Linda Larsen visits Fraud Busting. You’ll be blown away by her story of being abducted and held at gunpiont. She’ll reveal how her intuition and attention to communication in this intense situation allowed her to save her own life. You’re gonna have to listen to find out exactly how she did it. She eventually become a trial consultant helping lawyers persuade juries. You’ll learn how you can use her tools to build rapport with anyone so you can get yourself out of the toughest situations.
Traci Brown: Linda Larsen! Welcome to Fraud Busting! I am so excited that you are here. Now, ya’ll, let me tell you a little bit about the past year and how Linda has been amazing. We’re in a little text message group of professional speakers who had our livelihoods just ripped from us during the pandemic, like all at once, and so we had this really fun little chat group. I’ve gotten to know you, Linda, a lot better just through that. She is funny and a ton of fun! I knew, Linda, that you. . . well, let’s back up a little bit. What has been your go-to snack during the pandemic? Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that. (Laughing).
Linda Larsen: Oh my Lord! Okay, you go right for the jugular, don’t you!
Traci Brown: Going for it!
Linda Larsen: Oh, honey, it’s ice cream. I mean, I could just faceplant in a gallon of ice cream every night and just lay there. I love myself some ice cream! That’ll catch you. That will catch up to you after a while.
Traci Brown: It does. It does.
Linda Larsen: I kind of have to moderate myself.
Traci Brown: We never got into this. Do you have a flavor? I mean, this addiction to ice cream is so extreme that our other friend actually shipped you ice cream, like six or eight gourmet pints of ice cream, so what is your favorite flavor?
Linda Larsen: Okay, okay, okay. This is a great story. My husband listens to Splendid Table on NPR, and they interview great chefs. One time he heard this woman being interviewed who had an ice cream company. Her name is Jeni, J-e-n-i, and she had come up with all these masterful recipes for ice cream. So, he bought the book, brought it home, or had it sent to me, and he bought a commercial-sized ice cream maker and we started making her recipes. Unbelievable! Like something you’ve never tasted. You never tasted ice cream like this! You go, “What is this?!” It’s so amazing. And I know the secret, but I’m not going to tell you.
Traci Brown: Oh!
Linda Larsen: Anyway, then all of a sudden, like two weeks ago, we saw this little ice cream place.
Traci Brown: Okay.
Linda Larsen: This was 10 years ago he bought me the book. So, it was a new ice cream store. I went in. I had a taste of it, and I went “Oh! That is familiar. I know that taste!” We went back outside and looked at the top, and it was Jeni’s. She apparently now has these little stores. You want some ice cream. And I don’t even get paid for this! I need to call her and be her ambassador or something.
Traci Brown: Yea, you do.
Linda Larsen: Yea! So Jeni, J-e-n-i. They now sell them in the grocery stores. Oh!
Traci Brown: Now, what is the flavor? Can you tell us the flavor? Is it top secret?
Linda Larsen: Well, it’s not top secret. But she makes a base. Her ice cream is a base. In the base of all of her ice creams that I can think of, they have cream cheese, not a lot, but a little cream cheese. Then they put all the different flavors: Roasted cherry goat cheese, oh be still!
Traci Brown: Oh!
Linda Larsen: Be still. I know, I know, I know. It’s like, I like the Brown Butter Brickle Almond. Okay, so you’ve got me in the wrong head space now.
Traci Brown: Okay. Okay. We’ll stop that. I can see it shifting your mindset. Okay. Let’s get into why you came, besides the cream cheese, why I wanted to have you on Fraud Busting. Because you have a story that I wish you didn’t have, but you do have it. But I think you’ve really grown from this situation and you’re able to use it professionally now. Because most of the time what you do is you are a funny keynote speaker, and you’re super funny, and as a result, very popular. And, you are in the Speaker’s Hall of Fame, which is a big deal. So, let’s get into this story, and I know you can parlay that into what you’re doing now, because you’re not only a funny keynote speaker. You’re a trial consultant and . . .
Linda Larsen: I was a trial consultant.
Traci Brown: You were a trial consultant.
Linda Larsen: I was.
Traci Brown: Okay. You were. So, let’s just jump in. What happened? I know it was in the 1970s. Let’s go for it.
Linda Larsen: Okay. Actually, it was 1969.
Traci Brown: 1969! Okay.
Linda Larsen: In 1969, I was 21 years old. Stop doing math. I can see your wheels turning.
Traci Brown: I was doing math. (Laughing).
Linda Larsen: (Laughing).
Traci Brown: Okay.
Linda Larsen: I was 21 in 1969 and I was working in a law office as a front desk receptionist and a secretary, but mostly at the front desk. I was making $55 a week, and I was on food stamps, I remember. I was married and divorced, and I had a 2-year-old baby boy.
Traci Brown: Oh boy.
Linda Larsen: Yea.
Traci Brown: You were winning at life.
