Most investigators I have known will call a subject a liar and point out inconsistencies in a story before they take a statement. I was the opposite. When I was interviewing a subject, I would take their story and ask questions to flesh out the details, but I seldom tried to make their statement fit the details as I perceived them prior to the interview.
Late one Saturday night in August, Plano Fire Department got a call of a vehicle on fire below the Highway 75 bridge over Rowlett Creek. They arrived a few minutes later and extinguished the fire, but the car was a total loss.
It had been a 6 or 8 year old compact economy car. A junker. It had been deliberately torched. An hour or so later, it was reported stolen from a bowling alley in town. A high school boy had been bowling with friends and when they finished the game, his car was nowhere to be found in the parking lot. He called police to report it stolen.
I was assigned the case and asked him to come in to give a statement. He arrived at Plano Police Department with his father. I led them to a conference room for the boy to give his statement.
It was short and sweet. He had driven to the bowling alley alone, parked his car, and gone in to meet his friends, whom he named in his statement. Several hours later when the kids adjourned to go home, his car was gone. The statement completed, I asked one of our secretaries to come in and notarize the kid’s signature.
Once the statement was signed and notarized, I told the boy and his dad, “Look, I know how these damned insurance companies think. They will do everything they can to deny paying a claim and I expect them to say you torched your car for the insurance money. Now, I know that’s not true, so let’s stay one step ahead of them. I’ll schedule a polygraph. You will score way high in the truthful zone, and I will include that as part of my report.
The kid agreed and the father was all for it. We broke up the meeting and they left. The next day, I got a call from a Dallas attorney. “Mr. So-and-so would very much like to drop his complaint of a stolen vehicle,” he said.
I laughed. “You know I can’t do that,” I replied, still chuckling.
“What would it take to make this go away,” the lawyer inquired.
“Here’s the deal I will make. You bring the kid in and he gives me another statement telling exactly what happened. We’ll forget about the arson and the perjury on his first statement, and he and his father agree not to file an insurance claim.”
The lawyer knew a good deal when he saw one. The next day, the lawyer showed up with the kid and Dad in tow. The kid gave a statement about how he had torched his old car and was planning on using the insurance money as a down payment on a new Camaro.
As soon as they had left, I phoned a friend who was an insurance investigator and gave him the information on the kid. I expect now, some 40 years later, anytime he files an insurance claim, his name triggers a response in some big brother insurance computer and insurance investigators go over his claim with a fine-toothed comb.
The way I had figured it, proving the arson given the few facts I had would have been very difficult. Not only that, but he was also a juvenile and the penalty would have been little more than a slap on the wrist. I figured ripping him with his father and getting his name in the insurance computer was more punishment and less trouble all the way around. Case closed!