big list of excellent professional web sites:

http://dmoz.org/Society/Crime/Murder/Serial_Murder/

http://www.criminalprofiling.ch/

Go to photos & charts for John Muhammad's chart, or go to the end of this article

Sniper updates (October 28)

The New York Times: ‘Serial Killing's Squarest Pegs: Not Solo, White, Psychosexual or Picky’ By N. R. KLEINFIELD and ERICA GOODE.

The middle-aged man and the teenager were footloose traveling companions on a fathomless mission of horror. For three weeks, investigators say, they killed — callously, wantonly, ceaselessly, driven by a logic known only to themselves — and thus qualified themselves for inclusion in the macabre fraternity of the serial killer. When the police captured a slumbering John Allen Muhammad, a 41-year-old Army veteran and expert marksman, and John Lee Malvo, a 17-year-old Jamaican citizen, at a highway rest stop early Thursday morning, the authorities declared an end to the sniper shootings that left 10 unconnected people dead and millions panic-stricken in the Washington suburbs. If the men are convicted, they will add a highly peculiar chapter to the already saturated history of the multiple killer. If anything is clear in that roll call of malevolence, it is that all serial killers are their own story, with their own idiosyncrasies and twisting plot lines, their own tumble of complexities. Ted Bundy is not Jeffrey Dahmer is not John Wayne Gacy. The only true common denominator among them is skill at bringing about death. But as criminologists and academicians try to find the proper context for the sniper suspects — which of the notorious killers of yesteryear to align them with — they have been struck by how unconventional the pair appear to be. In so many ways, based on the still sketchy information known about them, they seem to defy the broad connections that have been drawn among their criminal predecessors. "This is certainly out of the realm of what I've seen in the past," said Peter Smerick, a former agent and criminal profiler with the Federal Bureau of Investigation now in private practice with the Academy Group, a forensic science consulting firm. "Of all the thousands of cases I've analyzed, I haven't seen one exactly like this one."

The Team Killer

The fact that there are two of them sets them apart. Serial killers are usually loners, who strike without accomplices or companions, propelled by their personal demons and objectives. It is unclear whether both Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo actually killed, but investigators say they traveled together in the three weeks of the shootings. Several experts estimate that no more than 10 to 28 percent of serial killers are teams, although some of the pairs qualify as among the most infamous of all criminals. The Hillside Strangler, for instance, was actually two cousins, Angelo Buono Jr. and Kenneth Bianchi, who were convicted of kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering young women in Los Angeles in the late 1970's. Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, a Canadian husband and wife known to friends as Ken and Barbie, were accused of raping and murdering young girls. Mr. Bernardo was convicted of two murders, while Ms. Homolka pleaded guilty to manslaughter and testified against him. Leonard Lake and Charles Ng acted as partners in turning the fortified bunker that Mr. Lake had built into his house near Wilseyville, Calif., into a grisly torture chamber where at least 25 people were thought to have died, their suffering recorded on videotapes made by the killers. In team killings, according to students of serial killers, one member usually dominates. "Typically, what you have is a dominant offender who is the driving force and the second individual is usually more subservient," said Gregg McCrary, who for 25 years worked in the F.B.I.'s behavioral sciences unit and now has his own company, Behavioral Criminology International. "Rarely are they real peers." In his alliance with Mr. Ng, for example, Mr. Lake took the lead, said Dr. James Alan Fox, the Lipman Professor of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston, who studies serial killers. Mr. Lake, Dr. Fox said, "was the one who sat in the easy chair and basically set out what they were going to do." In the Los Angeles killings, Mr. Buono appeared to have been the controlling force, though Mr. Bianchi was heavily involved in the crimes and committed additional murders after he left Los Angeles. "Angelo, the older cousin, was admired and revered by Ken," Dr. Fox said. "Angelo was the mastermind." The two men, Dr. Fox said, "brought out the worst in each other," adding that had Mr. Buono and Mr. Bianchi never met, the killings might never have occurred. Mr. Muhammad seemed to hold considerable sway over Mr. Malvo. Though apparently unrelated, Mr. Malvo called Mr. Muhammad father and is said to have adhered to a rigid diet of crackers, honey and vitamin supplements he insisted upon. Even among teams, though, the sniper suspects were unusual because of the 24-year disparity in their ages.

