The Trouble With The Eyewitness Amble

“What Happened in Craig” The investigation at the Hill Bar had problems from its very inception. Although the Casino crew was instructed to “amble through” the bar to see if they could identify the mysterious skiffman, neither one of them much complied. They were too fearful. That problem was compounded by that fact that, even if they had identified a suspect, their identification would have faced vigorous second-guessing.

amble
Hill Bar


Addressing the topic of fear, a recent Canadian criminal investigation guidebook notes, “criminal events can be very stressful and anxiety producing experiences. This is not only true for the victim but for anyone who has been exposed to danger, violence, or situations where threats to personal safety or incidents of injuries or death have occurred. As human beings, we are not conditioned to live through these kinds of events without experiencing some kind of emotional response.” [1]

The Casino crew did not immediately experience the anxiety of their encounter with the skiffman. It was only on the evening of the fire, when they learned that their friends, the Coulthurst’s, were possible murder victims, that a deep fear set in. Remember: on learning of the murders, they returned to their boat, shut off the diesel generator and padlocked the vessel’s door, out of fear for the consequences of their interactions with the skiffman.

One kind of emotional trauma is a witness’ fear for their personal safety. This can be a fear of physical, psychological, or emotional reprisals for the witness providing evidence.

As another respected study notes, “high levels of stress or fear can affect eyewitness identification… Under conditions of high stress, a witness’ ability to identify key characteristics of an individual’s face (e.g., hair length, hair color, eye color, shape of face, presence of facial hair) may be significantly impaired.” [2]

Going into the Hill Bar to identify that person — the skiffman — reintroduced their fear and stress. And all the risks that went with that. After all, whoever committed this crime did not stop at Mark Coulthurst. At the Hill Bar, either way it went, the Casino crew was taking an amble toward failure.

But on that day, in that time, police felt like the “amble” was the only approach open to them. They did not have time to wait for other witnesses or a lineup or some other methodology. Perhaps they should have.


[1] Rod Gehl and Darryl Plecas, Criminal Investigation: Processes, Practices and Thinking, Justice Institute of British Columbia, September 2017

[2] National Research Council. 2014. Identifying the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press

Copyright Leland E. Hale (2018). All rights reserved.


Craig

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