¶ Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
I am drained. I've been looking for her for twenty four hours. They should have taken me instead of her. Now that's a direct quote, y'all. And if you were watching TV that night when the boyfriend of a mother of a two year old child was making a statement on TV, you might have thought, Man, this poor guy, he's been searching for this baby and Kate Finder. But if you had taken statement analysis like I have, there's some things about that statement that would have made you
sick to your stomach. Later they found that the boyfriend had dumped the two year old's body and a storm drain. Statement analysis is something that I believe every rookie officer and seasoned detective should have. I believe prosecutors in CSI and EMTs and paramedics should have it. Anyone that could possibly hear a spontaneous utterance from a victim or a suspect or a witness should have statement analysis. Y'all Tonight,
¶ Sheryl introduces Jack Fox to Zone 7
we are lucky to have with us Jack Fox. He's a former media professional who shifted his focus from influencing people with his own words to uncovering how others use their words to deceive. He has analyzed statements of serial killers, public apologies, disgrace celebrities. We've had a few of those lately. And he has developed a system that has over fifty indicators to assess the truthfulness or deception in statements. Now y'all can follow him and has an allo says on
his own channel, never a truer word. His clients include law enforcement, private investigators, human resource professionals, investigative journalists, and private individuals. Jack Fox, Welcome to z own seven.
Hey, Cheryl, thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor to be here.
Absolutely, I'm digging the accent. We're going to have a good time. Maybe we can understand each other the whole way through.
I'm going to talk very slowly and clearly.
Oh I love the way you talked, Sugar. All right now listen. You and I started messaging each other after Georgia had a school shooting incident on September the fourth,
¶ Case Study - Colt Gray's School Shooting Incident
and you and I once we started to see a released video where the alleged shooter, Cole Gray, was interviewed a year prior to the school shooting. Now, for everybody that might not know, in Georgia, a fourteen year old Colt Gray has been arrested for a school shooting that occurred on September fourth, where he killed four people, two students and two teachers, and injured nine others. And it all started about nine thirty eight am, when first period ended,
students had about seven minutes between classes. Colt was fixing the head to his second period class, which was algebra, started about nine forty five. Once he was in the classroom, he wasn't there long and asked to go to the restroom. He was given permission. By nine point fifty, his mama was calling the school saying there was a quote extreme
emergency end quote. She had received a text message from her sign that simply said I'm sorry, so she panicked, thinking he was either going to hurt himself or possibly others. The school administration got involved, the school counselor got involved. They tried to find where is he right now? They determined he was an algebra class. When they went to go get him and pulled a student out of class to talk to him, it was the wrong student. It was a student, same class, same time, same grade, with
a similar name. Colt comes back for the bathroom. The door when it shuts behind you when you leave the class locks automatically like a hotel room door. There's a small narrow pane of glass in the door where students got up to go let him back in, but possibly noticed he had a weapon and did not allow him entry into the classroom. Very quickly after that, there were
ten to fifteen shots that rang out. There may have been an opportunity to intervene a a year before, when the FBI got intelligence that an IP address associated with Colt Gray at his former address, had made some statements about a school shooting. Now I'm going to be very clear, Jack and I are not here to Monday Morning quarterback. We are not saying anyone failed to do their job. We are not saying anybody is responsible for what happened
on September fourth, except the shooter. What we do want to do is talk a little bit about what statement and analysis can do for you in any investigation, and how if they had had those tools, they might have been able just on the fly to hear some things that Colt Gray said or didn't say that might have pushed them to talk to him a little longer and maybe even more aggressively. So Jack, I'm going to let
¶ Analyzing Colt Gray's Statements
you take it over and I want you just to kind of talk to us about as soon as you saw the video, and Colt's father started talking and then he went in the house and he got cold and brought him outside. Some of the things that were said and what those things meant to you.
