Hailey Dunn Case: Deception On Nancy Grace Show

This is the second appearance of Hailey Dunn's mother, Billie Dunn, on The Nancy Grace Show.  
This aired live on January 4, 2011.  Statement analysis is in bold type.  Complete transcripts are at cnn.com/transcripts.   January 4, 2011 was a Tuesday.  

On Monday, January 3, 2011, we learned the two most important points of the case:

1.  Hailey is dead
2.  The mother needs an alibi

This came from only two questions:

1.  Nancy Grace:  How far did she have to go to the sleep over?
     Dunn:  "Four or five blocks.  It wasn't usual for Hailey to...she wasn't allowed to..."

Repeatedly, the mother of the missing child referenced Hailey in the past tense, indicating knowledge of death.   Statement analysis following quotes is in bold type. 

2.  Nancy Grace:  "Miss Dunn, tell me what happened?
     Dunn:   "She went missing while I was at work"

By asking "what happened?", she asked a legally sound, open-ended question.  This allows the subject to choose what is most important to her via priority.  

The answer:  "She went missing while I was at work" is the first thing she mentions:  it answers the question, "When did she go missing?" rather than "What happened?" and it is important that everyone know that the mother, was at work.  That this is the first sentence shows it is her priority:  keep her out of the spotlight.  Later the mother would say, "It is important for people to remember not to slander me..."

GRACE: OK, you want to talk about the boyfriend. First, out to Billie Dunn. This is Hailey`s mother joining us tonight live from Colorado City, Texas. She`s there at the home. Ms. Dunn, thank you for being with us. Let`s just address those issues right now. Let`s talk about your boyfriend.

In her first appearance, under one answer, Billie Dunn revealed, from Statement Analysis, the following:

1.  Hailey was dead; other needed an alibi.  
2.  Something in her relationship with Shawn Adkins is troubling (incomplete social introduction).   Nancy Grace appeared to pick up on this. 
3.  Billie Dunn needed to establish an alibi ("she went missing while I was at work")
4.   The story  that Dunn told is deceptive.  In order for the story to be deceptive, it has to come from her.  She has a need to build an alibi and has a need to be deceptive. 

If a person simply repeats a lie, the language will not show a lie because the language of deception is willful.  This indicates that she, Dunn herself, is telling the story. 

We also saw that the story is similar to a story on True Crime library.  This is something to remember as we progress through the appearances on The Nancy Grace Show.

We will see, as Dunn appears on show after show, an unravelling of her account as the very things flagged as deceptive in analysis, are shown to be such through various releases of information. 

The ISI (improper social introduction) indicated a problem with the relationship of Dunn and Shawn Adkins, though she did use the "my" taking ownership, via possessive pronoun.  This was not lost on Nancy Grace: 


BILLIE DUNN: OK.

GRACE: Last night, you told me he was on his way home from work, but now I`m learning he was on his way home from his mother`s home?

The police affidavit said that they had changed their accounts, which is troubling. 
Nancy Grace now feels that she has been lied to, but in fact, Dunn did not lie, by using a certain technique which allowed her to avoid internal stress of direct lying. 

Recall how Dunn used the "either/or" answer the night before, allowing for her to change her mind later.  This leads to the simple, "Why would she feel the need to leave herself an 'out' in her answer if she did not possess information, yesterday, that Adkins was not where he claimed?"  

We are allowing the mother of Hailey Dunn to guide us in revealing what happened to Hailey.  Her "either/or" answer with preparatory hedging is found here in Part One. 

BILLIE DUNN: Yes. He had been at his mother`s house all day Monday. Police have confirmed that he got home about 3:00 o`clock, and Hailey left shortly after.

Here is another example of simply adding a single word to a sentence can give a wealth of information.  

"He had been at his mother's house all day Monday" she said. 
"He had been at his mother's house Monday" would be shorter.   Dunn adds two little words "all day", introducing something that should have caught the attention of investgators:

Learning the whereabouts of Shawn Adkins during this day will lead to Hailey's body.  Note that Billie Dunn has the need to emphasize that he was there on Monday, but adding "all day" to her response.  She needed to emphasize "all day", making it sensitive and drawing our attention to the fact that he may not have been there "all" day but had gone somewhere else. 

Yet, just as she did for herself on the first night:  

She is building an alibi for Shawn Adkins.  

When you see the color blue in the SCAN technique, it represents the highest level of sensitivity possible. 
GRACE: OK. Where does he work?

She asked "where" he worked.  

BILLIE DUNN: He`s not working.

Dunn avoided the question, meaning that the location of his work is sensitive to her.  She answered in the present tense.  Hailey's body is between the triangle of the residence, his mother's home and his work address. Somewhere in driving distance of this triangle are her remains. 