The Race Factor

He would be white. That was the consensus of many experts who furnished educated guesses on the sniper's identity before the arrests. Serial killing, they said, was a white man's game. Both suspects are black. There have been few studies of the race and ethnicity of serial killers, but the handful that have been done suggest that black serial killers occur in roughly equal — or even slightly greater — proportion to the number of blacks in the population. These studies estimate that between 13 and 22 percent of American serial killers are black. But the cases so indelibly imprinted on the public consciousness by Hollywood and book publishing are generally white killers like David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer; and Jeffrey L. Dahmer, the Milwaukee killer of men and boys. Most serial killers, black and white, kill within their race. This was true of Wayne Williams, who killed at least five black children in Atlanta in the 1980's, and Henry Louis Wallace, who killed nine young black women in Charlotte, N.C., between 1992 and 1994. Cleophus Prince Jr. was unusual in that he murdered six white women in San Diego in the 1990's. The sniper suspects are particularly atypical in that the police believe they killed whites and blacks. In one trait, however, they are unmistakably the usual suspects. They are men. As few as 5 percent of serial killers are thought to be women. Women who kill tend to choose family members and acquaintances as victims, and they usually use poison. There are exceptions, like Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who shot truck drivers along Florida highways in 1989 and 1990.

The Nonspecialist White. Black. Men. Women. Young. Old. The snipers killed them all. It did not seem to matter. To be a target, as one person suggested early on, all it took was a pulse. Almost always, though, serial killers specialize, and by now the categories of choice are familiar: prostitutes, children, young women, gay men, hitchhikers. John Wayne Gacy preyed on young men and boys. Ted Bundy trafficked in young college women. David Berkowitz selected couples necking in parked cars. Random killers are rare. Thomas Dillon, sometimes referred to as the Outdoorsman Killer, shot five people to death in eastern Ohio between 1989 and 1992. Their only connection was that they were outside and near a road. Among the 13 victims of Herbert Mullin, who did his killing in California in 1972 and 1973, were a young married couple, a retired boxer, a Catholic priest in a confessional and some teenagers camping. Investigators have been unable to establish any links between the sniper victims. Some investigators suspect that the snipers may have been killing by location rather than human being, that they intentionally chose to focus on the suburban areas outlying Washington to attract maximum attention. "It wasn't the process of killing so much," said Dr. Eric Hickey, a criminologist at California State University at Fresno, in his speculation about the choice of victims. "It was about eliciting a response from the community."

The Speeded-Up Timeline

The timing was strange. Most serial killers begin slowly, tentatively, almost testing the waters of death. With success, their confidence builds and they begin to speed up the death count. Generally, though, there are pauses between killings that can last days, weeks or years. "Serial killers generally start slowly," Dr. Fox said. "Their first kill may be something that is not really planned." For example, Dr. Fox said, a killer might pick up a prostitute and then, without premeditation, kill her. "If they don't like what they've done, they won't do it again," he said. "But sometimes they find they enjoy it." Mr. McCrary agreed that the serial killers he has studied "start out more cautiously, trying it out, waiting to see what happens." "They wait and pull back and watch," he said. But as time goes on, he said, "they get more confident. They act more quickly and you get an intensification of the frequency of the crime." The snipers, the authorities say, turned that protocol on its head. They began with a burst of violence, gunning down six people in just over 24 hours, and then followed that explosion with a series of single killings that slowed in frequency as time passed.

The Childhood Are serial killers made or born? Criminologists still know little about what makes these killers kill. Some experts cite a so-called homicidal triad — fire setting, bed-wetting beyond an appropriate age, and animal torturing — that frequently shows up in the backgrounds of murderers. Other experts say physical or sexual abuse in childhood may also be a factor. Many serial killers interviewed by researchers after they were convicted have described parents who were brutal, neglectful or, at the very least, difficult. Dr. Donald Lunde, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Stanford University and the author of "Murder and Madness," interviewed Edmund Kemper, who murdered his mother and a string of college women in Santa Cruz, Calif., in the 1970's. He said Mr. Kemper told him that after killing his mother he put her head on a bookshelf in his apartment and "said all the things to her that he could never say before without her interrupting." But other specialists in violent crime maintain that the role of child abuse is exaggerated. Some killers appear to have had normal childhoods, while most people with histories of abuse do not kill. "We've swallowed this abuse thing hook, line and sinker," Dr. Fox said. "I'm not saying that child abuse or trauma or even adoption isn't important. But adolescent and adult experiences are just as important. If it were just childhood, why would it be that so many serial killers are in their 30's or older?" What is clear, experts agree, is that few serial killers suffer from major mental disorders like schizophrenia. Herbert Mullin, though, insisted that he heard voices from, among others, his father and Albert Einstein. He claimed he needed to kill to prevent earthquakes and tidal waves. "He is convinced to this day that he had a special insight that there had to be a certain number of deaths every year to avoid natural disasters," Dr. Lunde said. Richard Chase, known as the Vampire of Sacramento, believed he had to consume human blood, and so he carried out the practice on his victims.

