Page 380 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

Dealing with Deception in Writing 329

• She knew dingoes were dangerous and attacked people yet her first reaction was that it was
a pup which may have taken shoes.

• When she first saw the dingo ‘trying’ to get out of the tent she ‘yelled’ at it: she did not ‘yell’
at her husband for assistance, nor did she continue ‘yelling’.

• She paused before running towards the tent and then merely ‘called’ her husband that the
‘there was a dingo in the tent’.

• She again refers to ‘calling Michael’ and ‘answering’ his question when the natural reaction
would be to scream blue murder.

• How could the dingo have had difficulty trying to get out of the tent when, seconds later, it
was so wide open that she was able to see right into the back of it from railings some eight
to ten feet way?

• Why did she say nothing – except for one short backtrack – about how and when the dingo
got out of the tent: she saw it trying to get out and then standing outside. She had been
watching it the whole time and had only been feet away; this is a significant omission es-
pecially as she must have seen the dingo face on, when it would have been clear if it had
anything in its mouth.

The phrasing of her answers appears to reveal decreasing levels of anxiety when in truth anxi-
ety would have escalated off the scale. Her emotions appeared to operate in reverse of those
that would be natural if the dingo story was truthful. Also throughout the passage (114 to 139),
she reports far too much conscious thought to be consistent with the emotional turmoil she
was facing. At such a time the Lower Brain would take command and by-pass most if not all
Higher Brain considerations.

Clues in the syntax
Overall construction

We cannot read anything into the division between prologue – critical issues and epilogue
because the structure of the interview was driven by Mr Charlwood’s questions. However, as
indicated in column 1, Mrs Chamberlain backtracked in her replies giving out of sequence
information on:

• recurring problems with and conversations about dangerous and ‘mangy’ dingoes;
• the baby: most of statements appear to indicate Azaria was not important in her life: she

never once said she had loved her or missed her, nor shared any guilt for her death;
• the damage to her watchstrap;
• people asking about and looking at Azaria (again either as an afterthought or to suggest that

she was alive until being put into the tent on the evening of 17 August 1980);
• the location of the boys’ parkas;
• how the dingo got out of the tent;
• her pause when first seeing the dingo.

These are all important issues, because facts recalled from memory are normally in sequence
and are not backtracked.