GRACE: OK. Last night, didn`t you tell me he was on his way home from work, or did I just get that mistaken?

this is what a deceptive person does and it is aggravating  and NG goes after her words from last night.
BILLIE DUNN: No, I said that. He went in Monday morning, but there was an argument. He was fired or there was just a big blow-up there. He walked out. He left his job by 6:30 in the morning and went to Big Spring (ph) to his mom`s house.

1."There was an argument" is passive; not "Shawn argued with..." 

 Passivity is seen as an attempt to conceal:  here it is concealing something not known until later.  

In building his alibi, either one or both had him drive to his job, allowed himself to be seen, bought a soda, and left, without saying a word to anyone.  

This would allow investigators to pin down his location there, likely with hopes that he was seen, but not seen leaving so police could not tell when he left the office.  It is not very sophisticated but it is an attempt to establish alibi. 

2.  Note another "either/or" which allows for later change in the story.  It was either that he got "fired" or "big blow up":  this is a change of language.  First it was, passivity noted, "an argument" but now it is a "big blow up."  Without justification for the change in language, deception is indicated. 

We later learned the deception confirmed:  there was nothing.  No big blow up, no firing, just Adkins quietly leaving.   

Dunn is not speaking for Adkins, but for herself.  She is deceiving Nancy Grace, in her own answer. 

This is a critical time period for investigators.   

Note the blue "leaving" a place for the highest sensitivity.  For the subject, there is missing information that she is deliberately withholding.  


GRACE: OK. What was the blow-up about?

Nancy Grace asks about the blow up.  She has already noted the mother of a missing child has changed her story and that something related to a "stressor" took place with the boyfriend and his job.  

The coincidence of these two (job and missing child) is not lost on Grace. 

BILLIE DUNN: I don`t even know. I just know he didn`t get along with one or two of the co-workers.

Note "the" co workers is not "his co-workers" as if they have already been identified.  They have not been identified and this is indicated for deception.  

Pronouns and articles do not lie.  Pronouns and articles are instinctive.  When someone is introduced, "a" is used and then "the" is used after the introduction.  When a pronoun or article is "incorrect", we are looking at deception.  


GRACE: OK. I want to go through his story again. 

She knows something is wrong. 


GRACE: I want to go back to Billie Dunn. I understand police have seized yours and your boyfriend`s cell phones. Why?

BILLIE DUNN: Yes. They`re taking them to check out all the calls that were made on Monday. Hailey did have my cell phone at home and access to it. That would have been the cell phone she was on. She didn`t use Shawn`s cell phone, but they`re checking them both, getting the records off of both of those. And hopefully, we`re going to have answers from the cell phones tonight.

Note that she reports in the negative:  that her daughter did not use Shawn's phone. 

"would" be but not "was on" 

Here is what she did not say:  That when Shawn handed his phone to a police officer, he deleted things first. 


GRACE: OK. So this has nothing to do with you being under any kind of suspicion at all. This has to do with the fact that your little girl and you shared a cell phone, and they`re trying to figure out who she was calling and who was calling her, correct?

BILLIE DUNN: Correct. I left the cell phone at home while I was at work, for the kids.

Even when there is no cause to say anything but "correct", she speaks and indicates sensitivity.  She said "why" she left the phone.  The phone is sensitive.  

We later learned that pornography was found on the phones.   

GRACE: OK. What about your boyfriend? Why do they have his cell phone?

BILLIE DUNN: They have his cell phone, too. It was around probably just for 15 minutes, and she didn`t use it but they`re looking at his, also.

The phone is sensitive to her, as is her need to portray herself as a good and caring mother, wanting to be seen in the best light.  She felt the need to say why her phone was there; and here, she refers to the incident in the affidavit where the officer only had his phone for a short period of time, in which Shawn Adkins deleted photos.  This deletion, given the volume of porn, would likely have been something worse than the porn they had:  child pornography.  


GRACE: And what else did police tell you?

By this time, the relationship with police has been confrontational as Adkins refused to take a polygraph.  Police were not "sharing" information with either of them and had told Billie Dun to "just tell them" where they could find Hailey.  

BILLIE DUNN: We hear that another lady says she saw Hailey,

Note present tense and the plural "we" after being asked, specifically, what else police told her.  She was not asked what she and Adkins were "hearing":   this was the first indication that her relationship with police was not good.  At this point, Nancy Grace did not know that police demanded confessions from them. 

What did police tell you? is answered with, "we hear", which avoids the question, making the question of what police say, sensitive to her. 


her friend and a boy she didn`t recognize Monday evening -- it was already dark -- walking on the main street by a store. So they`re looking at that video surveillance, too, seeing if that story checks out, see if they can put her somewhere that evening.

