How to spot a liar – and other things I learned at the world's largest true crime convention

Slowing down to gawp at a catastrophic car wreck is, for most of us, as insuppressible as a sneeze. It’s innate, though morbid, to peer towards and not away from disaster, provided we’re at a safe distance - and it’s perhaps why the true crime genre is so very popular.

Some of the all-time most popular podcasts (Serial), TV shows (Making a Murderer) and books (Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood) focus on the heinous crimes of killers far superior in fame than their victims. Flick through any magazine or newspaper and you will find the same - we just can’t enough of it.

Now, there’s CrimeCon: a fast-growing American convention that attracts true crime obsessives from around the world, holding lectures over three days on everything from famed murders and cold cases, to police-led talks on forensics and interrogation techniques.

This year’s was held in Nashville, and naturally, as a closet die-hard fan of the genre, I had to go.

What followed was a bizarre weekend amid more than 3,000 fans - triple the number at its inaugural event last year - the vast majority of whom were women. What followed included a chat with the infamously fiery TV anchor Nancy Grace about Madeleine McCann, and, thanks to a retired police interrogator, a crash course on how to spot a liar...

As luck would have it, British Airways launched its first direct flights to Nashville just in time. The historic Union Station Hotel downtown had a room supposedly haunted by a ghost called Abigail, so that seemed like a suitable place to stay. And CrimeCon itself was held in the vast, bombastic, Disneyland-esque venue that is the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. I was all set.

A cavernous carpeted lobby cluttered with tables and displays hosted celebrity podcasters with long queues of fans eager to meet them. Clusters of middle-aged women, some in velour tracksuits, others wearing disconcertingly-gory T-shirts, scurried around clutching their brochures.

“Why would a guy be here on his own?” I overheard one of them hiss to her friend, in a thick Tennessee accent. “If you’re so interested in craaame (crime), why not just be a police officer?” The irony of this was entirely lost on both of them.

Her observation was bang-on, though. The only men there, aside from the odd solo lurker, were the slightly forlorn-looking ones trailing their wives. As to why true crime seems to be such a female obsession, Nancy Grace tells me, with her trademark finger wag: “Probably because women are smarter and can piece together the puzzle. No offence, gentlemen.”

Leading out from the lobby were several jam-packed auditoriums where lectures were given, many of which I attended, most of which were fascinating. It was a strange few days, with plenty of time to kill in between talks, all of it spent wandering alone between the 19 garish, neon-lit bars and restaurants that inhabit the Gaylord Opryland, people-watching, nibbling at fries and reflecting on serial killers. But it’s probably best summarised with answers to the series of questions I myself had before I attended. Starting with…

Why mostly women?

You could say this is odd, given that women tend to be less interested, put off even, by the sort of violence we see in gangster movies and action films. Why, if you’re the sort who turns away from dramatised scenes of murder and brutality, would you then move to the edge of your seat when it comes to anything true crime-related?

As a genre, of course, fans are rarely exposed to actual violence. Whether in documentaries, podcasts, or books: it’s all about inspecting the crime post-mortem, not watching it unfold. Grace puts this down to the more “analytical” female mind.

I put the query to neurologist and forensic psychologist Dr Julian Boon, who told me: “Men are more simple, and have a definite psychological outlook. Girls love mysteries, nit-picking and untangling - it all comes from a need to understand.”

More broadly speaking, we’re talking about natural selection, he explains. “Women have precious few eggs, so they need to be very choosy about who they mate with. Men who are untrustworthy, or are unlikely to be around to bring up the children, we’ll be selected against.”

At CrimeCon, I asked a podcaster from Generation Why, a hugely popular true crime discussion show produced by two men, why he thinks most of their audience is female. Co-host Aaron Habel replied: “I actually don’t think it’s weird. The last two surveys we did found that 80 per cent of our listeners are women. Maybe men are too busy watching sport?

He added: “I think it’s a lot like relationships. If you’re dating a man and you’re really interested in him, and all of a sudden one day, out of the blue, he cuts you off - women ask more questions and want more answers. With the roles reversed, men are more likely to just go ‘eh’ - and move on.”

