The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy aside of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. I've always found trying to understand the mind of a criminal a useful tool in solving crimes. Getting into the mind of a criminal can also prevent crimes before they occur.
It's a fascinating part of being a detective. That's why i'd about talking to today's guest Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Blake. Chris is a serving member of the New Zealand Police Force and he is the manager of the Behavioral Science Unit, a unit that was modeled on a similar unit established by the FBI. Chris's role is to ensure his team of psychologists and analysts provide support to investigators to solve
and prevent serious crimes. Today we talked about the history of the unit, Chris's own policing career, some interesting cases, and how the skills his unit provide assists investigators. This is real life mind Hunter stuff. You're going to enjoy it. Chris Blake, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Well, thanks, Garry, it's a pleasure to be here.
Well, I know how hard it can be for a serving police officer to get permission and approval to do anything in the media or come on a podcast like this, so I appreciate you making the effort.
No nowhere is at all. Hopefully we can do it.
Justice Parameters, Well, I think it's good for people to hear from serving police officer as a public because people's perception of what police are all about and it's very sort of black and white world. Are they the cops are the cops, And it's good to put a human
face to what we actually do. Yeah, absolutely, house things in New Zealand, police force because over here across the country, like I'm from New South Wales and we have the state police and the federal police, but we're really struggling to get people to join the police at the moment. Are you experiencing the same thing over in New Zealand?
Not that I can gather. I think almost the opposite. They seem to be pumping the wings through the college, so I'm not sure what's behind that. I think there's a lot of people hunting for jobs, and it's a secure job for life if you want it, so it's actually quite attractive at the moment for a lot of people.
I think, well, I think in today's day and age, having a secure job is a very good thing.
Yeah. Absolutely, I'm not qualified to do anything else, so I can't afford to lose my job. So I think a lot of people that do leave, Yeah, I find that they do come back eventually.
I found that over the years with people I knew that just hit the wall and I'm out of here. I hate this job. There's an easier life. There's a better life out there. If I put it on a percentage basis, I reckon ninety percent. Tried to get back in at some stage.
Yeah. Absolutely, unless you find something fantastic that just takes off and that's you. Then year people eventually go, actually, that wasn't that bad.
Well, and the beauty of being a cop, and I've had a few New Zealand cops on and so I get the understanding of the way you guys operate, and it's not this similar to how we operate. But the diversity of roles that you can get in policing is it's like a small gas board, isn't it. Oh it is.
You could probably think of any job you could do outside and most of them on some way, shape or form, you can probably find inside the police. You know. If you want to be a commercial diver, well there's a dive squad. You want to fly helicopters, well you could get a job on the police helicopter, you know, and everything in between. So it's pretty incredible.
No, Well, I'm always like to speak to people that like their job when they're they're police officers. You've found yourself in a I'm slightly jealous because I think it'd be fascinating the role that you've got now heading up the Behavioral Science Unit of New Zealand police. That must have been something that you were very excited about getting that role. Oh yeah, and it.
Sort of stumbled into it. It was a job I didn't really want for another ten years. I wanted to enjoy what I was doing, learn a bit more, get some qualifications. It was sort of like that pinnacle goal. And then when they advertised it, I wasn't even going to apply, and my wife suggests that I should, so that I throw my name and the hat and maybe next time they'll take a look at you. And then I got it. So I found myself going, this is insane.
How do I do this job? And totally reliant on the staff, the experts there to show me the.
Rope because you were a detective before then that I always liked and I work very closely with a psychologist in my time in homicide, doctor Sarah Yull, and I found it fascinating getting a different perspective on the way to approach investigations.
Yeah, definitely. It is looking from that behavioral angle and the steps that the offender has taken, rather than what as detectives we do, which is considering everything from a physical evidence sort of perspective. Yeah, quite different. But does
incorporate a lot of the similar sorts of things. You know, they are informed by the scene examinations and the suspect interviews and all that side of it very much looking at the offender and where they've come from, why they did what they did, how they did it, where they're going.
Well, it adds another tool to investigations and for people that don't fully appreciate what the role of that unit you're heading up at the moment, I just this is the description of the role that they play. Help advance police investigations by providing operational psychology advice. Psychological advice, I should say, help police to better understand criminal behavior and
the personalities of the people they deal with. Consult the high profile, complex and difficult to solve investigations where circumstances are often distressing, and the material graphic help provide profiles of unidentified offenders, complete indirect personality assessments, and conduct risk assessments across multiple domains. Now, I know we've got a lot of true crime listeners that tune into this, and
then people who are fascinated by crime. I think that would be really hitting the mark on the interesting aspect of criminal investigation.
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, it's come a long way since the nineteen eighties and the days of mind Hunter. Yeah, and you know, no longer are we going, you know, hey, that's your guy. But there's now been so much science between now I'm in then Now they can certainly go this is your type of guy, yeah, and this is how to go about looking for him.
Yeah, Well, we had were very Fortunately. I was so excited as like a little school kid. Doctor Anne Burgess who worked with John Douglas in the establishment of the FBI and the unit they had there tied in with the mind Hunter TV series that portrayed the work that they did, and it was fascinating getting her perspective on how it helped advance criminal investigations. So further on in the podcast, we're going to break it down the type
of things that Ken the unit can do. But I just want to talk a little bit about yourself first up and find out Okay, but what made you join the police to start with? You grew up in whereabouts in New Zealand? Did you grow up in?
I grew up in Auckland on the North Shore, So that's right. Now I've come a really long way.
I think like just keep moving forward there. So what inspired you to join the police.
It's a long story and a short one. So I never thought about being a cop. When I was younger, I was pilot and the Air Force ditched our a fighter squadron when I was a young teenager and then, yeah, my maths and physics scores were absolutely hopeless, so I never had an open hell of getting into the Air Force.
