Links:

The Eau Claire Police Department web page.

Eau Claire police officer uses colors to detect lies

By Mark Schaaf
schaafmw@uwec.edu

Using one color-coded chart, Karl Fisher can tell if you are lying or if you’re telling the truth.

His skill is usually used with written and oral statements – sexual assault or robbery statements for example, but that’s not to say he won’t critique his wife or friends, either.

Fisher, a police lieutenant, is a 31-year veteran of the Eau Claire Police Department and works in the Special Services Bureau.

With those credentials, he oversees an office designated with community-related tasks, such as giving talks to youth or coordinating information with the media.

He is also a member of Police Chief Jerry Matysik’s staff. He purchases equipment, helps write the department’s annual report, does research for the police chief and also does some policy writing to fit current Wisconsin law.

It is his other area, statement analysis, which draws calls from around the region, asking his expert opinion on whether a person is lying.

“It’s almost like putting together a puzzle,” Fisher said.

With the help of his color-coded chart and intuition, Fisher goes through a police statement with markers, highlighting certain sentences, phrases or even specific words.

He starts with the color orange and determines the true beginning of an alleged event. Sometimes, he said, it will take awhile to get to that point, which could be a sign that the person making the statement is not telling the truth.

In one robbery case, the alleged victim went on in great detail about the poor state of his life. He wrote that he was working two jobs to make ends meet, was having trouble putting food on the table for his family, and he was, generally, very unhappy working at the convenience store where he said the incident took place.

He then began talking about a robbery that, as it turns out, never happened.

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