers had rented a car from this 246 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:45.559 garage owner on the morning of Anna's death, and then 247 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:48.000 they had returned it maybe an hour after she was shot, 248 00:11:48.120 --> 00:11:50.360 so you know that was and that car, the description 249 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:52.919 of that car matched the car that the witness, Jacob 250 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.840 gorfing Or, had seen speeding down nineteen seventy behind Henry's car. 251 00:11:57.039 --> 00:11:58.559 So you see how the police kind of pieces together. 252 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:01.480 So they have this witness who sees a car following 253 00:12:01.480 --> 00:12:03.799 Henry's car, and then they have the character by renting 254 00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:06.039 a car that matched the description of that car. That's 255 00:12:06.039 --> 00:12:08.480 how I happened. And this car that they found, which 256 00:12:08.759 --> 00:12:10.840 they're pretty sure was the car that was following Henry, 257 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:13.399 there's no resemblance to the car that Henry said he saw, 258 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:16.159 so clearly Henry is maybe not telling the full truth 259 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:17.279 about what happened on that night. 260 00:12:17.399 --> 00:12:22.039 Now, Detective Matheson and the chief O'Brian Walter is missing, 261 00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:25.879 but they look across the bay you right to Berkeley, 262 00:12:26.279 --> 00:12:30.080 and you right that there is a visionary police chief, 263 00:12:30.240 --> 00:12:33.919 a rookie carp and a teenage magician have been developing 264 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:36.559 a machine with the power the sort of truth from 265 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:41.600 fiction tell us about August Vallmer and Berkeley and what 266 00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:46.240 happens and how these three characters come to be together. 267 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:50.200 Yeah, so clearly, you know the piece button was faced 268 00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:52.960 with this guy, Henry Wilkins, who they think is lying, 269 00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:56.519 and luckily for them, or you know, unluckily considering what 270 00:12:56.559 --> 00:12:59.679 would go on to happen, some people, some police officers 271 00:12:59.720 --> 00:13:02.519 across the bay, and Berkeley had just invented the light detector. 272 00:13:02.919 --> 00:13:05.399 So the story of that is Berkeley was sort of 273 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:09.000 a hub for scientific policing. So the chief of police 274 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:11.600 in Berkeley was this guy called August Volmer, who's considered 275 00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:13.840 he's considered the father of modern policing. He was one 276 00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:15.879 of the first people to bring in forensics. He was 277 00:13:15.879 --> 00:13:17.919 one of the first people to bring in radios and 278 00:13:18.200 --> 00:13:22.120 signaling system for police officers. He started using fingerprints and 279 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:25.159 photo libraries and things like that to kind of catch criminals. 280 00:13:25.399 --> 00:13:28.840 The other thing he did was he started hiring university graduates, 281 00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:32.759 college graduates as police officers. So up until nineteen twenties, 282 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.960 most peace officers were kind of uneducated, quite British people, 283 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:38.240 i suppose, and they used their fists and their clubs 284 00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:40.639 to get information out of suspects. And Farmer thought that 285 00:13:40.879 --> 00:13:42.919 this was a bit distasteful, and he thought that actually 286 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.639 hiring college graduates would lead to a more humane form 287 00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:50.440 of policing. One more a better route towards justice. He 288 00:13:50.480 --> 00:13:52.679 started hiring all of these university graduates and then the 289 00:13:52.720 --> 00:13:55.399 player was nicknamed the college cops. And one of Valmer's 290 00:13:55.480 --> 00:13:57.720 college coups was a guy called John Larson. And John 291 00:13:57.799 --> 00:13:59.519 Lson was older than some of the other college croups. 292 00:13:59.559 --> 00:14:01.440 He was already in late twenties. But he was different 293 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:03.320 because he's the background in physiology. So he'd done a 294 00:14:03.399 --> 00:14:07.440 PhD in physiology and he wanted to become a criminologist. 