Just kind of off there. Just say that they scrapped the fire the squadron. That's the only thing that held you back.
Yeah, I was definitely destined for that. Yeah, it wasn't because I was thick, but I ended up joining. A couple of things happened while I was at high school that probably, on reflection, did impact where I end up, and one of those was Columbine in nineteen ninety nine. So I was thirteen when that happened in the States, a world away, but massive impact given the media coverage it had, right, and I just couldn't wrap my head around, you know, there's kids shooting kids, and mum a kid,
so a lot of thoughts around that. And then a year two years later, September eleven, so right at the time where I'm thinking, what should I be doing with my life? All my mates want to be engineers and counts and doctors, and they've got this life plan. I'm going, actually, there's more to the world than sitting on earning money.
So after my pilot dreams were shot down by my lack of brain, I ended up joining the Army Reserve into the infantry and some awesome stuff in there, you know, just the that mindset of we're just going to do this, synk it through it, no matter what brilliant brilliance training. But it definitely made me think I don't want to be wet, cold, tired and hungry twenty four to seven for the rest of my life. So I ended up
going what should I be doing? Full time? And the police then kind of came up as a pretty sound secondary option. So it wasn't until Army it even considered it. There are a few cops in the Army Reserves with me and they talked fondly about it. So I thought, I'll get that a crack for a couple of years and then do something else, And almost twenty years on, I'm sure there.
Well, maybe it was destinate choosing that path. What was it about the crimes that you talked of that fascinated you because you would have only been a teenager at that stage. What was it that really resonated with you when you saw the reports of Colombine and ninety eleven? What was it?
Yeah? I mean I just couldn't. I couldn't really understand it, right, you know, being thirteen and not knowing anything about psychology, let alone grievance and all of that sort of stuff. It just couldn't, for the life of me gather you know, you'd heard about terrorism and these words, and that people shoot people and murderers, but they have two kids walking to a school and do that. It was so bizarre
to me. And so you know, every article I could find, I'd be reading about it because I was just interested. And I think it took them a very long time to even unpack a lot of the wires behind that. And as you know, Gary, even if you get all the wires, it still doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Nice.
You know, when there are people around that have seen things and there's a bit of leakage, and there are people that are friends with these guys, and you just go, how does this happen? I mean, it's not happening all the time.
It's quite frightening what's happening. And we had Nathan Brooks on doctor Nathan Brooks who works in your unit and talking about crime, and even Am Burgess talking about where the future of crime could be. And these lone actors are definitely a concern, and it's just it feels volatile. I think all communities are feeling a little bit vulnerable for various reasons. But the ideologies that seem to be getting more extreme and the way that way that people react.
Just wind it back a little bit to the Army reserves. You said it was good in that you've got to address problems. Okay, we're going to overcome this, and that I honestly think that the military perceived as sort of concrete thinkers in just a perception of the military that they don't open their minds up to other alternatives. My experience of it, my observations of it, it's so far from the truth. It's not funny.
Yeah, absolutely, i'd agree with that. I think, you know, the tactics involved, they're pretty conferent because they have to be. Everyone's got to know what they're doing. If you're shot at and you're going to react to that. Everyone needs to know what they're supposed to do. But in terms of innovating and overcoming and adapting, Yeah, that's a component to it, right, And that's probably the unseen stuff that
people don't really consider. They just see the tactics or that concrete side of it, and that colors the whole idea of it.
Yeah, it's an interesting view. I even saw it in policing because I spent some time in tactical policing and also criminal investigations, and the criminal investigators were always paying out on the tactical dudes that they're just the knuckle draggers and all that. But I can honestly say when I've worked with them, sometimes you're sitting in the back of a vent or sometimes you do briefing or waiting or waiting for the briefing, and you'd have some quite
intellectual conversations. And I think it would surprise people because they just see the blikes running around in the black overalls and helmet on their head and carrying big guns and they think, Okay, these guys are just one dimensional, but it's so far from the truth.
Oh absolutely, And like over here, we're our Special Tactics Group, are our full time tactical team. But for years it's slightly changed. Now we've got this new tactical response model where you can be a full time operator but not
a the STG. But for so long at the arm Offender Squad and that was of part timers, so you had your day job, so you know, they'd be working with you in the CIB one day and you could be at a job with them and they're in their black gear and yeah, you're so right, like some of the questions in serious crime briefings that coming from those aoskuys sitting there and man, I don't even consider that, And I'm supposed to be running this show. Why do
you ask me that I hadn't even thought about that? So, yeah, absolutely, what a diverse group of guys and girls.
Yeah, policing the academy, where were you first stationed and your academy experience. And then I think it's always interesting in guests, no matter where their careers progressed in the policing, there's always something that's embedded in their mind from the early times in their policing because it's quite confronting when you walk out of the academy and you wear a
new uniform and you're actually a police officer. What were you What were your memories of coming out of the academy and hitting the streets.
Just getting thrown into it. Really, my memory is I had no idea what was going on. Leis College was five months and I loved that right coming out of the army. It was like a holiday in terms of the residential accommodation and how the days went, and people that had never experienced that before. It was quite a foreign environment for sure, But for me, I just love every second of it and just the camaraderie of it. It was awesome. But I popped out the end just going, actually,
so how do we do this again? Because the way that we were taught was, and no one's fault at all. You've got to be taught some really important stuff at college. You've got to be taught how to affect and arrest legally and I guess look after yourself and your mates, so how to use all those tactical options, and that's
probably the core stuff. So you get pumped full of that for five months, you pop out, and then you go you're going to domestics, talking to people that have been married for forty years that have had an argument. You're going what I supposed to do here? So those earlier years coming out were it was just a constant abuse, you know, because I looked ten years old. You know what was this bring your kid to work day?
