The Girl In The Polygraph Test: Part Three

[p. 23]
H: So tell me how, did somebody misquote you and the first thing you know you were involved in something that you didn't want to be involved in?
S: Well, yes and no...............


H: Well tell me about it, Sandy.
S: Yes and no. Well, (*), there was this girl comin', and she was comin' down the stairs and she had said, "We shot him, we shot him." (*) No, it...


H: Now, S-...
S: ...this girl in a polka dot dress, in a white dress with polka dots.


H: Sandy, don't. It's like a disease, I know what I'm telling you. I know what I'm telling you.
S: (*) It, it, it said that I'd never even seen a girl with white, with a polka dot dress? [1]


H: No, I am saying that, uh, nobody told you, "We have shot Kennedy."
S: Yes, somebody told me that "We have shot Kennedy."


H: No.
S: I'm sorry but that's true. That is true.


[1. Serrano evidently expressed surprise that the polygraph machine indicated lying even on that one point -- whether she'd seen a girl with a white dress with polka dots. Note Hernandez's immediate response to her question -- No.......... you may have seen such a girl, but it didn't involve any "we have shot Kennedy" nonsense-dwd]

[p. 25]
S: Well, it's too messed up, even I can't remember what happened anymore.
H: Yes you can..........


H: Well, number one, you know that nobody told you, "We have shot Kennedy."
S: No, somebody told me, "We have shot Kennedy."


H: No.
S: (*)


H: Nobody told you. Where did they tell you this, Sandy?
S: Outside.


H: No ma'am. No ma'am.
S: Yes sir, this is, yes sir.


H: Sandy, like I say, don't be uh, don't be...
S: Well I'm not gonna say, I truly believe somebody told me, and I'm not gonna say, "No, nobody told me," just to satisfy anybody else.

[p. 30]
S: I, to tell you the truth, I don't know, really, what's happened. Everything is such a mess and I...
H: Well, okay. Were you ever on that staircase?


S: Yes.
H: Okay. You went back in. When did you first hear that Kennedy had been shot? Let's start there. [2]


S: I was outside.
H: Who told you?


S: A girl!
H: What did she say?


S: "We shot him."
H: No, that's not the truth. No...


S: (*) sure that's what she said.
H: No, that's not the truth Sandy.........


S: Well, I, I thought that's what she said. I'm sure that's what she said. I mean, maybe they, she said, "They shot him, they shot him." I don't know.


[2. This is great work: he moved the encounter inside (instead of out on the fire escape), and then probed as to when -- after having been out on the stairs and gone inside -- she "first" heard about the shooting. And note (again) her immediate correction: "I was outside."]

[p. 34]
H: ........But I'm talking about what did you really say when this, when this thing started snowballing, what did you say?
S: Not much.


H: What was it?
S: It seems to me like I didn't say much.


H: Like what? What is it?
S: Well, just what I told you...


H: What is that?
S: ...(*) what they told me, you know.


H: What is that? Go ahead and tell me.
[p. 35]
S: Well I, now, I'm not, now, I know some girl told me, "We've shot him."


H: No. No. Now, this is...
S: (**)


H: ...now see, this is, this is what you're, this is what's going bad, see. This is what's going bad, and that's............................ [where all the flowers have gone -- my paraphrasing-dwd]



S: That's, that's, all I know is that I heard somebody say, "We shot him," and I'm sure it was a girl.
H: Where did you hear that?


S: I was outside.
H: Okay, then why did you say you saw two men with her?


S: Because I had seen them earlier. Now, I had seen these people earlier.
H: Well, you saw a lot of people there, though, Sandy.


S: Yeah, but I remember her because of the dress.
H: But you didn't see two men with her coming down or going up.


S: (*) not coming down. But I had seen her earlier with two men. [3]
H: Oh, how come, how come you're making yourself suffer like this?


[3. she saw the woman with two men going up (earlier), but only saw the woman and one of those men coming down-dwd]

[p. 36]
S: ...........Now, I was, no, really, I was outside and some girl with a white dress on...
H: With a white dress on.


S: Right. And I, I think, a girl, I think it did have polka dots on.
H: No, you know...


S: (*)
H: But go ahead, and you tell me the story.


[p. 37]
S: She said, "We shot him." And I had come in, and I had asked, and nobody knew about it. And that's the honest-to-God-truth. And you can put it on your higamajig machine and (*).
H: All right, you say a girl with a white dress told you... Please, please, don't make yourself a liar, don't have this piece of machinery here............



H: Were you in the stairway when someone told you that Kennedy had been shot?
S: Yes.


H: When you learned that Kennedy had been shot, did a girl in a white dress tell you that?
[p.38]
S: Yes.


H: See, Sandy?
S: Was I outside?


H: You were outside.
S: When someone told me...


H: Yeah, when someone told you. [4]
S: (sighs) I was sure there was a girl in a white dress.


H: But it wasn't a girl in a white dress. But the fact, well, the whole fact boils down to this, that nobody, the important thing is here that somebody told you, "We have shot Kennedy." And that never happened. That's what the, what is the important thing. And you know that that was never told to you.............



H: Well, tell me, what really happened? What really happened?
S: I don't know! I know that I was out there and somebody said, and I was sure in my mind that it was the same girl I had seen earlier. I'm positive. And I, I can remember asking the guard and the guard didn't even, he didn't, you know, didn't know nothing about it, and those people...


H: Okay. When you...
[p. 39]
S: And that's the last thing I can really remember, and I'm running into the people and ah, I don't know, I just remember... Everything is such a mess............


[4. Hernandez "confirms" that the polygraph indicated Serrano was telling the truth about being outside when someone told her about the shooting, although a girl in a white dress (now without black polka dots) continues to present a problem-dwd]

[p. 40]
H: Yeah. Okay. Then do you remember walking outside?
S: Right.