295 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:09.960 He wanted to use physiology to help solve crimes, so 296 00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:12.440 he went to Berkeley to basically get some real well 297 00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:15.440 policing experience before he then used that accommodation of this 298 00:14:15.879 --> 00:14:19.360 physiology research to become a criminologist. And Larson was like 299 00:14:19.399 --> 00:14:22.159 a terrible cop. He was constantly bumbling, getting in fights 300 00:14:22.200 --> 00:14:25.039 with his colleagues, crashing cars, things like that. It was 301 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:28.159 a very good scientist. And in nineteen twenty two, so 302 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:30.960 the year before Anna Wilkins was shot, Vroma read a 303 00:14:31.039 --> 00:14:33.840 research paper by a guy called William Moulton Marston who 304 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:36.399 would go on to be the creator of Wonder Woman, 305 00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:38.519 but he's also well known for coming up with this 306 00:14:38.679 --> 00:14:42.799 essential insight. Right, So Marsden realized or discovered that when 307 00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:46.360 he measured people's blood pressure as they told false stories, 308 00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:48.200 that blood pressure would go up when they were lying. 309 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:50.480 So this is the kind of essential insight that then 310 00:14:50.600 --> 00:14:53.720 feeds into the polygraph machine. So Marston noticed that there 311 00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:56.879 was a link between blood pressure and people telling lies, 312 00:14:57.039 --> 00:14:59.279 essentially what he thought there was. So Roma reads this 313 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:02.320 research them and he thinks, if only we could find 314 00:15:02.360 --> 00:15:04.759 a way to formalize that, to make that usable in 315 00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:07.759 piece investigations, to make it objective rather than subjective. So 316 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:09.840 he calls John Larson into his office one day and 317 00:15:09.879 --> 00:15:12.240 he says, John, could you turn this into a machine 318 00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:14.200 that we can use to, you know, kind of measure 319 00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:16.960 and while we're interrogating suspects. So, you know, John Marson 320 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:19.399 goes away and he cobbles together a bunch of equipment 321 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:21.519 from the lab at the University of Berkeley, like a 322 00:15:21.559 --> 00:15:25.039 blood pressure monitor, a sort of a scrolling piece of paper, 323 00:15:25.159 --> 00:15:27.879 and a pen that kind of scratches away lines depending 324 00:15:27.879 --> 00:15:29.840 on whether someone's blood pressure goes up and goes down. 325 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:33.799 And you'll recognize what I'm describing as essentially a polygraph machine. 326 00:15:33.799 --> 00:15:36.159 A lie detector is not dissimilar to how it looks today. 327 00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:39.159 So this is in nineteen twenty two, and then a 328 00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:40.759 few months later they get a chance to kind of 329 00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:42.720 try out this machine on a real case. There's a 330 00:15:43.320 --> 00:15:46.840 series of best women's dorm at the University of Berkeley, 331 00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:52.320 and Larson uses the lie detective machine. The cardio neuropsychograph 332 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:53.919 is what he was calling it back then, which isn't 333 00:15:53.919 --> 00:15:56.720 a very catchy name, but he uses that to basically 334 00:15:56.799 --> 00:15:59.159 investigate this case of these stuffs at this dorm, and 335 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:01.519 then beyond after that, it gets used in a number 336 00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:03.200 of other kind of cases. That gets used in the 337 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:05.960 murder trial O case, a guy called William high Tower 338 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:08.799 who keeps murdering a priest, and it gets more and 339 00:16:08.879 --> 00:16:10.960 more popular over the following year. So by the time 340 00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:13.919 the Wilkins case comes around, the light of sector is 341 00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:17.519 sort of getting wider recognition in the press, and you know, 342 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:20.159 is generally thought of in kind of positive terms. So 343 00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:21.919 those are the two kind of creators I guess of 344 00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:24.120 the detector. The other person who's important in the story 345 00:16:24.159 --> 00:16:26.440 is a guy called Leonard Keeler. So Keiler was about 346 00:16:26.519 --> 00:16:28.720 sixteen at the time that last and wasn't menting the 347 00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:30.919 light detectors. He was a high school student, quite a 348 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:33.480 sickly boy. He'd been off school for a while with 349 00:16:33.639 --> 00:16:37.399 various illnesses. And he was a family friend of August Formers. 