Just constantly Yeah you on the yeah exactly.
So just finding your feet, bridging that gap between college and all the really important stuff they have to teach you and baptism. Fire out there on the street, learning by doing, and I guess ballsing a few things up on the way, learning from the people you're dealing with in your colleagues.
Yeah, you do get thrown in the deep end. And I caution people when they see police make a mistake that, you know, within six months of me being out of the academy, I would as a senior person on the car. So I'm the one making the decisions. And sometimes you're looking at people and they've got a uniform on. Then you think they've got all this experience and they're just yeah, babes in the woods.
Really, Oh yeah, I've got so much respect now, you know, Like people hang around for a while and then you move. You know, you might join the CIB or a technical group career. But I look back now and I look at how it's even changed in the nineteen years since I came out of college, and man, I've got so much respect for the guys and girls on the front line now. Just decisions they have to make now I
just go far out. Yeah, it's just completely changed. And they're doing it with only a couple of months on the street after college as well. It's incredible.
And I think there's more accountability now with social media, Like if we made a mistake. I know, when I went through the early stages of policing, it wasn't held up to public ridicule. It was someone would pull you aside and go, no, that's not how we do this, and you learn on the job. Now if you make a mistake, you become a TikTok sensation and yeah, you're humiliated. There's a lot of pressure.
Totally, and and I sort of sit on the fence there because I go, you know, we don't want to go the way of Russia. So you know, having intrusive scrutiny and criticism of enforcement as fantastic and we should. But on the other hand, you go. Yeah, like just sick and guessing themselves all the time, because if someone's filming, are they going well, if that little bit got taken out of context, that's going to look bad. Yeah, what a crazy twenty first century world.
I don't mind the accountability. Like the police, we need to be accountable, but there also needs to be a level of putting in perspective and understand the context of what's happening, like when they see someone yelling at someone, they don't know what the lead up to that has been.
And yeah, there's still as police, we've got to work within the parameters that were allowed to But yeah, accountability, yes, but also let's give a little bit of latitude understanding that people are learning to do their job as well.
That's right and perspective, right, Like where I came out of college, you know, there are only a couple of frontline cars out on a night shift. You know, sometimes you just have to get the job done quickly because you've got ten other more important jobs waiting. So you might say something that on reflection, you know, looks bad, but you just kind of move on to the next most important thing. And that that's just stuff that people don't see you know.
Yeah, what how long did you stay in uniform before you went into playing clothes?
Not very long, so there's only three years for me, And it was around about that time where it was becoming more common to go quicker. But you know, there was definitely a list on the whiteboard of the d S and you know, you were ninth cab off the rank and it was going to take you a couple of years to get there. So it was just at the turning point of that. So I was quite lucky I got into that to a playing clothes volume crime drug squad that was not down to me at all.
There's a couple of guys there that vouched for me, and I landed that gig. And then there that was sort of the stepping stone. Everyone that was on that team got sort of encouraged to join the CIB. So I just didn't really have any desire even then, but just sort of got swept up in that and went along for the ride.
And what did you find that something must have triggered your interest in working in COB What was it that you found interesting about that aspect of pleasing Yeah, I.
Guess I started to like what I initially didn't. When I was in the uniform. You know, you walk past the interview suite and you'd see the detectives and you'd go, that sounds horrible. I don't want to be sitting into your room for hours. Or you'd be standing on a corner in a crime scene and the poor detectives are in there for days, and you'd go, I love my job,
just going job to job, job. And it wasn't until on that plane, closed unit, just sitting down talking to Irisi arrested and just going, well, there's so much more to this, and this isn't black and white, this is gray. And I think it was just dealing with people for longer periods of time, which, okay, this is actually what the CIB is about. We're actually spending more time doing the same things so that we get that better chance
of a good outcome. And I think that's where I sort of had that light bulb moment and went, Okay, this just makes sense. Now I'm going to get better at my job if I go down this pathway, whether I circle back to uniform or not. So yeah, it was sort of a no brainer.
We had had a chat a week or so ago and you were talking about one case that you got called to called out to a murder and you didn't have many details and you had to speak to the suspect then custody. Tell me what you learned about that particular matter, and that sort of change your view on what's important in that interview room. You were talking about interview rooms. What was that case? What were the circumstances there? Because I found that fascinating when you were telling me.
Yeah, so there must have been about around about twenty twelve, I think or just after, but a lady called Jasmine Cooper got killed up in Tahana, which is a little town right at the north northern boundary of Auckland. I
guess before you head into Northland. And I've just come off a advanced interviewing course and that had taught us a lot about sort of folks zeroing in on forgetting about the wider pressures of homicide investigations and court and who's going to be watching and all that kind of stuff, and it's focusing it and all an interviewers as a conversation with someone else, you don't have to know everything
before you go into it. And that was another light bulb moment for me, and I think even to this day, you know, by and large, policing hasn't caught up with that.
You know.
It's there's so much pressure to do the tick box one to twenty steps in a robotic fashion because that's the way, that the easiest way to teach it. Yeah, and we go, I don't know anything about this. How am I gonna get his free recall and write all my questions down and make sure I asked them right that With this one, I couldn't even do a plan because I don't know anything about it. So I get this.
