First Chapter: Uncover the Truth by Mike Ruggiero
Learn how to spot the signs of truth—and deception.
Have you ever watched someone speak and thought, “Something feels off”? Whether you’re talking to a friend, watching a news interview, or trying to understand a high-profile case, this book gives you the tools to see what’s really going on.
In Uncover the Truth, Mike Ruggiero shares techniques he’s used throughout his 30-year career in law enforcement to evaluate body language and the way people speak. You’ll learn how small changes in posture, word choice, and even eye contact can reveal what someone might be hiding.
This book is filled with real examples—from major cases in Mike’s career to stories in the public eye. Step by step, he explains how to look for clues that often go unnoticed and how to make sense of them.
Whether you’re in law enforcement, work with people every day, or are simply curious about human behavior, these skills can help you better understand the world around you—and the people in it.
Lesson 1
Overview
I want to begin our venture into this section on body language, or kinesics, by establishing some ground rules. Here are some things it’s important to remember as we go through this portion of the book:
Remember these words: context, context, context! You must keep body language in the context of what the subject is discussing at that moment. The same exact body movements that may be a strong indicator of deception in one context might mean little to nothing in another.
No one body movement insinuates deception in every situation. Remember: Wait until you have as much information as possible before making a call on whether someone is being truthful or deceptive. One of my favorite sayings is “the more red flags we catch, the more certain we can be of deception.” Body language is best read in what are known as “clusters”—or one movement incorporating several smaller movements. For instance, someone leaning back in a chair and crossing their legs. I will go into more detail on these later in this book.
We must consider the timing of all of the movements I’ll discuss. People are going to move. They are going to shift in their seats. They’re going to move their hands and feet. Not all movement means deception. We want to pay particular attention to the responses that occur within seven seconds of asking a question. Movement within that time frame is directly related to the tension a person is experiencing as a result of the question. We can therefore attribute those movements to the stress of deception.
Last, a word we often hear concerning body language is “norming.” Norming, or baselining, is the behavior a subject exhibits during normal conversation. If someone stutters, we can’t count stuttering as a sign of deception. If someone has the sniffles, we can’t count touching their nose as a sign of deception. That being said, we don’t always have the luxury of norming a person’s behavior. When we don’t have a norm, we need to analyze the behavior based on what would be normal for someone in that situation—and how far from normal the behavior displayed was. Understand: courts do this on a regular basis. When it comes to the actions of individual officers, courts often base their decisions on what a “reasonable, prudent officer” would do. Essentially, they are using the “norm” as a measuring stick for the behavior of that particular officer. We can do the same thing when it comes to body language.
I recall an interview I was conducting along with another detective. During it, I noted that this particular interviewee liked to talk. He didn’t provide simple answers to simple questions. Most interviewers are trained to believe that not providing a simple answer to a simple question is a sign of deception. In this case, it was part of this subject’s normal behavior. When we completed the interview, my colleague pointed out the subject’s failure to offer simple responses and considered it to be deceptive. When I suggested that was his norm—the interviewee did that with most every question—my colleague concurred.
I often ask my law enforcement students how they go about norming someone. I invariably get the same responses: ask them routine questions that are not about the case. Try to develop a rapport with them by asking some personal questions.
While this is a good start, we shouldn’t stop there. Next time, try asking a few questions they have to think about to answer but have no reason to lie about. That will give you a baseline of the subject’s behavior when they need to recall truthful information, and you can see whether they change from their norm later. Don’t worry—it’s not difficult. You can ask questions about their children’s dates of birth, work address, their mother-in-law’s address, etc. Anything that someone just can’t snap out a response for will serve this purpose. Now you have a norm for what that person does when accessing factual information. This can be compared to their responses later in the interview. Their answers to these questions are unimportant; what I am paying attention to is what they do while they recall information with no motive for deception. Mainly, I am watching their eye movement as they go into their memory to recall the information I asked. We will cover eye movement later in this book. Then I have established a norm and will be able to see if they differ from it later in the interview.
In this book, body language refers to the body’s response to the anxiety caused by deception. In this way, the stress we are experiencing “leaks out” through body language. People who are being deceptive are usually exclusively focused on the words they are saying and not their own movements, which makes body language particularly telling. When non-verbal signs aren’t congruent with a verbal message, we should zone in on their words because the probability of tension is high—and deception may very well be the cause of it. Let’s look at some overall body language keys, then we’ll talk about the body from head to foot.
Everyone experiences anxiety; some may do a better job of masking it than others, but everyone still deals with it. There are two types of responses to stress, which is why not everyone reacts in the same way: physiological and behavioral. Of course, it is the behavioral responses that are more closely associated with body language, and with good reason. However, it’s important to have a quick discussion on the body’s physiological response. As we’ll see, physiological responses can manifest as behavioral reactions to the anxiety people experience when being deceptive.
Get the book here: Uncover the Truth