Toilet Trauma and the Polygraph

I happened to go to Court TV.com which I visit on occasion to get new stories and videos — to detect lies. There was a juicy story there today that I had not heard about before.

A man claims he went to use the public bathrooms at Home Depot in Colorado, and found he was the recipient of a prank. When he tried to get up from using the toilet, he was super-glued to it, and couldn’t get up.

I found some nice footage of the guy talking about it here.

I will try to be serious about this post because this “could” happen to someone in theory. I suspect –though I don’t know how– someone could get glued to a toilet. I have a hard time understanding the logistics of it — in that glue that powerful I would suspect dries very quickly, but nonetheless, I gave the guy credit and open-mindedly watched the video.

Do I think this man was a victim of a prank?

No.

Do I think this man is lying?

It’s likely.

Do I think the man or an accomplice somehow put glue down and then got attached a few minutes later?

Yes.

While the man doesn’t give off facial clues that are inconsistent with his story that I can see in this video, I believe his story is contrived. He rambles, stumbles, and fumbles for words. He doesn’t talk like someone recollecting a story. He is constantly searching for words to say. When someone tells the truth — they may fumble a little — but they don’t do it to the extent this guy is. They tell their story straight to the point. This man is unable to do that. Repeatedly.

More than that, he is over-dramatic, over-traumatized and trying to make a big deal out of everything.

He also talks way too much and wants way too much attention. He is vying for our approval.

However, the biggest reason I believe this man isn’t being truthful is in the way he tells his story. When recollecting this situation, he doesn’t tell it like a man who was truly surprised by the experience. His story-telling doesn’t fit with that of a “victim”. In more simple terms, he isn’t telling the story from a victim’s point of view — like a victim would. He also says things out-of-context: unusually and abnormally. That is my biggest tip-off that he is less than honest. Combined that with his word-searching and I have huge doubts.

Granted, for anyone, to be glued to a toilet seat would be nasty. It wouldn’t be fun, but it wouldn’t cause the type of nightmares this guy says it does. It wouldn’t be THAT traumatic — two years later. This is simply NOT LOGICAL.

The big news about this guy now isn’t the prank — it is that he passed a polygraph test. He passed it. Amazingly, I am not surprised. But to me, that doesn’t convince me one iota that he is telling the truth.

Sadly, the more I watch people take polygraphs, the less I believe in their accuracy. I believe polygraphs are accurate somewhere in the neighborhood of 65-75% of the time which is better than chance, but I see a fair amount of people tricking it successfully to the point it should be abolished.

I am hoping that if this man takes his prank story to court that real evidence comes out and the truth will be known.

Watch with me…only time will tell!

I wonder if the state of Colorado allows polygraph evidence in court. I sure hope not!