With the discussion of the cases ongoing here, I have been waiting for a slow time to post this transcript from the Abrams show back in Dec 2005, so that it does not get lost by the TV station taking it down. Here goes:
'The Abrams Report' for Dec. 1st
ABRAMS: Hi, everyone. First up on the docket, the story in Aruba just keeps getting more bizarre. We have done our own ABRAMS REPORT investigation into a critical piece of evidence in this case, an interview with Deepak Kalpoe, one of the three suspects in Natalee Holloway disappearance.
An interview that could determine whether he and other suspects get arrested. The issue: Did Kalpoe say that he and the other suspects had sex with Natalee the night she disappeared or was it just the opposite? Did he deny it? We are still confused.
And now you can try to figure it out along with us. Now listen very carefully. First, the portion of the interview as played on the “Dr. Phil” show. This is the one that initially caused the controversy.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
JAMIE SKEETERS, POLYGRAPH EXPERT: And the question I‘ll ask you is, if you intentionally killed her?
DEEPAK KALPOE, SUSPECT IN NATALEE HOLLOWAY‘S DISAPPEARANCE: No.
SKEETERS: If it was an accident, I can help all of you and if you guys were partying, even if somebody had given her a date drug—I‘m sure she had sex with all of you.
KALPOE: She did. You‘d be surprised how simple it was.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
ABRAMS: All right, next here‘s a portion of the interview provided to us by Jamie Skeeters, the polygraph experts who was the one who actually interviewed Kalpoe.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
SKEETERS: Nobody told her that you can‘t (EXPLETIVE DELETED) her.
You know? I mean and I‘m sure she had sex with all of you.
KALPOE: She did. You would be surprised how simple it was that night.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
ABRAMS: And now this. Just hours ago e-mailed to us from the Aruban authorities.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
SKEETERS: Nobody told her that you can‘t (EXPLETIVE DELETED). You know? I mean and I‘m sure she had sex with all of you.
KALPOE: No, she didn‘t. You would be surprised how simple it would have been.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
ABRAMS: Wow! I mean it sounds like exactly the opposite and these are supposed to be the same tapes. This is crucial.
All right, who better to figure this out than the people we‘ve got joining us right now. Joining me now is Arlene Ellis Schipper, an Aruban attorney, member of Aruba‘s Strategic Communications Task Force. She e-mailed us the Aruban portion of the tape we just played.
Richard Burton is CEO and founder of V, a company that provides voice analysis—Richard Parton. And Paul Ginsberg, president of Professional Audio Laboratories, who has analyzed tapes for the FBI, CIA and others. All right and we may be joined by Jamie Skeeters in a moment.
All right first, let me ask you, we have been here all day and you have been listening to these tapes with us.
RICHARD PARTON, PH.D., VOICE ANALYST: Yes.
ABRAMS: What is your take on this?
PARTON: From the tapes that we recalled off of Mr. Skeeters‘ hard drive and from what we heard from the “Dr. Phil” show, we look at the waveforms and there is no question from the way the words stand on the waveforms that he said that they did have sex. Also in context with the conversation that followed it looks like it said they did have sex with her.
ABRAMS: All right. Now what about the tape from—so you are basically saying that—you compared the tape that Jamie Skeeters had and “Dr. Phil” tape and you‘re saying they didn‘t fundamentally alter it. They made some edits, but...
PARTON: Right.
ABRAMS: ... but they didn‘t fundamentally alter what was said on that tape, correct?
PARTON: Yes.
ABRAMS: OK. What about this tape from Aruba that sounds like he‘s saying just the opposite?
PARTON: Well look at—what we do with our analysis is we see people stuffed behind the words. There is no difference from the “Dr. Phil”, the Skeeters tape or the Aruban tape on the thoughts that Kalpoe had on there. The only difference is some extra noise at the end of the word didn‘t and that noise is missing from the Skeeters original and from the “Dr. Phil” show.
ABRAMS: All right. Arlene, you are convinced are you not that in the version that you have heard that he says just the opposite, that he says he did not have sex with her, right?
ARLENE ELLIS SCHIPPER, ARUBAN ATTORNEY (via phone): Yes. The version
that I saw with the footage shows the body language, him shaking his head
no and stating no, she didn‘t. Now, I‘m not clairvoyant as the other
(INAUDIBLE) that says I can see through into his mind through his words. I
can just listen to the words and I can see the video. And I see a nodding
a shaking head, no and no, she didn‘t.
ABRAMS: All right. Let me do this. I‘m going to play now in order all three. I‘m going to play Jamie Skeeters‘ version—again, that‘s the actual one we got. We went to Jamie Skeeters‘ office and recorded exactly what he had on his hard drive. Then I want to play the version that Arlene has sent to us.