I'm asleep and I get a call from the DC here and he just goes, you see, to go up to Tihana And I'm like, cool, where's that And he's like, it's about an hour and a bit north. The guys have locked him up, so he's in the cells. Run assault, but that's it, and he's been in the cell for about an hour. He says, just go up and interview him. And I'm like, on what, well he's he's killed his ex partner and I'm going, oh, has he Well, we
don't even know. So we race up there thinking it over and get up there and there's nothing to go on, so we just stuff that, let's just go and then have a chat to him, because we're gonna have to do that anyway. That's exactly what we did, and we just talkalked about nothing for a couple of hours in the interview room because there was nothing I knew about
the case to raise. He denied it all, of course, and after a couple of hours he just sits there and he just goes, well, you know, I guess I should probably tell you the truth now, and then he gives us a blow by blow of the entire incident, absolute tragic family harm argument that his anger got the better of him and and he's killed his ex partner
and gave it an incredible detail. And I walked away from that just going, we really need to get better at trying, you know, rather than just sort of going, oh, you don't want to make a statement, do you, and then walking away, which I think there is a little bit these days because there's so much pressure and a million things to do, it's just actually going I can just sit with this person and just chat unless it goes and if they're going to sit in the room
with me and chat hey, happy days. Who knows whether that's going to lead to getting any kind of truth out of them, but we'll give it a go, and you just never know where that's going to lead. So that taught me that as don't be too quick just to shoot yourself on the foot and say, I don't really have much to say here, let's go.
I think a couple of points that you've made there, just the fact that you prepared to sit down and chat with someone and get that rapport happening. Get them to feel comfortable, because someone feels comfortable if you just especially you're in an interview room, sit down, just have a conversation. You can talk on the proof of stuff and all that, let them feel comfortable and you start to get that relationship that develops relationship. People get shocked
by what do you mean relationship? I think if you're in a room with someone long enough for a relationship of what context of a relationship? Who knows who cares? But a relationship, a connection occurs. I saw a lot of cops as you identified there, so they're not going to talk, not going to try. And I would see people that I looked up to mentors of mine in
the way that they operated in the interview room. And I'd like to to think I did it myself throughout my career or a latter part of my career, where I'd go into the interview room and walk out and go, yeah, they've confessed, and people think what's gone on in the interview room? They look like you've done something wrong and invariably sitting down talking And I also say to people this, So I think there's a lot of confessions come on this basis. Think of the worst thing you've ever done
and holding that just on your own. You want to tell someone, you want to get it off your chest. Quite often, I found that people made confessions in the interview room because they wanted to unburden themselves with what they were trying to hide. So, yeah, it's amazing what can come out of the interview room if you're prepared to sit there.
Absolutely, and you know there's so much focus on and rightly, so there's hyper focus on all the safeguards these days, right and that police have screwed it up for so many years and interviewed illegally, appressively, unfeeling. Now we have a wealth of guidance on how to do it right. And there's so much of that and that all has to be taught that they don't actually teach how to
actually have the conversation like a normal person. Everyone's so focused on robotically doing the rights and the room set up, and I'm going through this list and I've got my interview plan and this is going to trial, and the holy hell people are going to watch me, and I need to make sure that I, you know, the offender is bad because cops occurred, and there's black and white and that's what the jury is going to think, and
all of that stuff just colors the whole interview. And it's just like, you can do all that stuff and still just actually have a normal conversation without judgment, and then the conversation starts flowing. And that's that's what needs to change in the in the training side of things, it's just be yourself, be normal, and there's no tricks involved in it.
It's human nature. It allow human nature. Some of the preambles we had to read on before the recording. It evolved over the years because when recording came in, the electronic recording of interviews, but sometimes you'd have to you'd sit there and you'd read out a page verbatim and you see the person seeing there going what's going on? And it was hard to explain even what you were reading out. There were so many do you agree with this?
And this? And it was just it was crazy. But yes, I think, and I'd like to put everything in front of the jury, you know, when it's said and done. Put it all in front, not this sanitized version of Okay, this is what said, and I am now going to caution you. Yeah, we get that, you've got to put the caution in and you've got to protect people's rights, but let people see what actually goes on and then form their own views from whether it was oppressive like
in New South Wales. You no threat, promise or inducement. I understand that, but sitting talking to someone can't really fit into the threat, promise or inducement. You're just having a conversation with a person. The other point that you made that the way interviewing is people are taught to interview, like the list of questions, a series of questions. Mistakes I've seen made when I'm observing someone doing and I probably did it myself. You'll have your twenty questions that
you want to get out. I'm sitting here asking you and I'm just I've asked that question. I've asked that question, but you've probably given an ambiguous answer that means nothing when it comes to court anyway. You've got to actually listen to what the person is saying and then expand on it if you need to expand on it or clarify.
So that's right, and being comfortable like going around in circles and coming back to things, you know, like that Peace model of interviewing is fantastic. What a great guy. And you get the free recall first, then you ask some questions you want to ask, and then it gets a bit more adversarial towards the end. But you know, you can get caught up and the questions you want to ask and you go, we got that one out, let's move on to the next. And in person you're
interviewing introduces something from left field. You know, you go, well, that doesn't compete with my plan. Not shut up enough about that, I want to do my thing, and actually you're just killing the conversation. And people just need to be comfortable going, yeah, I'm going to go wherever you take me if you want to talk about that one hundred percent, let's talk about that. Mother doesn't matter. I
can come back to that latter. I joined the police knowing it's going to be like this, so I shouldn't bock off, you know, five minutes ago.
And I was given some good advice very early in that you come into the interview room, you control the pace of the interview room because you see some interviews go off track and it's like the cops are losing their way and oh, this is not going the plan. You see it falling apart. You can stop the interview. I'm just going to take a break now, step outside and have a rethink about what the strategies are that
you get the approach. But I, from my point of view, that was one of the most interesting parts of policing. I love love the interview room. The pressure was on, but I did love the interview room because quite often you'd be on a lengthy investigation and it was all coming to the crunch in the next six or so hours that you spending the interview room speaking to the person. So fascinating area of policing.