350 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:39.759 So Volmer was friendly with Charles Keeler, who was Lend 351 00:16:39.799 --> 00:16:42.240 Keiler's father. He knew that Keiller was sort of kicking 352 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:43.879 his heels at home, so one day he said, oh, 353 00:16:43.879 --> 00:16:46.120 why don't you come into the police department and you know, 354 00:16:46.279 --> 00:16:48.840 I'll show you show you around. So, you know, Keiler 355 00:16:48.879 --> 00:16:51.120 comes into the police department one day, just like the kids. 356 00:16:51.159 --> 00:16:54.320 You know, he's quite a you know, interesting guy. He's 357 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.639 into like animals. He keeps rattlesnakes at home. He like 358 00:16:58.039 --> 00:17:00.720 does slighted hand magic and things like that. But anyway, 359 00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:03.799 at the moment Keiler sees Last and with the polygraph machine, 360 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:06.759 he's like completely fascinated by this machine, and he becomes 361 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:09.240 a Larsen's kind of protege. He comes as a system. 362 00:17:09.319 --> 00:17:11.880 He helps Last and take the machine around California doing 363 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:13.920 tests on people and things like that. So those are 364 00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:15.960 the three main characters. And you know, so this is 365 00:17:16.039 --> 00:17:17.839 in kind of the spring of nineteen twenty two. So 366 00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:20.279 behind the Wilkens case, rolls around a year later. These 367 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:22.200 three characters have kind of honed the light detector and 368 00:17:22.279 --> 00:17:23.640 they think they aren't to a good thing. It's been 369 00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:25.559 using a couple of moder cases and lots of like 370 00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:27.720 t thefts and things like that, and the Wilkins case 371 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:29.599 is like another kind of big step for them. 372 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:35.680 What about the actual polygraph examination? Who conducts it? As 373 00:17:35.759 --> 00:17:38.799 we know it? There are control questions like today we 374 00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:41.200 know it that there are some kind of control questions. 375 00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:43.839 How did they conduct this? How long did it take? 376 00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:48.599 You describe in the book what happened and the results 377 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:52.240 that they announced, and then also there I would say 378 00:17:52.440 --> 00:17:53.599 hesitancy later. 379 00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:56.200 Yeah, that's right. So light of Texas tests are not 380 00:17:56.559 --> 00:17:58.960 the same as they are shown on TV or in movies. 381 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:01.640 Often they take a lot longer, they're a lot more boring. 382 00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:05.519 The protocol that last and kind of instigated was that 383 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:08.240 you would ask a series of yes and no questions, 384 00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:11.839 starting with control questions like is your name Henry, and 385 00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:15.039 then moving on to target questions like you know, did 386 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:18.799 you shoot your wife? And the test as it was designed, 387 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:22.000 required you to wait a minute between each question to 388 00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:24.960 allow someone's body to react to the question, and then 389 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:26.759 allow it to come back to a baseline for you 390 00:18:26.839 --> 00:18:29.519 then ask the next question question. And the theory is 391 00:18:29.559 --> 00:18:32.119 that by comparing the responses to the control questions to 392 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:34.599 the responses to the kind of target questions, you can 393 00:18:34.920 --> 00:18:37.799 determine whether someone's lying, because if they're lying, there'll be 394 00:18:38.119 --> 00:18:40.200 the theories that they're pulsed and the blood pressure will 395 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:42.240 go up if they're herd. The truth, the theory is 396 00:18:42.279 --> 00:18:44.319 that it won't. That's one of the one of the 397 00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:45.759 points I try and make in the book is that, 398 00:18:46.119 --> 00:18:47.599 you know, I don't think we can necessarily take that 399 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:50.680 for granted, which which means the polygraph is slightly flawed. 400 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:53.079 But yes, so John Larson kind of gets the very 401 00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:57.200