The Lie Detector
that Lied
by ANTHONY ANDERS
(as told to Haywood Vincent)
BECAUSE THIS is a TRUE story, we have given the unlucky victim a fictitious name. We have done this to prevent an innocent man receiving any more unnecessary publicity. For similar reasons the names of Miriam Stein, Molly Henderickson, and Detective Farnham are also fictitious.
Five years ago, in Boston, I was a happy man of twenty-eight looking forward to my approaching marriage to a wonderful girl.
Then, in a mere twelve hours, my life was turned into a nightmare by a small electronic monster known technically as a polygraph and to the imaginative minds of the general public as a "lie detector."
Within the next three weeks I stood in the shadow of the electric chair. The reason was simple enough: the lie detector lied about me.
The whole business began around two in the morning with a persistent ringing of my doorbell and the announcement that I should "open up for the police." Half asleep, I did just that, and was confronted by two plain-clothes detectives who identified themselves and suggest I get dressed.
It seemed the chief of the local homicide bureau wanted to question me. I tried to find out what it was all about, but was told simply that everything would be explained to me "downtown."
During the ride to police head-quarters, my mind went over the last few days, trying to uncover something - anything - that might explain why I was being brought in for questioning by the police.
The first three days of that week had been routine. I had a good job as a copywriter and part-time account man in a middle-sized advertising agency. My fiancée was away visiting friends. My parents lived 2,000 miles away in Colorado. The people dearest to me were well and safe, as far as I knew.
The evening before, one of the clerical workers at the office, a girl named Molly Hendrickson, and I had worked rather late. I offered to drive her home, and she accepted. Molly was a plain but nice girl in her mid-twenties. She was the career type - serious, sincere. We stopped at a drive-in, had sandwiches and a bottle of beer. I had her home by around 9.30.
She shared a small apartment with another girl. Molly remarked that it was early and asked if I would care to come in for a nightcap. That I did. We talked, mostly about my forth-coming marriage, and I left about ten.
I remembered the time because there was a fight I wanted to catch on TV. Molly's apartment wasn't far from mine and I was home in time for the third round.
Until I met the chief of detectives, it never occurred to me that Molly could be the subject of the inquiry.
The Chief's name was Farnham, a friendly-looking man of around forty-five. He offered me a cigarette, asked me to sit down, and then told me what it was all about.
At 11 o'clock the evening before, Molly Hendrickson's room-mate - a girl named Miriam Stein - had returned from the movies. She had found the place in a shambles and Molly in the bedroom. She had called the police promptly.
The medical examiner and detectives had done the rest. Molly Hendrickson had been raped and then strangled to death! There was evidence that she had put up quite a fight.
It also seemed that Molly had called Miss Stein and told her she was coming home with me and might be late.
Slowly, I recovered from the shock of hearing what had happened to a very nice girl. Then Detective Farnham lowered the boom. He asked to see my wallet.
I searched through my pockets quickly - without success. I was about to explain that I had dressed rather hurriedly when Detective Farnham reached into his desk drawer and tossed my wallet over to me.
He told me it had been found in Molly's apartment in the midst of the debris which had marked the final struggle for her life.
Suddenly, the awful truth hit me. Miss Stein's statement had indicated I had been with Molly. The likely inference was that I had been the last person with Molly. The presence of my wallet among the things in the apartment would surely lead to the conclusion that I had lost it during the struggle.
For a long moment, Farnham and I simply stared at each other. I was trying to grasp the enormity of all this. He had already made up his mind.
"You think I did this thing?" I asked.
Farnham was a thorough and candid cop. He said quietly, "I hoped you'd tell me. Right now you look tailor-made. Girl from the office, a few drinks too many. You get ideas; she doesn't. You try; she fights. Before you realise what's happened - the booze and all - it's done. Likely a lot of it you don't even remember."
That was about the time I started boiling. Just slowly at first, but it built up.
"Look," I said, "that 'booze-and-all' business consisted of a beer with our supper and a very mild drink at Molly's place.
"Next, those 'ideas' I got. I'm getting married in two weeks to a girl I love. I never had an idea about Molly other than she was a nice, efficient girl at the office.
"I took her home because we'd both worked late. I bought her a sandwich because we were both hungry. I had a short drink at her apartment because it seemed a friendly gesture on her part.
