Reason 9

DOUG WINE’S POLYGRAPH EXAMINATION WAS “FIXED”

When the decision was made to have Doug take a polygraph, Doug’s brother Dale and Doug’s wife Clarinda acted as the hiring committee.  Through a random process they chose Brad Kelley from Bellefontaine.  On his web site he calls himself The Polygraph Guy so I will refer to him as TPG from here on.  He was hired to conduct a polygraph examination to determine if the allegations that Doug had raped Sandra and molested his daughter Jalyn were true.  TPG’s web site provides a lot of information about his educational background, his 21 years of experience in law enforcement, and his sixteen areas of expertise. I will be a little tough on TPG for a couple reasons. First of all, anyone claiming sixteen areas of expertise is a little full of himself. Secondly, when I consider the role his bogus test and equally bogus “interview” played in the wrongful conviction of Doug Wine, both he and the dubious science of polygraph as he practices it, need to be exposed.

On TPG’s web site is an FAQ section on the subject of polygraph testing.  Here
is his answer to “How many questions does the test consist of?”

An examiner can usually cover three relevant questions during an exam…It takes about ninety minutes to cover these three questions effectively.  If it is necessary to ask more questions, another exam must be designed and conducted usually at a later time. This will add to the time and cost involved.  Test results are usually less reliable with an increase in the number of relevant test questions. A healthy individual can only produce readable polygraph charts for a limited period of time; after this time has passed it is impossible to generate a conclusive polygraph test. Any further testing would need to be scheduled for a different day.

DOUG WINE’S POLYGRAPH SESSION WITH BRAD KELLY LASTED FOUR HOURS AND TWENTY-ONE MINUTES!!

TPG indicates that once a session has reached the ninety-minute mark the subject reaches some kind of breaking point and any further examining should take place on another day. When I watched the tape with Doug the minute ticker on the tape as the session ended was four hours and twenty-one minutes.  Apparently keeping track of time is not one of TPG’s areas of expertise.

Why did TPG violate his own time constraints? He was conducting two separate tests, one involving the accusations concerning Jalyn and one concerning the accusation involving Sandra Davis.  This should have at least qualified for a “day-night doubleheader” with a significant break in between. Since the Jalyn interview came first, every question TPG asked Doug concerning the allegations of Sandra Davis came in the time period when TPG says it is impossible for a healthy individual to produce a readable chart. My explanation for TPG ignoring his own standards for times is that since he “knew” before the test what the results were going to be there was no reason to go through the formality of Doug leaving and coming back for the second session.  It would be interesting to hear TPG’s explanation.

Shortly after I began working on this essay I learned that a trial transcript was available in the Auglaize County Courthouse. When I visited there the first time I was quite surprised to find that a full transcript of the polygraph session was available as well. I dove right in. Three hours later I arrived at the last page-331. Although this was the first time I had ever read such a transcript I was certain that I had made some significant discoveries and I understood much more fully how this polygraph session had led to a wrongful conviction.

For the first 204 pages TPG conducted the “pre-test interview” and the two polygraph exams.  Doug was asked every question imaginable about his sexual history and then during the “exams” he was asked repeatedly about the allegations concerning Jalyn and Sandra Davis.  He consistently and adamantly denied any wrongdoing.  On page 204 is recorded what Doug had described to me as the absolute worst moment of his life.  Here is the exchange where Kelly informs Wine he has “failed.”

Kelly: You did not make it thru the test.
Wine: Really.
Kelly: Yeah. BAD.
Wine: Really. Am I suppressing this stuff?
Kelly: Okay. You know you are doing it.
Wine: That’s so sad.
Kelly: Or you know you’ve done it in the past and here’s the deal.
Wine: I don’t have any memory of it.
Kelly: Yeah you do. Listen. Listen. Listen. Listen. You do, okay?  You’re scared but here’s what I need you to understand.  You aren’t going to get fixed until you get some help.

This “announcement” was made with complete nonchalance and without any evidence of “grading” or a break of any kind.  For the next 127 pages (well over an hour) with slight variations the same conversation you see above was repeated.  (I will include numerous samples of these conversations in REASON TEN where the “editing” of the four hour and twenty-one minute tape will be discussed.)  But what struck me as odd about this conversation and virtually every other one that occurred over the next 127 pages was the recurring theme of “help.”   TPG kept insisting that Doug had a big problem and that he needed to get help. Why was a polygraph examiner hired to settle a he said/she said so concerned with getting Doug help and so certain he needed help? I was becoming suspicious that this polygraph exam had been an ambush.  Polygraph examiners have to talk to someone to gather information before formulating their questions.  I wanted to know who had provided TPG the information he needed to formulate this examination and what information had they given him.