Yeah, one hundred percent something I still really enjoy. You know, it's just being able to sit in that room with someone and just go whatever reasons that we're here talking. You know, that single reason doesn't color your whole life, you know. And I'm happy to sit in that room and get to know somebody and all of the good parts of their life as well as the reason we hear and not have fear that I'm going to be judged harshly by the public for looking like I'm having
a nice conversation with a murderer. Right, we should feel that pressure there. We're still doing our job, but we don't be a complete dick to the person we're sitting across the table from.
Well, I've got it. Well, i'll save it. But I've got a quote that I've pulled out of some of the material I've got on of what you've said about the way that you look at policing them the way it should be approached. It'll touch on what you're talking about there, because it's it might be considered a fairly liberal view of a police officer to say, yeah, oh, well, I'm not going to judge judge the person, and but you're doing your job and I think you get better results.
But we'll explore that a little bit a little bit further in the in the podcast Criminal Informants. Did you get to work with a lot of criminal informants in your COB days.
Yeah, definitely, And it's part of a part of the business for the CIV right, And most of the time it just falls naturally out of doing your job, and it's that having a normal conversation, like we were just talking about. So if you go to every search warrant and every person your arrests and you're a complete deck,
they're not going to want to talk to you again. Yeah, but it's just normal and you do your job, but you're you're fair and you're reasonable, and then you find when you run into those people again, which you often.
Do, yeah, invariably.
Yeah, that's right, you feel like you know them and they feel like they know you a bit as well. So then the conversation starts and that's just kind of like part two of what you'd kept off earlier, and so naturally a lot of those interactions would develop into informant relationships. Yeah, and that's the way it's been for decades usually, that's how it works in the CIBA.
Had any interesting informants if you've dealt with informants, you would have had some interesting ones that turn your life upside down, because it's sort of I describe it as almost like a marriage or relationship when you're dealing with an informant and whatever problems the informant has in their life apparently you're responsible for and you're getting these late night calls. Have you experience that without identifying the informant? Oh?
Yeah, of course, right, And it's partly because you know you're rooting for these people, you know, and you feel really I always used to feel really humble taking those because I go, man, I've got a simpler existence and I don't have much to complain about, really, and you're talking to these people who their lives are so complicated, and you just I couldn't even function if I was living your life, and so yeah, and trying to do
right by them. And as a result, Yeah, you're taking those calls late at night and listening to their whole life, isn't it. That's what because you're in it. You're in it with them their whole life. You're not just there to listen to what they have to say about whatever it is you might be interested in. You're invested, and so when they're sick, you're listening to it and you're trying to talk them through it. If they're fighting with
their partner, you're trying to talk them through it. And yeah, it's full on.
Okay, Well I get you. You understand that because quite often and a lot of my investigations involved informants. And yeah, the defense quite rightly when the matter goes to court, the tax of relationship with the informant and you know, did you offer a discount their senses? Did you offer them money, did you do this? Did you do that?
What they didn't understand and what defense never got through. No, I just treated the person with respect because they were confused as to why is this person doing what they're doing most occasions, in the serious situations, putting their lives at risk. Why, Well, you haven't actually asked me. If you ask me a general question, I'd say, because they respect what I've done and I've given them respect, and quite often they haven't had respect their whole life.
So it's absolutely right. And nobody is all bad and no one's all good. Everyone sits somewhere in the middle. So because you might cook myth you know, once, that's not you twenty four to seven, and there's a whole lot of crime that you don't agree with. And that's the nuance that I think has missed when people look objectively and they just go, it's black white. You're either police or you're not. If you've committed a crime, you're a criminal. And that's the box you're in. Why would
you talk to anyone? And the police and they can't wrap their heads around it, but actually rued as people and some of us get along.
Yeah, And I think the defense in their hard line of thinking what are you offering this person and just treating him with respect? One I had that probably and I say this jokingly, it didn't go too far. It was all documented the relationship. But I got a phone call. I think it was in the weekend. I don't know about informants, but they always managed to reach out at the most inappropriate time. So it's whenever you're just about to do this or just about to do that, and
then you're going to put your life on hold. But I've got a call from a hospital and this informant had been admitted to hospital and asked, you know Gary Jubilan yep and mentioned the name of the person. He's in hospital. I said, Okay, why are you finding me? We got you down. He's got you down as next of kin. Okay, what's up with him in the hospital. He had a bag of heroin that he had ingested that it bursts or whatever. So, yeah, these are the
situations you've got to deal with with informants. But I often say to police, cultivate. Now I hate the word cultivate because it makes like you're manipulating the person. But the importance of building relationships with criminal informants will help you as a.
Detective, absolutely. And you see that other side of it, then, right, you actually, unlike the suspect and of you, you see the other side and their lives and some of the things that are going on in your life start to actually make sense, and you go, I actually kind of get this now. If I had to walk in your shoes, your whole childhood right through to now, I can understand why these things are going on for you. And to get that perspective as only helpful in the context of the rest of your job.
