April 17/2024 Lindsay Buziak Murder – How a high-tech machine led to a Saanich Police scandal.
For any of you who knew David Baines, or were familiar with his work as a journalist, you knew what he wrote always had credibility.
He was a man with great integrity, dedicated to his career as a journalist, a guy who was not afraid to take on the most contentious of stories. He did his background research until he knew he had perfected it. David had a lot of credible contacts/sources in the lower mainland, in fact, throughout the entire province for that matter. When David was finally ready to put his pen to paper, he knew his story was ready to go to print. David Baines retired in 2013, but he will always be remembered as the guy who took on challenges other journalists wouldn’t dare to touch.
Baines exposed the bogus lie detector device which Saanich Police had been using, a device which had been proven to have no credibility. What I believe inspired David Baines to do this story was when shortly after the Dateline NBC Dreamhouse Mystery aired in November 2010 the Saanich Police cleared the Zailo’s of having any involvement in Lindsay’s murder. According to Sgt. Detective Chris Horsley, Jason and his mother Shirley were both cleared based primarily on the fact that they passed lie detector tests and co-operated fully.
Lindsay’s ex-boyfriend Matt MacDuff was horrified as he listened to the news,
“How do you clear someone before arrests have been made” he asked? Most of the community felt the same way. Is it possible the police cleared the Zailo family publicly in order to make them feel safe? It’s very possible they failed the test, but that’s something we will never know. Saanich Police claim they stopped using their bogus CVSA in late 2007, and in 2008 they bought their first “real” polygraph machine. For all we know Jason & his mother Shirley could have been tested with the bogus CVSA device, “computer voice stress analyzer” and if that was the case you can be damn sure the Saanich police would never have told the public about that. A cover-up indeed.
The public was shocked, many outraged at this announcement and didn’t believe the results of the polygraph for a split second. It is well known that polygraphs are unreliable, and the fact that they cannot be used as evidence in a court of law speaks volumes. Sgt. Chris Horsley’s statement about Jason and his mother being co-operative with police was false. Jason and his mother had a long history of lying, yet the police insisted they had been cooperative. It makes one shake their head and say, “what the hell is going on here?” It is well known that cops lie, either to protect the evidence or to cover up their mistakes.
When David Baines 3-part series hit the press it caused shockwaves throughout the COMMUNITY,
The Saanich Police Department already had many scandals under their belt, but I must say David Baine’s high-profile story was the best, touching the community and left an everlasting impact. It’s unfortunate for the public that David chose to move on to his retirement years, because without a doubt David had a lot more stories to share with us. He was a man for the people.
SAANICH POLICE TO STOP USING CONTROVERSIAL LIE DETECTOR DEVICE
April 6/2011 Vancouver Sun
DAVID BAINES – INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST
Saanich was the first police department in Canada to use the computerized voice stress analyzer (CVSA),
which is more common in the US to determine if suspects are lying and also relies on the instrument for final interviews. “We use them for pre-employment because integrity issues are a big thing, no more so than policing,” said Sgt. Chris Horsley. CVSA tests are offered in British Columbia, by ITC Consulting Inc. run by two former Saanich police detectives, Don Wiebe and Bob Wall. ITV also contracted Craig Sampson the then head of Saanich’s crime section to conduct tests on as needed basis. Interesting to note, that these were two of the seven senior officers that retired from the SPD one day before Lindsay was murdered. Neither were asked to return to help after the murder, not even in an advisory capacity.
ITV states on its website that the device is 98% accurate. However, when I asked Wiebe to show me these studies, he said he had never seen any. He said he was just taking the word of the US company that developed the CVSA device and licenses the marketing rights to ITV. That company is called the National Institute of Truth Verification. It is based in West Palm Beach Florida and was founded by Dr. Charles Humble who obtained his doctorate from a diploma mill in Indiana after 6 hours of bible study.
NITV was also unable to provide me with any clinical studies to back up its 98% accuracy claim. ITV was owned and operated by two retired Saanich police detectives -Bob Wall and Don Wiebe. Sgt. Craig Sampson was the cop who administered the CVSA tests to people who had no idea that the device had no credibility.
