THIRTEEN

LESSONS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

Common to all the cases presented in this book are persistence, flexibility, the importance of innovative thinking, and the ability to initiate dialogues across disciplines. In many cases, an investigator became aware of a scientific advance as yet untested in the criminal arena. Over and over, we see someone at a dead end in a frustrating investigation looking around for a technique, approach, or technology that no one had yet considered, and boldly trying it out. Often this not only led to the arrest of a serial killer but also added or confirmed a tool that future investigators would use—sometimes with dramatic results. The discovery of DNA as a crime-fighting technique is a case in point, but in the future we’re likely to see more involvement with bio-informatics and computer technology.

Following is a list of guidelines that emerged from the successful resolution of these cases of serial murder. While not exhaustive, it’s a start. Hopefully it will inspire both dedication and invention in current and future investigations.

1. Read widely in fields that might seem relevant but have not yet been used in law enforcement. It was a police officer not a scientist who introduced the discrimination of animal and human blood, DNA analysis, and brain fingerprinting into an investigation. This requires creative thinking and awareness of what’s available. Seminars, trade journals, college courses, and even popular books or documentaries about science and technology can provoke new ideas.

We’ve already seen examples from serial murder cases, but here’s another. When Denise Johnson was found on May 2, 1992, strangled and left nude near a cluster of palo verde trees in Maricopa County, police developed a lead and arrested Mark Bogan. Inside his truck were seed pods from a palo verde tree. Bogan denied being near the crime scene, so investigators wondered if it was possible to extract plant DNA that would prove Bogan was at that specific tree. They contacted a professor of molecular genetics. He did not know the answer either, but agreed to test the pods from the truck. He compared trees in the area against one another and then matched the crime-related pods to a specific tree. This finding tied Bogan’s truck to the scene. When other evidence confirmed his presence, he was convicted of first-degree murder.

2. Be proactive. Detective William King kept planting items in newspapers, even years after the crime was committed, in order to bait the offender who’d kidnapped Grace Budd. Finally, his effort paid off. The Allentown police set up a sting operation, and Viktor Burakov read up on the FBI’s profiling methods, despite rebuke, to try to stop Chikatilo. In the case of the dismembered gay men, running the fingerprint evidence again and again, as well as seeking out another technique, finally solved the case and got a killer off the streets. So take the extra step.

3. Become educated about psychological angles on criminal behavior, which get updated with research on a regular basis. This arena is not reserved for profilers or psychologists. Most good detectives already have a sense of criminal psychology, but psychopathic serial killers require greater savvy. No officer should believe he already knows enough from what he’s picked up on the streets. Too many innocent people have been harmed by detectives who are certain they can always spot a liar or who jump to conclusions based on simplistic formulas. People will often surprise you; Staniak’s admission that he started killing blondes as stand-ins for a reckless driver who killed his parents is a case in point. No one had suspected such a motive.

The earliest murders committed by a serial killer tend to reveal most about their comfort zone—what kind of weapon they prefer, the MO they adopt, and the area with which they’re most familiar. Unless they’re very clever or careful, they usually start killing somewhere near where they live. They might change their weapon preference or MO along the way, but their first attempts reveal a lot about them. It’s important to know the details and to bone up on the latest research. All databases are limited to what’s already known and we learn new things about killers all the time.

4. Be flexible and, in particular, prepare to be wrong. In the Village Path murders in Britain, the interrogators were certain they’d nailed the man who’d killed two young girls, but they were wrong. It’s possible that their misplaced confidence influenced this suspect’s false confession. DNA analysis exonerated him and pointed to another man, but had this case happened only two years earlier, an innocent man would have gone to prison.

5. Be persistent. With cold cases, go over old ground and get a fresh perspective from others not familiar with the crime. Blind spots can trip up investigators who won’t let go. No investigation belongs to a single cop; it’s always a coordinated effort and others might contribute in surprising ways. Detective Geyer enlisted the help of local officers as he traveled from one city to another in search of the Pitezel children, as well as getting constant feedback from his team back in Philadelphia. He also refused to give up. He could have decided he’d done enough and would never find the missing boy, but he returned to an area he’d already explored to reexamine his approach. More recently, Pierce Brooks pushed for a national database for over two decades, which finally resulted in the FBI’s VICAP. Thanks to this, a solid case was made a decade later against international serial killer Jack Unterweger using mathematical linkage analysis.

6. Be meticulous. Perhaps no case was more painstaking than the Pickton investigation, with all the forensic personnel sifting through piles of dirt and manure and underneath every building to locate fragments of human remains that would yield DNA. The Canadian government approved the expense, of course, which is certainly a factor, but the tiniest details were examined and recorded, both for the sake of the families who awaited word about their missing daughter or sister, and the attorneys waiting to prosecute.

7. Anticipate the future. Future investigations will involve cooperation among seemingly unrelated fields, especially the fields of technology and informatics. Fortunately, scientists have grown more interested in helping the police and have begun to suggest some innovations themselves. Police officers must have at least some basic technical knowledge about computers and the World Wide Web. There are courses that teach officers how criminals keep and erase records, communicate with their networks or cells, and engage in illicit acts such as child pornography. Officers who were savvy about how computers work knew how to trap Dennis Rader and then extract evidence from his hard drive.

In addition, your “Lie-Q,” or awareness of new methods in brain scans for deception detection, can assist with recalcitrant offenders. The brain-fingerprinting work on the James Grinder case is a good example, and these methods are only going to improve. More research might be needed, but rest assured that innovators are moving fast. Eventually, the courts will take notice.

The bottom line is this: officers eager to become detectives, and detectives hoping to excel at their jobs, will seek out knowledge in areas that offer the promise of new developments and will persist in implementing such knowledge. Dogged, educated, and flexible detectives will spot opportunities and step forth to utilize new approaches. These are the investigators who could end up being part of the kind of success stories that are described in this book. These stories are better than fiction, so let’s hope for some real-life sequels.