Lie Detector

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7110, 7 January 1930, Page 2

Lie Detector

BLOOD PRESSURE CLUE TO GUILT. TORTURE PLEA. The “lie doteetor,” an invention of Mr. August Yollmer, Professor of Criminology at Chicago Univorsity and adviser to President Hoover’s Crime Commission, has just been brought into play with dramatic results. Two leather plates are held in place by a chain on each side of the breast of an alleged criminal. A rubber tuba wound round the arm registers the blood pressure, while a needle attached to a wire records on a graph the respiration and fluctuations in blood pressure. It is claimed that the "lie detector" will probe the deepest secrets of criminals under question, and that the new sort of confessional will be an added terror to criminals. Mr. Ewing Colvin, the prosecuting attorney of Seattle, says that the device was used with almost complete success in the case of one De Casta Earl Mayer, who is serving a term of imprisonment as an habitual criminal. He is suspected by the police of the murder of James Eugene Bassett, who disappeared from Annapolis last year. The body has never been discovered, but Bassett’s car and watch were found in Mayer’s possession. Mayer was subjected to incessant questioning as to where Bassett’s body had been hidden, and more and more reaction was registered on the graph. At first Mayer treated the instrument as a joke, but later jumped up and smashed it. It was repaired and the questions were resumed. Finally, says Mr, Colvin, Mayer cried: “I know that instrument is recording the truth. I cannot beat it. You know I killed Bassett:” Mayer later denied that he had confessed and accused Mr. Colvin and tho other officials of torturing him.