Questions that Nick McGuffin and Brent Bartley Failed on Lie Detector Test

Questions that Nick McGuffin failed on a polygraph exam:

1. Did you physically do something that resulted in Leah's death?
2. Did you have any direct involvement in Leah's disappearance?
3. Have you talked to Leah since last Wednesday night after 9 PM?

Questions that Brent Bartley failed:

1. Has any one told you that they are responsible for Leah's disappearance?
2. Are you withholding critical information regarding the disappearance of Leah?

I know how many of you feel about polygraphs, but many people are interested in what questions were failed. If you believe the polygraph, Nick talked to Leah after 9 PM the night she went missing, he was involved in Leah's disappearance, and he physically did something that resulted in Leah's death. Also, it would mean that Nick told Bartley that he was responsible for Leah's disappearance, and Bartley withheld critical information regarding Leah's disappearance.

Then you have the concerns raised by Chief Reeves. The first was Nick's claim that he drove up and down Central looking for Leah and his claim that he did not see her, when in fact several persons saw her walking on Central at the same time he claimed to be looking for her. The second was the fact that in all the time that Nick claimed he was looking for Leah, (except for the time at 2:30 AM) that he never physically went to Leah's house to see if she was home, even though he had to have been close by on several occasions.

Then there were the concerns over the white top that police observed at the Haga residence and the fact that no liner, spare tire, jack or tire iron were in the trunk of the Mustang.

With all this I can see why police looked at Nick, but I can also see why he wasn't arrested at the time. I think the main reasons he wasn't arrested was because polygraphs aren't admissible in court, and there were no witnesses who would place him with Leah after he dropped her off at the Mitchell's at 7 PM that night. The number of times Nick was seen between 9 and 11:30 also made it hard to work out a timeline that made sense. You can infer that he should have found Leah on Central, and should have checked Leah's house given that he was looking for her, but without forensics linking him to her disappearance or death, and no witnesses linking him to Leah after 7 PM that night, the missing white top, switched cars, and and missing items from the trunk probably wouldn't have been enough for a conviction.

Now that an arrest has been made, it will be interesting to see what information witnesses are now providing. A couple of articles also mentioned new lab testing to see if the forensic technological advances of the last ten years could find anything that wasn't found ten years ago, so I'm looking forward to seeing if any new forensic evidence was found.

I know cops put a lot of weight on lie detector results even though they aren't allowed in court. I think those three things along with no liner, spare tire, jack or tire iron in the trunk, and not going to Leah's house while looking for her were enough to justify further investigating, questioning of witnesses, and obtaining of search warrants. The witnesses, search warrants, and discovery of Leah's body didn't give them enough evidence to charge Nick at the time, so they didn't arrest him.

awaiting justice wrote:~Snipped~
Do you honesltly believe they were justified in going after him for these 3 circumstantial things that were all explainable...?

Was this good circumstantial evidecne... how mnay ppl wud expect LE target a guy based on these 3 things that are talking about? It was wrong to begin with... These things shud have never been enough for LE to lose the presumption of Nicks innocence..All it did was create tunnel vision where they only persued one possibility and not for very good reasons..

Do you agree that this shud have been enough to convince le that NNick was guilty... it sounds like it was from a NAncy Drew book.. what a shame!

LE has often been accused of tunnel vision in this case, but the DA has said they looked at three or four other individuals who they found not to be involved. LE obviously thought they didn't have enough for Nick to be convicted without witness statements, so they didn't arrest him ten years ago, but I believe they were justified in never ruling him out. They were already concerned that Nick's story didn't add up and felt he was being deceptive before the lie detector which obviously didn't do anything to alleviate their concerns. If there is anything in the affidavits that proves it was impossible for Nick to have committed the crime, please list it. A good defense lawyer would be all over it and have the charges dropped immediately.