Other multiple murderers seem to have a capacity for love, though they dehumanize those they kill. But experts contend that the majority of serial killers are best understood as psychopaths, aware of the difference between right and wrong but unremorseful. There are researchers who say that psychopaths suffer abnormalities in their brains that may predispose them to violent crime. In a 2000 study, Dr. Adrian Raine, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California, reported finding an 11 percent reduction in the gray matter of the brain's frontal lobe in men diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, a category that includes psychopathic killers. Other investigators, however, argue that it is unclear how such findings relate to criminal behavior, and they doubt that brain abnormalities will prove important in explaining the actions of serial killers. Little is yet known about the upbringings and inner dynamics of either of the sniper suspects.

The Motives Why kill? Why kill again and again?

The motivation of serial killers is one of the murkier areas of inquiry, and even their own interpretations often prove unsatisfying. Ted Bundy said pornography made him kill, but did it? Various profilers and researchers try to divide motivations into broad classifications. Dr. Fox settles on five: power and control; profit; revenge; terror; and loyalty. But he and others find that the most common drive is power and control, usually expressed in sexual fixation. The majority of serial killers, experts said, use their crimes to act out elaborate sexual fantasies, sometimes involving rape or torture. The very process of killing — seeing that look of terror in a victim's eyes, hearing a victim beg for mercy — often elicits a sexual thrill. The murderer typically enjoys the intimate physical contact of the crime. "Traditionally, that's what it's all about, having a victim at your disposal, holding life and death authority over that person, enjoying inflicting pain and suffering," said Robert K. Ressler, a former F.B.I. agent and expert on serial killers who runs a consulting company called Forensic Behavioral Services International. Dr. Lunde said that Edmund Kemper "described in great detail the excitement of killing up close, so close that their bodies were touching." Mr. Kemper, Dr. Lunde noted, killed by strangulation, "and you can't get any closer than that." Jerry Brudos, who preyed on young women in Oregon in the late 1960's, had a foot fetish and a fascination with women's shoes.

According to Dr. Eric Hickey, a criminologist at California State University in Fresno who studied 399 serial killers, Mr. Brudos would hack up his victims and store their body parts in a freezer. It is unclear what motivated the snipers, or in fact whether there was only one motivation. The authorities have avoided speculating, though there have been certain indications that Mr. Muhammad harbored anti-American sentiments. And there was a written demand for $10 million, an unusual request for a serial killer. Experts say the manner in which the crimes were carried out suggests that the snipers were not sexually motivated. They delivered death from a distance and are not known to have actually touched any of the victims. The suffering of the victims appears to have held little interest for them, since they apparently left the scenes quickly. Mr. McCrary said it was not unheard of "to have that kind of disconnect between killer and victim, but it's a less common scenario than we usually see." Human behavior and psychological motivation being complicated, he said that a sexual motive could not be ruled out. Others suggested that the sniper murders more mimicked revenge killings than sexual homicides. These crimes often take the form of mass murders, like the massacre of fellow office workers by a disgruntled employee. Revenge or anger does occasionally disclose itself in serial killings, and some serial murderers embark on their crimes after experiencing life failures — the dissolution of a marriage, a financial crisis, the loss of a job. Such killers, Mr. Ressler said, are usually devoid of hope and have set upon an irreversible course of self-destruction. "These guys are not thinking, `I'm going to do this for a couple of weeks and then go back to my family and we'll go to Disneyland,' " he said. "A person doing this is heading for death. They know there is nowhere to go but to hell." Mr. Muhammad is known to have gone through two divorces and to have suffered financial setbacks. The two men were believed to be close to destitute. Such circumstances alone, of course, do not bring on murder.

The Catch-Me Killer

Most kill in silence. As a rule, experts said, serial killers do not want to be lured into a cat-and-mouse game with the police that they may lose. They are often arrogant and persuaded of their own superiority. But they want to kill, and while they may relish the idea of outsmarting the police, it is a fringe benefit rather than a goal. So they deliberately avoid communicating with the rest of the world. For every Keith Hunter Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer who wrote letters to newspapers about his killing women in the Northwest, signing them with a smiling face, or Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who sent letters and offered up his bitter anti-technology manifesto, there are scores upon scores of killers who remain mum about their acts. The snipers felt the need to talk. They left letters at their sniper perches. They called the police. In one conversation, they even offered up the clue about having committed a murder-robbery in Montgomery, Ala., that set off the chain of events that the police say solved the case. They behaved as serial killers generally do not behave. They could not shut up. In the end, it was their mouths that got two suspects caught.

Evidence suggests sniper team apprehended, various profiles not very accurate

See Time.com, Washington Post, CNN.com or in Switzerland NZZ.ch.

Hunting the hunter: Profiling the sniper

(CNN) -- As the hunt for the sniper who has terrorized residents in the Washington, D.C., area enters a second week, the role of the profiler in helping investigators put a face on the killer has received more attention.

