Anatomy of the Lie: Drew Peterson as the New Example of the Believable Liar

Liars have always been a breed of people who've been more easily caught in the act recently via better education of body language. It hasn't so much been through certain movements of the person's arms, or general body shape. We all know the eyes are the place on the body where most decipherers of the lie can bring to light the act of lying, no matter how sophisticated the liar is. As with the entire human race, though, the lie has evolved right along with everything else. It's a shame our DNA that evolves our most negative traits also became as sophisticated as our positive traits over the decades as we learn to adapt to a complex world seemingly spinning out of control.

If you have to go then by the survival of the fittest mode, the act of lying has increasing so much that it's become a quasi art form if you want to go with that supposition.

Yes, even art can evolve to places we don't want them to be. If lying has become a sophisticated art, then too many people have mastered it. In that vein, we have those who can stare someone in the eye and resolutely say they didn't do something when the liar knows he or she did. Their conscience has been shaped to the place where it can be convinced the liar didn't do a particular act. When that happens, the liar arguably is no longer lying because the person has convinced him or herself that a particular unlawful act didn't take place.

The worst evolution of that is when someone commits murder and somehow manages to build reinforcements in their minds that they didn't do it. Within the timeline of serial murderers who chronically lie, it was O.J. Simpson who seemed to be the first person who was able to create this phenomenon of the mind. Perhaps there were others before, though never ones who had such compelling evidence against them--yet lived their entire life believing they didn't take the life of another person.

To this date, and while O.J. Simpson is rotting away in prison for a completely different crime, it appears that he still believes he didn't kill his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. Even in various interviews since his release from potential murder charges 14 years ago, Simpson was able to look right into the eyes of more than a few reporters and say that he didn't do it. Body language experts ultimately became stumped when Simpson, being ever so adamant, never showed an eye blink or any other sign that he was lying. He managed to convince too many people that he really couldn't have killed his wife despite the overwhelming evidence.

This made the evolution of the lie equivalent to a human being evolving into a jackass akin to Lampwick morphing into same in "Pinocchio." Too bad Simpson didn't start braying like a donkey during those TV interviews where he managed to convince the gullible that he was telling the truth. Yes, for those who'd studied body language, seeing Simpson being able to lie without showing signs of lying was a scary enough prospect. In the world of psychoanalysis, it was unprecedented.

Then along came other murderers who perhaps were tipped off by the Simpson case that they, too, could get away with it. Along with that comes the evolution of the lie run amok, particularly in the complicated mind of accused serial murderer Drew Peterson.
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If you saw the Drew Peterson's interview on Dateline NBC on May 8 of this year, you saw a man who was able to look right into the eye of a reporter and millions of TV viewers to say that he was an innocent man. While perhaps the evidence isn't right between the eyes as it was with O.J. Simpson, the evidence is compelling and deductive enough to suggest that Peterson was able to convince himself he didn't kill his two previous wives as an act of suspicion of marital affairs. As with Simpson, Peterson obviously believes that it's all about him and any sign of an affair with a wife will set them off into a state of mind that even they can't comprehend until it happens.

Every indication is there that the mindset of convincing one's self they didn't commit a horrific murder starts with their ego containing a hidden and uncontrollable rage. That heightened emotion could very well be a real Jekyll/Hyde syndrome hidden throughout society that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a multiple personality disorder, but still a new form of mental illness. When in those rages, they're Hyde squared or cubed. Afterward, they're convinced it was someone else out there who had the capability to kill a fellow human being.

There's no other way to explain how a whole string of murderers since Simpson have been able to look right into a camera, in the eye of a reporter or even someone they know and say they weren't capable of doing a brutal crime. We've seen more individuals than just Drew Peterson who've been able to do that since the days of Simpson's trial. But Peterson is right up there in the top ranks now of those who believe so much they didn't do it that they can pass a lie detector test or not show a single sign of body language indicating they're lying.

Based on my reading of body language, Drew Peterson's Dateline NBC interview proved he's long turned off all memories or association with his past and likely murders. Never once did he blink his eyes or show any other sign language to indicate he knows he's guilty. I doubt any other body language reader could find much there either.

If this mysterious form of evolution to the lie is proliferating faster than you can tell a lie, we're in for a challenge to our legal system bringing down the guilty. Because these individuals are also capable of covering up evidence to an eerie degree (well, except for O.J.), the implications are compounded. These types of murderers are now a part of Darwin's survival of the fittest where their ability to convincingly lie can probably persuade at least some of the people all the time, if perhaps a jury.

Obviously, it's also a psychological reinforcement for them to keep living normally and not put a gun to their head and pull the trigger. Fortunately, some do--and those with the ability to eliminate their horrific deeds out of their head is one of the most astonishing aspects to the evolution of the human brain while also proving that our evolution is partly devolution...