In your scenarios, it's not only the lie detector results that were wrong. It's also Cory, the police, the DA, The Vidocq Society, the grand jury and everybody who has ever investigated this case. It also seems like you've made up your mind that the witnesses are lying before you even know who they are or what they are saying. I'm keeping an open mind until I hear all the details behind Nick's arrest, which probably won't be until trial. If the witnesses have changed their stories or are lying, Nick's lawyer is going to have to get busy deposing them and coming up with strategies to discredit them in court. If their statements corroborate with each other and the circumstantial evidence that the state has, and help fill in the timeline in a way that make sense, his lawyer is going to have a tough time.

I haven't been convinced that he isn't guilty, and I can't come to the conclusion that he was wrongfully convicted before the trial has even taken place.

I'd like to see the case laid out in court by both sides before deciding if the witnesses are lying and forming an opinion on whether he is guilty or not.

I'm sorry that Cory has had to go through this for ten years, but if they had arrested and tried Nick ten years ago, the case was probably too weak for a conviction at that time and then Nick wouldn't be able to be tried again if people later came forward with what they knew because of double jeopardy. LE has decided that the witness statements they have now are enough to charge him, so we will have to wait for trial to see what they are saying and if it can be discredited.

We can't say anything on this case without being made out to be the bad guy. I don't need to be accepted by anybody. I'm not making any friends on either side of the fence on this. I've heard through the grapevine that we are all way off in our scenarios and being hurtful, but I've seen people on other sites bring up similar things and get thanked for their input. Since this case was brought back up on this site and you challenged us to go through the affidavits, I was happy to. If my scenarios are off because I totally misinterpreted what I read in the affidavits, I apologize. If my scenarios are off because of information that hasn't been released, I also apologize, but last time I checked the first amendment hadn't been repealed. I thought part of what we do is look at various cases and try to lay out different possibilities of what happened.

I admit that I don't wait for a trial to form an opinion on every case, but when there is too much information unavailable, I like to wait for more information. I didn't join these types of sites to only post snips out of newspaper articles. I'm not some idiot who is going to wait for a trial to decide that Casey Anthony killed Caylee, and perhaps unfairly, I strongly suspect that Joshua Powell's story is BS and he is probably responsible for Susan's disappearance. As for Terri, I'm on the fence and need information from more than "reliable sources." As for Misti, maybe she knows what happened to Haleigh and maybe she doesn't, but even most people who are dead set against her agree that she probably isn't the one who murdered Haleigh if Haleigh was murdered.

I try to be fair and use logic, but I can't fairly exonerate Nick based on what I know, and I can't fairly convict him based on what I know. That leaves me with a wait and see approach until more information comes out at the trial. I don't understand how some people who have read my posts think I'm hellbent on believing Nick is innocent and others who have read my posts think I'm hellbent on believing Nick is guilty or why they even care what I believe.

J4a, I care what you believe, because I care for you.

Thank you mama.

You have been one of our most loyal members through thick and thin and I've always appreciated that.

I won't get into the criteria here, but you also qualify AJ. I'll think about doing the bullets later, but I really need to get off the computer for awhile.

I’ve laid out possibilities in previous scenarios, but I don’t have any definite answers about why, how, when, or where Nick may have killed Leah. These bullet points are for easy reference and include points you have already vehemently disagreed with.

• Leah’s 1.5 mile route along Central Avenue from the Mitchell’s to her house is less than a 5 minute drive, but is about a 30 minute walk.

• Nick says he didn’t find Leah on Central Avenue even though multiple witnesses spotted her.

• After the 10:15 call, Nick didn’t call Cory again even though he should have been very concerned as the hours went by and he was unable to find Leah.

• Nick didn’t stop by Leah’s house until he concluded his search at 2:30 in the morning.

• Nick claims he searched for Leah until 2:30 in the morning without finding her, but he acted surprised the next morning when Cory called and said Leah hadn’t come home.

• Multiple witnesses saw Nick in the Thunderbird that night, but his family denies that he ever switched cars.

