Polygraph expert named Md.’s top trooper

Gary L. Bachtell has been named the 2009 Maryland State Police Trooper of the Year.

Bachtell has been a state trooper since 1985, when he graduated at the top of his state police academy class. After serving on patrols and then as an investigator, he was reassigned to the polygraph unit in 1998 and has excelled in his role there.

Last year, he created a post-conviction sex offender testing program to implement a new Maryland law requiring sex offenders on parole and probation to take periodic polygraph tests.

Nearly 100 percent of Bachtell’s polygraph interviews in 2009 led to confessions, police said. Among those confessions was that of Clarence Meyers, a Western Maryland man who was convicted of setting a house fire in February 2009 that killed his girlfriend’s two daughters, ages 12 and 15.

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