Yeah, I think that in statement analysis, Cheryl, you can learn a lot about through truth and deception by analyzing someone's words, and you can also learn a lot about someone's personality and what was in their head at the time they're talking. And I think having watched this video, I get a lot about the father calling what sort of person he is, what's important to him, And then
from Colt I get deception from him around this. I think the police went there because there was an allegation someone had made a comment about shooting up the school on a discord server. It came from their old address. They tracked Colt down and they wanted to talk to him about that, and so they talked to Colin for quite a while, which is interesting within itself. Maybe we'll
come back to that later. But when Colt comes out finally, the detective says to or the policeman says to him, Hey, Colt, what's going on, Bud, so did your dad kind of explain everything? And then Coleke says he said something about shooting up a school and then they detected. The policeman sorry again, says this really pertinent question. The question is the crux of the whole visit. Did you say something about a school shooting? And Colt's answer is never. I
just told him I don't know what. Maybe they must hurt somebody else. I don't remember saying that. And the policeman interjects, never ever said, and Colke interrupts and says, no,
¶ Indicators of Deception in Colt's Words
I swear now under my system, in those very few words, there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight nine indicators that deception could be happening within that answer. So if you had some training in statement analysis, your ears would have pricked up at that point and you would have asked, you know, some more questions. You would have gone, I'm not hearing the truth here, or there's a high chance I'm not hearing the truth here.
Jack. Starting with the very first word, yes.
The first word is never. Yes.
Never is a really unreliable word. It's very ill defined, isn't it. I guess it means not ever. But we say it never in so many different ways, and it never is not synonymous with the word no. So that's one of the first things I noticed here is it's a yes, no, don't no question. That's a question that can be answered truthfully with yes, no or I don't know. And the question is did you say something about a
school shooting? And instead of saying no, he says never, And that never is there's no word, there's no proof word that proves a lie is being told to you. You can't just hear something and go yeah, that's definitely a lie. But the word never is something that should put you on alert here that deception is happening. Lance Armstrong very famously never taking handsing performance enhancing drugs. So never is should just raise your alarm bells and that
you go, oh, what's going on here. The next one, he uses the word just, very similar to never. Just often leads to deception, not saying every time you hear the word just, you're being lied to. But it's a word that we use to focus in on just one thing, you know, So if the whole truth is made up of a bundle of colors with just, they're just wanting you to focus on just one single part here and
don't pay attention to any of the other ones. So he has the word just there, and then he just does not say, no, I did not talk about a school shooting, which is what you would expect to hear from someone who has not spoken about a school shooting. And then he offers up all sorts of explanations, maybe they misheard somebody else.
Well, look, there's great.
All that's been said here is that someone has made a threat or mentioned a school shooting. But he's saying there that someone has He knows someone has a threat of us school shooting, not read it or you know, sensed it or anything like that. He knows that someone has said something about a school shooting because he says they misheard somebody else. And then I don't remember saying that. Well, to not remember saying something, you have to have the concept in your head that you may have said it,
you just don't remember saying it. So though that very first ten words fifteen words, he says so many indicators that deception could be happening in there, and at that point that really was an opportunity to drill.
Down and go right, come on, what's going on?
Here, that's right, absolutely, And you know, just to let people understand, think about when you use the word just if you're trying to make something not same as bad. Oh it's just a little checkup. Well, you may know it's more than a checkup. You may be real concerned about something, but you're trying to comfort your children or make it seem like it's probably not going to be that big of a deal. If you go to the car dealership, Oh this car, Oh, it's just seventy five
thousand dollars, Just seventy five thousand dollars. But again they're lessing it. They're like comparing it to things like this is not that expensive. So they're telling you almost a con.
I think that's a great point, which is that not all deception is malicious. You know, not all deception involves covering up crime or so on. We deceive in our lives all the time, you know, we try and minimize
things or you know, yes, it's no big deal. And so actually, if you think about how you deceive someone when you're not being malicious, but when you're just trying to get your own way or get your own point across, you will spot that in other people's language if you listen to them talk or read what they have written, like like with coked.
Here.
He then finishes off with you know the police guy system, you've never ever said and interrupts. Now, interrupting especially on the authority figure, shows.
¶ The Complexity of Lying and Statement Analysis
Attention and a nervousness. There.
Now the police turn off on your porch. You may well be tense and nervous, whether you are guilty or innocent. But again, it's all these data points that come up that just indicate deception could be happening. So it interrupts, and he says, no, I swear, and that is another indication that you could be being lied to when people start telling you no, honestly, this is what's happening, or to tell you the truth. I feel this. Why are they indicating that they are being honest. There's I guess
two reasons. They have not been honest all the other times, and now they're saying but now I am being honest, or they just really want you to believe them, which is why he's saying, I swear. And it sounds like the most solid thing when we say I swear to God or you know, on my father's life or things like that, but really so often these phrases are used to convince someone of a bit of deception, which I think is what Colt is doing here with the no I swear.
