Lowvelder Lizelle Grobler takes the sciences of forensics, criminal profiling and neuro-linguistics and combines them to find the truth behind every statement.
From a young age, Lizelle knew that she had a mean sixth sense. “It started on my 16th birthday when I fell ill at my party,” she muses. “I had such a sick feeling in my stomach just knowing that something was terribly wrong somewhere. My brother was in a terrible motorcycle accident that day. Since then it has happened a few times.”
Lizelle decided to study psychology, choosing criminology as her main subject, after which everything just sort of fell into place. She married the love of her life, Deon, and started studying while working full-time in HR. It took her 7 years to specialise in the field of profiling and the detection of deception.
At the time, Lizelle was working for a big corporate group of companies, and in 2012 they agreed to allow her to follow her dream and start an investigations department within the holding company. “We started taking on work outside of the group and became so busy that we had to start up a separate company. After a year I made them an offer and bought the business from the group. Our first big client was the Sabi Sand Reserve; for which we did anti-rhino poaching tests.” Lizelle’s client base grew through word-of-mouth, and she became the preferred supplier for all anti-poaching tests.
While Lizelle loves this part of her work, she says her real passion is profiling and understanding the human psyche. “If I had to choose my favourite part of my career, it would be the corporate training. I love seeing “the lights go on” when you explain to people why they feel depressed, or why they are not attracting the things they want in life. We teach the power of the subconscious mind; the differences between the male and female psyches; the laws of attraction and how to make them work for you; facial and colour profiling and tips on picking up deception.
“Being an investigator or forensic analyst simply means that you are using all tools and means at your disposal to find evidence and interrogate suspects in order to find the truth,” explains Lizelle. She emphasises that persuasion and influence are not bullying, and when used correctly is an elegant, smooth, effective and often undetectable process.
“When investigating and interrogating a suspect, there are a few factors that you have to consider. You cannot solely rely on technology to tell you if someone is telling the truth.
These systems are 80-90% accurate, but that is only because 80-90% of humans have a conscience! Dealing with sociopathic or psychopathic personalities shifts the goalposts. Technology will simply fail you, as these people have little or no conscience or remorse.
Sociopaths do have a conscience, but it’s very weak, and they tend to justify something they know to be wrong by convincing themselves that it is their right to do or take something. By contrast, psychopaths believe that their actions, no matter how harsh or immoral they are, are justified in some way, and feel no remorse for any harm done in the process.”
Lizelle’s profiling company, Iqiniso Forensic, combines old and new technology, for example the polygraph system and the forensic voice stress system, allowing them to always have a back-up when a suspect tries to manipulate the system. “These two systems will always talk to each other, but the moment they don’t, when you pass the polygraph and fail the voice stress, I’ll know that you are trying to manipulate the system and we then only take the voice stress results, which fail you immediately,” she explains.
“Both polygraph and voice stress systems rely on the human body’s reaction, for example when your conscience kicks in and remorse or fear is felt. But in some cases, such as when dealing with personality disorders, the body does not react, and this is where criminal & personality profiling and neuro-linguistics come in handy. It’s also why I believe that unless you have a psychology background, you might be missing something important as an investigator.”
Part of recognising specific personality traits and types requires effective and reliable tools, the most successful of which is physiognomy, in layman’s terms, facial profiling, a 5000-year-old science. “Your personality is reflected in your face; an insight which goes beyond facial expressions. This immediately allows us to connect you to certain personality traits, knowing what makes you tick and how to win your trust, in turn giving us the advantage that people will confide in us easily, giving us more information than intended.”
In 2015, Lizelle decided to get her NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) qualification, certifying herself as a trauma councillor and life coach. “We work with sexually abused woman and children, and in many situations, the mothers have nowhere else to go, so they tolerate the situation. Our minds store the memories of our life experiences as sequences. When we load up a particular sequence pattern from our memory banks that matches some previous experience; we get to relive the experience (almost like hearing a song that immediately takes you back to a specific memory).
By playing with the adjustments of these sequences, we can dial in different meanings into our brain and neurology that literally change our experience and memories. A skilled NLP practitioner can help your system experience new choices, from which you can incorporate or discard resources, insight and healing. “My dream is to establish a haven for these families, where they can live in a safe environment, receive trauma counselling and the support they need to start a new life away from abuse.” Lizelle established the La-Trinite Foundation for this purpose, and hopes that one day, when funding becomes available, this will become a reality. “I have learned that the word ‘unreachable’ just means ‘work harder at it’. Nothing in life comes easy, but almost everything is possible if you want it bad enough.
“The other benefit of NLP is being able to tap into the subconscious mind. Being a certified NLP practitioner and hypnotherapist, you are able to extract information from a suspect that they would not normally have offered. Neuro-linguistic programming is a method of influencing behaviour through the use of linguistics and other types of communication to enable a person to “recode” the way the subconscious mind responds to stimuli and manifest new and better behaviours. Or, in this specific industry, convincing people to rather come clean and confess! “For this reason I insisted my entire Iqiniso team get certified in NLP, making them even more effective in their ability to recognise deceit and lead someone into a confession. It is, however, a fact that the more intelligent the suspect, the easier it is to get a confession from him. Lower intelligence means the person tends to stick to their story, even if it makes no sense at all.”
Lizelle’s oldest daughter, Trichelle, has been working with her for the past five years, while the youngest, Danielle, who has different dreams, will play a part in a new venture Lizelle is embarking on in Jan 2020. “I have an amazing and interesting career. My world is sometimes scary, sometimes dangerous, but mostly exciting. And I always go home feeling satisfied, knowing that we are making a difference, one criminal at a time! Fortunately, I have an incredible husband and family who might not always agree with my decisions, but always seem to find a way to understand my strange life, supporting me in every possible way. I would not change this for anything else in the world.”
Success, Lizelle believes, is not so much about what you obtained or achieved in your life; but about using what you have learned, gained and achieved. “After all,” she says, “Our visions and our dreams are the blueprints of the legacy we leave behind.”
Details: Lizelle on 072 799 9094