Again, I‘m going to do this without words on the screen this time so you all can listen and decide for yourselves and then we‘re going to play the “Dr. Phil” version. All right, so let‘s start with the—this is the Jamie Skeeters‘ version. This is what actually came from the hard drive. Here it is.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
SKEETERS: Nobody told her that you can‘t (EXPLETIVE DELETED). You know? I mean and I‘m sure she had sex with all of you.
KALPOE: Yes, she did. You‘d be surprised how simple it was that night.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
ABRAMS: Boy that sure sounds like she did and you wouldn‘t—it was really easy. All right. Now, this is the version that we got from Arlene in Aruba and I have to tell you, it sounds different.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
SKEETERS: Nobody told her that you can‘t (EXPLETIVE DELETED). You know? I mean and I‘m sure she had sex with all of you.
KALPOE: No, she didn‘t. You would be surprised how simple it was that night.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
ABRAMS: No, she didn‘t—wait, what are you saying? I mean I heard no, she didn‘t.
PARTON: Well but Arlene said that she saw his head move, shaking no. I did not see his head move in either one of those tapes. And Arlene you know what this technology does. You know it‘s not clairvoyance. You know that we‘re actually...
ABRAMS: Before we go to “Dr. Phil”—let me bring in Paul Ginsberg real quick. Before I play that tape again, what do you make of it, Paul?
PAUL GINSBERG, PROFESSIONAL AUDIO LABORATORIES: This is an example of the value that transcripts have at trial. And I‘ve been through 1,700 trials and I always tell the investigating agents that it‘s very important to make a very accurate transcript. And often times there are more than one version of a transcript differing exactly as in this case.
ABRAMS: But don‘t these tapes sound different to you?
GINSBERG: Well, the transcript can, in effect, pre-filter your mind.
That is...
ABRAMS: Well that‘s right. And that‘s why I just played those without a transcript so people could listen to them and so I could listen to it again.
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: I‘ve listened to these tens of times and I‘m hearing it again and every time I hear that tape from Aruba it sounds different to me than the tape from Jamie Skeeters.
GINSBERG: But if we jumbled the tapes and played them in random order, I wonder whether you‘d be able to pick out which tape...
ABRAMS: I would.
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: I would.
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: I mean—you know look I mean I can say I would but...
GINSBERG: You might do it from the tonal quality because there is...
ABRAMS: Yes...
GINSBERG: ... a slight different tonal quality...
ABRAMS: Yes. Yes...
GINSBERG: ... but other than that, as far as the words are concerned, I don‘t—I agree with the other gentleman in that I don‘t feel that there has been any tampering, physical or electronic tampering, however, it is a matter of interpretation with pre-filtering...
ELLIS SCHIPPER: Dan, I want to get a word in here...
GINSBERG: ... and suggesting.
ABRAMS: Arlene, go ahead.
ELLIS SCHIPPER: Yes. First of all, I am surprised that you could copy these from the hard disk of Mr. Skeeters because as far as we know he volunteered his hard disk to the FBI and it should be at the FBI‘s office to be checked because we have (INAUDIBLE) procedure that requested that. That‘s one.
Second, I don‘t understand how, no, she didn‘t and (INAUDIBLE) the court appointed forensic institute, this is not my conclusion. I just am the spokesperson and...
ABRAMS: Right.
ELLIS SCHIPPER: ... I translate this to you and why we do this. This is not because we want to plead Kalpoe free. That‘s not the question here. It is because for eight weeks we have been founded—this one—this tape (INAUDIBLE) because there was supposed to be a clear admission and all these accusations were made that the Aruban authorities were not acting upon this.
First of all, you cannot arrest people upon footage of an entertainment show, so we sent it to the NFI to verify. The results came back with the (INAUDIBLE) manipulation. This is an official forensic...
ABRAMS: But wait. But let‘s be clear, Arlene...
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: Arlene look, manipulation, there is no question that they edited the tape. OK, that they took things out, that they took out background...
ELLIS SCHIPPER: Manipulation is another word for editing.
ABRAMS: I understand and...
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: ... they took out background noise. But you‘re saying that they actually moved words around?
ELLIS SCHIPPER: I‘m not saying it. The NFI says that they directly cut in the answer, no, she didn‘t. They cut right before and right after. And there‘s no necessity for to cut in those...
ABRAMS: All right.
ELLIS SCHIPPER: ... microseconds or to edit it.
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: Then based on the analysis that we have done here, it would have to have been Jamie Skeeters who cut it because the version...
ELLIS SCHIPPER: I don‘t know who cut it.
ABRAMS: ... the version that he provided to us, based on our analysis here of Richard Parton is the same version that was played on the “Dr. Phil” show. So the “Dr. Phil” show didn‘t engage...
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: ... didn‘t engage in shenanigans with the tape that Jamie Skeeters played. Let me—again, let me play again for you...
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: Hang on. This is the version Arlene sent to us. I‘ve got the words up again here. This is what is making Arlene so angry about this is because this is the version that she has and this is the translation that she has offered.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
SKEETERS: I‘m sure she had sex with all of you.
