Utah mother of two Susan Powell disappeared in December of 2009 after her husband Josh claimed he had taken their young sons camping in sub-zero temperatures only to return to find his wife missing.
Josh Powell, who had been under severe scrutiny for several years over the disappearance of Susan, had his first in depth television interview late last year. We blogged about a portion of the interview, in which Josh claimed he knew nothing of his wife’s disappearance and readers commented on many red flags and hot spots they saw.
This story took a dramatic turn this past weekend when Josh set fire to his own house with him and his two sons inside, killing all three. Before he took his own life and the life of his sons, he left an emotional voicemail on several family member’s answering machines.
Susan’s sister, Denise Cox had a television interview shortly after the tragedy where she discussed her sister’s missing person case and the brutal murder of her two nephews. The interview can be seen below. It is evident that Denise is quite emotional about the subject.
Denise is also an excellent example of someone who has shifty eyes but is not being deceptive. Notice how she often looks around- sometimes one could mistake this as being deceptive, but this seems to be part of Denise’s baseline behavior.
Remember, lack of eye contact is the biggest myth about liars. In fact, eye gaze has little to do with detecting deception.
When I speak to people about Social Engineering there are many common themes, most common being how to handle failure and how to go about being the person / group you are impersonating. The other one is how you make that initial introduction, and start getting your manipulation fu on. Its a good question, and one I used to struggle with when I first got started.
Are you being judged on your smile? According to Atlantic.com we could judge people especially our elected representatives on their smiles.