Linda Larsen: Winning baby! Knocking it out of the park. I also was suffering from clinical depression, anxiety, and panic attacks that truly were so horrific at the time that there were times that I came very close to taking my own life. I mean, I know hat you will have some listeners who have experienced depression or anxiety to that point. It’s just unimaginable and it’s hard to even describe. Unless you’ve been there, you don’t know what it’s like. But it’s like you can’t hold on anymore.
Traci Brown: Wow. Okay.
Linda Larsen: It’s like, if I have to experience what I’m experiencing right now in the next hour, I can’t make it another hour. So, that was what I was experiencing at that time in my life. I woke up on the morning of December 5, 1969, and I remember very specifically, boy, as soon as the alarm went off, I woke up, got my awareness of where I was, and then boom, I fell right into that dark place, and I remember lying in bed and just pulled the covers up under my neck, I remember shaking, and I remember thinking that I couldn’t make it.
Traci Brown: That’s it.
Linda Larsen: I could not make it for another minute, I thought. I thought to myself: Okay. I’m ready to die. And I kept hearing those words in my head, I’m ready to die. And that was the time, just about then, I heard my son stirring in the room next to me, waking up, and I knew that I had to figure out a way to make it. I mean, I had to, I had to. So, summoning courage from I don’t even know where, I got up, I got him dressed and fed, I got me dressed, I took him to daycare, and then it’s kind of like, my car, my car was driving me. I mean, I was going through these motions that I did every morning, and I dropped him off, and then just kind of like my car just went to work.
Traci Brown: Um-hum.
Linda Larsen: I didn’t know where to else to go. I went to work. I sat behind that receptionist desk. I remember just feeling like I was hanging onto my sanity by the teeniest, tiniest little thread. I couldn’t breathe, but there I was.
Traci Brown: Right, right.
Linda Larsen: That was the morning, at 11:15 am, when in through the front door burst a man in a convict prison uniform.
Traci Brown: Orange or?
Linda Larsen: No.
Traci Brown: Or was it stripes?
Linda Larsen: No. It felt like it was white. You know what, that’s a good memory. I have no idea, but it seemed like it was white with big numbers on it or something.
Traci Brown: Okay.
Linda Larsen: He was brandishing a 357 Magnum. After a short time, he grabbed me by the arm. He slammed the gun in my face. He said to the two attorneys who were standing in the room by this time, “I’m leaving. I’m taking her with me. Don’t call the cops or I will kill her. Give me your car keys. Give me your money.” And they did. It turns out he was an . . . like he was in a road gang nearby, and he had jumped the guard and stolen the gun and fled on foot and went into the first office. It was mine. He grabbed me by the arm. He slammed the gun in my side and pulled me across the street to where one of the lawyer’s cars were parked, the keys that he gave him.
(Laughing). All of a sudden, it just occurred to me, think about the emotional state that I was in before the guy came in the room.
Traci Brown: Yea, talk about law of attraction. Like, wow.
Linda Larsen: Oh, listen, you just nailed it. You just nailed it. You see, here’s the deal, I’m just going to sidebar here, I had very, very, very much felt like a victim in my life. I really . . . I was. I was from a home where there was a lot of physical and emotional abuse, so I had the victim mentality. I think there’s this thing that happens in life, I think this guy was running down the street, and he got the unmistakable whiff of a victim right through that door and ran in and got me. I mean, I mean, okay, I’m making up that story in my head, but it feels pretty right to me. I mean.
Traci Brown: You know we attract stuff.
Linda Larsen: Sure, we do.
Traci Brown: It’s all for us to learn.
Linda Larsen: Yep.
Traci Brown: So, okay. The guy has you by the arm, gun in your ribs, and what happens?
Linda Larsen: Okay. We get in the car. He tells me to drive. He leaves the gun in my ribs. I’m driving. I don’t . . . I don’t remember breathing. I mean, I think back on it right now, and just even thinking about it, I’m not even breathing. But anyway . . .
Traci Brown: Yea, it has a physical, like there is a real emotional set going on right now, so don’t go too far down into it. We can go ever the top if we need to.
Linda Larsen: Here’s the thing. I believe that people can talk about anything that they want to talk about if they have dealt with it, made sense of it, put it in its proper place, made peace with it, then you can talk about it. So, I’m not going off the rails on you here.
Traci Brown: Alright, alright. Okay.
Linda Larsen: So, anyway, he directed me, this way, that way, drive through window of a liquor store, because he took the money from one of the lawyers, and he made me drive through a liquor store to get a bottle if Wild Turkey. I didn’t even know what that was, but anyway, so imagine, there’s the window.
Traci Brown: Yea, yea.
Linda Larsen: It’s over here. There’s the window. You’re the person behind the window, standing there, and I’m saying, “Could I have a bottle of Wild Turkey?” And I remember thinking, maybe this whole nonverbal body language doesn’t work because in my brain I was zapping this guy with “I’m being held hostage and there is a gun in my side”. I was just zapping him with this. He didn’t get it. He didn’t get it.
Traci Brown: Asleep at the wheel. Okay, okay.
