Bowlofpetunias
My theory is that if you put three people in a room and create an incident between two with the third as an observer then interview them you will get three "truths". Each will tell what they may believe is the truth but the filters of their experiences and bias will be reflected in how they perceived the event. The REAL truth if it could be had would be devoid of emotion and interpretation. Since each person reported what they believed was accurate.. they reported their truth in other words they did not lie.. so if they didn't lie.. they reported their truth!
I agree with everything you say here with one possible exception. If we take your scenario and add a team of forensic scientists who come in after the incident, with them combing the scene with their brushes and tweezers, would this make a difference to the “truths” that the people recall?
If the witnesses in this case go about telling their version of “the truth” and are then confronted with evidence that these scientists find that contradict their testimony, would a they stick to their guns on the version told out of some misplaced pride, or would they acknowledge the fickle nature of memory and own up to possibly being wrong?
If the three people know going in that the incident they are about to recall is serious enough that officials might want to discuss the matter with them later (again with forensics and other tools at their disposal), would this force the witnesses to pay attention a bit more than they might otherwise?
By coincidence I was watching one of those crime shows this morning (Hanoi time) which was highlighting a case where a woman was murdered in the UK in 1976. Her husband was long thought to be the killer, but the evidence could not prove anything. He had claimed that his wife had left him for another man, thus deserting her three children. The story stalled for 21 years before our favourite heroes (three divers) happened upon her body in murky water. This led to a reopening of the case and renewed suspicion of the husband. The police were making headway and did arrest the husband and were preparing for trial when a couple who had read about the story in Scotland recalled a strange incident they’d forgotten about until the article jarred their memories. They happened to be on holiday at the time of the murder and were at a lake where the man was proposing to his future wife. They had returned to Scotland and had forgotten being at the lake for years, until they read the newsprint article of the case.
They contacted astounded police officials about having seen a man in a boat dumping something after looking in their direction to see if anyone was watching. The women claimed she had joked that she hoped he wasn’t dumping his wife’s body. With no immediate news of a missing woman coming up, the incident was forgotten.
When the trial started, the women in this couple recalled amazing details, contours of the hull in the water, the colours of the sails, that the defendant was wearing glasses, a certain parka, etc. Her recall forced the defendant husband to make mistakes in his own “truths” on the stand, namely that he had not had such a parka, that he had not yet started wearing glasses, that he had already sold that particular boat. In the end, the evidence that the woman recalled matched the forensics evidence that tied the man to his wife’s murder. Without the proof the police found by doing excellent investigation the woman’s recall could not have been corroborated. Without her coming forward in the first place and remembering what she did, the catalyst that forced the defendant to screw up on the stand would not have happened and the impact that the evidence ultimately had could not been made.
I think the combination of objective facts and the recall of people working in tandem can certainly help us approach the REAL truth in many cases. It doesn’t always happen, of course, and given that all of us carry our individual truth lenses into situations we encounter, it is really remarkable when someone can recall events (sometimes years later) that fit a “truth” scenario and can catch a killer in his own lies.
I have to believe we all have this capacity in us as well, even if we do get things wrong from time to time.
Cheers!