The general consensus, therefore, seems to be that women are hard-wired in the way they’re drawn to true crime because it fulfils an innate need to analyse, to prod at people’s motives, and take learnings from violent atrocities that, let’s not forget, are more often committed by men, and more often than not in domestic circumstances.

Indeed, a 2010 Illinois Wesleyan University study on women and true crime concluded that women often gained "potential life-saving knowledge" from the novels they read.

America’s queen of true crime - who is Nancy Grace?

If you’re an American with a pulse, you’ll know exactly who she is. If you’re from the UK, think Katie Hopkins on steroids: more audacious, more outspoken, just as controversial. Grace, 59, a Georgia-born former prosecutor turned author and TV crime commentator is such an icon, in fact, that novelist Gillian Flynn based a character on her in her best-selling crime novel, Gone Girl, later adapted to film. Having interviewed Grace in the flesh, I couldn’t help but like her.

“The true crime genre is exploding in every way,” she says, when I ask about CrimeCon’s popularity. “People have always had an inherent interest in true crime. It’s like looking at a tarantula through a glass jar.

“And since media coverage has become so global, people find out about crimes that happen on the other side of the world. There’s an endless supply, as many scary spiders in jars as you want. And people want them.”

I ask her about the world-famous Madeleine McCann case, and whether she thinks the missing toddler’s parents were involved with her disappearance (Grace tends to assume guilt over innocence).

“Well,” she says. “I understand why you’d look at the parents first because statistically, they did it. But it seems to me that those parents have been so thoroughly investigated. I think there’s a lot of anger towards them because they were having dinner and the children were alone.

“Was that smart? No. But does that make them killers? At some point, people must let go of this anger and see these parents as victims.”

Her views are different on the divisive case of Amanda Knox, who was sensationally acquitted for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in 2011. Plenty of Americans took Knox’s side, purely, it seemed, because she was American; while many Britons still consider her guilty, perhaps because the victim was British.

But following Knox’s return to the US, Grace famously announced - to many people’s surprise - that she had no interest in interviewing her. “My show does not pay for interviews,” she told Access Hollywood, in a less-than-subtle dig. “I don’t think she’s going to tell the truth anyway, so what’s the point?”

Finally, I ask Grace why anyone would choose to be a defence lawyer, and root for clients who appear so obviously to be guilty of the accused crime (OJ Simpson springs to mind). Surely that’s a tactically difficult, risky, and morally troublesome task?

“Money,” she replies. “Drug dealers, rich parents who’ll throw any cash to get their kids off a DUI - it’s lucrative." She pauses. “I guess some do have a perception and the sense of duty to protect and defend under our constitution. But I’ll tell you what, if you have a bad feeling about something - that’s your conscious knocking. And if you lie for a client on the stand - well, you can work that out with the devil.”

What’s behind the rise of the true crime podcast?

Those that sit at the top of the charts include the likes of Casefile, Sword and Scale, True Crime Garage and Generation Why - all of which follow a similar format: the re-telling and examination of true crime cases, old and new. Interestingly, all the aforementioned's hosts are male, and most of their listeners, female.

Generation Why - a personal favourite of mine - was launched as a hobby by Aaron Habel and Justin Evans in 2012. “Justin wasn’t really into true crime until he was called to jury on a first-degree murder charge,” Habel tells me of his longtime friend and co-host. “He called me up, fascinated, to talk about the fingerprints and I said ‘hey, let’s start a podcast on it’.

"I was the one who had always been into it. Since I was a teenager really, I was hooked. Jack the Ripper - it was creepy, it made me nervous, it was a thrill. But back then, there simply wasn’t a venue to discuss it with a larger audience.”

These days, Generation Why is a thriving podcast and a full-time business with an audience approaching 250,000. “For us, we got lucky because people were looking for this sort of thing. Ours was the first of its kind - a duo conversational podcast, and somehow they found us. Then when Serial blew up in 2014, every fan of it was looking for their next fix.

“People really like shows that they binge, obsess over and discuss after every episode.”

Evans and Habel choose the cases they feature based on a variety of factors - what’s in the news, audience requests, and particular interesting crimes from the past century. “It’s hard sometimes,” Habel remarks. “The Josh Powell case [in which a Utah man killed his two toddler sons, plus allegedly his pregnant wife, then himself in 2009] - I took that on and off the schedule many times before going ahead. Frankly, the content really bothered me.”

