There’s something that nearly all Dateline episodes have in common — someone is lying.
It could be a murderer lying to police about an alibi, or a husband lying to his wife about an affair.
Sometimes, it could be a detective lying to a suspect to get information.
So we wanted to find out: How can you tell if someone is lying to you?
On today’s episode of Dateline: True Crime Weekly, Andrea Canning spoke with former Secret Service agent, Evy Pompouras, who has conducted her fair share of polygraph exams, for some tips.
You can listen to the full episode now, for free.
Plus, read a transcript of their exchange below:
Andrea Canning: Hey Evy. Thanks for coming back.
Pompouras: Thanks for having me.
Canning: People lie to each other. Sometimes they’re harmless, sometimes they’re white lies. Sometimes they’re big lies that can really impact your life in a negative way. How can you read people in a way to know if they’re lying to you or not?
Pompouras: First, there are three primary ways people lie. One way is they’ll tell you a full-on lie. The second way they tell you a lie is they will tell you a lie, sprinkle in a little truth, then a little lie, little -- little truth. The third way people lie, the most common way people lie, is -- is they lie by omission. I’ll tell you this part here, but I’m going to leave this part out. So how can you catch this behavior with people? The first thing I’m going to say is we have to know people’s baselines, who are they normally, when they’re not threatened, when they’re in a relaxed mode. Now, when you start asking people uncomfortable questions or questions where you start thinking, “I want to know, you know, what did my significant other do last night? Am I looking at my significant other’s baseline?” Sure. Because I’m going to see deviations. We all kind of --. The people that are close to our orbit, we kind of know when things are off. Trust it. Just pay attention and then start asking follow up questions.
Canning: What type of follow up questions would you ask?
Pompouras: “Tell me more about that.” Be curious. And so, if you see them struggling to answer your question or they consistently don’t want to answer it, now you know there’s a problem with this question. When you interview people, and teenagers are king and queen when they do this, they make you feel stupid. “That’s a dumb question.” “I already told you.” “I can’t believe you’re asking me this.” Those are red flags. Now, look, does it mean that person’s lying? No. But you should ask yourself why. “Why is your response so strong to something simple that I ask?” Often people do this to get you to back down. Another super-common thing is answering a question with the question, “Who me?” Stalling tactic.
Canning: Um, so that’s verbal. What about, uh, body language?
Pompouras: The problem with body language is the narrative is, “Oh, they looked up into the right. They’re making up the lie.” It is absolutely not true. Think of it this way. We are so uniquely different. How can you actually put somebody in the box as -- as what they’re going to physically do in a lying scenario? Now, can some people give you cues? Yes. So if you ask me a question and the whole time we’re talking, my hands are down. I’m not putting them up to my face. And then all of a sudden my hand goes up to my mouth before I answer, you should in that moment say, “Hmm, that is super weird.” Does that mean I’m lying? No. It could mean,though, that’s an uncomfortable question for me. Eye contact, too. For some people, not all. I’ve interviewed so many people, and I’ve had many a people look me in the eye all day long and lie, lie, lie.
Canning: That’s the big one that you hear about is that someone will look down, or they won’t look -- look you in the eye if they’re -- if they’re lying.
Pompouras: Some can. Again, just because somebody does it, it doesn’t mean everybody’s a liar. Pay attention. And you know, I also think people should just trust their instincts. If it feels off to you, it probably is. Just listen to it.
Canning: Yes. All right. What I love about these tips is that you can use it in your everyday life. So thank you, Evy.
Pompouras: Absolutely.