• Police spotted a white men's sleeveless T-shirt at the Haga residence early on June 29, but it was gone after they realized Leah had been wearing a white men's sleeveless T-shirt and not a female white tank top on June 28 when she disappeared.

• There was no liner, no spare tire, jack or tire iron when police searched the trunk of the Mustang.

• Neighbors reported that the McGuffins had a bonfire on June 29. I’m not sure if the McGuffins have denied this.

• Nick and Brent both failed lie detector tests. Nick became angry and told police they don’t have sh*t.

• Nick and his dad both told Cory that Nick passed his lie detector test with flying colors.

• A grand jury indicted Nick based on evidence we haven’t seen or heard yet.

My responses to AJ are in blue.

• Leah’s 1.5 mile route along Central Avenue from the Mitchell’s to her house is less than a 5 minute drive, but is about a 30 minute walk.

• Nick says he didn’t find Leah on Central Avenue even though multiple witnesses spotted her.

You must have considered that she may have already been abducted by the time he drove down the street right?

It's a possibility. I would need more exact timings to say for sure. The times in the affidavits are estimates based on people's memories. I know Nick could have driven the whole route in less than five minutes.

• After the 10:15 call, Nick didn’t call Cory again even though he should have been very concerned as the hours went by and he was unable to find Leah.

Do you know that many teens have a kind of fear of callling ones parents... incase they get them in trouble...

I have considered this.

• Nick didn’t stop by Leah’s house until he concluded his search at 2:30 in the morning.

The docs claim Nick did go past the house and also said he saw her light on... In the 20/20 trailer, Cory says she got up at 3:30 and Leahs light was on...

Shud that not suggest that Nick had a confirmation that Leah was home... Wudnt surprise be expected, if he thought she was at home as per the bedroom light being on...?

The docs state he attempted to contact Leah at the window and got no response. It's possible he could have taken the light as a confirmation. He talked to Cory around 10:15 and was told Leah wasn't home, then was concerned enough to continue searching for four more hours. It seems to me that he should have looked for confirmation long before that four hour point.

• Nick claims he searched for Leah until 2:30 in the morning without finding her, but he acted surprised the next morning when Cory called and said Leah hadn’t come home.

• Multiple witnesses saw Nick in the Thunderbird that night, but his family denies that he ever switched cars.

Where does it say that the family denies this? Is this rumour or what is in the LE docs?
Shud we assume he is lying becasue someone else alleges they saw him, or does he deserve the benefit?

Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier says the family denied this according to the following link. We shouldn't assume anything, but it raises suspicion when somebody denies something that was reported by multiple witnesses.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/search_for_justice_a_decade_af.html

• Police spotted a white men's sleeveless T-shirt at the Haga residence early on June 29, but it was gone after they realized Leah had been wearing a white men's sleeveless T-shirt and not a female white tank top on June 28 when she disappeared.

Leah's pic of the day she went missing shows clearly that she was wearing a ladies tank top. It looks like it is a size small... There is no way this tank top wud ever be described as a mans shirt... maybe a childs.. or even a ladies but certainly not a mans.... You can look at images and it will be posted in many places.. It was an attachment to the docs as well...

I have no idea if the shirt was hers or not, but it was something that was worth looking into while investigating. Since the cop didn't take it into evidence when he saw it and couldn't find it when he returned, it's a moot point.

• There was no liner, no spare tire, jack or tire iron when police searched the trunk of the Mustang.

The car was 30 yrs old...I cant see how this is so unusual..

If you are investigating a case involving a missing person and it looks like the trunk liner of a person you are looking at was recently removed, it's cause for further investigation. You may later find out that it's common for that type of vehicle to not have a liner. Is it common for that type of vehicle to not have a spare tire, jack or tire iron in case it happens to get a flat?

• Neighbors reported that the McGuffins had a bonfire on June 29. I’m not sure if the McGuffins have denied this.

