http://www.statementanalysis.com/ramseynote/
Read some stuff from that page, then go to the homepage and look aroud a little.
Apparently, law enforcement groups take this “statement analysis” technique very seriously. But (though I did not read everything on the page) almost every remark on the “ramseynote” page seemed really bogus to me. The only comment which made a positive impression on me was the one at the very end, about the use of the same word both before and after the phrase “and hence.”
But… police are taking this seriously. Does this mean that there are good reasons to think Statement Analysis works? Have there been studies done showing its actual success rate?
Or rather, is this the kind of technique, along with certain interviewing techniques etc., which police departments and prosecuting attorneys really ought to be getting rid of?
-FrL-
I was thinking some of his analysis might be at least somewhat plausible until he said that the use of the phrase “watch over” meant the writer knew JonBenet was already dead, and that the non-“aggressive” language (“advise you not to provoke”, etc.) meant that the writer was a woman. :dubious:
I suspect that “statement analysis” is a legitimate technique for discovering information. (The SDMB staff uses it all the time to catch socks and trolls.) On the other hand, I would not trust Mr. McClish to discover a second grade plagiarist. some of what he says seems legitimate, but he makes a number of (apparently) unsupported leaps of logic that I find less than credible. (I agree that the fact that the note ran to three pages makes it an odd example of a ransom note; using “she dies” (which is actually a fairly common expression in some movies) in place of “she will die” does not demonstrate that the author knew the girl was dead.)
can someone please define “statement analysis” for me. It looks to me like a synonym for “using simple logic, with a bit of reliance on my own gut feelings.”
I have zero experience in analyzing ransom notes, but I reached most (but not all) of the same conclusions that the well-trained investigator reached. Is statement analysis an official “police technique”---- or just plain old common sense?