I'll be running a series of investigation training sessions in Edmonton in April and you will find more information at the bottom of this page. Sessions will also be offered this fall as well.

In this issue and in the May one I'm providing some links to two aspects of working with witness statements. This month it will be about preparing for an interview by examining a written witness statement to see what additional information might be available. Next month's issue will cover some simple analytical tools looking for areas of deception.

This statement preparation process is applicable to statements either written directly by a witness or dictated to an investigator. Most witness statements don't tell the whole story, and some reading between the lines is required to figure out what might have happened.

The link below will take you to a site entitled "WITNESS PREPARATION TUTORIAL". It provides a typical witness statement and asks you to break it down into "event blocks." These are simply pieces of action where there may be an opportunity for you to follow up with the witness and garner additional information. That's the goal of this process, what additional information might the witness have?

CAUTION: This is not an exercise that will interest everyone, and some patience is called for. The tutorial is the initial part of an exercise that calls for you to go to the web and use some proprietary software. If you complete Steps 1 to 4 (about an hour) you will have a good understanding of the process. Step 5 calls for the use of the software, and while it's inexpensive; most of us would seldom have an opportunity to use it. The real learning is in Steps 1 to 4.

After you've gone thru it dig out a witness statement from a past incident and apply this process.

WITNESS PREPARATION TUTORIAL http://www.iprr.org/tutorials/Witness_Tutorial/TS1.html