Statement Analysis®

Was Donna Spangler's death an accident?


I recently watched the television show "Devil Among Us" season 1 episode 4 entitled "Trail of Blood." The show was about Bob and Donna Spangler who were hiking through the Grand Canyon. They stopped to take a picture at the edge of a cliff when Donna fell to her death. Bob said they were standing at the ledge when he turned around and walked back several feet to set up his camera. When he looked back, Donna was gone. He looked over the edge of the cliff and saw her body. Her death was ruled an accident.

Bob gave some interviews to the media about what happened that day. In one interview, he stated the following:

"I can only surmise that she ah, you know, adjusted the pack or it got out of balance or she moved slightly and stepped on a rock that rolled under her feet, something, at any rate, she just ah went over the edge."

Twice he used the interjection ah. This is a slight pause to give him to time to think about what he should say. When a story is coming from memory, a person will normally tell us what happened without having to pause. Since he is summarizing, it is possible he has to hesitate to think about what may have happened.

He then used the phrase you know. The truth is we don't know. Some people use this phrase because they want you to take for granted what they are saying is true. However, we take nothing for granted. Keep in mind, some people have a habit of using the phrase you know. This idiosyncrasy should be obvious as this phrase will appear continually throughout their statement.

The word just is often used to minimize things. In this case, he is minimizing how she died. He wants us to believe she "just went over the edge." The use of the word just is cause for concern.

The biggest problem with his statement is the last four words; "went over the edge." In Statement Analysis, we believe what people tell us. We can believe she went over the edge. That is kind of obvious since she is at the bottom of a cliff. In taking this approach of belief in the subject, we do not add to the person's statement. We don't assume anything. We only believe what the person has told us; "went over the edge." Notice he didn't say she "fell over the edge." She only "went over the edge" which is a truthful statement. However, saying she "fell" over the edge might not be a truthful statement. Since people don't want to lie, he couldn't say that she fell. That is probably why he paused when he said "ah." He is thinking about how he should phrase this last part of his statement.

It took several years but Spangler eventually confessed he pushed his wife Donna over the cliff.



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