 It's not a sign that someone's lying. It's a sign that you should dig in a little bit closer to why are they talking in the present tense? Because we just tend to tell past stories in the past tense. We then say, why are they talking in the present tense? And there are a few reasons why someone might be telling a past story in the present tense. They might be a professional storyteller. They tend to use present tense to make a story more dramatic. Now, I don't think that's what Karen Reid was doing here. There was no drama in her story.