Linda Larsen: He gave me the stuff. I gave him the money. We drove away. He ultimately directed me to a friend of his’ house.
Traci Brown: The bad guy?
Linda Larsen: The bad guy directed me to this house which belonged to a friend of his. So just bear in mind, when I pulled in, it was a long, long dirt road that ended in a cul de sac, like there were no other houses around. It was just a long dirt road, a dirt cul de sac, and there was the house. I kind of pulled in sort of facing the house, and he – this is big. This is a moment in time, this is what I want to explain, that I don’t know everyone understands is that when you – you probably, if you have the experience you do – when you are in that kind of a critical life threatening situation, there is something in neuroscience that says we can consciously process seven bits of information per second, right, plus or minus two.
Traci Brown: Yep.
Linda Larsen: When you’re in a situation like that, you are processing billions of bits of information, almost consciously. I mean, like I was picking up China. I was reading everything.
Traci Brown: You have a heightened awareness, right, because you’re in fight or flight, and so you’ve got to . . .
Linda Larsen: Exactly.
Traci Brown: Like it’s minute to minute if you’re going to switch between fight and flight or there is freeze also. Fight, flight, freeze.
Linda Larsen: Right.
Traci Brown: Okay, okay. You pulled in.
Linda Larsen: Then he jumps out of the car and says, “Get out” to me, and he jumps out of his side. Now, in this moment, let’s slow it down, slow the moment down. The keys are in the ignition. I do not take the keys out of the car, and I made a conscious choice to leave the keys there. Maybe he won’t notice. This could be an escape route. I left the keys in the ignition.
Traci Brown: Oooh, good thinking.
Linda Larsen: I know! Why was I even thinking?
Traci Brown: I wouldn’t have thought of that.
Linda Larsen: Probably would have.
Traci Brown: You think? Okay. Alright.
Linda Larsen: I took my hand and the whole time I’m thinking, he’s going to remember. He’s getting out of the car and running around the front to get me, and I’m thinking, he’s going to remember, he’s going to remember, he’s going to remember. And he didn’t! So, I just left the keys write there, got out, followed him up. He knocked on the door. She opened the door. She goes, “Pete! What are you doing out of jail? And who is she?” He said, “Blah, blah, blah, I escaped. I’ve got her with me. I need a place to stay. I had to come here. I’ve got to hide.” And she went, “My children are coming home from school in a couple of hours. You have got to let me leave to keep them away.” And he said, “Okay, you can leave, but do not call the cops. I will kill her if you do.”
Traci Brown: Sure.
Linda Larsen: Yea. So, she leaves. I remember as she walked out, I remember looking in her eyes, and I literally said, almost under my breath, “Please don’t go.” I don’t know if she heard me or not, but I heard the words in my head. No, she did hear me because she went, “I have to.” And she left. Okay. Well, fortunately, I don’t know why, he allowed me to bring my purse because I had Valium. I was taking Valium at the time. Oh my God. I would take a half of a 5 mg Valium to go to the dentist, like once every 2 years.
Traci Brown: Yea.
Linda Larsen: And I fall asleep. I was taking four 5 mg Valium per day.
Traci Brown: Oh boy!
Linda Larsen: How was I functioning?
Traci Brown: You made it. Wow.
Linda Larsen: He let me. . . at one point, I asked him. I said, “I have some medication. Can I take the medication?” And he let me, and I took two Valium, two 5 mg, why I didn’t just fall over on the floor and like go, I’m dead. I’m out. Kill me if you want. I don’t know, but again that heightened thing.
Traci Brown: Yea.
Linda Larsen: It just counteracts everything. Well, six hours I’m there. That is a long story, but I will tell you the one moment where I thought I was dead.
Traci Brown: Because you had another moment too, didn’t you have a moment where you had a chance to escape? Are we going to get into that?
Linda Larsen: I had several, lots.
Traci Brown: Can we talk about those like a little bit?
Linda Larsen: Yes.
Traci Brown: Because I’ve heard the whole story. Like this isn’t like fresh, it was what? Three or four years ago. So anyway, okay.
Linda Larsen: Okay, so here’s what happened. I mean, probably from the moment he pushed me out the door with the gun in my ribs, my brain started working on figuring out a way to escape. I mean, every intention I had was to figure out a way to escape. When I got into the house with him, he was a donkey on the edge. I mean, he started pounding back that Wild Turkey and he was shaking and kept slamming the gun in my face. I somehow knew, you’ve got to figure out a way to build some kind of a relationship with this guy. You’ve got to get him to like you. You’ve got to get him to let down his guard and maybe if you do that, you will find a way to escape. But I couldn’t just go, you know, you’re kind of my type. I mean, I couldn’t go there! I couldn’t! It was subtle. It was like – and this goes into your world. My survival mechanism informed in my little poor state me, it informed me that if you are going to escape, you need to read everything that is going on here and figure it out and find your in. So, slowly, he would say something, and I would just, almost like a throwaway line, he would say, “You know, you didn’t have people beating up on you your whole life” and almost in a throwaway line, as if I didn’t even want him to hear it, and believe me, this wasn’t calculated, it wasn’t conscious.
