And the Next Thing I Knew It Was Thursday

Most people leave out some details when they recount a Story. Thankfully they do; it’s painful to have to sit through every single, nitty gritty detail of a story. However, more than just for the sake of brevity, deceptive people intentionally omit significant details.

Identify Gaps in Time

This is where the omitted details are likely to be. Words and phrases that are commonly inserted to skip over those areas they do not want to talk about include:

• The next thing I knew
• The next thing I remember
• After
• After a while
• Later
• Later on.

If you want to get more verification that they’re either fabricating or omitting, ask them to repeat their chain of events in reverse chronological orders. Most who are deceptive will attempt to memorize their story, but won’t bother to practice it backwards.

Example

In April 2017, Gary Giordano was found liable for the wrongful death of traveling companion Robyn Gardener during their trip to Aruba in 2011. Here is part of his testimony. “… then she came out of the water. It looked like she had lifted her toe on the rocks. So, she laid down. Then at some point it looked like she fell asleep a little bit so I let her have her peace. After a little while she woke and I said, “Hey, do you want to go back hotel? Or jump in and take a look at the fish?”