I am all to familiar that you know what the words mean. I also think LE is capable of explaining the words to the parents if they ask. Usually the questions are pretty simple. Did you harm your chid, do you know who did, do you know where she is? Then they start asking questions about their habits and what they were doing at the time of the crime.
If at this time the parent wants an attorney, then oh well, game over...child will not be found unless someone stumbles on the body.
My daughter is 20 and lives with me. If she disappeared, I might not realize it for as much as 36 hours. I actually thought about this on my way to work the other day. She lives in the basement, we rarely eat meals at the same times, and whenever we are both home, one or more of us is asleep. As impossible as it may sound, we are very close.
The other day I realized that if she ever actually DID drop off the radar, did not answer her phone, or borrow someone's phone to text me, did not post on social media and had no transactions on her First Bank of Daddy Visa for 48 hours I would report her missing.
I sort of "pretend-interrogated myself" and even KNOWING the right words to say, I could not make them come out of my mouth. I thought "if they found her dead", and I was asked if I had anything to do with it (I never ever ever would*) how would I answer? She and I have been through some awful times, but always on the same side, I KNOW the first thing I would blurt out would be "No way in he77! I would never do anything to hurt her."
Statement Analysis would pick that apart. My statement is not a specific denial of the accusation, and I know that every word AFTER "no" weakens the "no", and that saying I "would never" suggests future, and if we are assuming for this exercise that she is known to be dead, of course I "would not" do
anything to her), and that "hurt" is minimizing language since she is not HURT, she is DEAD for purposes of this scenario. And "her" is distancing language. I should refer to her by name. I KNOW the correct answer is "No." or "No I did not kill her" (although repeating back the interviewer's words also raises "red flags" in statement analysis).
I caught myself, stopped, repeated the question to myself and answered four or five more times before giving up. I swear, I never could get the words "I did not kill L*****" to come out.
She is alive and well at the moment, and yet I can not give a "reliable" denial if asked if I had killed her. I'd be SURE to say the wrong thing under stress.
* which, right there, is an example of what I am trying to get to say. I know that, compared to "no" the word "never" is weak, but the "ever" after it weakens it further. 2 "ever"s and I may as well start thinking about what I want for my last meal. And then there is that future "would" that allows for the possibility that I have harmed her in the past.
HOWEVER... if I was in the position Sergio was as of the post I am quoting (no telling what will happen before anyone sees this) I WOULD NOT hire a criminal defense lawyer. He has not been charged with a crime that I am aware of, I'd think he'd want a family law lawyer to address the custody and visitation issues, and might want to start looking into defense attorneys in case I was about to be charged with something related to Isa's disappearance or some OTHER crime, but don't think I could afford to hire a lawyer until I was charged.
I TOTALLY agree with what PAX said about how easy it is to read things into what someone says, and hope I have illustrated how what sounds to a reasonable person like a strong denial could be seen by another as nearly an outright admission of guilt. But hiring a CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY is just bad for your image until/unless you are named a POI.
I now return you all to your regularly scheduled pistachios and/or Kahlua.