I`m just told that there are a ton of tips coming in, and they`re checking out everything. And they say when they hear somebody thinks they`ve seen Hailey an hour or two away, they`re running over there, checking video surveillance at a Burger King.

Note that in continuing to avoid the question, Dunn slips into present tense language.  This is another indication that she is being deceptive to Nancy Grace.  Here we know, however, that police were not sharing information with her and Adkins but insisting that Dunn tell them what they need to know. 

Dunn has the need to present a portrait that favors her, and makes her appear, not as a suspect, but as a parent working with police.  Her language tells us that she was not working with police, but it was something confirmed shortly after this aired.  
Next, the topic of a polygraph came up. 

Polygraphs are routine in missing child cases.  John Walsh advises parents to insist on a polygraph immediately, be cleared, and get going with the search.  

Ray Giudice weighs in next, strictly as a defense attorney.  He heard the inconsistent story:  

RAYMOND GIUDICE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY:  From a defense lawyer`s perspective, and with some of these inconsistencies that I`ve already heard in these facts, I would not advise him to take a poly unless he could pass one in the privacy of my office first.

GRACE: Hold on. Alex Sanchez, it sounded like an inconsistency because last night, the mom says he just got home from work at 3:00 o`clock. Now we find out he was at his mom`s. I asked her that. She had a perfect explanation for that.

ALEX SANCHEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, but I don`t know if he`s refused to take a polygraph test. But if he`s, in fact, refused to take a polygraph test, you know, that raises concerns for me and it raises concerns for the police.

GRACE: OK, let`s go to the source...

SANCHEZ: And they need to concentrate on that boyfriend.

GRACE: You`re right, Alex Sanchez. Billie Dunn, what about your boyfriend? Has he agreed to take a polygraph?

The question:  Has he agreed to take a polygraph?  It is a "yes or no" question. 

"Has he agreed to take a polygraph?"

BILLIE DUNN: He will take a polygraph in the morning. Yes, ma`am. It`s set up for in the -- hopefully, early.

Note that her answer is to avoid the question, making the topic of Shawn Adkins taking a polygraph "sensitive" in analysis, and then she adds in the answer.  

Note also that her answer is  truthful:  he will (future) take a polygraph in the morning.  

This is to avoid talking about his refusal at first and his walking out of the next polygraph.  

But then she repeats it (making it sensitive) and adds in extra emphasis, weakening the answer:  "yes, ma'am. It's set up for in the  hopefully, early."  Broken sentence indicates missing information. 

1.  Yes or No question avoided.
2.  Repetition = sensitivity
3.  Broken sentence = missing information 

GRACE: Well, there you go.

Not so fast...

BILLIE DUNN: But it is set up for tomorrow.  This was Tuesday so it is set up for Wednesday morning.  Please note this.  

In her short answer, she indicated sensitivity (which may be deception) and missing information.  

We later learned that Adkins had refused, agreed, refused by walking out.  Although, sentence by sentence Billie Dunn is truthful, she withholds the combative relationship with police over the polygraph.  

Nancy Grace spoke to Clint Dunn.   For new readers:  Clint Dunn's statement analysis showed truthfulness in his denial.  He was never a suspect.  

GRACE: OK. Let`s back it up a little bit. Did you see her at all that day?

CLINT DUNN: I didn`t see her at all that day.

GRACE: When did you first learn she was missing?

CLINT DUNN: I seen her the day before. Later on that night, David came over -- my son came over and asked me...

Note the linguistic indication of a good relationship with David via the proper social introduction. 

GRACE: Who first told you that she was missing?

CLINT DUNN: My son, David.

social introduction= very good relationship


GRACE: All right. Because when I grew up it was very common if I was going to spend the night at my little friend`s house, I would just go over there. I didn`t need to take anything. I was coming right back the next morning, right across the street. So why would you pack a big bag? 

So if she was planning a sleepover, you know I don`t really see that she would have dragged a bag along with her, but let`s ask the mom. 

Billie Dunn is with us, joining us from Colorado City, Texas. 

Miss Dunn, when she would typically go for a sleepover, would she take a bag and take a lot of stuff with her? 

B. DUNN: Nothing at all. 

emphasis noted.  It is unusual that a 13 year old girl would go anywhere without her "stuff" 

GRACE: OK. 

B. DUNN: She would -- 

GRACE: Go ahead, dear. 

B. DUNN: She would just go over there with whatever was on her back, and wait until the next day to come home, brush her teeth, take a bath, freshen up. 

not "she went over there with..." because it would be a direct lie according to Marybeth's mother.  
GRACE: Right. Right. That makes perfect sense to me. So the fact that she did not take anything with her, that doesn`t strike you as unusual. 

B. DUNN: Right. 

GRACE: All right. 