Okay, let's talk about the behavioral science unit and a bit of the history of it. And it was an interesting history of the notes I've got here who was established in nineteen ninety eight, but between nineteen eighty two and nineteen ninety six there were something like seventy stranger based sexual assaults of the CURD and that was sort of the genesis of how the unit evolved. Can you
talk us through that, because I found that fascinating. It'll give people a real insight into what we're talking about here and what value a unit like the one you're managing brings to an investigation.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So it was around about nineteen ninety three, and so that our unit didn't exist, of course, and Counties Manacau dealt with two intruder rapes, nighttime ones with child victims, and you know, detectives being they're really intelligent people that they are having two of those in the space for a couple of weeks when they are not things that happen, being really intelligent that when man, this might actually be linked or could potentially be the
same person. And so they kick off an investigation to try and find this unknown offender. And during the course of that investigation, which was monumental, they reached out to reached out offshore to the FBI, who were the only sort of people doing it at the time. I think the UK were doing it but had a slightly different take on it and brought back a bit of that behavioral analysis to it and came up with this suspect
list of thousands of people. And so the investigation just had to go around speaking to these thousands of people and taking blood off them to see a sea food match. So it wasn't for about eighteen months that they caught up with Joseph Thompson and so they lock him up and it turns out that once they do that, he confesses to a raft of these offenses stretching right back into the early eighties. So he was operating undetected for that length of time, not undetected, and that the crimes
were reported, but they were dealt with individually. You know, Okay, rapis happened, I can't find any offenders here, and it gets filed and then three months later that happens again, and nobody had linked them all together because everyone's busy.
Right, So when Joseph Thompson was arrested, how many charges are we talking about here?
From memory? I mean, in terms of the intruder rapes that he was carrying out. I think it was forty plus somewhere in that regard. But there was a wealth of other offending that he was responsible for, you know, unlawfully on property, burglaries where they maybe couldn't get towards that sexual evidence threshold. So it would have been in the hundreds that he was actually ended up convicted of.
Yeah, and was he the first New Zealand serial rapist? Had you experienced that type of thing before on that magnitude?
Yeah, I mean certainly to that degree. Right, I'm sure there must have been in the distant past other serial offenders, but he was the one where you know, you're talking you know, forty plus, like that's a massive amount, and over over nearly twenty year period, it was definitely the biggest first that that New Zealand had ever encountered.
Yeah, it's a horrific, horrific crime spray, Isn't it absolutely tragic? Any anything come out about what may? Evyd? Do you aware of any of the backstory too?
So him not so much. So he admitted he freely admitted a lot soon he was arrested, right, So he was one of those guys who said, look, this is who I am. I know I've got this problem, this is what I've done. I know that what I do is wrong, but I just can't help it. So, you know, the sexual fantasy element for him was massive, and he just couldn't overcome those thoughts and just keep them inside. He had to d Yeah, that's what drove me, have
to act on them. So he knew that there was something wrong in terms of his thoughts and what he was doing, but he just couldn't couldn't stop them. But in terms of his background, you know, he had a bit of a tragic upbringing, but it was nothing. It was nothing startling. It's not the cliche where you think a sexual offender must have been sexually abused, but there's always something in their past. There's some sort of trauma or something tragic, but it's not always sexual. So we
hare Joseph Thompson. And then despite saying off the back of that, well we're not going to have that again, we'll make sure that doesn't happen, then it started happening again and there was another.
Serial cerial rapist here. Yeah.
Yeah, And so when Joseph Thompson's in prison, suddenly there's are these other offenses happening, and they were happening in Counties manacau which is South Auckland, and in Auckland City, and both of those are different policing areas, and they started off their own separate investigations looking for this person. The original boss of the unit I named Chuck Henwood.
He had worked on the Joseph Thompson case, so he got seconded to the Auckland City second thing and goes, man, your files over here in the city are really similar to this these ones we're dealing with in South Auckland. Again, realize that they're looking for the same guy again, so
they merge these investigations very similar process. Eventually they pick up Malcolm Riwa and I remember these names because I was a kid at the time and they were on the news, and with Joseph Thompson, I didn't really understand what was going on, but those two cases were the genesis of the unit. So after that, the organization when we can't have this, we can't have serial rapists and their crimes not being linked together over decades because we
need to be able to stop this. Districts don't talk to each other, probably similar to Ossie the different state police forces don't talk to each other. If you get a rape case, you're not just going to randomly reach out to the other end of the country to go, hey, do you have anything similar? There might be number three hundreds,
two hundred things to do. So they set up the unit to track every stranger based sexual offense the country, to have a one stop shop for it, so that if a new thing cropped up and it looks similar to one that was unsolved, we could link them together. So that was the early genesis of it, and it's evolved massively since then with psychology and all the rest of it.
So with that, at the time when they reached out to the FBI, was it a case of just stain in contact with the FBI and getting them to have a look at it that, Okay, we're getting all these rapes. Do we think they're linked? And the FBI would give you a way of linking the crimes the methodology of the way the offender gained entry into the place, I suppose, or different things, or the nature the way that the offender treated the victim. Is that the type of thing that brought them all together.
Yeah, definitely, So the FBI would have said, or they did. You know, it's a exactly what's happened here, like how have they gotten? What have they actually done? And based on that they are able to go this is the type of guy that you're looking for based on our experience over in North America. So they're able to whittle it down, not massively, to an age range. And this is the type of crime you might expect to see
in this person's background. So if he's you know, if he's breaking a home in the middle of the night and be able to do that, well, that doesn't just come out of nowhere. So that's the experience. And how does how does that person learn they must be familiar with burglary or some other similar type of offending, so that that all armed that suspect list that they then went through and took the blood the blood's from, But they then needed to sort of New Zealand a fire,
I guess. So they then said, we've got this knowledge now, and they started to create their own database of offenders and there I guess their histories and things, and our computer system at the time, couldn't you search for that kind of stuff really well and still come So they just constructed it behavioral database essentially as opposed to a criminal history database, and that was the early start of that work. And then we sort of went away from
the FBI a little bit. As far as I'm aware, the Canadians sort of overtook because we're far more in common legally and jurisdiction. Yeah, Canadians, so that RCMP now have really close relationship with We go over to them for training and we use their software system, which is that behavioral database for use today. So now our closest relationship overseas is definitely with the Canadians.
