The words of the guilty - Part four: Ian Huntley

Could his words have caught him sooner?

This is the final post in my series looking at the words used by guilty people when they are pretending to be innocent. Is it possible that their guilt is revealed in the words they say?

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

All the cases so far deal with missing children and the adults who knew more than they would admit. I started with the case of Shannon Matthews, then Tia Sharp.

This one is no different. In 2002, ten-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were killed by Ian Huntley. Let’s look at a TV interview which Huntley gave while pretending to be a concerned citizen at the time the girls were missing.

Let’s break it down.

Interviewer: You’re the school caretaker, the girls Jessica and Holly would know you and they saw you on the front doorstep what? What went on?

Huntley: Well the gi..I don't know the girls erm.. I were stood on the front doorstep grooming my dog down, she’d run away and come back a bit of a mess. They just came across and asked how Miss Carr was, she used to teach them at St. Andrews, I just said she weren’t very good as she hasn’t got the job, and they just says please tell her that we're very sorry. And off they walked in the direction of the erm.. the library over there.

Huntley starts not by answering the question, but by saying he doesn’t know the girls. Why was it so important he said that first? It certainly creates more distance between him and his victims than was implied in the question. His assertion that he doesn’t know the girls doesn’t chime with the scenario he paints, which alludes to a familiarity with them.

The part of his answer about his dog, how it needed grooming, how it had run off is not relevant. It’s a word dump. Why does he add these needless words? Possibly because he is happy to spend time telling this easy story before he has to go on to more crucial deception which will cause him stress.

Next, he repeatedly uses the word “just”. He’s using it here to downplay what went on. He wants to persuade us the interaction was casual, that there was nothing more to it. “Just” is always a warning to me that deception could be occurring, the numerous uses here put me on red alert.

When describing the way the girls left him, he uses the phrase “and off they walked”. This feels like something from a children’s story. We now know it was fictional, and it feels it in use here.

Happy?

Int: How did they seem to you?

Huntley: They seemed fine, very cheerful, happy, chatty. I didn't see anything untoward, nobody were hanging around. You know? They just seemed like normal happy kids

When analysing the words people use, it can be tempting to constantly look for deception, to see where someone has tried to fool you.

It’s useful to remember to look at the truth too. The first line here directly answers the question “they seemed fine, very cheerful, happy, chatty”. It is straightforward with little weak or persuasive words.

We can assume it is true. And make a note that when Huntley is truthful, he answers like this.

However, he then goes beyond the question of how the girls were and mentions that he didn’t notice anything untoward or anyone hanging around. “Untoward” feels as fictional as “off they walked”.

Why add this? Like the others we’ve looked at, he has probably prepared answers ready rather than having to lie on the spot. He then feels like he has to use these words, whether they are asked for or not.

“They seemed like normal happy kids” is weaker than it should be. There’s distance between his intention and his words here, “they were normal and happy kids” would be more direct and about the girls specifically rather than “kids” in general.

Safe?

Int: Safe and well?

Huntley: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Int: You may as it turned out to be the last person to actually chat to them before they vanished.

Huntley: Yeah, that's what it seems like.

Int: And it's a mystery.

Huntley: Absolutely

After making the mistake of a word dump around the dog and saying no one was hanging around, Huntley keeps control here and give short answers that only deal with the question.

However, he uses the word “absolutely” a lot, and that’s another flag that deception could be happening. Look at how he uses it when we boil down the questions and answers in this section.

READ MORE: the five words that indicate deception is taking place

The interviewer asks “Safe and well?”, shorthand’s for asking “were they safe and well”. A closed question, which needs only “yes”, “no” or “I don’t know” as an answer.

Huntley is able to answer this truthfully in part. When he first saw them, they were safe and well, at least until they met him. So, he can answer “yeah” and not lie. However, it’s not entirely the truth either, so he can’t leave it at that and adds another “yeah” and “absolutely” to convince us he is being honest.

The interviewer then says “you may as it turned out to be the last person to actually chat to them before they vanished”. This isn’t a question, but Huntley can truthfully confirm the statement with “yeah that’s what it seems like”.

The final question is, “and it's a mystery?” Huntley can’t honestly say it is a mystery, he knows exactly what has happened. He can’t tell the truth, but he will by human nature want to avoid a direct lie, so he doesn’t say “yes” and opts for one word “absolutely”.

After holding himself back, he then gives another word dump which answers a question he wasn’t asked.

Huntley: Yeah, absolutely. I mean all... everybody around here, I’ve been speaking to a lot of people. And what theyre saying is, you know, while there's no news then there's still that glimmer of hope, and that's basically all we’re all hanging on to

Here he is relatively straightforward and truthful. He reports what people are saying and then slightly weakly says he joins them in that thought. The longer there is no news, the better it is for him too.

Int: And there was nothing that Sunday evening that gave you a glimmer of suspicion that anything was wrong.

Huntley: No, not at all.

Again a believable answer. The intent of the question is that when he met the girls, there was nothing that indicated to him that there was anything wrong with them or their surroundings. Deceiving is easy when you can be limited with what you say, but truthful.

Conclusion

Huntley is a better liar than the other two talkers I’ve looked at in this series. He is more in control of what he says, and he sticks to the straightforward truth wherever he can.

However, if we combine what we think is truthful with what appears deceptive or fictional, there is enough in his words to suggest he deserved closer inspection at the time.

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