WEBVTT - S05 Episode 16 Extra: Through a Glass Darkly 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.760 Membership, peace, apply after free trial, cancel anytime. Can I 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:04.920 be real with you for a second. That goal you 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:08.280 have to exercise and eat better? You really can do it, 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:11.200 but nobody is going to do it for you. Nobody 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.280 is going to push you out of bed to work out, 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.239 Nobody is going to make you eat better. But here's 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.800 the thing. Nobody has to because you can do it 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:22.440 if you have the right tools and a community that 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.120 cares about helping you get results. And that's us beach Body. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.760 Two and a half million people each doing the Beach 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.960 Body program that fits our own goals. 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Here's al Go to beachbody 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.880 dot com to claim your free membership and start feeling great. 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:14.360 Welcome to Unexplained extra with Me Richard McClane Smith, where 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.920 for the weeks in between episodes we look at stories 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.520 and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.800 it into the previous show. In the last episode, built 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.120 on Shifting Sands, we covered the disappearance of Pat Blow, 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.959 Anne Miller, and Renee Brule, last seen at the Indiana 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:34.400 June State Park on Saturday, July second, nineteen sixty six, 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.280 and trowd the murky history of infamous stable owner Silas 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.760 Jane for clues about his possible involvement in the case. 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:45.959 One theory I didn't mention in the episode due to 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.760 the lack of any verifiable information was the possibility that 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.680 Anne Miller had gone to the beach that day as 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.320 part of a plan to terminate her pregnancy, with Renee 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.920 and Pat there to support her, with Pat also post 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.960 there for the same reason. The theory was put forward 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.880 in twenty twelve by Dick Wiley, a photographer working for 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.639 a number of local newspapers at the time. After years 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.520 looking into the case, Wiley made a promise to Pat's father, Harold, 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.360 that he would keep looking until he found an answer. 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:23.239 Over the years, Wiley compiled reams of notes and testimonies 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.400 from all manner of witnesses and people linked to the case, 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.000 but there was always one piece of information that jumped 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.320 out at him more than any other, the sighting of 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.040 a man named Roy Largo Junior at the beach the 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:41.960 day the women went missing. Firstly, Largo fitted the tanned 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.119 and dark haired description given of the man seen welcoming 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.120 the women onto his boat at some time around noon 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.959 that day. But more pertinently, Roy's aunt and uncle, Helen 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.760 and Frank, according to Wiley, just so happened to be 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:01.639 doctors that secretly performed abortions, a criminal offense in Illinois 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:06.280 and Indiana at the time. Wiley alleged that the Largos 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.639 carried out their operations on a houseboat anchored somewhere offshore 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:16.320 on Lake Michigan. Wiley believes Roy Largo Junior, who lived 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.600 with Helen and Frank, may well have picked them up 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:20.959 in his boat and then taken them to his aunt 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:25.080 and uncle's clinic. Then at some point, as his theory goes, 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.720 something went wrong and all three of the women were 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:33.240 murdered to cover it up. As others have already said, 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.640 it seems hugely unlikely that a woman would head out 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.560 to undergo such a traumatic and uncomfortable procedure in nothing 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.160 but a swimsuit. It also seems a little far fetched 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.920 that two individuals who were likely performing abortions as a 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.160 charitable act for women unable to seek them at the time, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.680 would turn so quickly to murder if something had gone 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:59.640 wrong either way, the intriguing link with the Largos remains. 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.560 One thing that would help to corroborate the Largo link 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:06.080 is the film footage that was taken at the beach 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.720 the day the women went missing. At the time, the 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.760 footage was instrumental in refocusing an investigation that had been 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:18.080 floundering on the back of numerous conflicting eyewitness reports regarding 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.760 the movements of the women on that faithful day. The 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.240 problem of relying on the memory of individuals to recall 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:29.640 events in criminal matters, particularly eyewitnesses to a crime, is 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.719 one that continues to plague the criminal justice system, and 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.520 there is one person, perhaps more than anyone, whose tireless 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.960 work over the last fifty years, has helped us to 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:52.600 understand why. Elizabeth Fishman was born in October nineteen forty 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.720 four and raised in bel Air, California. By the age 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:01.279 of sixteen, Fishman had experienced a number of deeply traumatic events, 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.200 from surviving the sexual abuse of a babysitter at the 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.840 age of six to the death of her mother when 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.160 Elizabeth was only fourteen and the burning down of her 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.760 family home two years later. Undeterred by all of it, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.080 Fishman went on to earn a place at the University 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:23.120 of California, Los Angeles to study mats. While there, she 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:28.080 became fascinated with psychology, in particular the work of BF Skinner, 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.039 perhaps best known for his pioneering studies on behavior and 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:36.320 conditioning through the use of the Skinner box. The box, 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:40.560 otherwise known as an operant conditioning chamber, was a device 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.240 designed to test how animals behave in response to punishment 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:49.040 and reward. In Skinner's most famous experiment, rats were placed 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.960 inside a Skinner's box containing a lever. Whenever the rats 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.839 knocked into the lever, a pellete of food would drop 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.440 into the box. The rats soon learned the link between 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.440 the lever the food, so much so that after a 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.159 few times being placed in the box, they would go 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.640 instantly to the lever to push it in return for food. 