Yep, And again anytime they bring God into it, I start paying attention.
Yes, it's very much.
There's sort there's a concept called the rezume statement, which is when someone tries to say, hey, look what a great person I am. Therefore I can't be lying. Therefore I can't be deceiving you. And that very much is one. When they invoke a God, you're supposed to think, oh, this person is a very religious person. Therefore, if you're a very religious person and invoking God's name, then you must live in fear of, you know, committing a lie and using your God as a cover for it. Therefore,
this person must be telling the truth. Well, actually, the reality is very often people will swear to God or God's honest truth, and those will be used to convince us of a deception. The thing is, lying is very hard because we don't really think about how we tell the truth.
So well, do the lie.
With things like I swear to God or I swear or honestly, and we'll repeat the lie a few times, because we think the more that we say the lie, the more likely that lie is to be believed absolutely.
And most people can't do it twice. Most people cannot say the same lie twice.
The reason that statement analysis works is that lying is one of the hardest things that we have to do, because you have to construct a lie in your head. You know, you have to be creative and make it up. You have to make sure that lie as you know it in your head matches the truth as other people might know it. You know, you can't say that you were somewhere when you know that someone else saw you somewhere else. So your lie has to match all these
facts that other people know. You have to remember that lie and you have to which is not easy because it's stored in a different part of your brain from where things you actually experienced are stored, and you have to not get it mixed up with the truth that's in you're that different part of your brain. Therefore, lying
is so hard. There's indicators verbally that you're lying, but also the truth will just leak out because the truth is in your head, it's in a very different place from where the lie is constructed, and little indicators will come out in her words as to what the truth is.
Jack, I hope everybody is listening to you so intently, because if y'all remember Scott Peterson the night before he told Lacy and his sister law he was gonna go golfing. Well, then he was seen at the marinay, so then he had to change it. Oh no, I went vision because it was too cold to play golf. Now it was too cold to play golf, but it's not too cold to get on a boat on water and have that wind and water hit you. I mean again, your lives are not going to make sense. You can't keep up
with them. And then it's well, you didn't tell anybody you even had a boat. I mean, it's one thing after the other after the other. Then he's got a lie. Oh well, I wanted to surprise my father in law, but you didn't. You never even surprised, asked him with So you're going to fail. And the more you talk the better. So now after he says I swear, then what happens after.
He says I swear?
Now this is another classic deception technique. The policeman says, so you use discord and Colt replies Discord with a raised inflection, which implies a question back. And this is a deceptive technique to buy thinking time. So if you get a question and a response to a question, this is to allow the person to think of what is
that they want to say. They don't have the perfect words formed in their head yet to answer the question the way they want to answer the question, so they ask the question back in order to buy themselves some thinking time. Hopefully the person that asked the first question will come back with a clarification or you know, some more information. They don't really want that clarification or more information, They just want the thing time to form the answer
that that will best serve their lie. So when he says Discord has a question, the police guy says yes, sir, and he says um, which again means he's still thinking about the answer because he's put this um in there. I used to, but I haven't, is what he says on the end of that. So, you know, we are so sure this must have lasted about fifteen seconds on that video. But just pop pop, pop pop, These red
flags of deception are popping up. At the very least, we can surmise that he is tense and nervous around these questions, that he is not wanting to give straight answers to them, and that is just prime. Let's dig deeper into what's going on here, you know, like I say,
there's nothing that says, hey, this guy's definitely lying. But there's so many red flags and indicators just in these words that this was primed to put a little bit more pressure on or to ask, you know, reask the questions and re ask the question rather than just accepting the first answer you hear when there are so many red flags going on there.
I can't agree with you more because I remember I could not reach out to you fast enough, and I was like, Jack, please tell me you're watching this because it was for me the same flag flag flag, flag, flag flag. I mean, you couldn't miss it if you had had this training.
