A forensic linguistic Analysis of Discursive Deception in Criminals' Statements: A Case Study of the Canadian Serial Killer Robert Pickton

This research paper aims at specifying the indicators of discursive deception in the interrogation of the most famous Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton on February 23, 2002. Qualitative and quantitative methods are used in this research. The qualitative method appears in the forensic linguistic analysis of the indicators of discursive deception. The approaches adopted for the analysis of Pickton's statement are Mack McClish's (2001) approach for statement analysis as represented in his I know You are Lying: Detecting Deception Through Statement Analysis and the approach of John H. Powers’ (2019) for discursive deception as represented in his essay “Discursive Dimensions of Deceptive Communication: a Framework for Practical Analysis”. The quantitative method appears in the numerical data using Laurence Anthony's AntConic Software version 3.5.8 (2019) and Mick O' Donnell's UAM Corpus tool version 3.3x 2007. The results of this study are deduced based on the frequency tables of the indicators of discursive deception used by Pickton in his police interrogation on February 23, 2002. This study suggests a classification of the indicators of criminals’ discursive deception based on analyzing the indicators of discursive deception exploited by Robert Pickton in his police interrogation on February 23, 2002. Pickton’s interrogation revolves around the accusations of fifty murder cases of sex-working girls in his pig farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia Canada. He is known as the butcher or the pig farmer killer.