Mark Redwine: Statement Analysis by Kaaryn Gough and Peter Hyatt

Here is more analysis of the words of Mark Redwine, father of missing 13 year old, Dylan Redwine.  Statement Analysis is in bold type, with emphasis in the quotes added.

As we continue to look deeper into this case, a very sad picture is emerging. 

Dylan Redwine, according to his father's language, is not going to be found alive.  

Mark Redwine is deliberately attempting to conceal information on what happened between him and his son.

1)  "You know, Dylan wanted to throw in a few videos that he found in the $5 dollar bin, so we threw those in, which is one of the movies we would watch the night, you know, we were together."

a) "one of the movies"--indicates more than one movie was watched that night. This contradicts what he later reports as having watched one of the movies.
b) "we would watch"--not "we watched". "would watch" is a future intention, not what happened.

We look at the phrase "you know" as a habit of speech and ask, "What topics bring up this habit?"  The phrase, "you know" indicates an acute awareness of the interviewer (or audience) and we should seek to learn what topics cause it to be used, and what topics do not.  Here, we see the context of the videos and watching a movie.   He does not tell us that they watched a movie together.  We cannot conclude that they did.  

2) "You know…it wasn’t a whole lotta things that we needed. We went to McDonalds. I wanted to go to a sit-down restaurant. Sit down and talk to him. He wanted to go to McDonalds. He always wants to go to McDonalds. What 13 year old kid  doesn’t want to go to McDonalds? You know, wasn’t my first choice. We didn’t even eat it in McDonalds. We got it in the truck and went to the drive-thru and we’re eating it on our way home. So…"

a) Note the lengthy explanation leading up to the point where they went through the drive-thru. Recall that when a subject approaches a dangerous portion of the statement, he/she will slow down. This is done in both verbal and written statements.  They do this by adding information outside of telling "what happened". It's like he's putting on the breaks here as he approaches a danger zone.  The danger zone is a stressful part of the account and the subject slows down to avoid the stress of it. Here we are given extra details that appear to be needless.  "Needless" details are deemed to be "doubly important" to the work of analysis. 

b) "it"--he does not include what "it" is. He's trying to imply they got a meal, but he doesn't say it. "it" We cannot assume "it" is a meal.  Why is he unable to say what "it" is?

c) "We got it in the truck and went to the drive-thru..."--Note the order. First "we got it" then "went to the drive-thru". 

If they had gotten it already, then why did they need to go through the drive-thru? Doesn't make sense. One should wonder if "got it", means was hit or beaten.

d) "...and we're eating it on our way home". Two things: 

i) "we're" = we are--present tense. Unreliable.  He knows how to use past tense verbs, as we have seen.  We know that lying is stressful and people will go out of their way to avoid a direct lie.  Why is eating sensitive to him?  Our answer may be here: 

ii) "we're eating"--the use of ing on the end of the verb indicates this activity was in process when something else happened. Example: I was watching tv when the phone rang. What happened while they were eating and driving home?

We also see in the statement the introduction of body posture, twice, with "sit down"; indicating that for Mark Redwine, at this point in his statement, there is tension increasing.  

Note that he wanted to talk "to" Dylan.  This may be part of what escalated between him and Dylan.  This has the "sat down and talked to" feel to it of correction.  Correction itself is not unusual, but when it appears just before a child goes missing, it becomes a severely sensitive matter. 

Mark Redwine's lengthy explanation about McDonald's shows a needless slowing down of the pace of his account, and has indications of the increase in tension.  He does not commit to the things he would like us to believe, verbally, therefore, we cannot commit to those things for him. 

We conclude that the portion of his story about going to McDonald's preceded, or began, a very dangerous part of the account of what happened to Dylan Redwine.