Yes, and these are the things we've noticed so far. So you don't have to spend weeks or months studying in a classroom, but really just picking up some of these red flag words and some of these techniques that people will use, like the question and response to a question, and when you're aware of them, all of a sudden, you can just understand a little bit more about what is going on in the head of the person you were talking to in order to just work out are they telling you the truth?
Are they deceiving me?
It wouldn't take a lot, really, just to learn a little bit more about that. And I think the other thing, I like you, I do not do a law enforcement job. So much respect for people that put themselves out there
every single day doing that. But I think these two guys that went to the porch could have spent a little bit more time listening and a little bit less time talking to call it Colin and call as well, because I felt like they were trying to build a rapport rather than sitting back a bit and just trying to listen to what it is that they were saying.
Agreed, So what comes next for you in this statement?
Well, what kind of baffles me about this, Cheryl is the next question is still about discord. It's when was the last time you used it? And he says like a few months ago. And then I think his dad says to him, was it at Traditions which is where they used to live, or was it here? And he says, no, it was at Traditions. Because the discord account that I had, I have deleted it before. Because the Discord account that I had had, I deleted it before.
So that's not a sentence. It makes a lot of sense.
And again, when we're talking about how hard it is to lie when you don't have authentic experience, turning you know, something you have experienced into words is quite easy. And when you are relaying something that you have experienced, your words will flow and they will sound natural, and they will come to you. You know, what you saw, what
you did, what you experienced. When you have to make something up and you haven't experienced it, it's a completely different process in inventing the words in your brain and then sending those words down to your mouth to be said. So when he says, because in that discord account that I had, I have deleted it before, it just doesn't make any sense. Again, you know, at the very least, this is someone very nervous. But also it's just not
adding up and it's just not flowing. And again I'm not saying when someone talks and it doesn't flow, they are lying to you. What I am saying is they could be. You know, it's an indicator that they could be. Now, what I don't get about any of this is that that's practically what the allegation was. At traditions they used to live, someone mentioned a school shooting on Discord, and so far he has been really dodgy about whether he
made a reference to a school shooting or not. And he has said, I used to have discord where we used to live, so I e. Where the the ip IP address was traced to. But I've deleted it. Well, that again should be enough to go, yeah, there is something going on here, guys.
Well for me, when he said I deleted it before, the next obvious question should have been before what Yes, what happened to make you delete it?
Yes, exactly that.
There's another part just later on where, to be fair, they do go and they ask the question again about have.
You mentioned a school shooting?
Although it's asking a bit of a wishy washy way, which is are you saying you didn't say anything like that? Which is minimizing's what the allegation is. And I think it would have been more helpful for them to state it again. Can I just be clear you didn't make any comment about a school shooting, but that's not what happened. They said, you didn't say anything like that, and coach reply is no, the only thing I have is TikTok and I just go there to watch videos, which doesn't
answer the question. It does not answer the question. Instead of saying no, I've never mentioned school shooting online at all, he says, here's a social media act I've got. I watched videos on TikTok. So he's once more he's dodged and not being very firm on a denial of did he mention a school shooting online at some point?
That's right, And the concern for me was he's explaining what he uses TikTok for, which is not necessary. If somebody says I have Facebook, you have Facebook. Correct, if you have TikTok, you have TikTok. But if you make a point of saying I only use it to watch videos, that tells me there may very well be a video out there of cold Yes.
Also, to go to your point about before he's asked, have you heard anybody on discord when you were using it saying something like that, do you remember that? And he buys thinking time by asking a question back. But the question he asks is like at that time. So once again at that time, well what time, because the only time that's under discussion here is the time that someone made a reference to a school shooting online. So
¶ Detecting Deception in Words
he's leaking here, and that's what I said. You know, the truth will leak out in your words because it's very hard to lie. He's leaking here that he knows the sensitive time. So from being told the police want to talk to you about something about school shooting on discord, he's come out. He's not been given any information by the police at all, but he knows exactly when it happened, and the fact he can't remember it and so on.
He's really leaking.
I am aware of this that you guys have come to talk to me about.
He's thirteen.
