Yahoo News: Body language expert reveals pivotal moment in Sarah Ristevski's 60 Minutes Interview
This week, almost a year since Borce Ristevski was sentenced for killing his wife Karen, his daughter Sarah Ristevski was interviewed by Liz Hayes on 60 Minutes Australia. Yahoo News contacted me for my analysis of Sarah’s body language and nonverbal behaviour.
You can read it here:
Body language expert reveals pivotal moment in Sarah Ristevski's 60 Minutes interview.
Or keep scrolling for a more in-depth analysis.
It’s almost a year since I worked with Yahoo News, (along with Allan Pease, Body Language Expert), giving them my analysis of Borce’s nonverbal behaviour: Body language experts reveal subtle details that showed Borce Ristevski lied about killing his wife. I’d first analysed the same video footage back in 2016, for my own website: What the media missed in the Karen Ristevski case: The single nonverbal cue that points towards deception.
What’s interesting is the same nonverbal cue which revealed Borce’s big lie–an eyelid flutter–was also observed many times during Sarah’s interview. However, in the context of the words that accompanied it, the behaviour did not indicate deception. That’s the thing about reading body language and nonverbal communication, it’s relevant within context and there isn’t a single behaviour which indicates deception. Instead, we use nonverbal behaviour to guide our understanding of changes in emotion from moment to moment. When we do this, we see the bigger picture and gain insight into thoughts and feelings, truth and lies.
When Sarah managed to hold her emotions together, she did a great job at concealing them with a poker face, especially in the top half of her face. Despite this, the interview was rich in microexpressions which are almost invisible to an untrained eye. The analysis below is by no means a full analysis–I took eighteen pages of notes while reviewing the interview! I, therefore, omitted many behaviours.
Coming from a background of training and education, when I submit work to the media I go beyond their initial request, providing them with a deeper understanding of nonverbal communication. That way, they understand the whole concept and I’m less likely to be misquoted. It also means they can use what’s most relevant and explain concepts in a way that works for their readers. Here’s what I submitted…
Sarah Ristevski Body Language and Nonverbal Communication Analysis
It was obvious from her body language that Sarah felt uncomfortable about participating in the interview, we could see this more generally in slightly raised shoulders and at times her hands clutched together. Under the circumstances, this is normal.
Despite mostly having a poker face and doing a good job at concealing her emotions, Sarah’s face leaked many microexpressions. These are involuntary facial expressions, or elements of facial expression, lasting no longer than half a second. Microexpressions leak true emotion, in real-time—emotion which is concealed or suppressed. Sometimes, these occur before the conscious brain has caught up with the subconscious and can give us an indication of a more blatant, upcoming expression of the same emotion.
Most of the microexpressions observed expressed contempt, a slight movement where one side of the mouth is tensed, and fear, observed in the stretching of the whole mouth.
While microexpressions leak true emotion in real-time, we can’t be a hundred per cent accurate about where the emotion stems from. In the case of this interview, contempt could be sparked by a question asked by the host, Sarah’s own statement—a memory/emotion surrounding the subject matter, or towards herself.
In the scale of the interview, some expressions of contempt were more significant than others. One significant moment, was when Sarah explained her initial interaction with the police. This is crucial to understanding her behaviours (not giving a victim impact statement and supporting her father) which have been under scrutiny. At this point in the interview, this is what I observed:
Sarah’s eyes pointed downwards as she explained, “They didn’t take us seriously”, followed by an expression of contempt at the end of her statement. Eyes often point downwards during the emotion of sadness, sure enough, a microexpression of sadness followed as she said, “the guy that was there was quite rude”. This is the first time, at around ten minutes into the interview, that we see relevant movement in her brows and forehead. Her baseline behaviour until then was largely motionless in that area of the face. This is a huge deal for Sarah.
As she continues, Sarah’s voice begins to crack, her sadness becomes audible and she can no longer conceal the emotion, “He said like, something along the lines of, she’s probably at the pokies”. At this point, Sarah’s eyes narrow. This facial movement stems from the emotion of anger. She gasps for breath and cries, her emotion flits between sadness and distress.
She continues with, “My mum doesn’t play the pokies”, again we see anger in the narrowing of the eyes. Followed by a high blink rate, indicating a high level of stress and an eyelid flutter as she states, “It was hard and very stressful”. During the interview, Sarah’s eyelids fluttered a number of times. This occurs during moments of high emotional or cognitive load.
What we can take from this part of the interview is something we shouldn’t ignore. This is Sarah expressing genuine and extreme emotion as she recalls her initial interaction with the police. This is where she formed her opinion that they were the enemy. Whatever came later—whether or not her father, Boris Ristevski, continued to reinforce this 'them and us' situation—is another matter.
First Impressions and Confirmation Bias
Research shows that first impressions are typically lasting because they are followed with confirmation bias, where we absorb and interpret the information that backs up our initial opinion. I have no doubt that Boris did help to reinforce this. But I have to ask—if Sarah had been treated differently by the police from the outset, building a level of trust, would this have played out differently?
Sarah expressed both fear and contempt later in the interview, while she talked about ‘two officers coming over’, ‘forensic people’ in the house and the media outside her house. She genuinely feels negative emotions towards ‘the enemy’.
I agree with Laura Richards conclusion that Sarah felt compelled to protect her dad, due to the 'common enemy' and not wanting to give information to the police. However, I believe this stems from Sarah’s initial feelings about the police, which were then, most likely, reinforced by her father.
Deceptive Behaviours
While Sarah was mostly honest during her interview, with her behaviours reflecting her words, there were a few times where there was a mismatch—which raises a red flag. One of these occurrences was when she was asked whether her dad was telling her he was worried. She answered with, “We were both worried”. The mismatch in behaviour came with an initial head shake, which then turned into a nod. Nonverbal behaviour trumps words because our sentences are cognitively constructed and generally, our nonverbal behaviour stems from our subconscious.
There was a similar mismatch after Sarah said, “I asked him [father] if he had anything to do with it”. Liz Hayes followed with, “Your father said what?”, and Sarah replied with, “No”, but at the same time she nodded her head. Something is amiss here. Did he instead say, “Yes”? Maybe she didn’t actually ask him. Or maybe he said, “No”, but deep inside she knows he did.
Fear and Sadness
Throughout the interview, Sarah expressed sadness at the loss of her mum, this came in the form of concealed and obvious expressions of emotion. However, perhaps the most significant part of the interview for me, came at the end, when Sarah was asked, what she wants people to know about her. She replied by saying she is more than Sarah Ristevski, that she lost her mum—while expressing sadness, which then turned into combined fear and sadness, as she said her father is in jail.
The emotion of sadness stems from loss and while Sarah is still grieving for her mother, she is now also grieving for her father—and fears for the future. While she feels this, she is perhaps not ready to fully admit the reality of the situation.
This analysis was also picked up by Daily Mail UK for their article, 'My mum doesn't play the pokies': Body language expert reveals pivotal moment in Sarah Ristevski's bombshell interview that shows why she'll never accept her father killed her mother