Okay, it's interesting how it evolved that around that era that you're talking with the serial fenders, because it was something we quite often the different law enforcement agencies operated in silos, like not communicating and then even then won like New Zealand Police or New South Wales Police, which is covering the big area, you don't know what the local area. What's happening in the local area's command is
how thin because you're not working on it. So making that link, but I think the beauty of what they bring and when you look at it, it's not rocket science, is it. You don't sort of stand back Oh, that's amazing. It's almost a common common sense approach to the way that you would look at the crime.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what I've found. And it's almost you know, a lot of the advice given is, you know, a good detective will already have an inkling and they kind of stamp on it from the people that have the signature block that says behavior Science Unit, registered psychologist, And that is so true. But at the same time, I've just seen that the people on the team are just incredible.
They can take any case and just go, based on their own experiences, go this is kind of where you need to be going, which just saves so much time rather than going down twenty six paths all at the same time, and that can really narrow it to just one or two, which is just.
What I don't think people appreciate that haven't worked in major crime or crimes of this nature. Serial defending how much information comes in too. It's almost like you've overwhelmed with information, So it's about analyzing that information, collating it all. The start with analyzing it, then pick out what's important and what's not important.
Yeah, totally, and without somebody sort of guiding you you're going I you know, you're taught that you've got to keep that open mind and a tunnel vision because we've been there and had our ass is handed to us for doing that and rightly so for decades, and so you can consider it all and it's really helpful to have someone go, well, actually, if the offenders done this, this and this, they can be this type of person.
That's fantastic. You can focus your resources while still looking at those other things, but you're not suddenly having to juggle a million balls all at once.
And that breaking it down simply. I knowed there was a case I worked on when homicide was homicide and Serial Violent Offenders unit that wire and we're doing serial rapists as well, and there was a rapist that was operating in the area of Sydney and multiple victims, but always the offenses were occurring on a Tuesday or Thursday night.
I think it's a long time ago. Looking back at it, we saw the pattern and then when the person was actually arrested, it was obvious he was living at home, but he was telling his partner at the time that he was at tech on the Tuesday and Thursday nights that were the nights that he was going to after hours study, so that's when he was out and about, and that's when the offenses were always occurring, from that six o'clock to nine o'clock time on the Tuesday or
Thursday night. And I look back at that and it's all these little bits of experience that you gain the longer you stay in it. And I think it would have been a smart play when we were appealing to the public with anyone with information, we know this person is not at their home between the hours of six pm nine pm on the Tuesday and Thursday night, if anyone knows someone blah blah blah. Little things like that can be very very helpful.
Yeah, definitely, And still to this day where we don't do that, do we not often enough? Anyway? Yeah, absolutely, if you know when it's happening, there's a reason for it. They're clearly not otherwise supposed to be. Otherwise they probably would have been dubbed in by somebody. Yeah, someone thinks they're somewhere and they're not. So Yeah. Definitely, like getting that stuff early and being able to put that out in the media.
What's your thoughts on using the media in investigations because I know there's different schools of thought with impolicing sometimes whether the media do I thought during my career and post career they are always a good tool if they were used properly. The media the information that you could put out one hundred.
Percent, Like so many cases, the majority of cases have a media element to them. There's no SPS crime that doesn't these days. And I've always yeah, I've always found to be nothing other than helpful ethical, you know. But what people kind of get caught up in is I think a lot of cops think that the journalists are trying to do their job for them, and like they have this clash like I've been doing my job because
I'm the detective and you're not. But I don't quite realize that you have a completely separate job and they both come with their own legal parameters, pressures, objectives which are slightly different. But that's okay, and there's so much overlap and you can work together. So as long as there's not that like clash through nothing other than ignorance, I think then amazing, amazing the media on board for investigations.
I think it needs to be used from policing point of view and now I've got the opportunity to say it from the media point of view and the police point of view. Now working in the media, but from the place point of view, and I reference Sarah Yule again, I would often consult her, what's the message I'm going
to put out? Because when I'm looking down the camera and I'm talking on in the media, there's not one word that I'm not saying without a purpose to ever either get a witness to come forward or get a reaction from the offender. And I think it's sort of frowned upon in policing, but I think it's something that we could exploit more really put pressure. And I've used it. We've organized crime. I've used it in serial offenders, all sorts of high profile cases where I'm sending the message
out in an organized crime one. We created that the way that we were discussing the crime. We had multiple unlimited resources coming after these people, and I know at panic them. I had solicits contacting me, how many murders are you going to be charging our client with? We didn't have any evidence, but and we didn't make an untrue representation, but we created the thought that time sticking away you better get in now, because sooner or later we're going to come and knock on your door.
Yeah, and it's and that's the honest true, isn't it? Like we don't use that enough in police We don't. I think there is that rigidity around. Well, I'm only going to tell the media and therefore the public what I want out there, and nothing else is fair game. But at some point it's like we'll hang on what's the media's role and what could be helpful here? And beyond that, like what if we're actually trying to achieve we actually want to arrest the people responsible for this.
They're going to probably watch this too. How else we can we use this for advantage low normal people rather than standing there like robots and just delivering a couple of things. But yeah, that message is massive, right, And then they're on the phone straight away and a lot of people are panicking. Have got nothing to do with it.