His thinking processes language isn't going to be massively sophisticated, which is actually useful in detecting deception in words. You know, we can tell when a five year old is lying to a straight away, can't we, because you know, it's so obvious. And as we grow older, we get more
sophisticated and more sophisticated. But at thirteen, actually he's very unsophisticated in this, and he's leaking left right and center that he is aware, at the very least in his own words, he is aware of an event where a
school shooting was mentioned. He hasn't said it was him, but he's very much aware of a school shooting being mentioned event just by looking at what he said, not even decoding and you know, looking at hidden meanings behind words or anything like that, but actually just paying attention
¶ Analysis shifts to Colt's father, Colin, and his responses
to the words that he uses.
That's an excellent point. That was an excellent grab right there.
The other thing I think these guys should have noticed is that I'm not going to pull any punches here. Colin lie to them, and he therefore again and this is again, this is not just decoding special words or anything like that, but a couple of times he lied to them and then contradicted himself further on down in what he said, and that should put them on red alert again that you know someone is And then Colins lies.
I'll talk you through one of them. That they are kind of feel like image management lies, you know, so trying to create a rosier picture of things than they were. But when they ask if they can speak to Cote, and Colin says, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, another red flag word do watch out for that again, like never is not synonymous with no, Absolutely is not synonymous with yes, it's not doesn't quite mean the same thing as yes. But he says, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and then to prove
that absolutely is a red flag word. I think he talks to them for another two minutes to delay going to get Colt and trying to do this image management job, and he talks about the trauma they had as separating as a family, but he says, since we've moved here, we've been good, like no problems, and then he goes to outline all the problems they've had at school, no less as we go, So he's actually lied. He said no problems, and there have been problems, and he tells
them what the problems is. He'd, you know, I want to go easy on these law enforcement guys. But he mentions problems at school, and he's not even asked about how his call at school or does he have any problems at school. He volunteers that the Colt has problems at school, that he's been picked on, that he has to go to the school. He's been to the school multiple times. He says he's never away from there. He says we're on first name terms because I'm there that often.
Trust me, you don't go to school a lot of your child as an angel in behaving and getting great grades. So there are obviously real problems here and Colin has lied about that as well, which is you know, he said everything's fine, no problems, and then he indicates lots of problems.
That's right, he said, the child and bullied. He said that he goes up there all the time. He said I was just there three times, which you can get into that if you want to. And then my favorite is when you know he reiterates that the two younger siblings left and went with their mother, so it's almost like he was left behind by her.
Well, it gets interesting around that because the police guys say to Colin. One of the first questions he is you have kids or anything, and Colin says, yeah, Colt great cult he's my older son, so I get the family split. But he doesn't say I've got three kids and one of them is here, so he only mentions one of those kids. So the police have said we're here to talk about a threat to shoot up the school, do you have kids?
And he only mentions one kid. Well, why is that?
Is that because that's the one kid that he's linking to a school shooting or a threat to shoot up the school. It's you know, the flags that indicators are just really really going off here.
Yeah, that was pretty major that he knew why they were there.
He had a real indication why they were there.
He you know, I believe if you look at when I say, you can get the personality from someone. Colin is a very controlling personality. He uses phrases like now look at the very start of an answer, which is, you know, I am going to try and control you. I'm going to tell you what's important. I'm going to tell you what it is that you need to know here.
So I get the impression he's a very controlling person And again when he talks about going up to the school, he talks about going to the school to tell them how to handle his son, not that the school have called him in because there are behavioral issues with cold that he's addressed and they want to do it in a you know, collegiate between home and school sort of way. No, he's always says, in his words, he's going up there to tell them how to treat Colt and how to
manage cope. So I get the impression this guy is a re controlling character.
He does it to the officers there on his porch. Yes, he says, yeah, I'll go getting but look he's going to get red faced, he's going to be nervous and upset, y'all. Just you know, come at him like calmly. He's telling them how to go at his son, who they received information had made threats he was going to shoot up a school.
Which is just again, he just has this controlling personality, you know, he really wants to set the scene for how this is. The other thing I noticed is that he asks several times. And another concept that's really important in statement analysis is the things that we repeat, or the concepts that we repeat are very important to us, and we can try and work out potentially why these
things are important to us. He asks several times for the police to tell them what they find in the course of their investigations, which I've read a lot of books about serial killers, and that's how they operate. They like, to a lot of them, like to integrate themselves into the you know, stay close to the police investigation into the serial killer, so they can find out what is going on, and he does that several times. He doesn't say why he wants this information. He just says, Oh,
just let us know what you find. And you know, have you got a card so you can I can contact you. And I think that was very telling as well. He definitely wanted to be very close to that that police investigation into.