This was not in the police docs... There are many allegations and rumours over the years... Its too bad you are considering all the rumours and allegations and not just sticking with what we know .. Basing your opinion on 10 yrs of rumours is a shame... It seems like the docs show us that LE went after Nick for the spare tire situation and the fact he was the boyfriend.. Seems to me if they never went after him, in this way, makes me think these rumours wudnt have started..

It was stated in a news article that neighbors told police there was a bonfire. I admit that the article didn't release the source of this information. We don't have full discovery or even full transcripts of interviews in this case. Police know whether neighbors actually reported a bonfire or not, and if there was a bonfire, it would be cause for suspicion that potential evidence was burned that night.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/29/grace.coldcase.freeman/index.html

• Nick and Brent both failed lie detector tests. Nick became angry and told police they don’t have sh*t.

If LE was accusing you for something you didnt do, (where the docs support their biased opinions)... cud you understand someone lashing out...? Also the docs dont quote him either...They said something to the effect...


People react in different ways. In my experience people usually lash out angrily when called on a lie, but I can understand an innocent person also getting angry of being accused of something they didn't do. Personally, when I'm accused of something, I usually calmly explain why the accusation is wrong. I was accused of stealing from my work area many years ago. They said they had video, but didn't show it. I was more in disbelief than angry. I asked them what time the theft occurred. They told me and I said I was on lunch at that time. They checked the punches, confirmed it, and let me go back to work. Two people, including one that was somewhat similar to me from behind, were fired later that day.

• Nick and his dad both told Cory that Nick passed his lie detector test with flying colors.

The docs dont say anything about Nick stating that at all.. The allegations in the police doocs, say that they were told that Nicks father told this to Cory... there was no mention of Nick saying this at all....
Do you think it is possible that the dad discounted this and was in shock and traumatized that they were going after his son for something he wud never do?

Cory has stated numerous times that this happened and I have no reason to believe she made it up. I can imagine the dad being traumatized with police going after Nick, whether guilty or not, but it doesn't make any sense to flat out lie about the results of a lie detector to somebody who is eventually going to find out the results from police.

• A grand jury indicted Nick based on evidence we haven’t seen or heard yet.

The DA says 113 ppl have testified... Does that sound like an enormous amount of ppl it took to get the indictment?

Do you know that there are only 7 ppl on an Oregon GJ and only 5 need to agree to indict?
Do you know that there are no lawyers in there, and it is solely put on by the prosecuter where what they say is basically secret?
Have you wondered what was said in there this time reouond knowing that they werent able to get a conviction when it was a recent case?

I definitely wonder what was said in there. I know it's much easier to indict somebody than it is to convict them.

If you read the articles posted on Leahs section, you wud see that rumours riddled this case, and from the start there was never any good reason to indict Nick?

Most articles before 2009 that I read didn't mention Nick as a person of interest or a suspect. I really didn't notice a lot of rumors in the articles. I guess some if it depends on if you take quotes from the DA, the police, Cory, or Nick's dad as rumors. A couple of recent articles have the rumor about the bonfire.

Based on the docs alone, can you admit that there wasnt any real good reason to suspect him in the first place?

I can't get past the fact that Nick told police he conducted a five hour search for Leah. We are supposed to believe he didn't find her on Central after leaving the Mitchell's house around 9:05, which may be possible. Then we are supposed to believe that after calling Cory at 10:15, he spent almost another hour searching for her, still didn't find her, but didn't check back in with Cory by phone or by going to the house. Then he says he got Brent around 11 to help him look, and they spent another three hours looking for Leah before Nick dropped Brent off and finally checked Leah's house and saw the light in her room. He could have assumed she was asleep when he tried to contact her and didn't get a response. He must have been thinking, damn, after I got off the phone with Cory, I just wasted the last four hours searching for Leah without checking back in with Cory to see if she came home, and here she is safe in bed, so tired that she fell asleep with the light on.

