Lie detector, by Katia Gagnon | The untold story of a police confessor

March 1987. A game warden patrolling a dirt road in Rawdon, in Lanaudière, sees, at the bottom of a ditch, a human hand on the snow which has begun to recede under the warm rays of the spring sun.

Other human members are gradually discovered nearby. Crimes against the person investigators from the Sûreté du Québec were dispatched to the scene.

A blue trunk, probably used to transport the limbs cut with a chainsaw, was also found near a stream. Blood in the trunk. Forgotten in the bottom of a pouch, a small piece of folded and wet paper which will identify the victim, a businessman from Mont-Royal.

The police meet the widow, who assures that her husband is alive and, with bank deposit statements to support it, that he is in British Columbia.

But the investigators are not fooled. They go back up the chain, unravel an elaborate Machiavellian plan to confuse them, and discover the pot of roses. They are faced with a classic: a love triangle story.

In this affair which caused a lot of noise at the time, the gardener, the widow’s lover, was arrested and questioned at length. But he will never be condemned. It’s not because Jacques Landry didn’t try.

40 years have erased nothing

In his long career, this ex-police officer, inventor of an interrogation technique that bears his name and pioneer of the use of the polygraph, had a lot of success, but also failures which still haunt him today. Among them, the sordid murder of the Mont-Royal businessman.

“It’s one of the biggest failures of his career, not being able to put this guy behind bars. When he talks about it again, even if it’s been 40 years, he practically has tears in his eyes,” says Katia Gagnon, journalist at The Press.

In a book titled Lie detectorour colleague tells about the career, but also a little about the personal life of this former seasoned investigator.

The 225-page work, which can be read in one go, constitutes a real foray into the little-known world of interrogations and polygraph tests, but also, incidentally, of human psychology.

One story or anecdote does not wait for the other in this work based on dozens of hours of interviews with Jacques Landry, and on twenty-six filmed interrogations, some of which last three or four hours, which Katia watched in entirety to fully understand its subject and its famous revolutionary method.

The Landry method

During his career as an investigator, interrogator and polygraph examiner, which began in the 1980s and which continues today, in the private sector, after 40 years, Jacques Landry has conducted more than 12,000 interviews with suspects, witnesses or others.

While previously, police interrogations were based on exposure to the facts and confrontation with the suspect, Landry introduced a new approach: that of first getting the subject to talk about their life, to establish a relationship of trust, and then focus on the why rather than the how, finding a loophole so that the person they meet ends up compromising and confessing to their crime.

“I found it really fascinating, this exercise of interrogation, its preparation and its method of semi-manipulation, semi-link of trust”, summarizes the journalist, who has also carried out hundreds of interviews in her career .

Katia Gagnon is stunned by the fact that at the end of several interrogations, suspects who confessed shook the investigator’s hand and thanked him for listening. Some even still call or write to him years later.

Worldwide fame

In 1995, following a commission of inquiry into police practices, Jacques Landry was asked by the authorities to standardize interrogation methods and teach the subject at the National Police Academy of Quebec.

Once retired from the SQ, the “Landry method” will take him to Belgium – where relations with the Belgian police have been rather difficult –, to France and even to Africa.

In the private sector, Jacques Landry carried out interrogations on behalf of criminals who wanted to ensure that their employees or acolytes – sometimes even important individuals – were not talking to the police or had not stolen from them. On this subject, Jacques Landry is aware that he is skating on thin ice and feels the need to explain himself to the journalist.

The former police officer left the SQ not without a certain bitterness that is still palpable today, whether through the words or between them.

If, through the pen of Katia Gagnon, Jacques Landry’s goal is to leave a legacy to posterity, we can say that the case is closed.

To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.

Some extracts from the book

Excerpt 1

Already that morning, he (MS, an important individual in organized crime) arrived at Jacques Landry’s office, which the latter rents to a law firm, with his retinue of six thugs, in a parade black SUVs. Landry dismissed the entire retinue of escorts, keeping only the lawyer and the client with him.

Landry therefore begins the interview with MS as he does with each of his subjects, by addressing his personal and emotional life on several aspects. We learn that he grew up in a difficult environment. “I was self-raised and self-educated. I was all alone. »

The worst thing that happened to him in his life? “I lost a lot of friends,” he answers soberly. And the most beautiful event that happened to him in his life? The man takes a break. He tries to contain the emotion. “The birth of my daughter,” he replies, with tears in his eyes. “Are you worried about her?” » asks Landry.

— I’m afraid I won’t be able to be there for her. Because of my life, my reputation. (…) Does it work (the video)? You’re going to have to erase that. It’s all very personal.

Excerpt 2

Dozens of interrogations on the theme of pedophilia have made Landry less optimistic about the possibilities of treating this sexual deviance. “The ones I was going to interview in prison, they were just fantasizing about when they would be released so they could start again. »

Landry was one day supposed to go and interview a pedophile sentenced to the La Macaza penitentiary for several disappearances of children that occurred in the east of Montreal in the 1980s. The appointment was made. The day before, Landry listens to a message on his answering machine. The inmate committed suicide. “Officially, this case, which made the headlines, has never been clarified. But in my head, he is. »

Excerpt 3

But the more the test progresses, the more the sweat rings widen on SG’s white t-shirt, Landry quickly notes. “The ring of sweat gets bigger the more I talk to him. Just by seeing the sweat, I knew he was guilty. » But the man is not easy to penetrate. He never comes out of his shell. The polygraphist does not let go.