By Willoughby Mariano
Orlando Sentinel
ORLANDO, FLa. — The frantic first call for help can be a detective’s best clue.
In the case of James Robert Ward, his 911 call helped land him in jail.
“I just shot my wife ... she’s dead,” Ward told dispatchers in his Sept.21, 7:50p.m. call for help. He was polite and calm.
Hours later, a detective overheard Ward say his wife, Diane, killed herself and he needed a criminal lawyer. Bob Ward was arrested that night, thanks in part to his call to dispatchers.
A 911 call can make the difference between a closed case and a cold one, said Tracy Harpster, a Moraine, Ohio, police lieutenant and co-author of a study of emergency calls released this year.
“It is vital. Sometimes, it’s the only statement a guilty person ever makes,” Harpster said.
Ward pleaded not guilty to a second-degree-murder charge and is out on bond as the case develops.
It’s second nature to hunt for clues in a 911 call. All of them are recorded.
During an investigation into toddler Caylee Marie Anthony’s 2008 death, detectives and amateur sleuths alike said mother Casey Anthony raised their suspicions because she was calm when she told a dispatcher her daughter had been missing for 31 days. She is in the Orange County Jail awaiting trial on a first-degree-murder charge.
On Friday, John Tabbutt shot and killed Nancy Dinsmore in their Winter Springs home a day before they were to be married. During his emergency call to dispatchers, Tabbutt wailed, sobbed and asked that an ambulance be sent right away.
Winter Springs police said the shooting was accidental, saying Tabbutt was “very, very distraught.” He has not been arrested.
For decades, researchers have tested whether detectives’ gut feelings can be backed by evidence. They study speech patterns and other characteristics of witness statements, and some think what callers say can be as important as how they say it.
But calling someone a liar because he uses an odd tone of voice is risky.
“Different people react and respond to tragedy or stressful situations in different ways,” said Tod Burke, a professor of criminal justice at Radford (Va.) University.
This is why James “Bob” Ward’s lawyer Kirk Kirkconnell thinks investigators and the media are making too much out of his client’s 911 call, he said.
The suspicions, Kirkconnell said, are “extremely speculative.”
Still, some experts say a caller doesn’t have to confess to a crime — or even give statements that conflict with his alibi — for his 911 call to be useful to detectives.
In a paper published in the February issue of the academic journal Homicide Studies, Harpster and co-authors Susan Adams and John Jarvis, both of the FBI, analyzed 100 emergency calls. They found detectives can use a checklist of 20 factors to tally whether a caller deserves more scrutiny.
Harpster would not discuss specifics, saying that doing so might aid killers. But this study and others show tone of voice, concern for the victim and word repetition can be important.
These factors aren’t enough to convict a killer, but they can tell investigators whom to scrutinize.
“An innocent person says different things than a guilty one,” Harpster said.
Locally, Orange County sheriff’s dispatchers typically e-mail a 911-call audio file to homicide investigators as soon as possible — often while they’re still poring over a fresh crime scene, homicide investigator Cpl. Duwana Pelton said.
“People will say things in the heat of the moment that they planned to cover up,” Pelton said.
The audio of Bob Ward’s 911 call has not been released publicly by investigators. A transcript of it was entered into evidence in the criminal case against him.
Pelton said when Bob Ward reported his wife’s shooting to police, he was unusually calm and polite.
He assured a dispatcher that deputies would not encounter problems when they arrived at his Isleworth home. He gave the location of a gun used in the shooting and offered to meet deputy sheriffs at his front door. He told dispatchers repeatedly that he shot his wife. He also said it was an accident.
Alone, these actions prove little. But they were enough to prompt investigators to give Ward a close look.
“When you get someone [who is] matter-of-fact and you don’t hear them in an excited state,” Pelton said, “it makes [you] wonder.”
Copyright 2009 Orlando Sentinel