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.720 Skinner coined the term positive reinforcement to describe the phenomena 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.480 inspired by these experiments. But not quite ready to jettison 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.839 her years of studying maths, Fishman opted to pursue a 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.960 masters in maths and psychology at Stamford University and was 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.200 admitted in nineteen sixty six as the only woman on 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:33.960 her course. It wasn't long, however, before she realized there 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.960 was something about the sterility and clinical nature of mathematics 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.919 that failed to accommodate the full, messy picture of the 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:45.560 human experience, and after a few years studying rats, she 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.800 decided to turn her attention to people, in particular the 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:54.440 murky world of memory. It was a subject close to 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.840 her heart, being someone who knew all too well about 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.279 those memories such as the abuse she suffered as a child, 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.080 that people don't want, and the memories such as those 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.520 of her mother before she died, that people fiercely want 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:13.880 to keep. In nineteen sixty eight, after getting married, Elizabeth 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:18.720 Fishman became Elizabeth Loftus, and a few years later began 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.840 work on a series of experiments that would change the 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:33.600 way we understand memory forever. Loftus began first with studying 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:37.760 semantic memory, the mechanism through which our brains retrieved the 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.720 various bits of knowledge that we accumulate about the world 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:45.480 around us, such as names, dates, and various other descriptive terms. 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.240 By asking people questions like name a yellow fruit as 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:54.200 opposed to name a fruit that is yellow, Loftus discovered 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.040 a clear link between the grammar of a question and 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:01.960 the speed with which our brains retrieve a response. Loftus 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.320 found the work fascinating, but after having lunch with a 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.640 less than impressed cousin a busy, high flying lawyer, Loftus 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.400 realized she wanted to do something with a far more 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.800 tangible impact on the world. It was then that she 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:20.560 turned her attention to crime, or more precisely, witness testimony, 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:25.200 and the question of just how reliable it was. Like 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.560 all academics, Loftus needed financial support to conduct her studies. 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.240 After hearing that the US Department of Transportation were offering 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.480 money for relevant studies, she applied successfully for funding and 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.119 promptly began a series of experiments to study the eyewitness 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:47.920 testimony of car crashes. In one experiment, participants, after watching 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.480 a video compilation of car crashes, were asked a series 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:55.000 of questions in which the cars were variously described as 0:08:55.040 --> 0:09:00.280 having either contacted, hit, or smashed into each other. It 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:05.600 wasn't long before Loftus discovered something fascinating. As it turned out, 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.439 the way the question was asked had a fundamental impact 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.880 on the participant's apparent memory of the event. For example, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.120 those who were asked to guess how fast the cars 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.679 smashed into each other would, on average estimate the speed 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.280 of the collision as being almost ten miles per hour, 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.120 faster than those who were asked at what speed the 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:31.640 cars contacted each other. A further experiment involved asking participants 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.679 if they'd seen a broken headlight, while others were asked 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:39.520 if they'd seen THEE broken headlight despite no headlight having 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.840 been broken at all, Those who were asked if they'd 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.520 seen THEE broken tail light were twice as likely to 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:51.920 claim they'd seen it. The discrepancies appear relatively harmless when 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.360 applied in an academic setting, But what if the person 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.120 asking the question was a police officer and the question 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.400 wasn't if you saw the broken tail light, but rather 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.480 did you see the suspect in question commit the murder? 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.959 And that was exactly what Loftus endeavored to find out. 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:16.000 In nineteen seventy three, she was invited to observe a 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:20.199 complete murder trial. The case ended in the defendant being 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.520 judged not guilty, largely due to the conflicting testimonies of 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:29.160 the eyewitnesses. Loftus's subsequent write up of the case was 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.720 arguably the first time anyone had addressed so publicly and 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:38.680 scientifically the questionable nature of eyewitness testimonies. What Loftus would 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.600 later come to understand was that these misleading eyewitness accounts 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:48.440 weren't necessarily the result of people being unsure about the details, 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:57.800 but something much more profound. Is there something interfering with 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.360 your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals? Better 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.680 Help will assess your needs and match you with your 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.640 own licensed professional therapist. Sign up today and start communicating 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.560 in less than forty eight hours. You'll get timely and 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.880 thoughtful responses. Plus, you can schedule weekly video or phone 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.000 sessions so you won't ever have to sit in an 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.120 uncomfortable waiting room. You can also log into your account 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.440 any time to send a message to your counselor. Better 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.480 Help is not a crisis line nor self help. It 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.400 is professional counseling done securely online. With a broad range 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.480 of expertise available, and with better helps commitment to facilitating 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.160 great therapeutic matches, they make it especially easy and free 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.840 to change counselors to help you find the right fit. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.800 This podcast is sponsored by Better Help and Unexplained. Listeners 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.040 get ten percent off their first month at betterhelp dot com. 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:52.680 Forward slash Unexplained, That's better hlp dot com. Forward slash 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.160 unexplained Join the over one million people taking charge of 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:59.240 their mental health with the help of an experienced professional 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:05.200 to help. Wants you to start living a happier life today. 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.160 At some point later in life, Elizabeth and her uncle 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.760 were discussing the horrifying moment her mother was found dead 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.280 in the family swimming pool. When her uncle reminded Elizabeth 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.640 that she was the one who found her. In that moment, 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.120 a blast of memories she figured she must have suppressed 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.600 came flooding back to her, from the moment she saw 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.880 her mother's body in the pool, to the screams and 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.439 even the paramedics arriving to deal with the situation, only 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:43.520 none of it had happened. A few days later, Elizabeth's 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:48.000 uncle called her to apologize, having by then correctly remembered 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.080 that it was in fact Elizabeth's aunt who'd found her 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:56.160 mother's body. This incident not only confirmed Elizabeth's belief that 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.440 memory was unreliable, but had also demonstrated something much more 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.800 complicated about false eyewitness testimony and why they were often 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.920 so compelling. If this had happened to her, it was 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.840 entirely plausible that false eye witnesses were not just hazy 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:17.040 on the details and easily suggestible individuals, They could very 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.920 well have a perfect memory of something that never actually happened, 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:27.360 indistinguishable from any other genuine memory. In nineteen ninety one, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:32.240 Bloftus invited her undergraduate students to create an experiment to 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.319 see if it was possible to plant false memories into 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:40.280 people's minds. One of her students, Jim Kohane, developed an 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:44.439 experiment inviting members of his family to recollect four events 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.640 from his childhood that he laid out for them, with 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.600 one of them, unbeknownst to them, involving a story about 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.479 his brother getting lost in a shopping more that Koane 0:13:55.520 --> 0:14:01.480 completely invented. Much to Koane's surprise, his brother not only 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.720 claimed to remember the event, but even embellished it with 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.960 apparent memories of his own that happened that day. This 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:14.200 became known as the lost in the Mall technique. Working 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.920 with kne, Loftus adapted the experiment and applied it to 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:22.280 a formal study involving twenty four participants, each of whom 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.080 were told three true stories relating to their past and 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.240 one completely fabricated story about getting lost in a shopping mall. 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.240 When asked to choose which of the stories was made up, 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:39.280 twenty five percent of participants failed to identify the false story. 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.000 Although the lost in the Mall experiment was only a 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:54.560 small study, subsequent experiments conducted by Loftus, including convincing people 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.560 they had once been attacked or even witnessed of bombing, 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.040 proved the effect was not a one off. Loftus's work 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.360 has made her an extremely controversial figure, most pointedly when 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.000 it's been applied to incidences of apparent recovered memories of 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:15.280 sexual abuse. Since the law often requires proof beyond reasonable 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.480 doubt to convict someone of a crime, the idea that 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:23.240 memory is unreliable presents the uncomfortable problem that all memories, 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:28.600 even if true, could become suspect in a court of law. Nonetheless, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.040 this does nothing to diminish Elizabeth Loftus's extraordinary work and 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:37.320 its contribution to our understanding of memory, a subject that 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.440 we are still very much grappling with even to this day. 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.640 Witness testimony can often be the most significant and compelling 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:50.000 evidence that sways a jury. Just back in twenty ten, 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.760 twenty eight year old Aaron Sheelhorn was stabbed to death 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:58.800 outside a nightclub in Houston, Texas. Despite nothing else tying 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.400 him to the crime and a solid alibi for his 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:06.600 whereabouts that night, no less than six eyewitnesses identified a 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.720 man named Little Grant as the killer. As a result, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.600 Grant was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:21.080 But Grant didn't do it. In twenty nineteen, DNA samples 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:26.560 taken from under Sheerhorn's fingernails implicated another man, j Americo Carter, 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:32.880 who eventually confessed to the crime. According to the Innocence Project, 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.880 which has overturned three hundred and seventy five wrongful convictions 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:41.160 to date thanks to advances in DNA analysis, as many 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.160 as sixty nine percent of wrongful convictions are made off 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:54.760 the back of mistaken eyewitness accounts. If you enjoy unexplained 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.040 and would like to help supporters. You can now do 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.760 so via Patreon to receive access to add three episodes, 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.520 just go to Patreon dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Pod 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:07.000 to sign up, or if you'd like to make a 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.360 one time donation, you can go to Unexplained podcast dot 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:14.600 com Forward Slash Support. All donations, no matter how large 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:19.200 or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained, the book and audiobook, 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.320 featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.920 the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:30.360 purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.880 All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.159 by me Richard McClain smith. 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