It turned out TPG had talked to exactly two people in preparing his exam for Doug. He had talked to Sandra Davis in Florida and he had talked extensively with Clarinda. By long distance from Florida, I am sure Sandra Davis shared with him some version of her story that was “convincing” for no other reason than it was so unusual.  I knew that Clarinda had been quite confused in the days after her mother’s accusatory phone call and depending on which day she spoke with TPG her “information” could have varied. Here was her response when I asked her what she had told TPG:

I was really confused at that time.  I couldn’t believe my mom could make something like that up and at the same time I couldn’t believe Doug could do something like that. I know this sounds crazy but I actually worked this out that mom was telling the truth and while Doug had done this, it really wasn’t his fault, that he had had a stroke or memory loss, or sleepwalked.  Clarinda mentioned that Doug’s father, John Wine, had behaved erratically when he had suffered a stroke a few years earlier.

How interesting!  All through the tape TPG kept telling Doug that he needed help, that he wanted to help Doug, that if Doug would just confess, that would be the first step to getting help.  In listening to Sandra and Clarinda give their accounts, TPG fell into the same trap as the three examiners in the “Sixty Minutes” segment.  He was convinced of Doug’s guilt before the first question was asked.

By the way, TPG came up with a slightly different problem than the ones Clarinda was worried about.  He diagnosed Doug Wine’s “problem” as being sexual addiction. This was the “problem” Doug was suffering from and needed help with. I find this a rather peculiar diagnosis.  During TPG’s questioning Doug Wine declared under the influence of being tied up to a polygraph machine and forced to tell the truth that he had never been unfaithful to his wife of twenty years nor had he ever seriously considered being unfaithful to her. That is not the normal behavior of a sex addict.  Perhaps diagnosing addictions is not one of TPG’s areas of expertise.

Another example of this exam being fixed appears on page 206, two pages after TPG informs Wine he has failed.

Kelly: I told your wife I’m not obligated to report this, okay? But the only way you’re going to make yourself right is if you actually come out and sit down with your wife and say you know what, this is what happened to me and it needs to be fixed okay?

Look closely at the first line.  What is he (TPG) not obligated to report?  How did he know the night before the exam that he would have anything to report? He was so taken in by the version of events he had heard before the exam he had predetermined the results.

Further evidence that this was a “cooked” exam occurs on page 311 or around the four-hour mark.  Clarinda has now entered the room and both she and TPG are frustrated by the fact that Doug continues to say he doesn’t remember doing any of these terrible things.

Kelly: Okay. Tell me something.  The one thing that hit on your-on her  (Clarinda’s) mom (refers to the polygraph machine really “lighting up”) was the thing you hit the worst on that question.
Wine: Yeah.
Kelly: Remember the question I had where you did place your finger in Sandy’s vagina while you were on your knees.
Wine: And that was yes?
Kelly: Yeah, yeah, you failed that badly.

Do polygraph examiners sometimes have really bad days?  As we saw in REASON FIVE it was physically impossible for anyone taller than two feet to have ever been in the position TPG just described.  This was nothing more than a devious attempt to get Wine to confess.

During a visit to Lorin Zaner’s office, I was introduced to more evidence that this polygraph exam was cooked.  Lorin and an associate named Kim Hart, who was also working on Doug’s case and is a recognized expert in the field of child abuse and child molestation, both indicated that Attorney Hollenbaugh had made a big mistake by not combining the charges involving Jayln and Sandra Davis into a single trial.  Their reasoning was that while pedophilia (specifically men molesting young girls) is unfortunately quite common, there is another type of sexual deviation in which men molest elderly women.  It is extremely rare but it is a recognized mental disorder.  But these two conditions have never been found to co-exist in the same person.  This information certainly would have led to a speedy trial (and exoneration) for Wine.  But it also proves that TPG’s exam results couldn’t possibly be accurate.  He claimed Wine was 97% deceptive on the Jayln questions and 96% deceptive on the Sandra questions.  Sorry TPG.  One of those numbers had to be zero.

When Lorin Zaner took over Doug’s case he reviewed all the documents and he saw something suspicious in those numbers. (Did I mention that Zaner once won twenty-seven consecutive cases?  He did not do that by being dumb or lazy.) He knew something was wrong and sent the tests and scoring off to two experts that verify the scoring of polygraph exams.  Both responded by saying the scoring of Doug Wine’s exam, and thus the results of the exam itself were in Zaner’s word “bogus.”

