[Music] hi friends welcome to episode 2 of the true to lies podcast i'm excited to be with you i'm steve johnson 28 year retired police investigator detective and consultant on criminal cases and today i want to discuss with you linguistic evidence now linguistic evidence is actually all around us and depending on the the text of the context of the conversation it's going to be a little more important in some conversations and others for those of you that are interviewing job applicants for employment it's going to be very important for you to recognize linguistic evidence there's things that you might not be able to ask that applicant but you're going to want to know and same with you criminal investigators obviously very important there's things within the language that you absolutely need to know and this doesn't apply only to uh those situations there's this linguistic evidence applies to everyone that wants to know the truth uh whether you are a professional interviewer investigator or you're just having a conversation with with the neighbor down the street your doctor your vet the salesman whoever it is there's there's all kinds of applications for this now in linguistics i often talk about linguistic evidence and latent content and i want to talk a little bit about what that is and i'm going to give you an example using the larry molletti interview larry's wife may maya disappeared in january early january of 2021. her body still has not been recovered but about a month ago or so larry was arrested before i get into that let me talk about the forensic aspect of investigations in the forensic aspect of linguistics it's very similar during my 28 year police career i've been at literally thousands of of crime scenes and most of those scenes especially the ones that are a little bit bloody have some biological evidence we put booties on at a minimum and oftentimes we put on the full what we call bunny suits the full white jumpsuits and the reason for that is that we did not want to introduce anything into the crime scene from our own shoes our own person we wanted to keep that crime scene sterile this the the way that we entered it and also we didn't want to bring anything from the crime scene out on our own shoes or clothing things like that we want us to stay clean and sterile when we came out of that scene so the important thing is we we didn't want to contaminate that scene and while we were in those crime scenes we often look for latent evidence meaning the evidence that is hiding in plain sight it's just you can't see it unless you apply a certain forensic method or processes or steps in order to make that evidence visible come to light and you know latent fingerprints are the easiest to understand there's latent fingerprints every time we touch something i touch this mouse and there's you can't see my fingerprints on the mouse but but they're there it's from the oils on my hands and it leaves an impression of my fingerprint every time i touch something and same with with my uh my cup here uh there's there's latent fingerprints on that cup that you really can't see them unless my hand was really dirty such as kids smudges you know you sometimes you can see the fingerprints and all their smudge and dirt sometimes we can see a fingerprint and a bloody crime scene there's actually a bloody fingerprint but most the time those those latent prints are not visible and then we have to apply certain processes either either graphite type dust or super glue there's other there's all kinds of things we can do and it makes those fingerprints actually come to light we can see them and then we can either photograph them or lift them and use them in our investigation so same thing applies with the linguistic process the forensic linguistics it's a we apply certain methods and processes and and we tether ourselves to certain tried and true principles that are related to human nature and we we apply them and we make the latent content come to light i often say when we go into uh an interview or we're talking with someone that we we believe what they're telling us now we're not necessarily going to believe the story they're telling us but they they will give away information that they don't un realize that they are giving away that's what we believe that's that's very strong credible information if you understand it and know what to listen for and look for larry maletti did just that when he interviewed and and that's what i'm going to get into in a little bit so this latent content is it might not only be the deception that we're looking for but oftentimes when people speak or write about an incident what happened tell me what happened or tell me about yourself in a job interview and they're writing about themselves writing about the incident whatever it is there are things that they are not going to want to tell you but they nevertheless will will reveal if you know what to look for so it might be not just the deception but it might be that they have a drug addiction in a crime uh situation the context of a crime that we're investigating they often give away the time of the crime the time that they committed that crime there's all kinds of information that that's there for them to give away things about their past their past experiences childhood traumas abuses it may be that they are currently an abusive person that maybe they're suffering from ptsd some mental illnesses there's just all kinds of information if you know what to look for it's in the words and that's what's so much fun about what we do the statement profiling it's just there's nothing better it's that's it's we're so excited every time we get a new statement because we're going to unwrap this stuff it's like it's like going into a puzzle um we're we're looking to see if we can solve this and and