"When I left her, she was alive, happy, and still a very nice girl - and I never so much as touched her. Do I look like a sex-murderer?"
Farnham said, "So few do. I wish you would be good enough to give us a complete statement of your activities last evening, Mr. Anders, and any other information about the Hendrickson woman or anything else you might feel to be of value. Remember, anything you say could be used against you in the event of your arrest."
I spent two hours trying to remember, trying to review every moment of that brief evening with Molly. The police went over it with me again and again, until I was so befuddled I probably couldn't have said what year it was.
But I was certain of one thing: I had nothing to do with the girl's death.
The sun was coming up when a well-dressed young man came into the interrogation room for the first time. He asked one of the officers if I was "the one." Then he turned to me.
"Anders, I think we've got you cold. But maybe you'd like to prove me dead wrong. You've heard of a thing called the polygraph - the lie detector?"
I nodded.
He said, "It never misses, you know. You got the guts to try it and prove you're telling the truth with this yarn of yours?"
At this I almost leapt at the officers. Here was my hope of vindicating myself. They informed me the test was voluntary on my part, and away we went.
I was taken upstairs to a small, comfortably furnished room. There was a standard-sized executive desk beside which sat a machine somewhat larger than the average orange crate.
The machine's smooth, highly polished metal top was covered with a series of dials and indicators. It looked something like a shortwave radio set.
At one end of it was a roll of graph paper affixed to a continuous roller. As it moved forward, the paper passed under a series of three thin needles. These needles were in turn connected to the electronic devices of the main machine and transcribed lines in red ink on the graph paper.
This was the fabulous lie detector; this was the automatic brain which would save me.
Detective Chief Farnham seated me beside the desk, next to the machine. Around my right arm he fastened a blood-pressure "cuff" like the one used by your family physician.
A corrugated rubber tube was looped around my chest. This I was told, was a pneumograph tube to record respiration.
In my left hand was placed a small metal disc; this records a sudden or nervous response in the subject's skin - or perspiration - reaction - by means of electrodes.
It began. First I was told of the infallibility of the machine and given evidence thereof. I was given a group of cards numbered from one to seven and told to select one. I was then told to answer "No" to every question asked me.
Q: Are you in Colorado?
A: No.
Q: Are you now standing?
A: No.
Q: Did you select number three?
A: No.
Q: Did you select number two?
A: No.
Q: Did you select number five?
A: No.
Q: Are you older than twenty?
A: No.
I was then told to answer the last question as I chose.
Q: Have you lied during this question series?
A: Yes.
Farnham studied the graph as the needles recorded my answers. He answered my inquiring look. "You selected number two." He was perfectly right.
He then showed me the paper and there was an obvious jump of the smooth lines recorded by the needles.
He explained that there is more of an emotional effort involved in lying than in answering truthfully. The entire body goes through a series of physical reactions: a faster pulse rate, quicker breathing, a definite increase in the flow of perspiration.
However slight, these are all faithfully recorded by the polygraph machine. An expert has only to read the graph points of impulsive reactions and he realises where the subject has lied and where he has told the truth.
I was convinced and hopeful. All I had to do was to tell the truth about my evening with Molly.
Then began the vital contest - a battle between me, the machine, the police, and my guilt or innocence. I was told exactly what questions I would be asked.
I was told which queries would be the "hot ones" - the key questions which would decide my innocence of guilt. And I was told that the other questions would be designed to relax me - but that I would not know when the "hot questions" would be tossed at me.
This information builds quite a tension in the subject. But I was ready - I thought.
The series ran over and over for nearly two hours. Farnham and the younger man conferred over the graphs for about ten minutes.
Then it happened. Quietly it happened. The younger man identified himself as an assistant in the District Attorney's office and I was told that I was under arrest for the murder and criminal assault of Molly Hendrickson. Just like that!
Honest fear is not sudden. It takes a few moments to build up. And then it hits.
You know you've been accused and all but convicted of a horrible crime in which you had no part, but you've got no valid defence. A little box of tubes and wires and charts says you're guilty.
I had answered every question truthfully. I had not lied once. I knew that. But the lie detector showed that the needles had leapt all over the place when the "hot questions" had been asked. On the other queries, the graph showed a nice, normal line.