Traci Brown: Right.
Linda Larsen: I didn’t consciously go, oh, I’m going to throwaway this like. I just. . . I did it. I went, “Yea, well, that’s not true.” Very subtly, almost away from him. And he went, “What?” Then it gave me the door opening to tell him a little bit about my story, at which he would kind of look at me skeptically and then I would find another opportunity. But he kept that gun with him the whole time and constantly stopped, pointed at me, and say, “Are you deceiving me? Because if you’re deceiving me, I’ll kill you. I’ve killed people before, and I’ll do it again.” And I’m like, after several hours of this, I said, “I don’t what I can say to make you believe me. You either will or you won’t.” Well at one point, and this was the pivotal moment, I guess this was it, he put me in a chair in the living room and he pulled up a chair about five feet away from him, and he was just staring at me, holding the gun and just staring at me. I remember I was so cold, Traci, I remember.
Traci Brown: Oh, I bet.
Linda Larsen: I felt like the cells in my body had just come to a stop. I was so cold! And all of a sudden, after this long silence, he slowly raised the gun. He pointed it directly between my eyes, he took a deep breath, and his exact words were, “Are you ready to die?”
Well, let’s go back to the morning about 7:15 when I’m lying in bed thinking I’m ready to die. Once again, be careful what you wish for.
Traci Brown: You had a choice. Oh my goodness.
Linda Larsen: Right. This thing I had been wanting or thinking I had to have was being handed to me on a silver platter, and it was in that moment that I realized, oh crap, no, I’m not ready to die! Now that you mention it. But it was interesting because I heard myself respond. Because I knew how I responded in that moment was really important, and I heard myself respond. I didn’t choose these words. I did not choose them. They came. They just happened, and I remember I looked at him, I took a breath, and I said something along the lines of “If you’re going to kill me, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. You have the gun. You have all the power.” And he just sat there with it pointing straight at me, looking at me, and then he lowered the gun and he said, “Why aren’t you begging and screaming for your life?” And again, words came out of my mouth, and I said, “Like I said, you’ve got the gun, you’ve got the power.” Where did those words come from?
Traci Brown: Wow!
Linda Larsen: I know. I know. I know. Well, ultimately that threw him off guard I guess because he wasn’t expecting that, and he would just, almost like shaking his head in disbelief, kept coming back to “If you’re deceiving me, I’ll kill you” kind of thing, and ultimately . . . so, okay, we’re getting towards the end now.
Traci Brown: Yea, yea.
Linda Larsen: At one point, he sits there. Do I have anything that even looks like a gun? No, I don’t. So, he has the gun in his hand, he’s looking at me. Oh, back up. Somewhere in the back of my brain again, I had to make him, and it was true actually, believe that I was very afraid of guns, which I was, but somehow or another I knew that was an important piece of information.
Traci Brown: Really? You just kind of had the vibe?
Linda Larsen: I had the vibe.
Traci Brown: Okay.
Linda Larsen: Make sure he knows I don’t like guns. At one point, he’s sitting there. He’s holding the gun. He takes the barrel and turns around and hands it to me with the handle toward me. And there was that moment, again, slow it all down, it felt like about 30 minutes where I sat and stared at it, and I thought, okay, here’s your opportunity.
Traci Brown: Yea.
Linda Larsen: But I knew it was a test, and so I kept in my head, I kept going: This is a test, this is a test. And so I just went like this and I went, “Why are you handing me that?” And he said, “Take the gun. Shoot me.” And I said to him, “I told you, guns scare me. I don’t want that thing.” Again, he just sat there looking at me, and there was one more checkmark in the maybe I can trust her column.
Traci Brown: Uh-huh. Now, but you didn’t think about actually shooting the guy?
Linda Larsen: The thought occurred to me. Listen, again, 50,000 thoughts came in my brain, one of them was, oh my God, grab it and shoot him” Then the thing was, oh, wait a minute, hold on a second, did he put bullets in there? Are there bullets in there?
Traci Brown: Oh!
Linda Larsen: All of a sudden, I try to shoot him and there is no bullet there.
Traci Brown: Then you’re toast.
Linda Larsen: Then, oh, you are trying to deceive me! The other one was if there was a safety catch on it. I don’t even know that. Is there? And then there was a big one, Traci, and this is a personal one, but there was a thing in my head that said, could you at point blank range shoot a human being and watch him die? And I couldn’t do it.
Traci Brown: Wow.
Linda Larsen: It was not going to happen. I knew there was another way.
Traci Brown: Okay, okay.
Linda Larsen: I hoped there was another way.
Traci Brown: Okay.
Linda Larsen: Now, somewhere in all of this, I knew, because remember I’m trying to establish a relationship with him, I kind of threw in this thing about how my life was horrible, hey, it actually was, and nothing would make me happier than to escape this crazy place, and wouldn’t it be great if we could help each other escape? Again, it didn’t happen all at once. I didn’t even say those words altogether in one sentence. They got trickled in over six hours.