what information is hiding there that we can't readily see it's not readily apparent but when we apply certain processes it makes it come to life and it's just a really neat thing so that's what latent content is which is linguistic evidence now you're going to hear me talk about linguistic evidence a lot in in future episodes today i want to focus on the on the larry molletti interview so maya maletti disappeared in january early january of 2021 her body still has not been recovered she was reported missing i believe it was on the 9th of january it was a saturday family came over i think that was a day don't hold me to that but it's very close to that and it was actually her family her sister that reported her missing and um it was after they came over to the house and and larry said that uh you know maya was he and my were sleeping in separate bedrooms and maya was allegedly sleeping in a bedroom downstairs the door was locked larry found the key open the door and maya's gone okay so so she's out it's unknown where she where she was at that point in time but she wasn't there so larry had all kinds of you know she speculations as to where she could have gone hiking or out jeeping or with her friends wine tasting or whatever it was but she's never been found now shortly after she was reported missing larry did an interview a phone interview with a local news station so this reporter is asking larry questions about maya and their situation and fortunately for us larry did this this phone interview which obviously contains linguistic evidence latent content content that larry does not know that he's revealing but nevertheless it's there and that's what i want to i want to point out just some of that uh information that larry is revealing um what i'm going to do is play you the first couple minutes of that interview okay and the reporter is going to ask larry about the last time that he saw may the last time he saw may and he's going to tell you that it was it was thursday and you're going to hear all kinds of what we call word salad from from larry it's he's gonna get a little twisted up okay that's a clue when you have word salad that's a clue that something's going on in his brain when people recall things that are experiential that are true it's very easy to recall it to repeat it to state it and there's no equivocation it just is what it is and when you start hearing people having to equivocate explain things get twisted up and all kinds of things that we're going to go into with larry that's a sign that something is wrong and and that there's linguistic evidence there and all we need to do is just go in and apply some processes and pick it apart and and and we'll have the real story that's the story that we're going to believe and it's exactly what larry's telling us okay so i'm going to play that clip and and then and then we'll break it down just a little bit here it is when did you first notice that mae was missing on saturday morning and tell me her parents came by just tell me kind of walk me through like the last time you saw her and what was going on thursday thursday night um you know like we got into uh a kind of an argument um and you know we've been having uh you know like problems um you know for about a year kind of like been up and down and stuff like that but after that you know i gave her space so just tell me so you got into an argument and then um the last time you saw her was actually in the house so she didn't she and she didn't take a vehicle no one saw her leave um no but on friday um i could still hear like i didn't physically see her when i got home but that's like normal too because we you know we have lots of bedrooms and two-story house and you know we kind of like well i give her space so but that's why every time someone says um thursday yes it's physically you know or you know visually see her but for me it's a friday friday night you know i can hear her like wrestling around making dinner for herself in another bedroom and i'm sleeping with the kids in another bedroom so upstairs and she's downstairs kind of deal like kind of like a roommate um thing it's kind of like giving each other space well i don't need the space she always wants the space got it so it was like friday and then you left or went went somewhere and then came back and she wasn't there right yes i left her with my two girls because they you know they um do their homes homeschool and then i just had my son with me so when i came back she was still there on friday um we can hear her downstairs you know like after i'm done giving the kids baths and feeding them and everything and um on saturday morning when her parents came came by her door was locked uh i found the keys to the bedroom and i opened it and she was already gone so every time maybe she went to a morning center's hike you know because she didn't go keeping because this one of her other hobbies the jeep group and um you know she would have taken that so i assumed maybe one of her friends picked her up and um you know they went hiking or the wine tasting she likes to go once they sing temecula that's her other thing her brunch early morning yeah after that you know like that night where okay she hasn't come home yet okay i love that this reporter did this interview with larry and she asked some great questions that really focused focused his mind in fact the questions that she asked kind of created a little mind virus for larry and i'll show you what i mean the reporter asked she said just just tell me kind of walk me through the last time you saw her and what was going on and so larry responds um thursday thursday night um you know like we got into a kind of an argument uh you know we've been having problems for like about a year kind of like been up and down and stuff like that but after that