I bring up the fact that there are more notable male than female true crime podcast hosts. Habel finds the topic slightly confounding. “The female podcasters I know get picked on, just for their voices,” he says. “It’s weird”. Especially, I point out, given that male hosts tend to attract crushes, again, by simple way of their voice.

“We do get creepy listeners,” he admits. “But they don’t stick around because we don’t feed it. We had a stalker woman once who would write to us constantly and she finally stopped, gave up.

“Maybe she found another podcast.”

OK, so how can I spot a liar?

Unsurprisingly, this lecture attracted more than 850 people. It was given by Steven David Lampley, a former police officer and undercover detective.

The audience at this one were, notepads out, scribbling notes furiously, quite literally on the edge of their seats. What did we learn?

People lie between 100 and 200 times a day, according to Lampley. Women tell about four white lies a day, men are more likely to tell lies that boost their ego ("aggrandisement lies") - about six times daily. Most of us will lie two to three times within the first 10 minutes of meeting someone new. The most prevalent way to lie is on the telephone. More lies are told in the month of January than any other.

It’s a myth that avoiding eye contact or crossing your arms under interrogation means you’re more likely to be fibbing. There are many, many more reliable indicators, far more subtle. “You can consciously conceal some of them, but no-one can conceal them all,” Lampley states, playing video footage of Bill Clinton’s famed “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” speech, among others - slowing them down and pointing out all the indicators.

Using overly formal language is one indicator. Saying “could not”, instead of “couldn’t”, or “I did not” instead of “I didn’t” is something people naturally resort to when they're being untruthful. As is repeating back the question you’ve just been asked to buy time. Replacing a person’s name with simply “he” or “she” to dehumanise someone you've harmed. Using ‘exclusionary qualifiers’ such as “for the most part, usually”; using ‘perception qualifiers’, like “as far as I know”, “best I can remember”. Another indicator is ‘blading’, which is when a subject shifts slightly away to lessen their exposure, points their feet in the direction of the exit, or subconsciously places an object, like a coffee cup, between themselves and the interrogator.

“Invoking God or religion into the answer good indicator,” Lampley tells a rapt audience. “And liars often make a conscious effort not to blink when they’re giving you false information. In fact, blinking after the lie has been told increases by up to 800 per cent to compensate. Oh, and hiding your thumbs. For some reason, the thumb is a big deal.”

Interesting, too, is that people tend to look to the right when telling a lie, which corresponds with the part of the brain responsible for creation and imagination; and to the left when they’re telling the truth, since this side of the brain handles memory. But, crucially, you have to know whether the subject is left or right-handed to get this correct.

“The first thing I’d do at the start of an interrogation would be to hand the subject a bottle of water straight on, and see which hand they take it with,” we’re told. “If you’ve never had training in lie detection, your accuracy rate is about 54 per cent. With training, you can get as good as 90 per cent.”

Finally, was the hotel I stayed at really haunted?

Of course it wasn’t. As someone who does not believe in God, superstitions, star-signs or even homeopathy, I certainly don’t buy into ghost stories. But so desperate was I to be proven wrong that at one point I will confess I whispered to the walls. “Abigail? Abigail. Just give me a sign.” Nothing. Not a flickering lamp or an errant thump to be had.

The story goes that Abigail is the ghost of a woman who, back when the hotel was a train station, threw herself onto the tracks when she discovered that her soldier beau hadn’t made it back from the Second World War alive. Supposedly, she wanders the hotel corridors trapped in a state of misery, but favours room 711.

It’s made the room fairly popular, and it’s often - as in my case - specifically requested for this reason. “People have experiences here,” says the porter who escorts me to the room, in a hushed tone.

Suspicious, I count the number of times he blinks before he turns away.

The essentials

The next CrimeCon (crimecon.com) will be held June 7-9 in New Orleans. Tickets available here.

British Airways (ba.com) operates daily direct flights to Nashville from London Heathrow, with fares starting from £449 return. 

Union Station hotel in Nashville is almost certainly not haunted, but is very nice. Rooms start at £126 per night. Read an expert review here.