Traci Brown: Right.
Linda Larsen: And I just kept saying, “All we need to do is go pick up my son.” And that sounded real valid, you know, like, let’s go pick up my son first and then we can bring him with us. This was not an option to do that, but it sounded good to him. I knew that. He just began to trust me more and more. Okay. Now, let me see if I can get this sequence right because this is the end of it. He does the gun test. Then, he’s been drinking this Wild Turkey thing. I think it’s bourbon. And he says . . . No, no, no, no. Here it goes. I say to him after I had gotten some water from the refrigerator at one point, I said, “I saw some hamburger meat in the refrigerator. Do you want me to make you a hamburger?” Where did that come from? I had no idea. He goes, “Yea.” So, I went in, made up a patty, threw it in the pan. It was a gas stove. I turned the stove on. I come back into the living room to ask him what he wants on his hamburger, and I see that he just goes, “I’m going to go pee” and he gets up and he goes around the thing and he leaves the gun on the table. Now, he’s out of the room, and the gun is on the table.
Traci Brown: Oh my gosh, I would have took that thing!
Linda Larsen: (Laughing).
Traci Brown: I would have! Okay. I’m not going to spoil it, but okay, keep going, keep going.
Linda Larsen: Well, so at this point, he goes “Take the gun and shoot me.” I went, “I already told you this is a dead subject. I’m not talking about that gun anymore.” So, he’s walking out as he says that. I then, when I see him round the corner, I head for the back door. Now, okay, the kitchen, I have to turn around out of the living room to go into the kitchen. The kitchen has a doorway that goes to the porch. The porch then goes to the car.
Traci Brown: Got it.
Linda Larsen: So, the second I see him go in, I run out of the thing, I head for the kitchen door, and the kitchen door has a bolt lock. And so, I run up to it, my heard is pounding out of my freaking chest, I slam the deadbolt and I swear to God it went, kershoom!
Traci Brown: So you couldn’t sneak anymore?
Linda Larsen: I knew he heard it. I knew he heard it. I knew he heard the lock open from where he was in the bathroom. And my heart jumped out of my skin. I ran back over to the living room door and then casually walked in the living room to see if he was still in the bathroom, I listened. He was peeing. I could hear him, so he didn’t hear it, and I said, “Do you want ketchup or mustard?” And I don’t know what he said, and I went . . . now I’ve got the kitchen door open.
Traci Brown: Yea.
Linda Larsen: I run through the kitchen door. I don’t think I actually opened the screen door. I think I like flew through it with my body. You know?
Traci Brown: Yea, yea.
Linda Larsen: I just knocked it off its hinges, jumped in the car, fired it up. And this is the thing, remember I’m at a cul de sac.
Traci Brown: Yea, yea.
Linda Larsen: Facing here. I literally have to back up.
Traci Brown: Oh no!
Linda Larsen: Go forward, back up, and go forward to get out of this place. And I hear bullets. I hear them. I feel like they’re coming over the top of the car. A sidebar again, there were no bullets. He did not shoot at me. He did not see me leave. In my brain, I heard bullets.
Traci Brown: Okay, okay.
Linda Larsen: Yea. Just because my imagination now was out of control. When I got a straightaway on that dirt road, I floored it. Here was the thing. It was lined with trees, and I was fishtailing back and forth down this dirt road, I mean, why I didn’t lose control of that car, I had no idea because I was going so fast, and I was shaking like this, and when I got to the main road, I didn’t stop and look both ways. I just whipped out on that road and just . . . I could have been killed. I should have been killed. Went flying down the road, and I could see ahead there was a traffic light about half a mile down the road, and cars were stopped at the traffic light. I actually saw that there was a police car stopped underneath the traffic light, so I pulled up, slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car. Now, at this point I am in a bathrobe, you can fill in the blanks on that one.
Traci Brown: Sure, yea.
Linda Larsen: Yea, and I go running up to the car window and I’m banging on the window. He’s like – I love to do these re-enactments.
Traci Brown: Yea, yea.
Linda Larsen: Sitting and he’s like rolling – remember the roll down the window things?
Traci Brown: Yea, yea.
Linda Larsen: He’s like rolling down the window while this crazy lady is pounding on his window. And Traci, I opened my mouth to say things, and I couldn’t talk. Everything jammed up and I was just, I was just stuttering and I just couldn’t talk. All of a sudden, we were surrounded by 10 cop cars, detective cars, you name it. Apparently, they were watching the house because that woman did go tell the police that we were there, so they were watching the house. Now, sadly, it turns out, they thought when I left, when the car left, they thought he was in the car and they were going to shoot the tires out. Fortunately, they didn’t because it was just me, and that’s when all my defenses just crashed, and I was just a puddle. I had to go to the police station, make a statement, do all that, but it was . . . I look back on the whole thing and he did ultimately get . . . he left that house, went to another house, kidnapped two more people, made them take him to another house, and that’s where he was apprehended.