I did find out however that several credible studies show that the machine was wrong just as much as it was right, which not only renders it useless, but it also makes it potentially dangerous. Even though there was little or no scientific justification for using it, the Saanich police used it as a screening device for all potential applicants. Saanich had its own CVSA machine. a legacy from Weibe’s days as a Saanich detective, Sampson as an active Saanich Police officer conducts these tests for the force.
Dr. Lorna Fadden, a Vancouver expert in forensic linguistics says she is disturbed that provincial agencies would use this device. Fadden completed her doctorate in forensic linguistics in 2008 and has taught at Simon Fraser University and the B.C. Justice Institute. There is no actual proven correlation between vocal stress and telling a truth or a lie, Fadden told me in an email. There are simply too many factors to foul up reliable results.
The University of Victoria campus security department, Saanich Police, and BC Corrections, the three companies that use the device said they this is just one of the tools they use. The test is also used to intimidate subjects into telling the truth, which suggests that any black box would do the job as long as the subject can be convinced that it can do the job. In absence of any scientific evidence that the device works, it seems if the employer places any material weight on the results it is placing the applicant in material jeopardy. Since my series was published the Saanich police advised that they intend to phase out the CVSA test as a screening.
We are going to transition away from the CVSA, said Sgt. Dean Jantzen who handles communications for the Saanich Police.
For five years, until late 2007, Saanich police also used the CVSA in criminal investigations. “We have not used it in a homicide context, other than to verify witness statements,” Jantzen said. He says the CVSA was not used at any point during the unsolved Lindsay Buziak case, though polygraph tests were administered during the investigation.
Jantzen said the sergeant in charge of recruiting, proposed in writing that the force move to polygraph testing to be consistent with other police forces (Saanich police made no mention of this proposal when I spoke to them last month. Polygraphs also have questionable reliability but that’s another story. So, there you have it, a complete non-answer, I believe the branch made no attempt to answer the questions because it can’t. There is little or no evidence to support the proposition that this device works, and much to refute it.
Saanich police drop controversial stress detector test – Greater Victoria News (vicnews.com)
June 20/2013 VANCOUVER SUN
Author: David Baines
David Baines bids farewell to readers
In the mid-1970s, when I was in my 20s, people seemed fascinated when I told them I worked as a reporter for The Vancouver Sun. When I left The Sun and went into commercial banking, I got a different response. Whenever I told somebody, I was a banker, the conversation — or at least that thread of the conversation — came to a crashing halt. In the mid-1970s, when I was in my 20s, people seemed fascinated when I told them I worked as a reporter for The Vancouver Sun. What’s the problem? I thought. Surely, I’m the same fascinating guy I used to be. I then realized that whatever cachet and credibility I had as a reporter was due to my affiliation with The Sun. That is the bullhorn that amplifies voices, big and small.
Upon my return to The Sun in 1988, this time as a stock reporter, I came to another realization: There is no such thing as “free” speech. Whenever I wrote a column that cut close to the bone, the lawsuits would start flying. I learned that it takes money, not just to publish stories, but also to defend them. I am fortunate to have worked for a newspaper that has the means and mindset to do both, and to have had great libel lawyers — notably Rob Anderson, Scott Dawson, and the late Barry Gibson — to guide me through this jungle.
It also takes guts to supervise this sort of reportage. Any editor who approves a contentious story has to be a strong and confident person. Lawsuits, if they do not go well, can break careers. I am fortunate to have had fearless editors over the years, most notably our erstwhile editor-in-chief, Patricia Graham. Over the past quarter century, The Sun has published 3,887 stories under my byline. Most of those stories are about people who, one way or another, tried to take unfair advantage of others. Having the voice to run interference with those people has been a great privilege and satisfaction for me.
Disclaimer: All parties mentioned in this blog are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The opinions expressed are solely my own. This blog is created in the public interest with the sole aim of seeking justice for Lindsay BUZIAK and bringing THE CONSPIRATORS AND her killer(s) to account.
EMAIL ADDRESS: murderondesousa@gmail.com