you know i give her space and so what happened there was larry answered the question thursday thursday night and he said we kind of got in we got into a kind of an argument meaning he's not going to say that it was a full-blown argument he wants to downplay it that's what he's doing the kind of an argument it's not really an argument it's kind of an argument all right so we're on high alert now now what's happened the next part of what larry says is an unsolicited explanation as to why they got into this argument and what he says is you know we've been having like problems and notice he downplayed that a little bit too right the like problems for about a year kind of like been up and i know a lot of people use the kind of and and larry's from the islands and and i've had somebody reach out to me and say this language is used a lot there and so i get it and i'll take that into context and give him a pass for some of that but without knowing larry's normal speech pattern i have to call it call it out that especially the major stuff especially the argument thing that he downplayed the argument so he's saying kind of like been up and down and stuff like that but after that i give her space so what he's saying is there yeah i just told you i got into an argument that we got into a kind of an argument but here's why because we've been having a lot of problems for about a year now he gave you a time frame here that he's his brain went back for a full year that's when this all this started a year ago so he gave you a time frame there and we know that there's huge sensitivity because he's explaining why they got into this argument and note at the end of that explanation he said after that i give her space meaning i'm the good guy i give her space he's not saying that she gives me space or we give each other space nothing like that it's just solely him he's the good guy always know when people build themselves up as a good person when there's really no expectation of that really no need to do that it just kind of comes out of the blue that they typically know that they've done something wrong that they need to rehabilitate themselves linguistically they need to be seen in a good light we all like to be seen in a good light so that's very common people like to be seen in a good light and like to be recognized as such when we do something wrong we don't want to be seen in a bad light we don't want people to know that we've done something wrong and so we'll kind of build ourselves up to be a better person than than what actually has been would be reflected from if we did something wrong okay so i give her space so the interviewer says so just tell me so you got into an argument and then the last time you saw her was actually in the house and larry says yes briefly and the word briefly qualifies the yes uh he also when he did that his his voice inflection went down now i don't know if he looked away from the phone or what happened there but i do know that it was like as if he wanted to not really speak that out loud uh yes briefly so he qualified how much time he spent with maya when he saw her that it was actually in the house and he said yes briefly so it raises the question well the reporter was the one that said actually in the house and larry said briefly so was there a time that he saw her outside the house that's the natural question so i know he was in there according to his words his language briefly with maya did something happen outside that was you know there was maybe some more time uh spent with her outside the house now she may not have been in good shape i don't know that but when's the last time you saw her was it actually in the house yes briefly okay so here's what's going to happen here this reporter has focused larry's attention to the last time that he saw maya now she actually contaminated the question this is the mind virus is what she did she she focused it and so now that larry's mind is focused on the last time he saw her if he's lying about the last time he saw her there's going to be a natural physiological response within his brain and body the brain is going to feel the stress it doesn't like it it's not going to like it the brain's default setting is to tell the truth so if there is deception it creates stress which physiologically transcends the rest of the body in all kinds of ways and the body doesn't like it okay so there's this interesting phenomena called carryover stress if larry is deceptive and has stress about the last time that he saw may it could carry over into the next part of the conversation so look what happens here so the reporter says so she didn't she didn't she didn't take a vehicle all right so the reporter has bought what larry said in in a way but she's she's now refocused to may taking a vehicle look what larry does here he says no he answered the question now here comes the carry over stress he says um but on friday i could still hear like i didn't physically see her when i got home and i'm gonna stop there for just a second so larry answered the question about the vehicle which was a very brief answer and then he couldn't get off the stress that he was feeling about the last time he saw may and so his brain went back to it that's called carry over stress he's still feeling it and he's still having to deal with it he has to do something with it to alleviate the stress and so linguistically he is going to do some things to minimize to rehabilitate himself to make his story believable whatever it is he's got to make it such that he feels better about it so he says no but on friday i could still hear like i didn't physically see her when i got home and that physically word really bothers me out of all the words he could say or pick or the way he could phrases he said physically so he's introduced this physical