Traci Brown: Didn’t one of those houses burn down?
Linda Larsen: The one I was in. Remember the gas stove with the window?
Traci Brown: Yea, yea.
Linda Larsen: Okay. Well, once they figured out he wasn’t in the car with me, they figured he was in the house, so they threw tear gas in the house. Remember the gas stove with the burner going?
Traci Brown: Yea.
Linda Larsen: Yea. But he’d already left the house by then, gone on foot over to another house and kidnapped two people.
Traci Brown: Wow.
Linda Larsen: Yea. But you know, Traci, again, for me, there were so many things I walked away with. One was I don’t know that I could have gotten a deep down, rock bottom knowledge, awareness that I really did want to live, so that was the greatest gift to me, I think. Secondly, I learned so much about the power of building rapport with people, especially the people who you don’t like very much. Nobody’s going to run into one with a 357 Magnum, I hope, but you know, I really, really truly got how even in the most difficult situations you can build rapport and establish a relationship if you really work at it. You can do that, and I didn’t even know how. We’ve all got those instincts to do that. I also really walked away with the appreciation of how bad things happen to people every day, some that are way, way worse than what happened to me. You know, we’ve heard it from every single person who steps up on a stage and talk. It is not about what happens to you. It’s how do you interpret it? I interpreted that as the greatest gift I’ve ever been given, that if it hadn’t been for this situation, I think I would have succumbed to my illness and take my own life.
Traci Brown: Now, how long did it take you to get to that? You don’t just walk out and go, yay!
Linda Larsen: (Laughing). Whole, complete, and satisfied! Yay! No. Fortunately, I had been working with a social worker who was . . . everybody in my town knew about it. It was the first hostage case in forever, so everybody in the whole town was on alert. He worked at a social service agency where I was going like whenever I needed to, which was a lot, but they only charged me $1 per session because it was on a sliding scale fee, and I had no money. He immediately called me and said, “I’m here. I’m here when you are ready to move yourself up and get over to my office. Come.” And so I did as soon as possible. He was the one that helped me navigate this, help me like, okay, let’s figure out what this really meant. Did it mean that you should be afraid for the rest of your life because there are a lot of bad people? They are pretty bad because, look, they’re coming at you with guns now. You should hide under your bed and never trust men. Is that what you want to conclude from this? Because you could, and nobody would blame you, or you could come up with a different interpretation. And I did, with his help, but it truly, truly was the best gift I’d ever been given. You know what, I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you exactly what, and I think this is powerful. While I didn’t feel like I was in control of all those wise things I said and how I kept myself – I didn’t feel like I was in control of that, the fact was, I was. One of the things I left with was, and he pointed this out to me, was do you have any idea how strong you are? How quick you are? How smart you are?
Traci Brown: Yea.
Linda Larsen: He said, “Do you get that?” Because I had never viewed myself as strong, smart, or quick. Never! I was like a thinker. Remember that?
Traci Brown: Got it.
Linda Larsen: All of a sudden, I started to redefine myself, like dang, if I could do that, well then I can do anything. It took a while to build on that. With his help, I ultimately went back to school much later and became a social worker.
Traci Brown: Oh really? I didn’t know that.
Linda Larsen: My undergrad is in social work, all about human behavior, and I wanted to know more and I wanted to help people, but I figured out pretty quickly that after undergrad that I didn’t want to actually be a social worker. I sure did love all the information I got. It really helped me understand people.
Traci Brown: Wow. Well, let’s talk about how you were able to roll that into your trial consulting that you’ve done. So, let’s take an overview of what is trial consulting, just so everybody is on the same page, and then let’s dive in a little bit.
Linda Larsen: Okay. It’s something you would be great at.
Traci Brown: I’ve done a little bit. Just a little bit here and there.
Linda Larsen: I did two different things. I became a CLE provider, a continuing legal education provider for attorneys. That came after graduate school because I had always worked as a professional actor for my whole life, whenever I could, and so I went back to school to get a graduate degree in acting from Florida State University. It was a very intense three-year program, and I was living with a lawyer at the time. I would come home. We would work from 8 am until midnight every day, six days a week. I would come home and tell him what we were doing in class, and he kept going, “Lawyers need this. Lawyers need this.” I said, “Yea, they do.” So, when I graduated, he went, “You need to figure out how to turn this into a one-day course for trial lawyers. We called it acting techniques and the art of persuasion. But people just have such a crazy idea of what acting means, somehow it means pretending, it means faking, and it’s just the opposite. It means behaving really truthfully, really truthfully in a given set of circumstances. I had to change the title because people just got the wrong thing, the wrong impression of that. But what happened was I created the course. One of my professors at grad school helped me design in such that the Florida Bar would look at it and go, yea, this has substance, and they approved it.
