Today, Tuesday, March 23rd 2004, I took a polygraph.  This type of polygraph was called a 'voice stress analysis test' by the detective who asked if I would take it and also by the operator who administered it.  Of the 9 questions I was asked, 2 were supposed to be 'relevant' questions, 2 'control' and the other 5 were named as something I cannot recall.

The Story:
Two weeks ago, a residence owned by my mother where my brother resides was burglarized and a safe he had containing around $2500.00 was stolen but nothing else.  The officer who responded to the call filed a mistake laden report without bothering to ask anyone else who has been here any questions.  A few days later, a decretive informed my brother he thought I was the culprit and enticed my brother and mother to attempt to try to get me to confess.  I don't live at this residence but am here almost everyday after work and on weekends and I was here the night the safe was stolen but know absolutely nothing about the theft; I left at 10:45pm, prior to the break-in and I didn't even know anything had happened until I got a phone call at 3am from my mother.

The reason my brother had a safe was because he was certain my stepfather had stolen money from him and wanted to prevent it from happening again.  My mom confiscated A key (obviously copies could have been made) from him and they reimbursed my brother the money that was stolen without acknowledging my stepfather had done it.   

At any rate, my stepfather was just arrested last week on a warrant because he had fled a halfway house in Texas and rode a bus back to Pennsylvania, but had to told everyone he was simply released.  The only reason he was caught was because he had stolen personal checks from my mother and forged her name to make checks out to himself, which he then cashed for over $8000.00.  He was here after I had left the night of the robbery and had made a phone call to this house from a cellular when no one else was here.  When he was arrested, he was found with crack cocaine and paraphernalia.  A crowbar that was probably used to break the door latch open was at his residence.

But despite this, the moronic detective has focused upon me.  I have no criminal record or have ever been accused of theft before or anything even in that league.  My worst legal problem in my life to this point is a speeding ticket from when I was 18 years old; I'll be 25 in June.  The detective called me at work and was belligerent with me, refusing to allow me to get a word in until after he had asked if I would take this test.

Foolishly, I said I would because I have nothing to hide and I thought saying no would just make me seem more suspicious.  I now deeply regret having "consented" to taking this farce of a test.  Under the idea that I was doing the right thing, I unwittingly was allowing myself to make the transition from willful cooperating 'witness' to main suspect.

Before the test was administered, the administer said he was having difficulty with his machine and said it was picking up some kind if interference.  He reviewed the questions I would be asked and he also asked me if I had objections to the questions they would be asking me and I said that one, the one that incidentally 'indicated' that I was lying was phrased improperly.  (My brother's safe was stolen, the question was 'was I present when the money from my brother's safe was stolen.'  A phrasing I honestly believe was designed to get me confused and thus show this 'stress' they have their reasoning alluding to be an indicator of deception.)

The question: Was I present when money was stolen from my brother's safe?
I said that I wasn't present when anything was stolen and the money wasn't stolen from the safe here, the entire safe was stolen!  The administer of the test nonchalantly ignored what I said, did not alter the question, and proceeded to ask his questions as they stood.

Oddly enough, the other 'relevant' question was:
Did you steal money from your brother's safe?

Which again I answered no and was judged as being truthful.

So how in the world can these two similarly phrased questions which each have opposite results be used to gage whether I'm telling the truth or not?

I strongly don't feel that they can.  In fact, I KNOW that they can't because I know I didn't steal the safe, the money in the safe, or know who did.  All I know is that I was here sometime before it was stolen and I suspect my stepfather did it.  I asked to make a statement after the 'results' were in and the detective and his cohort declined, saying the knew all they needed to know.

My brother told me he knows I had nothing to do with the theft and anyone who knows me even just a little bit knows I would NEVER do anything like this!

So now what?  My stepfather is going to be extradited soon back to Texas and he's never even been questioned despite that the night the safe was stolen, March 8th was the safe day he began cashing the fraudulent checks.  Meanwhile, I get to stew in the uncertainty that the police are going to arrest me based on the ridiculous renderings of their machine.  Or I passed and they lied to me about the results to attempt to get me to confess.  I know only two things for certain: I did NOT steal my brother's safe and the police are willing to use whatever means they thing necessary to get the answer they want; that is except for logic and reason.

I apologize for any redundancy or incoherence in this account, I'm very upset by this and the great irony being that the person that actually committed the robbery isn't even being looked at.

If anyone who reads this is being asked to take a polygraph thinking that because they're innocent and cooperate with the police they'll be fine, DON'T TAKE IT!

I'm currently debating whether I should contact the ACLU or the local media about this severe breach of integrity on the behalf of the Altoona Police Department.  If anyone has ANY advice they can offer me, please do!

Brian,

Thank you for sharing your experience. The voice stress "test" to which you were subjected to was in all likelihood the Computer Voice Stress Analysis (CVSA) device marketed by the "National Institute of Truth Verification" in West Palm Beach, Florida. Like the polygraph, CVSA has not been proven to reliably detect deception at better than chance levels under field conditions. (As with a polygraph "test," the three types of questions asked in a CVSA "test" are termed "relevant," "control," and "irrelevant.")

The main utility of CVSA (like the polygraph) is as an interrogational prop: if a guilty suspect can be convinced that the "scientific" machine has caught him in a lie, he might become convinced that his best option is to confess. Indeed, the offer of a CVSA or polygraph "test" to a suspect is often just a ruse for getting him/her into an interrogation room without a lawyer present.

That said, some investigators seem to genuinely believe in their lie detectors and allow the results of these pseudoscientific "tests" to influence the direction of their investigations.

I agree with you that anyone offered the chance to "prove his innocence" by taking a lie detector test (whether a CVSA device or a polygraph is involved) would be well advised to refuse (and seek legal counsel).

Since you have already "gone public" by posting your experience here, I think you might want to seriously consider going to your local media, especially your local radio and television news stations, to talk about your experience (and naming the Altoona Police Department investigator[s] involved).