KALPOE: She did. You‘d be surprised how simple it was that night.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
ABRAMS: I‘m sure—wait. That‘s the version where she said—wait
I‘m sure she had sex with all of you—no, but that‘s the one where it says no, she didn‘t. We got—that one was wrong because—let‘s put up number six again. Because the version—we put up the—see this is so confusing that we put up—we just put the wrong chyron up for what was said there. The bottom line—let‘s play number six here again.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
SKEETERS: Nobody told her that you can‘t (EXPLETIVE DELETED). You know? I mean and I‘m sure she had sex with all of you.
KALPOE: No, she didn‘t. You‘d be surprised how simple it was that night.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
ABRAMS: No, she didn‘t. Why the face? I mean it sounds to me like saying no, she didn‘t on that tape.
PARTON: Thing is Arlene is concerned that there is manipulation of the “Dr. Phil” or the Skeeters tape.
ABRAMS: Right.
PARTON: The thing is the waveforms where we show the words coming down where she said she did, there was no—the waveform wasn‘t clipped. It would have—if he said didn‘t, it would have shown a clipping there.
It didn‘t. It was tapered down...
ABRAMS: So what‘s the explanation as to why this sounds different?
PARTON: I have none of why the Aruban tape is sounding differently other than you know when you transfer files over Internet you know there are compressions and decompressions and there is some degradation of the files that exist.
(CROSSTALK)
PARTON: But she‘s concerned about what‘s happening on the live tapes in Aruba. And that‘s what needs to be you know looked at and why—what specifically and not from the ear...
ABRAMS: Yes. Mr. Ginsberg, don‘t these sound different to you?
GINSBERG: Well I just wanted to say that there is a simple way to tell. Because we can take in the laboratory and compare it to the microsecond...
ABRAMS: Well they said they did that.
(CROSSTALK)
GINSBERG: ... the different versions and see whether they track each other...
ABRAMS: That‘s right.
GINSBERG: ... from the beginning to the end.
ABRAMS: And that‘s Arlene‘s point is she says that they—that that was done in Holland and as a result of that particular analysis, they are convinced that the tape was manipulated.
GINSBERG: If there is tracking from the very beginning to the very end, then there was no manipulation. It‘s as simple as that. I truly believe that this is a matter of interpretation and suggestion.
(CROSSTALK)
GINSBERG: Because you can hear it both ways.
ABRAMS: And Arlene, you don‘t—that‘s not the conclusion that they have come to in Holland, correct?
ELLIS SCHIPPER: No, it is not. They specifically say the word manipulation and they state where it was manipulated, not edited. As a matter of fact, they showed that the C.D. ROM sent by Mr. Skeeters because you keep on saying that this is the Aruban version. This is a version provided by Mr. Skeeters...
ABRAMS: The reason I‘m calling it the Aruban version, Arlene, is because the version that we got from Jamie Skeeters sounds different to me than the version we‘re getting from you.
(CROSSTALK)
ELLIS SCHIPPER: Absolutely. But the thing is that when you state Aruban version it is being altered again that if the Arubans are altering something.
ABRAMS: I‘m not making any judgment about anything...
ELLIS SCHIPPER: That is not the case.
ABRAMS: All I‘m saying is that the version I‘m getting from you is different than the version that I‘m hearing from Jamie Skeeters and it sounds different to me than the one that we heard on the “Dr. Phil” show.
ELLIS SCHIPPER: Absolutely and that is a strange thing.
ABRAMS: Right...
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: So I‘m calling it...
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: I‘m calling it the Aruban version.
ELLIS SCHIPPER: ... but this hard disk is supposed to be at the FBI.
ABRAMS: Yes. All right. Well look I—Megan—let me ask my producer and ask when we went and made this tape, did we—did Jamie Skeeters tell us that we were making the tape of the original? Yes. OK. That‘s what I thought and so then—all right. We‘ll find—Jamie Skeeters was supposed to be on the program.
ELLIS SCHIPPER: Then the FBI doesn‘t have the original.
ABRAMS: This is a mess.
(LAUGHTER)
ABRAMS: This is an absolute mess.
ELLIS SCHIPPER: Yes, it is.
ABRAMS: This is...
ELLIS SCHIPPER: This is a mess that is setting the scene for a boycott of a complete island.
ABRAMS: Look...
ELLIS SCHIPPER: Understand what we are dealing with.
ABRAMS: I‘m not—Arlene, I am not taking this lightly. OK, I am not mocking this. I am not minimizing this. I get it. I know why this is so important to you. I know why this is so important to the Holloway family and I know why this is important to the experts in this field to maintain the credibility of what they‘re doing. Richard Parton, Paul Ginsberg, Arlene Ellis Schipper, thanks. (INAUDIBLE)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10294603/