My peaceful little world had been neatly erased by three little needles operated by an electronic monster.
The young man from the D.A.'s office advised me that I had the right to seek legal advice and suggested that if I signed a confession I might plead guilty to a charge of second-degree murder and thus, to use his own words, "beat the chair."
It is important to point out that I was not advised that lie-detector tests are not admissible as legal evidence in Massachusetts. That I leaned later.
The doors were now opened to the news reporters, and within a matter of hours I became front-page-fiend-of-the-year.
I was politely advised that I was no longer employed. Friends I called in an effort to find a good attorney just "weren't in." One leading newspaper denounced me on its editorial page and called for "swift justice."
I refused the offer to plead guilty to the second degree charge.
Four people stayed with me - my girl, my parents, and a reporter, an old friend, Jack McCarthy of the Herald.
My girl and my parents could do little but pray. But McCarthy knew some of the polygraph techniques, and he knew that I had been tested by well-meaning but inexperienced officers.
McCarthy has covered metropolitan Boston for a long time. He knows the area inside out and backwards, and he is acutely aware of the one great weakness in its police system.
Boston is a city composed of and surrounded by individual towns. More than thirty-five separate communities make up the metropolitan area. Each has its own police department, its own governmental set-up.
So you have nearly forty "police departments" operating independently to protect the 3,000,000 citizens go greater Boston. This makes for a sizeable problem of jurisdiction and co-operative authority.
The police of the suburb in which I lived at the time had just purchased their lie detector. They were untrained, inexperienced in its use.
McCarthy has the unhappy task of being assigned to cover my case. Unhappy for him; we had been friends for years. Happy for me; he helped save my life.
Jack arrived at my cell the morning after my arrest. He was uncomfortable about the situation. He said, "Tony, I'll do all I can to help you. I know everything that's happened so far - almost everything. I want one straight answer. I'll fight just as hard for you regardless of what it is, but you've got to be honest with me. Did you do it?"
"So help me God, Jack, I didn't touch that girl!"
He watched me for a moment.
"O.K., Tony. I've don't think you did, either. But right now the D.A. thinks he has you cold."
I stated to protest. "Hold on," he said. "We're still in business. A couple of months ago, I interviewed Dr. Robert Ford over at Harvard's Department of Legal Medicine. He's the top man in their crime lab. Even the FBI sends stuff to him."
"I'm impressed," I said, "but I don't see - "
"Wait a minute. While I was interviewing Dr. Ford and his associate, Mr. Glass, we talked about the value of lie detectors and we talked about Mike Cullinane."
I said, "That's wonderful. Just who the hell is Mike Cullinane and what does he have to do with me?"
McCarthy looked at me as he might a small, unruly boy and said slowly, "Lieutenant Mike Cullinane is the polygraph expert of the Massachusetts State Police. Mike Cullinane, according to the boys at the Harvard School of Legal Medicine, is one of the ten truly expert lie-detector operators in this country - and the only one in this part of the country. And this same Mike Cullinane just may save you from dying in the electric chair. That's who he is!"
"I'm sorry, Jack."
McCarthy grinned and said, "Don't be. You've been through hell. I talked to Cullinane just before I came here this morning. The D.A.'s office says it's O.K. for him to retest you on that polygraph. They're not bad guys, Tony. They want a pigeon, but they don't want a patsy." And he left.
During the next three hours I had a lot of time to think, and my thoughts were pretty terrifying. I thought about the next lie-detector test. What would it prove?
The infernal little machine had already started me on my way to the electric chair; maybe a second meeting would give me the final push.
McCarthy returned on schedule. With him was a rather short, well-dressed, greying man who looked something like a distinguished insurance executive. This was Lieutenant Michael Cullinane, and with him was his immediate boss, Captain Joseph Crescio.
They turned out to be somewhat different from my idea of cops. Crescio and Cullinane were as concerned about absolving the innocent as about convicting the guilty.
When the lie-detector had first entered the field of criminal investigation, Captain Crescio had arranged for Mike Cullinane to spend more than a year studying polygraph techniques with the masters and creators of the machine: Leonard Keeler, John Reid, and Fred Inbau.
These men taught Cullinane not only how to use the device, but also the fact that the lie-detector is only "95% accurate." And that "90% of that accuracy lies in the hands of the operator of the machine."