This in the beginning when he finally comes outside, because y'all, when he first opened the door, he wasn't wearing pants, so he said, he put some pants on and I'll be back. But when he comes back out, he tells them that he's part of a law enforcement family, like I have nothing but respect for you guys, like he's trying to bond. Then when he goes in and gets cold and he opens the door, he says to him, hey, these are good guys. Okay, first of all, you don't
know they're good guys. You don't know whether or not
¶ Colin's Relationship with Law Enforcement
they're here to arrest your son or to arrest both of you or harass you about something. But he, to me, is almost conning.
Now Now, I would agree with you that he was trying to build report around law enforcement by saying, come, my family's in law enforcement. But what is really interesting there is he says, when he meets the officer that's called him out to this situation at his old house, he says, I can't think of the officer's name. Turns out nicest guy like ever. Now that turns out is interesting. There was it that has experience of law enforcement is he does not like any of them, or very many
of them. And he finds it very interesting, very interesting that he's turned out this is a nice guy. We turned out as a surprise, don't we. You know, it's not like, oh, it turned out to be a great day, is you know? I wasn't expecting it to be a great day, but it's turned out to be a great day. I was expecting a law enforcement person to be the nicest person, a great guy, but he was. So there's a bit of a disdain there.
¶ Colt's Access to Guns
The other thing, Jack, fuck, you're good. You are good, honey.
The other thing in what was very interesting was when he was asked about guns in the house and he's asked, let me ask you this, do you have weapons in the house? And Colin's answer is I do, perfect honest answer, very short, very straightforward, just deals with the thing that you were asked, so there's an honest answer for you from someone. And I think what's really useful is even the worst criminals will answer some questions honestly, especially ones around what's your date of birth?
How old are you? Where do you live?
And they're great at just seeing how someone answers a question honestly, a question that you've got no need to lie about, And he says, I do very straightforward. He's then asked accessible to him by him they mean colt, and he says they are. I mean there's nothing loaded, but they are there. We actually we do a lot of shooting. We do a lot of deer hunting. He shot his first deer this year. You know, so I'm
pretty much in shock to be honest with you. I'm a little paid off to be even really honest with you, if that's what was said.
But so he's asked are the guns accessible to him?
And he goes into this long story, this extra He's not been asked about what do you do with the guns? He's not being asked about where the ammunition is. But he tries to give this, Hey, you know, we're just a hunting and shooting type of family. So we're all normal around guns and there's no issues there whatsoever. But he's felt the need to offer this information as extra to the question, which was are these guns accessible to Colt? And I thought that was really interesting that he was.
I think Colin really realized the danger that was happening here. He realized what could be going on, and I think that he is trying to downplay that to these police guys so that they don't dig much much deeper.
Interesting, So did it blow your mind when you found out what Colin go cult for Christmas?
What I try to do, I try not to read too much about cases that I analyze so that I don't get called pulled into tobias.
But I have seen this and it's entirely, entirely consistent.
With the words that are there. Calling is a big gun guy. He likes to think and likes to believe that this is all very wholesome and all very natural and part of life. But it's in his words that guns are important to him, and it's also belied in his words. He's trying to say that we only they're only there for hunting. He doesn't mention that the AMMO is locked away or anything like that at all. He says there's nothing loaded. Well, that doesn't really mean very much,
does it. It just means that a gun is not loaded. The AMMO could be sitting right next to it. It could be loaded in five seconds. You know, there's nothing particularly safe there that was going on. So I think, I mean, it does blow my mind from that point of view. But on the other hand, from what I see from Colin's words and his behavior and the type of person he is, it doesn't much surprise me.
And you know, when he's talking about the deer hunting and putting the blood on his face and all that, which is a tradition if you're a deer hunter and you get your first kill, they will do that. So I just want people listening to know that's something that is well accepted in that community. But he says of that day where Colt got his first kill was the greatest day ever.
Yes, yes he does.
And again, I think what we've really picked up here was what was very interesting about this video is I think with Colt we're learning about statement analysis in terms of truth and deception, and with Colin we're picking up a sense of who he is, what his characteristic is like what's important to him as well, and he cannot but help himself and say, yeah, this was the greatest day ever.