Coquille is a small town. Nick dated Leah long enough that he probably knew all her friends and all the places she liked to hang out. After an hour or two of searching, he should have been frantic, checked in with Cory again, and said, "She's still not home yet? I think something's wrong. I've checked every possible place I can think of that she might be and nobody has seen her." Instead, he spent over five hours searching for her in a small town. How many places were there to look that it would have taken him five hours to search them all?

The DA agrees that there wasn't enough information in the docs for the grand jury to indict Nick, but his story alone makes me suspicious. If not a suspect, Nick should have been at minimum a person of interest.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it was Nick's responsibility to search for Leah. If Leah was abducted by a stranger, I don't hold Nick responsible for her death in any way.

My problem is that he told police he spent five hours searching for her. He could have told police that he was supposed to meet her at her friend's house, but she wasn't there, he didn't see her on Central, and her sister hadn't seen her. He could have then said he was hesitant to go to her mom's house that late because she had already made them break up once before, so he decided to go hang out with his friends some more. That would make more sense, but instead he said he kept searching for her until 2:30 in the morning. How many places did he search that it took that long? As an officer, I would give him a detailed interview to account for those five hours, and I would talk to witnesses from every home or business that he searched. Perhaps cops did this, but not all the details from his interview were released in the affidavits.

I haven't seen enough to eliminate him as a suspect. I'm not sure about probable cause for his arrest in August. If, as you seem to be suggesting, he was arrested because a bunch of people changed their stories and conspired to frame him, that isn't probable cause. If he was arrested because a person long suspected of helping him hide Leah's body finally admitted it and gave details about Leah's death that fit in with all the other information they had, that would be probable cause. I'm not sure why an accomplice would come forward after all this time, because I'm sure it would hurt his chances of employment, and it would make him look like the world's biggest ass for allowing Leah's family to suffer all these years without knowing what happened to her.

I think I'm finally having a better understanding of why the autopsy results were kept secret all these years. It allows them to verify any information that somebody comes forward with. If the cause of death was public knowledge, anybody could make up a story about what happened that night. People could make up stories about how Nick did it, or crazy people like John Mark Karr could make false confessions.

If somebody told the grand jury they helped Nick hide Leah's body that night, and their description of Leah's death was confirmed by the autopsy results, I could definitely see probable cause.

I also have questions about why he would kill Leah. It's hard to figure out why he would go to pick her up, find out she left on foot, and then all of a sudden decide to kill her and try to make it look like a stranger abduction.

I really can't make up my mind about this case until we know what evidence caused the grand jury to indict Nick.

From the documents:

At approximately 9 PM he (Nick) returned to the Mitchell residence to pick up Leah. McGuffin indicated that he learned that Leah had all ready left on foot. He then indicated that he drove north on Central and drove to Knott Street. McGuffin indicated that he did not see Leah and that he then turned around and drove south on Central looking for Leah. McGuffin indicated that he did not find her.

McGuffin further told Chief Reeves: that he continued to drive around Coquille looking for Leah; that at approximately 10:15 PM he went back to the Mitchell residence and learned Leah was not there; that the Mitchells convinced him to call Leah's home and see if she was there; that he did call Leah's home and learned that Leah was not home; that he drove around for awhile and that around 11 PM, he picked up his friend, Brent Bartley; that he and Bartley then drove around Coquille until approximately 2:30 AM of Thursday morning looking for Leah;

I guess it doesn't specify that he looked for Leah between 10:15 and 11, but it's been reported that he told Cory on the phone at 10:15 that he would find Leah.

I read in another case (on this site) something that has really stuck with me. The jist of it was that LE had, who in their opinion was the perp, so they looked no further. When they could MAKE what they believed happened FIT...that was all the further they needed to investigate. Why work harded than LE had to?? IMO, that is what happened in this case. People WANT it to be Nick...so it is.

I don't see any valid reason why nearly every police department in Coos County, including the Oregon State Police, the Coos County Sheriff's Office, and the Department of Justice, would be hell bent on hanging Nick.