aspect of this all right but now what he says is but that's like normal too because you know we have lots of bedrooms and two-story house and you know we kind of like well i give her space okay and then he goes on and i'll come and come i'm going to come back to it so he says he portrays this as normal that he saw her briefly or thursday night and he says friday he could still hear her now instead of saying on friday i could hear her he said i could still hear her so this is carry over it's an indication that there's carryover from what thursday night i could still hear her and now he's convincing us as to how he could still hear her what was happening that could still hear and he's and he qualifies this he says i didn't physically see her when i got home but let me tell you let me tell you why that's okay but that's like normal too because and here's this unsolicited explanation because you know we have lots of bedrooms and a two-story house he goes back to and i give her space i'm the good guy that tells me that something has happened in there now he's had to portray himself as a good guy twice in the midst of this uh thought process of the last time that he saw may that is not a good sign this is an indication that it's highly likely the last time he saw may was thursday night but what he's telling us now about her about him being able to hear her in the house friday morning and how normal it is that he could hear her and the reason why because we have a big house we have lots of bedrooms it's a two-story house and that hey by the way i'm a good guy it's highly likely that thursday night early friday morning is the last time that he or anyone was going to see may now it gets better now he says so but that's why every time someone says thursday yes it's physically you know or visually see her but for me it's friday friday night okay he again he used the word physically that's twice now that he's used that there's something definitely there's a going to be a physical aspect to this the thing that makes this even more significant is that he self-censored he caught himself saying physically and then he said visually but what he did is he he dropped the pronoun i he didn't say i see her or i saw her he didn't use i at all he dropped it i is one of those pronouns that we use without any thought they are instinctive uh they are so reliable they're reliable when we use them and they're reliable when we don't use them meaning when the person ejects himself psychologically by dropping the pronoun i there's a there's a reason for it he does not want to be associated with what he's saying he wants distance from that he doesn't want to commit to what he's saying and that's what's going on here so he's not committing to seeing her visually he says but for me it's friday friday night you know i can hear now note that how he goes in the present tense here not what he heard but what he hears i can hear like rustling around making dinner for herself and another bedroom and sleeping with the kids in another bedroom so upstairs and she's downstairs and he didn't say so i'm upstairs again he dropped it he psychologically ejected himself and she's downstairs kind of do like kind of like a roommate thing kind of like giving each other space well i don't need the space she always wants her space so again he reverted back to this this good guy thing which now that's the third time in this short little period of time he something happened in that period of time right there so the the over explaining and normalizing the event explaining why you should believe this the unsolicited explanation the good guy him ejecting himself psychologically by dropping the pronoun i this is all linguistic evidence this is the latent content that we have here not only is deception but he is telling us and i believe him that the last time he saw may was actually thursday night this all this other stuff in there is superfluous about uh how friday that he can hear her like rustling around uh which is an interesting word as well rustling around and this it makes me wonder if uh may might have been alive for a period of time while she maybe was incapacitated and couldn't go anywhere language like that it's it's it's very telling and it's a it's uh you know it's called it's one of those things that we call brain leakage that they will they will use these type these type of words and the type of language that reflects their perception of the reality and what what it is that they know what what it is that actually occurred even though they don't want to come out and tell us he's not going to obviously come out and tell us that yeah last time i saw her was thursday when i killed her he's not going to say that but from all this we can we can say that this guy has guilty knowledge and why do we know that because he's portraying this as a normal event he's giving us unsolicited explanations which are convincing in nature and really all he had to do was answer the question and say uh yeah by thursday night you know we we were having a little bit of an argument and i went to my room she went to hers and just call it quits and then answered the question about the the vehicle so she didn't take her own vehicle no vehicle is still here so one of her friends must have picked her up and leave it at that but he couldn't do that the stress in his brain is so significant it carries over and he has to explain it tells me that there's something going on there that he has to make himself feel better about because his brain is knocking on on knocking on his head and saying hey they're not going to believe you so you better make this believable and it's something the reporter wouldn't even have asked and may not even have thought to ask but larry taught us that this is something that is so significant to him that he had