Forensic Detective What is a Forensic Linguistic Detective

Forensic Detective What is a Forensic Linguistic Detective? What are the skills and linguistic knowledge needed to solve difficult crimes? Can you beat every other team to become part of the Special Branch? Whoddunit? Can you work out which suspect has done the crime and find evidence to convict them?

This lesson’s detective skills: Great detectives accurately and selectively summarise main ideas, events and information. Great detectives retrieve key details and quotations to demonstrate understanding of suspects (character), events and information. They can infer and deduce.

What is a Forensic Linguistic Detective? What do they do?

This real-life case concerns a husband accused of murdering his wife. Part of his alibi is a series of messages sent from her phone after the time the police believe she was killed.

If we were detectives / police, how could we prove that he had murdered her and that she was not alive?

Who sent the messages? Police thought the husband’s story sounded suspicious so the text messages were compared. We have a copy of the messages to look at!

Look closely at the messages and put your detective skills to use in the analysis sheet!

Husband’s texts – It is not disputed by either party that the husband wrote these texts. Approximately 200 texts written by him were collected from recipients. Etas m 8 Dnt b daft m 8, wots goin on? Iv got go 2 glossop dya want me cum 2 u? Ok bt frm wot iv seen ur quite capable m 8, r u sure u dnt want hav a few wks wiv tim? Then maybe altern 8 btween 1 n 2 man teams? Dya want me cum giv u a chuck? Ur 1 ov the best m 8 if multis piss u off il try steer u clear ov them? Any idea wen ur bk in m 8? Ofcours i do, shudv tried harda get 2 her, evrythin pointless wiv no mane

Wife’s texts – It is not disputed by either party that the wife wrote these texts. im just furious. He ruins everythin x x x Ur implyin i want bring someone bak Strugglin get babysitter at mo. Thats y never replyed. Chris is goin w wayne x Just pickin thesesa up then b there. Where ru sexy? X Y they in there so early? Ru goin a pub? X Goin pubs first but wil come after. I have t bloody place! Ur welcome meet us tho. Id love u to xx

Disputed texts - These texts were sent from the wife’s phone, but the police suspect they were not all written by her. They were sent in this order on the day of her death. Got go fetch milly. Val cant cope w her x Am talkin wiv chris, am confused. Ur 2 young 4 me. X x Not sure yet, am jst talkin wiv chris so will txt u lata, dont worry. Dnt kno, need think, am goin relax in bath then go sleep, really tired. X Will do when i wake up, so tired. Need talk 2 chris. Still hav feelins 4 him. X Sorry just want time 2 think. Been talkin 2 chris so tryin get my head 2 getha! R u out with wayne 2 nite? X Thanx tim, i just want chris talk 2 me right, he needs learn not take his stresses out on me, then we can b happy. X

Leadership Organisatio n Resilience Initiative Communication From your experience, which skills would Forensic Linguistic Detectives need the most? Why?

LORIC Desirable Qualities Leadership summarise and restate them for the purpose of clarification. Organisation Be thorough in your recording of ideas and theories. Resilience Be patient. Revisit evidence. Initiative Do not take anything at face value – ask questions about all that is presented to you. Communication Justify your ideas with evidence. Use the appropriate linguistic terminology.