So, I was teaching lawyers in full-day classes with them, like six or seven at a time, put them on camera, video recorded. They do a three to five-minute opening and closing, and then we would play it back and we would sit and watch. Now, we’re the jury. And you get to be the jury too. You, who just did that presentation, come sit in the jury room. Let’s take a look at this. How does it come across to you? Can you believe this guy? Do you think he’s honest? Do you think he’s being truthful? What’s happening that you don’t think he’s being truthful? We would dissect it like that.
Traci Brown: Oh, I love that.
Linda Larsen: It was so cool. It was so cool. One guy got up. He kind of shuffled his notes, looking at his notes, and did his thing. He was like a real hot shot, I could tell. He was like, yea, I got this, I know how to do this. He sat back down, and we played the video back. I always ask the person who just was on camera first, “What did you think?” He went, “Well, I just got my money’s worth.” I said, “Why is that?” He goes, “If that’s how I show up, that ill prepared, that I’m looking down at my notes and shuffling around and mumbling and mumbling, I’m surprised I ever win a case.”
Traci Brown: Oh, wow.
Linda Larsen: I know. I went, “Okay. Well, you can go home. You’re done.”
Traci Brown: (Laughing).
Linda Larsen: So yea, it just . . . because I had learned and studied for three years on what does it mean to stand and ground yourself. I had an acting teacher once who was just like, “Look, just plant your feet and tell the truth.” And I thought, damn, that’s good. So, I was trying to help lawyers do that. I’ll give you an interesting question that I got, and I want your opinion on this, because I think this is cool.
Traci Brown: Okay.
Linda Larsen: When I worked for public defenders, I would go inhouse to a big – you know, maybe there were 100 public defenders on staff at one of the counties in Florida, or the districts in Florida. We would work, like I said, six or seven at a time. I got this question so much. Here it was. How do I get up and convince a juror, juries, that I believe in this guy that I don’t believe in? I’m representing criminals, and what do I do when I think they’re guilty?
Traci Brown: Uh-huh.
Linda Larsen: How do I . . . how does that not leak through while I’m talking to them? That they’ll know on some level that I don’t even believe him.
Traci Brown: Right, right.
Linda Larsen: So, here’s the answer.
Traci Brown: I want to know. I really want to know.
Linda Larsen: I figured you would, and this is the one that takes some conversation. This is where it really deserves some good conversation because my response to them was, “Okay. What do you believe in?” They sat and went, “What does that mean?” I go, “Well, you’re up there defending this guy. There is a reason why you chose this profession.” I said, “Why is that?” They went, “Well, I believe in the system. I believe that you’re innocent until proven guilty. I believe that everyone has the right to a fair trial. I believe that even when you have every fact that look it’s X, if you’re missing one fact, the answer could be Z.”
Traci Brown: Yea.
Linda Larsen: I said, “That’s what you believe in? Get up and do your opening now if that’s what you believe in.” So, when you’re up there and you’re saying, you know, my client was – I don’t even know what the case might be – you know, let’s say he was found with some drugs, and he said someone planted them there. That’s everybody’s defense.
Traci Brown: Oh, yea.
Linda Larsen: So, when you’re talking to the jury, say: Here’s what we believe, that every single person is innocent until proven guilty, proven guilty. Have they proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone did not plant those drugs there? Could be there be one moment that someone wasn’t looking, that someone actually did plant those there? Do you have a doubt? Do you have a doubt? Because if you have a doubt, you can’t say he’s guilty.
All of a sudden, I’m like, “Yes! That’s it!”
Traci Brown: So, you had them focus on the process versus their actual belief in talking about things that they do believe in versus maybe where they don’t. I guess there is still an ethical question as to why they picked that job if that’s what they knew they were going to be doing.
Linda Larsen: But no, because here’s why they picked that job.
Traci Brown: Okay.
Linda Larsen: And I know this because I’ve worked with so many public defenders. They truly, truly believe that every single person has the right to a fair trial. They also truly believe that there have been people who have been convicted who are not guilty, and that makes their hard stand up.
Traci Brown: Yea, yea.
Linda Larsen: So, it’s not about let’s trick these people into thinking anything. It’s about carrying with you that doubt yourself, that there could be something that happened that makes it look like that . . . you know, Neil de Grasse Tyson, the astrophysicist?
Traci Brown: Yea. I mean, I haven’t studied a lot of that, but I know . . .
Linda Larsen: He’s an astrophysicist, and he’s gorgeous, and he’s smart and he’s funny and he’s the executive director of the Hayden Planetarium or something. Amazing! What did I call him?
Traci Brown: Uh.
Linda Larsen: No, no. He’s an astrophysicist.
Traci Brown: Astrophysicist.
Linda Larsen: Yea. Well, he gets called a lot as an expert witness in trials, and what he basically tells people and one of the positions he holds, if I’m not mistaken, is that you really can’t trust eyewitnesses.
Traci Brown: Yea. No, you totally can’t trust them.
Linda Larsen: Right. So, if that’s the case, do you understand where a public defender could say, “Look, she says, this lady says, absolutely, I saw him go into that store at that time.” Okay. “Okay, ma’am, can I see your glasses for just a second?” The lady takes her glasses off and hands them to him. “Oh, I see they’re a little dirty. Can I have your . . . Let me clean them up for you.”