to explain it had to normalize it had to eject himself psychologically from it had to portray himself as a good guy never portrayed may as a good person not once the and the linguistic evidence is becomes very apparent this interview goes on and on and on for and reveals a lot more linguistic evidence but you can see my point here how this latent content comes to life when you apply these different things these different principles it makes his content come to life now months months ago early early in the year of 2021 out shortly after this interview aired [Music] i did a show with chris mcdonough the inter on the interview room with greg cooper and dean jackson and and on that show we we broke down this this statement that larry this interview that larry gave and i called it out then that that maya uh was likely killed late thursday night early friday morning okay that would have been thursday night would have been january 7th friday would be the 8th that was a pretty definite timeline in my mind from the analysis of what larry said he's the one that told me that he's the one that taught me that now larry has since been arrested and there was a press conference held by the chula vista police department and the san diego district attorney's office and so the san diego district attorney spoke about some facts of the case that she was able to share with the public i'm going to play you just a few minutes of that [Music] of that press conference and in that you will hear her tell us that that that mae's phone the last time that there was there was any activity on may's phone was friday morning at 1 25 a.m okay she she confirmed the analysis she confirmed what larry told us she confirmed the linguistic evidence the latent content that came to life as soon as larry spoke to this reporter he left behind that linguistic evidence and all we had to do was just apply a few things and make it come to light and and then through the investigation this was all confirmed take a listen to a couple minutes of that press conference it also turns out and this is from extensive search warrants everything is done by the book extensive search warrants that were done by chula vista police department with the help of our team that uncovered a trail of things that were happening that were of great concern larry was trying to hold on to may and he resorted to contacting what are called spell casters i've never had a case where that was involved these spellcasters would be asked to make may want to stay in the relationship but as december of 2020 came those messages to spellcasters were a lot more threatening he was asking for may to become incapa incapacitated for may to be in an accident to have broken bones so that she could stay at home thus displaying his homicidal ideations to harm may the january 7th date was very clear she not only had called the divorce lawyer but she had set an appointment for january 12 to meet with the divorce lawyer in order to carry out the divorce she wanted that date and not friday january 7 because their daughter had a birthday that she had planned and again the kids were the center of her world and she did not want to do anything to disrupt that birthday that was going to take place on january 10. [Music] the last text message that mae sent was on january 7th at 8 15 pm to her family she sent that on facebook messenger that's another set of awards that were done in the afternoon of january 7 larry molete sent a really telling text he said i think she wants me to snap and i'm shaking inside ready to snap at 9 21 pm on january 7th larry screenshot from his account cryptocurrency amounts of money that were in his cryptocurrency to his two daughters ages 11 and 9. may's phone activity stopped on january 8th at 1 25 a.m on january 9th larry miletti's spellcaster messages that had been sent on a daily basis turned from may to wanting to punish a man that he blames for the failed relationship this was before merrick reese had called the police about me being missing now we go to november 8th security video brought by retained by chula vista pd showed the defendant on january 8 at 5 58 a.m in the morning moving his lexus gx460 a black lexus with the license plate that bears the name melanie the lexus was already backed into the driveway but larry millette repositioned that lexus where the back of the lexus is in in the entrance of that garage he repositioned it where no video camera can capture whether a body was put in the back of the lexus or not but based on that positioning we're not able to see that vantage point at 6 45 a.m after repositioning the car at 5 58 a.m larry leaves and he does not return to the house for 11 hours and 21 minutes he leaves his phone behind so that there is no ability to track the gps or location on the phone so there you have it uh the linguistic evidence confirmed by through the investigation uh through the search warrants on larry's phone and and there's all kinds of interesting things going on in that case a lot of other stuff that we're not privy to at this point but but that's the linguistic evidence if you want to know more check out my website truth2lives.com check out our courses they are the best if you love statement analysis i've made it as easy to understand as anyone can you're going to love these courses they are not only eye-opening they are super insightful it's powerful the statement profiling the linguistic statement analysis one of the most powerful investigative and interview tools that's out there go to the website truth2lives.com until next time speak great things be great do great things we all need each other make the world a better place not only for yourself but for your family those around you those you work with we all need each other especially in in this day and age i'll see you next episode