Yep. And you know, even the two officers on scene when Colin first opened the door just wearing boxers and a shirt. When he shuts the door to go put pants on, they even say to each other, Hey, unless it's like three in the morning, I'm going to stop and put pants on before I come to the door. So they even acknowledge this guy a little unusual. But Colin is almost super cool, super calm, like, hey, I'm part of a law enforcement family, y'all are good guys.
When he comes back out, he's got a drink and a can that he just opens. He gets a chair and sits in it. I mean he's not at all upset or worried. Is the position he's played.
Yes, I am sure, because against it's very much like when I said Colt responds with a question to a question to buy himself thinking time. I think some of the things that were going on with Colin was to buy him self thinking time as well. It was just a bit more sophisticated than Colt's thirteen year old version of it, Like how long he disappeared just to put on a pair of pants. That was That was quite a long time, wasn't it. You know, I wonder what
when you know that there was a movie. It would cut to him sort of leaning against the door inside the house, going come on, come on, come on, get yourself together, get yourself together. Yeah, and then the delaying as well, when they say can you get Colt and he's like, yeah, but now listen what you've got to understand and he goes into a long, long speech, which is great actually because the longer someone talks, the more data points we have to work with in terms of
what they are like and who they are. So I think he was buying himself a lot of thinking time.
I mean, he was.
Very very aware that this was very serious, and I think Colin was very aware it was highly likely the cult had made this threat of a school shooting.
Well, I will say this, I don't know of one school shooter who's been able to keep it a secret. They tell people, they make drawings, they write about it,
¶ The Importance of Taking Threats Seriously
they post about it on social media, they start collecting guns, they start researching. I mean, any kid, especially thirteen fourteen, they're not going to be able to hide it. It's what they think about, it's what they've started to process how they're going to do something. Many times they make a hit list. Many times they have just this dossier of information about guns and other school shootings where they have researched Columbine for example, and this I think is
a similar situation. He did post things on social media, he did tell people. There is one statement that I've read that his first period teacher send an email that very morning before second period even started, that he had made some statement, some comment about shooting up the school. So again, we have to take these things seriously. Even if you think that kid he's just angry, that kids just being bullied, the kids just trying to get attention.
However you're excusing it, you need to take it seriously. If you're wrong in the best way, no problem. But if you're not, then things can really be violent super quick.
I think that's such a wise point, Cheryl. I think that's what I really got the feeling of at the end here was that what calling and what Cole said really should have given these police guys pause for thought. And I don't know what the procedure would be, whether they could get him down to the police station to speak more formally.
Even at the very least, they have.
The information there that there are problems at school, So maybe go and talk to the school and maybe just tip off the school that this has happened. Can you
keep an eye on him or something like that. But really, when the words that they used, there was indications that yes, cult had made a threat about shooting up a school, and that calling number one, guns were a large part of his life and part of his culture, and number two like he seemed to be aware as well that it was highly probable that cult had made this threat to shoot up the school.
I mean, his dad even said in his statement that we talk about it. We talk about it all the time, and he listed school shooting. His dad was aware, now law enforcement was aware, his counselor was aware. They had to change schools because of issues. Again, it's not like there weren't sign after sign after signed that this child is having major issues that should have been addressed in a more aggressive manner in my opinion, But this is what I would like to ask of you, Jack Fox.
I think you need to come back to zone and we need to have almost a little mini academy, to tell people about the liar's number, to tell people about the importance of order, to tell people about how statements should be balanced, and things like that, and where this could really be utilized, not just in law enforcement, but I think teachers and counselors and nurses. I think other people need to understand basic deception.
That would be a pleasure, that would be a challenge and a pleasure.
Fabulous. All right, well, sir, I just adore you and I appreciate you, and I think you've put a spotlight on statement analysis and anybody in law enforcement that could hear this episode and here you break down that statement the first two sentences, they should be reaching out for some training in some classes. So I appreciate you so much and we will be in touch.
I look forward to it. Thank you very much for having me.
¶ "Order is important. Often revealing priority." -P.H
I'm Cheryl, Thank you so much, and y'all, I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I always do with a quote. Order is important, often revealing priority. Peter Hyatt, I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is Zone seven.