But perhaps the most obvious evidence that Wine’s “failure” was predestined and foreordained came from a response TPG gave Clarinda on page 319 or around the four-hour mark of Doug’s ordeal.  When Clarinda Wine had first entered the room (around page 250) she had been very conciliatory and sympathetic toward Doug.  She showed no surprise at all that he had failed. She wanted him to understand that he had a  “problem” that he needed help with and that she would stay with him throughout the healing process.  She also wanted him to know this terrible thing he had done did not really define who he was.  But when Doug continues to insist that he has no memory of these events she eventually loses her patience, starts screaming at him, orders him to admit he did this, pounds the table several times, and tips over a chair. But by page 319 she has calmed down, and clearly she is now having second thoughts.  Clarinda and TPG have the following exchange.

Clarinda Wine: Is there any chance my mom made this whole thing up?
Kelly: If your Mom and Jalyn take a polygraph exam they pass with flying colors.

What does this statement indicate about the “science” of polygraph testing as practiced by TPG? Why bother with any test? Does TPG actually read the four physiological charts?  He knows the results of the test before he gives it.  He made this statement having had a brief conversation by long-distance with Sandra Davis and never having any contact whatsoever with Jalyn Wine. If he had determined that Sandra Davis would pass a polygraph “with flying colors” based on a long-distance phone call, hadn’t he also determined before the first question was asked that Doug Wine would fail with flying colors? (I believe 97% and 96% qualify.) This statement proves that polygraph testing (at least the version practiced by TPG) has no more scientific validity than predicting the future by examining the entrails of a goat.

And Ed Pierce, Fred Pepple, Al Solomon, and Children’s Services all bought the results of this “scientific” test hook, line, and sinker.

(Author’s note.  The following was added about six months after the rest of the text for REASON NINE was completed. When I discovered this new evidence I considered re-writing all of REASON NINE but decided instead to include this as a separate section.  While reinforcing what is already written, it makes even clearer why the marathon polygraph session unfolded as it did.)

On the coldest day of January, 2014 I went to the St. Marys library to look for a specific piece of information I thought the Evening Leader (St. Marys daily newspaper) might have included in its coverage of the Wine trial.  While I did not find what I was looking for I unexpectedly found even more conclusive evidence that the result of the polygraph session was predetermined. In Mike Burkholder’s front-page article covering the second day of the Wine trial (October 27, 2011 edition of the Evening Leader) he included the following testimony from Clarinda Wine concerning the hiring of “investigator” Brad Kelly.  Since the jury had no idea that Mr. Kelly had conducted a polygraph examination they simply thought Clarinda was referring to another person who could talk to Doug and help him.  To readers of this essay, however, it makes even clearer what Mr. Kelly’s state of mind was before he began the polygraph exam.

“I wanted him (Kelly) to help me get Doug to admit this,” she (Clarinda Wine) said.  “He said he would help me.”

“He said he would help me.”  Clarinda Wine was claiming under oath that during her forty-minute conversation with Brad Kelly the night before he gave Doug Wine the polygraph test, Kelly agreed to her request to help get Doug to confess.  Did he make good on his agreement?  Look back over Kelly’s behaviors pointed out in REASON NINE. Each is consistent with his agreeing ahead of time to find Doug “deceptive” and to demand a confession from him.

As I looked over some of the dialogue from the polygraph transcript that I had not included in REASON NINE I came across two statements from Kelly that reveal what the goal of the four hour and twenty-one minute session was.  The first quote comes from page 205, immediately after Doug has been told he has “failed” the exam.  The second is from page 253.

Kelly: You’re scared.  I understand you’re scared.  But here’s what I need you to understand.  You aren’t going to get fixed until you get some help.  The only way you’re going to make yourself right is if you actually come out and sit down with your wife and say you know what, this is what’s happened to me and it needs to be fixed okay.

Kelly: The entire interview, from my experience and everything we’ve talked about, you’re this far from telling the truth.  Just do it okay?  Just do it.  Tell the details and be done with it okay?  It will be out, it’s over with and you have it out, okay?  Because you’re not being truthful, okay?

Sit with your wife. Say this is what happened. Just do it. Tell the details and be done with it.

Those are not the objective assessments of a test proctor. Those are forceful commands from someone bent on a specific outcome. Someone who had set his mind on this outcome before the interview even began, and who would not stop—even if that meant drawing out the interview to an ungodly duration—until he achieved that result.