H: Okay. Now, what else, and I'm gonna let you tell me from that point, what you remember.
S: (*) for awhile. People passed me by and (*)...


H: How many people?
S: Three people.


H: Three people. Did you ever see three people going up?
S: (*) going up.


H: Okay.
S: (*) passed me by.


H: Now, do you remember what that girl was wearing?
S: A white dress.


H: A white dress. A plain white dress.
S: I think it had polka dots on it.


H: No, tell me the truth, now. What do you remember. No, no, don't make anything up now, you remember a white dress.
S: (*) I, I, okay, I remember white...


H: Okay.
S: ...white.


H: And three people went in?
S: Right.


H: Okay, and then what else do you remember?
S: Then I remember, I kind of remember looking around and all and I remember about food trucks. And then I remember, after awhile somebody said, which I was sure was the same girl, [p. 41] something that Kennedy, "We sh--," "They shot Kennedy," or "We shot Kennedy," something to that effect.


H: (*), this is the important part. Think about what the girl told you, because look...
S: (*) I, I did think, did, did they say, "He shot Kennedy," did they say, "We shot Kennedy"? It sounds alike.


H: Here, here, here's the thing, Sandy, here's the thing. What is the natural instinct, if somebody says, "We shot Kennedy," you immediately say, "They shot"... You don't have to think twice about it.
S: Right. Well (*)...


H: But you knew that these people didn't tell you whoever it was that first told you, and that's what I've asked you here...
S: Yeah.


H: Whoever it was that told you about Kennedy being shot informed you, "Kennedy has been shot." And this was like a bomb to you, you see..........



H: I ask you, "Did someone tell you, 'We shot Kennedy'?" Immediately you know whether, in fact, somebody told you and immediately you are telling me, no, nobody told me that. [5]
S: Well, I'm sure they said "we." I, I, I really, really thought that, (**)... It was either "we" or "he" and, I'm sure, one of the two.


H: No.....................


[5. i.e., he asks the question and she knows the truth, so the polygraph "immediately tells him" she was not telling the truth about it-dwd]

[p.42]
H: Now, let's keep score here, okay? Let's just watch the way things happen. First you don't know if they said "he" or they said "we." Okay. But, yet, you remember, uh, seeing the girl in a white dress...
S: Right.


H: ...not polka dots, you see... Okay. Then you remember seeing the girl, or you think you saw the girl, by herself. Right?
S: Somebody was up there.


H: Yeah, that's what...
S: I don't know, somebody was, somebody...


H: No, now, you know...
S: Somebody was there, somebody else was there.


H: Somebody else was there?
S: On the stairs, coming down.


H: Below?
S: Above.


H: Above.
S: Above.


H: Okay. Now somebody was there, but you know that if the girl told you, "He shot Kennedy," that this, whoever was there, wasn't with this girl, you know this, that's what you're telling me here. [6]
S: I don't know (*)............


[p. 43]
H: .......But the fact is that, were these people all together? Were they separate?
S: I don't know.


H: Okay, but you told the police that these two people, the man and the woman came down. You know that's not true. But that's okay. I'm just gonna show you here.
S: All right.


H: There [sic, Then] there was the situation where you said you went and you called your mom.
S: Right.


H: Do you remember what you told your mom?
S: That, that Senator Kennedy had been shot.


H: Yeah. But you didn't tell her anything about seeing the people that shot him.
S: No.


H: Did you?
S: I never said I did.


H: Yeah, I know, I know you didn't, but the fact is that you know why you didn't tell her? Why did--, you didn't tell your mom?
S: Because I had wanted to talk to my dad..............


[6. "that's what you're telling me here" -- i.e., the polygraph reading "tells him" she's lying about the other person being with the girl-dwd]

[p. 44]
H: Because you didn't see, you know, these people didn't tell. But anyway, here's the thing. Now, these, these reports all show this. First you tell them that the person said, "We shot Kennedy," and now you say you don't know whether they said "we" or "he."
S: Uh huh.


H: Or "he." You say that girl was wearing a white dress with black polka dots. Now you know that it was a white dress. That's number two. Then you said you saw two people coming down.
S: Uh huh.


H: See. But there were more than two people, and these people weren't really... the person that told you, was what you're saying, you don't even know who it was that told you...
S: (*)


H: ...you think it was. So I'm asking you now, uh, Sandra, why did you tell the statement? And this is the whole thing. When you make the statement about somebody, seeing somebody who, did, what happened? That's the part I don't get.
S: I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened.


H: Well, when you...
S: I remember coming back and people were standing there and it was a commotion, like, up there and somebody said, and I think they said, "We shot him" now, because I've been thinking in my head. Did they say "He" or "We" or what?..................


[p. 45]
H: San--, Sandy, let me ask you this, to make it easy for you. Why after, and I think I know the answer, but I want you to tell me of your own, why, after you saw the publicity, the newspapers and television saying, "Sandra Serrano saw a woman in a white polka dot dress and two, and two men enter the place, Sandra Serrano saw...
S: (*) say that.


H: Well, no, I'm asking you this. When you saw the publicity that Sandra Serrano saw a woman in a white polka dot dress and a male running down saying, "We shot him," "We shot him," and you said, "Who?", and they said, "Senator Kennedy, we shot Senator Kennedy"...
S: (*)


H: Why, when this publicity was put out initially didn't you say, wait a minute, that's not true? Why? I know the answer, but I want you to tell me.
S: I don't know, it's because everything was down already and it was all a mess already. And I, I, well I didn't know, well, I didn't want to put myself in a bad way, you know, I didn't want the police department (*) a finger at me when I knew that the whole thing really wasn't my fault.


H: The publicity came out and you couldn't help it?
S: That's right............

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