Show Notes
*Warning: This episode includes mentions of murder by stabbing and swearing* What happens when a childhood language game is used to obscure the details of a crime? Well, you call in Dr Nicci MacLeod. In this episode, Nicci recounts a time when the police approached her to analyse the language of a group of suspects covertly recorded on the way to and from court. At first, it didn’t seem as though the suspects were speaking English, but as Nicci realised, ‘egg’ was being worked in to words in attempt to obscure the true meaning for anyone who may be eavesdropping. We would like to give special thanks to Andrea Jones for her support of this episode, and dedicate it to the memory of her brother Dolton Powell. For a list of our sources and more information about this case, please visit: https://www.aston.ac.uk/writing-wrongs Have a question for Nicci or Tim? Email us at [email protected] and we may answer it during an upcoming episode! Check out the official AIFL blog for more forensic linguistic goodies here: https://medium.com/@AIFLblog If you have been affected by any of the themes in this week’s episode, please contact one of these free sources: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/ https://www.helpguide.org/find-help Production Team: Sam Cook, Jordan Robertson, Neus Alberich Buera Sound: Sam Cook Visual design: George Grant Additional Voices: Sam Cook Resources Links above and: • Dr Nicci MacLeod’s home page https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/persons/nicci-macleod • BBC Expert Witness episode about the case: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0024gj1 • Gloucestershire Live ‘s coverage of the case https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/timeline-how-brutal-murder-gloucestershires-29677
More from Writing Wrongs
* Warning: Today’s episode contains discussions of threatening communication and blackmail*
* Warning: Today’s episode contains discussions of threatening communication *
* Warning: Today’s episode contains discussions of murder and racial profiling *
*Warning: this episode contains descriptions of emotional abuse and manipulation* --- November 12, 2018, Madrid, Spain. 47-year-old Galician man Rodrigo Nogueira Iglesias is arrested near the Puerta de Atocha railway station. His crimes stretched back more than twenty years. Rodrigo frequented social media platforms and dating websites where he used fake profiles, pretending to be different people with different names and professions, all with the initial goal of attracting the attention of women who could be potential victims. We are joined by Dr Sheila Queralt – a friend of the Institute and Spain’s top forensic linguistics expert, having consulted on some 300 cases over the past 15 years and testified as a linguistics expert witness in criminal and civil trials across 10 countries, with cases reaching courts including the ECHR. Her work in forensic linguistics at ForensicLab continues through her Laboratory based in Barcelona, which provides linguisticanalysis of recorded conversations and voice messages, as well as written documents. --- In the episode, we make references to episodes 1.4 Romance Fraud, featuring a conversation with Dr Lis Carter, and 3.2 The Multiple Personas of an Online Child Abuser, featuring DrEmily Chiang.