Traci Brown: Uh-huh.
Linda Larsen: Or something, or whatever, and all of a sudden, the jury goes, “Were her glasses clean that day? Could she see that day? Is that a current prescription?”
Traci Brown: I think you’re right, and I think also . . . One of our . . . because I’ve done just a tiny bit of trial consulting to the point where I’ve gone to trials just to watch because they’ll let anyone in usually. I mean, if it’s a real big one, sometimes they restrict it, but I’ve been to some municipal ones down here in Boulder. I’ll walk in, because they let the jury in, and I was like, I just walked in with the jury and sat there. All the jury goes and sits in the box eventually, and I’m just still sitting there. The judge looks at me and he’s like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “Watching.” He was like, “Okay.” (Laughing).
Linda Larsen: I love it.
Traci Brown: There are different protocols in different states, and in some states, I think Louisiana, the lawyers can look at the jury during questioning – oh sorry, before questioning. That’s what it is. They can turn around and say, “Hello.” In Colorado, you can’t. Right. All these little things are little things that you can do to start to persuade the jury and get them to fall your way, even just a little bit. One of the things that I noticed, and maybe you have some comments on this, is in trials a lot of times they’ll kind of take a little break and they’re like, “Alright, we need counsel up to the bench.” Right. For the jury, you’re sitting there, you’re like, “What’s up? What’s going on? Why can’t I . . . ?” That actually in them creates some negativity, right, and in some states, they’ll allow a lawyer to say, “You know what, this could affect the outcome of the trial. We’ll be just a second.” Even that can calm people down, like just a little bit, but it’s not protocol everywhere. What are some little things that you trained folks to do, besides speaking their truths? Do you have any tips like that?
Linda Larsen: Yea. Here’s the thing I wanted them to walk away with: In communication, as you know, everything communicates something. Everything single thing, words spoken, unspoken, the way you stand, the way you move, what you’re wearing, everything communicates something. But the meaning of the message only lies in what the receiver takes it to mean.
I wanted them to get that full tilt boogie. For instance, I had one guy who comes in – he’s got long – to train one day. He’s got long hair, a big beard, long hair, something. This was back – come in, we’re going to the 1990s now, and I said to him . . .
Traci Brown: It sounds like so long ago, but . . .
Linda Larsen: I know! Right! I said to him at one point, I said, and he was very full of himself, “Yea, I win a lot of cases.” I said, “Have you ever thought – I’m just asking – what would you think about cutting your hair? How would you feel about that?” “I don’t need to do that. I win a lot of cases.” And I said, “I wonder how many cases you’d win if you did cut it.”
Traci Brown: Hmm.
Linda Larsen: “How many more you’d win, if you did.” Because here’s the thing, the meaning of the message lies only in what the receiver takes it to mean. The jury is sitting there making assumptions, so many assumptions. I’ll give you some assumptions. You want some assumptions I heard over the years?
Traci Brown: Yea.
Linda Larsen: One, because I get to go ask the jury questions afterwards, do a little polling afterwards. Here in Florida, we can do that. One woman was in an accident, and she was suing the insurance company for a bad back. She didn’t get the money she wanted. Nobody could figure it out. I was telling the jury afterwards. The question was, what led you to that verdict? They said, one of them said, “Every day she came in, she had on a different outfit, of course, and her toenails were painted to match her dress.”
Traci Brown: Oh my goodness.
Linda Larsen: “How bad could her back be if she could lean over and paint her toes every day.”
Traci Brown: What!
Linda Larsen: Right! I know. And there was a study that was done after some big case. I think it was in Washington, DC. They walked out. They polled all the jurors, and it was one word that showed up in every person’s comment about why they voted the way they did for this one side. I can’t remember what it was, probably to defend whatever it is. But why did they select that side? It was one word that showed up in absolutely every single person’s comments, and it was the word “liked.” I liked the attorney. I liked his case. I liked the defendant. I liked what he said. I liked this. There is something in there about this likability factor that I think is critically important. I mean, we’ve got . . . in public defender’s offices, they’ll put defendants in the right color clothes, because they probably don’t have a suit. If it’s a guy, let’s say he doesn’t have a suit, but they had some clothes down there some where that they have kind of loaned to people, and there are certain colors that are more warm and friendly than other colors.
Traci Brown: Well, yea, and you know what the worst color for men to wear is?
Linda Larsen: Hm.
Traci Brown: Is a brown suit.
Linda Larsen: That’s interesting.
Traci Brown: Because it’s not seen as . . . like there have been studies and it’s like the least trustworthy, also the least expensive, like it’s not . . . And a lot of times what the guys will do is – and I know Mitt Romney did this – they’ll take their suit, gray or black, to the tailor and they’ll have the buttons moved down a little bit so it shows their chest a little bit more.
Linda Larsen: Interesting.
Traci Brown: So they’re seen as more powerful.