B. DUNN: That`s why I`m getting worried that maybe my baby didn`t leave on her own for this long amount of time. 

Note that she has the need to say "why" she is "getting" worried:  because she did not return to brush her teeth the next morning and freshen up. 

Why would a mother only now, 7 days later, begin to get worried over a missing child? This is another reason why defense attorneys keep their clients from speaking:  they spill out ridiculous little things like this that cause people who have no training to scratch their heads and ask, "You're just now getting worried?"


GRACE: OK. Miss Dunn, I want to go back over why the local police said this was a runaway. Why did they classify her as a runaway? 

B. DUNN: All I know is because nobody saw her being abducted. 

"all I know" limits information 

Grace:   I want to go back to Billie Dunn, this is Hailey`s mother. 

How far did they tell you the dogs tracked your little girl to that Western Motel? Did they track her into the lobby? Did they track to a certain room, to the parking lot? How far did the trail go? 

Nancy Grace has not caught on to the fact that police are not sharing information with Dunn.  It gives us opportunity to view communicative language:   

B. DUNN: They didn`t tell me that. They just let me know that to the friends, to the motel, and they`re reviewing the video at the motel, and calling everybody who had been checked in to the motel that day. 

Note the change from "tell" which is spoken, to "just let me know", which is passive.  Deception indicated. 

GRACE: Now a woman in the community says she spotted Hailey that evening. This would have been Monday evening, with the little neighbor girl and the neighbor girl`s little boyfriend. What would he have been, 12, 13? Is that the little neighbor she was going to visit?

B. DUNN: No. That was the girl she was going to visit. 

GRACE: What did this woman see? 

B. DUNN: She saw Hailey, Mary Beth and a boy that she didn`t recognize. 

Later we learned that this woman was an addict who sought to help out BJD.  
GRACE: Now have you -- have you spoken with Mary Beth? Did that in fact happen? 

This would have been a great spotting!  A live Hailey!  

Certainly any mother would have known that the police have asked Mary Beth, or she, mother, herself asked!

B. DUNN: I hadn`t asked her about that. I`m letting the police handle Mary Beth. I do call her to ask her hey, what did Hailey say to you on Monday, did she call you Monday, did you guys text, did she say she was going somewhere else Monday, or with another friend Monday, and she tells me no. 

Deception indicated.

Here we have her reporting what she did not ask, in the negative.  

1.  She did not ask the most important question in the world:  were you walking with Hailey and a male child; the single most important question that would have, incidentally, either cleared Dunn of suspicion, or cast further suspicion upon her.  She avoided it entirely. 

Next we have the passivity of "letting police handle Mary Beth."  

Does Billie Dunn want us to believe that she has authority over police and decides what to investigate on her own and what to let police handle?

Could ANY mother be silenced if you heard that your missing child was walking, alive, with someone else?

Mary Beth needs handling?  Is she uncooperative?  

 This is an attempt to portray her as someone who is "cooperating" with the investigation. 

 By this point, she had already stormed out of the police station, but struggled to say away as she desired to control information. 

Note "I do call" slips into the present tense.  She did not call, but if she said, "I called..." it would be a direct lie, which causes stress.  This is how BJD consistently avoids telling the direct lie. 

Deception indicated.  

GRACE: Did she say she even saw Hailey on Monday? 

Think of how important this question is!  
B. DUNN: She hasn`t told me that she did. No. 

It is a "yes or no" question which is avoided in the first sentence.  Note this as a pattern for BJD.  It means the question is sensitive and she feels it warrants explanation. 

Did she say she even saw Hailey on Monday?  It is answered with "hasn't told me", which is to say that, perhaps, someone else might tell her so, but just not Mary Beth.  This is an attempt to deceive, via the use of additional words. 


GRACE: OK. So to your knowledge, Hailey never went to Mary Beth`s? 

Although the suspicion is growing in Nancy Grace, she still seeks clarity from the mother. 
B. DUNN: Right. That`s what she says. 

GRACE: To Dr. Leslie Austin, psychotherapist out of New York. 

Dr. Austin, it says a lot to me that this mother has been saying from the get-go, please polygraph me. The boyfriend, her live-in, whether we agree with that or not, he has agreed to take a polygraph first thing in the morning. 

DR. LESLIE AUSTIN, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: These people seem very credible to me and also this seems like a really good little girl who may have just had a heartbeat of bad judgment or met somebody somewhere. 

The sensitivity about being a "really" good little girl is followed with blaming Hailey with a "heartbeat of bad judgement"... she joins in Bille Dunn's insult in also blaming the victim. 

I wonder if her patients watched this and wondered what they were paying a fortune per hour for. 

To this psychotherapist, "these people" seem very credible.

  It would be interesting to inquire about her training, and her ability to spot deception and how well she does with patients who are in desperate need of the truth, or who lie to themselves or to her.