I did one, and it's on the Willim Tyrill matter. You might have heard about that, the young boy that disappeared. It was let it. It was the end of my career. I got into trouble, probably aware of that. But when I took the investigation over. I made it very clear, and I came up with the strategy. I wanted to put pressure on people to come forward and had a map of where we disappeared from and said this is
a one square kilometer. Anyone that lives in that one square kilometer that has not come forward and spoken to police makes me wonder why you haven't come and spoken to police. Now what that did? I had some complaints, so that was very aggressive that what you're doing. But it flushed people out. Obviously we haven't solved it. It didn't work, but it was a strategy. It's better than sitting there going I don't know what's happened. Like, we came up with a strategy and tried to flush people out.
And that's great. Right, people need a why, They need a reason. Yeah, Like so many people sit there knowing things about things and they go. But I'm not going to be the one to step up and tell the police, but I think somebody should. It's not usually the case that there's one hundred people that know and they're all just digging their heels and then don't want to talk. They do want to offload, and they just need to be given the reason to do it so that they
get is absolute goal. Just if you're within the zone and you haven't come and talked about here's that little drive to go, well I'm within that zone. Okay, well I guess now is the right time. That's brilliant and that should be used all the time.
Another one was with the William Tyrell case, that when we're putting out the reward or talking about it, that anyone that's watching this, if the person that you're watching it with might appear disinterested, overly disinterested, or might overreact or just making I'm thinking, if someone's sitting there that's involved in it, sitting there with a friend, a family member or whatever, and the William Tyrell matter comes up on TV, they turned the TV off, or turn the
radio down, or close the newspaper. They don't want to talk about it, or they're fixated on it. Something like that. Little triggers that might flush flush people out. But it's something that you're unit was formed on the basis of the FBI. Very early in my policing career, I read the book by John Douglas Mind Hunter, and it was a long time ago that I read it, But what really stuck in my mind was the way he would strategically use the media to bring information, bring witnesses, ford
or flush the offender out. And I think it's a strategy that's under used in policing.
Yeah, definitely, you want me reach, right, So why wouldn't you use every single evenue that you could.
Yeah, yeah, well it's a tool, it's a tool. It's just I want to break down more of the work that the unit does. But just before we finish part one, what's the makeup of your unit? Just describe the behavioral science unit. How many people are you got working on it and how do people access the unit?
Yeah, we're really small, so there's only five people on the team. There's two registered psychologists and then three behavioral analysts and their work is added into that. The analysts are doing that serial sexual offender behavioral capture work and are advising major crime investigations. And we're just a support unit, so we don't hold cases. We're not investigating ourselves, so we don't work on things proactively. Investigation teams have to reach out to us. So that's just kind of a
marketing exercise. You know. We go and talk on training courses and sell what we can do and put things on the intranet to say what we can do, and then you know someone somewhere and most stations know that we exist, and often we're just grateful people reach out and go, how, I don't know if you can help with this, but just thought we'd reach out to you.
So a lot of that, and then you get a lot of repeat customers because if you do a good job for somebody, they'll come back for everything, which is great. So it very much gets skewed towards areas that have maybe used us before. So there's definitely parts of the country that don't use us so much.
And I laugh at that because I used to The standing joke with Sarah Yule and myself was that I thought she was my own private criminal psychologist. It was on call twenty four to seven. But yeah, I'm that guy. I just and I was quite cranky and jealous when she was going to other investigations. I thought I had sole access. But we joke on that. But that's very much how it played out in New South Wales too, and where people got to see the skills that a
psychologists can bring to the investigation. Okay, I want to call in that expertise and what I found from an investigator's point of view, and I know others like the others that have used as the resources. It gives you a different perspective. You can get that group think in a police environment. You're all in the incident room together, you're talking, and then a psychologist comes in and looks at it a little bit differently from the way a
police perspective. Do you see that in the work that you're doing with the unit, Yeah, definitely.
And a real common one is major crome investigations looking for advice on interviewing somebody you know, And that's I like those ones because coming from the operational background, I see, you know, that's something that that would be really useful. And you get so many where they're like, okay, so what we're going to do is we're going to smash in their doors at six am with the armed offenders squad, going to rip them out of their bed. We're going
to throw them in the car, get them in the cell. Cool. Once we've done that, how do we make them talk to us? You got to go, yeah, okay, well just throwing this out there, but are you going to lose anything? If maybe you don't smash his door in, or are you going to lose anything if you actually go see them at three pm? Or let's be really wild, what if you ring in and give them a heads up, you know, and just throwing out these ideas and sometimes
they are undoable, right. There are some cases you want the elements of surprise so you don't lose evidence. But that is such a ridge way of thinking. You know that we have to do it and take them by surprise, and you kind of go, okay, but do you have all your evidence already? Yep? Are you expecting to find any more at this place?
Not? Really?
Okay? Well, hey, you've got so many great options now, or knock that conversation before it even starts.
I'm laughing here, Chris, because I'm probably laughing at myself because I was probably those cops that we're going to smash the door in six am and make a big impact. But yeah, that's that's exactly the type of thing I think that a unit like yours can bring to investigators, just that different perspective because we might have been working on for three months and we're so hard. We are going to catch these guys and we're going to hit them hard. And then but why won't they talk to us?
Oh, we're thinking I've done it too earlier, and you go really show him. I'm going to really know what he's done is wrong because I'm going to go in at six am and then you know, man, when he sits in that cell, he's really going to be steering things over and diferent perspectives. No, he's not. He's been in itself so many times. There is nothing you can do that he hasn't seen before. In fact, the way he is is probably the result of police treating him
like that for so many years. So why don't we just do this a little bit different and I don't know, treat them like an ordinary person because that's the way that we should be treating people. And so do we need to do ABC and D. Why don't we just do it this other way instead?
Yeah, there's definitely And that's a fascinating part about the strategies and the direction you take it. Let's have a break now, when we come back, we'll dissect more of what the unit does and try to give people an understanding of how it actually actually works. So if we have a break and we'll come back for a part two