Countering the Lies of Omission

Guilty people will likely practice deception by omitting information they believe with incriminate themselves.

Leaving out details is a way to mislead, and does not give the liar as much stress because technically they are not lying.

Start by getting a complete statement of the activity in question.


Things to look for are:

- Skipping over facts.

- Is there some sort of fast forwarding through time. Look for words like after, later, then, later on, eventually, finally, when, and a short time later are key words and ask for clear explanations of times that may have been glossed over.

- Fuzzy language such as "I believe" or "I think" or "Basically"? or "That is about it" is not a committed answer.

- "I cannot remember” or “I cannot recall” we have to ask ourselves they simply are describing what they prefer not to do.

- Allow the person to pause while speaking, these are signs of cognitive thinking and the pauses are important.


What to do to illicit more information:

Do not immediately directly confront when you see areas of omission, address them after the person has had a chance to tell you everything.

Do not make the mistake by going directly to the areas of greatest interest. Instead, you should fight this urge and proceed chronologically. Instead beginning with the first area of omission and moving on to the subsequent areas one by one. This avoids alerting people to specific areas of interest and incriminating area of their statement.

Systematically return to each area of missing information and seek out details by using carefully structured questions.

Say things like "Fill in the blanks" and "What did you do next?" and "Tell me everything that happened between X and Y?"

If they used fuzzy language, repeat the fuzzy language statement(s) back to them and ask for more information or clarifications.

Expect and demand micro explanations of the littlest detail.


The most seasoned investigator can get to the point where they "don't sweat the small stuff" but it is these little details that can provide insight.◦

Countering the Lies of Omission