Cullinane spoke to me first. "You've got a good friend here in McCarthy. He thinks you need some help. Do you want to try and beat that box again?"
I'm afraid I wasn't too polite to him at first. I yelled, "Look! I never tried to beat it. I'm telling the truth!" And then I did something I hadn't done since I was a child: I broke down and cried.
A lot of tension went out of me then; I felt relaxed and a little sick.
Cullinane walked over to me. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, "Son, let's try that little box again. I've gone over your graphs. I think something could be wrong. Maybe you, maybe somebody else, maybe even the box. Do you want to try?"
I wanted to try.
Cullinane said, "We'll wait a few days. Now, in the next few days - think! Remember everything and every event of that night. And when we get at that little box - son, just tell me the truth."
The next days were almost pleasant. That is, as pleasant as jail can be. Mike Cullinane took his time. He knew his business. He wanted a relaxed subject, and when the moment finally came, he had one.
Judy came to see me almost every day. So did my folks. They never lost faith in me. Neither did McCarthy.
Then came the day - D-day for me: dead or delivered.
I was taken to State Police Headquarters at 1010 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. I was led again into a little room. I saw again that box called a lie-detector.
But this time, for three reasons, I had lost my fear. Those three reasons stood there waiting for me: McCarthy, Cullinane, and Crescio.
The test began. Lieutenant Cullinane told me we would go through exactly the same test I had taken before. And that we did. Three times.
It ended and the wait began. The wait went on for what seemed an eternity. And then Mike Cullinane gave his answer.
Studying the current test graphs and those taken previously, Cullinane noted that I had lied with some degree of success when told to - that is, when told to say "No" to every question.
He similarly noted that my responses to the so-called hot questions had started out mildly and built in intensity with each succeeding inquiry.
From all this, Cullinane decided that my reactions indicated fear and shock at being accused of a crime of which I was innocent.
An expert police officer, a master psychologist, and a highly trained master of the polygraph, Mike Cullinane had recognised something the other, less experienced officers had missed as regards the lie-detector as a recorder of human emotional responses expressed in physical reaction.
My response in the case of the hot questions had been an entirely natural surge of indignation - almost violent anger. The machine had recorded anger of innocence rather than fear of guilt.
Lieutenant Cullinane took his findings to the office of the District Attorney and afterwards I was brought in.
They've got a lot of confidence in Mike Cullinane up in Massachusetts. The D.A. himself stepped forward and said, "Mr. Anders, we've make a mistake. You're a free man. And there are some people in my outer office who would like to see you."
I grabbed Judy first. And then I saw my mother. My father was standing beside another guy I was awfully glad to see - McCarthy. And I saw a man heading back to another day's work as a cop - Cullinane.
Two weeks later, Reporter McCarthy had himself another crime story. A "Lovers' Lane" rapist was apprehended by an off-duty police officer. The man had attempted an attack on a young couple near Revere Beach.
Under questioning, the culprit confessed to a series of sex crimes. His confession included the murder of Molly Hendrickson.
Oh, yes - the interrogating officer's name was Cullinane. And he got through to his suspect with the aid of a little box called a polygraph. . . .
- o - 0 - o -
IN OUR NEXT ISSUE
Women Don't Need to Marry. Now that they no longer have to depend on men (says Louis E. Bisch), women are beginning to think feminine "bachelorhood" has its definite advantages.
Dressing to the Public Danger. - You'll be surprised to learn how many road accidents are caused by girl pedestrians wearing bikinis, short shorts, tight sweaters, low necklines, and high-flying skirts.
Paint-Box Healing. - The right shade of green can soothe you (say colour therapists) - and if you want to be really happy, try a not-too-strong yellow!
LONG COMPLETE FEATURE:
"STICK WITH ME, PILOT!" : Thrilling Real-life Drama in Blazing Plane: by Glenn Infield.
- o - 0 - o -
DOWN THE HATCH
The most dangerous person in town to-day is the man who goes to cocktail parties to listen instead of to drink.
Pierre Daninos.
The trouble with people who drink like a fish is - they don't drink what fish drink.
Wally Sherwin.
The company's financial resources have been well maintained and are very liquid.
The Chairman of Benskin's Watford Brewery.
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