Media headlines blare that the profilers are baffled by the failure of the killer to conform to known patterns. But this assertion comes from a misunderstanding of the role, function and method of the profiler, said Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI profiler.

Portrayed in television and movies as the mystics of law enforcement, people with an almost psyche link to the mind of the killer, profilers are in fact engaged in what Van Zandt calls "a broad brush art."

"A profile is an investigative tool. It is not science, it is not DNA, it is not latent fingerprints. ... It is just one more tool investigators have. But a profile does not tell you who did the crime," Van Zandt said.

Profilers are engaged is building a "constantly evolving" document that is available to investigators to focus their search, Van Zandt said.

Van Zandt disputed the popular notion that research into previous multiple killings has provided clearly defined "profiles" of killers that can be used to fit each case that comes along.

"There is a skeletal structure, so to speak, of certain individuals, but the clothes that we hang on that skeleton come from investigation. And that's what starts to form the picture, the profile of who we're looking for," Van Zandt said.

And sometimes a killer may not fall within even very general categories, which seems to be the case so far with the killings in Maryland, Virginia and Washington.

"So far it appears we have kind of a hybrid. We have what we call a spree killer, in essence someone who kills one person after another without an emotional cooling off period in between," Van Zandt said.

"And yet, because of the period of time that has lapsed, now it is starting to take on some of the traits of a serial killer, in essence, someone who kills with that emotional cooling off period, which can be days, weeks, even months, depending on the serial killer himself or herself."

What profilers may well be able to offer investigators, depending on the evidence authorities have discovered at each crime scene, is a series of statistical probabilities -- the shooter's age, his race, his academic or professional background, perhaps even his motive, Van Zandt said.
This enables those in charge of the investigation to "take the population group and shrink it until it becomes manageable" he says.

"Hypothetically, we know, it's a statistical probability that a sniper in a situation like this is likely to be a male as opposed to a female. Well, then, we have eliminated 50 percent of the population. Now does that rule out a woman from doing this? No, but we'll say it is a very small chance.

"But if a witness says, 'I saw a car with smoke coming out of the window after a shot was fired and I saw a red-headed woman in the passenger seat,' profile be damned, you have to go with the evidence that you have," Van Zandt said.

So what are the types of questions profilers will be asking?

"You start out with very generic profiles, like, Is the offender organized or disorganized? An organized person has transportation, brings the weapon with him, has the ability to get in and out from a crime scene without being detected," Van Zandt said.

"Or, a disorganized person may walk or take public transportation. He may use a weapon of opportunity. You may see overkill on the part of the victim. He may just escape because he's lucky, not because he's calculating."

"So you start with an organized-disorganized offender. Then you say: A serial killer is this, a spree killer is that.

"But, again, these are broad general titles that you kind of paste up on a wall, and then you start to work with the intelligence you have, the information that comes through investigation, and you refine that."

Information on the Tarot card left near the latest crime scene

(CNN) -- Montgomery County, Maryland, Police Chief Charles Moose was upset that information about a Tarot card left near the scene of the most recent shooting -- and inscribed with the message, "Dear Policeman: I am God" -- had been leaked to the media.
Moose also criticized retired law enforcement personnel who serve as news analysts for TV networks and stations on the case. He said it was insulting to hear commentary from people who have not been briefed, seen evidence or talked to investigators in the case.
One of those analysts, former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt, talked with CNN's Paula Zahn shortly after Moose made his remarks.

ZAHN: Why is Chief Moose so mad at you guys?

VAN ZANDT: Well, I don't know who he's mad at specifically. You know, Paula, I've been on both sides of this issue. As an FBI agent for 25 years working cases, you want to just take all the facts and information and you want to pull it up to yourself. You want to hold your cards to your chest, so to speak, and don't let anyone else see that.

I mean as an FBI agent, you never wanted to talk to the media. You didn't want the media involved because you wanted to be in control. That's what we do in an investigation. We're in control of it.

But the reality is in this day and time, you can't hold all of that back. Now, there is certain information the police should get, should hold back, should keep special so that only they and, in this case, the shooter know it.

But the public is sitting out there -- you, me, other people who live in the Washington, D.C., area -- saying we need some frame of reference. And I think what the talking heads like myself are trying to do is simply to give a generic frame of reference to help people understand because the police, rightfully so, are reticent in sharing information about the case.

Now, I would be upset, as the chief is, if I had this specific piece of information, this card that they would have loved to have held close, because now the potential exists for copycats, for other things like that to take place.

But the question, Paula, is where did that information come from? You know, perhaps one has to conclude it came from someone in the law enforcement establishment who shared that initially with the media. Or they let the media get too close.

ZAHN: Well, that sure is a nice way of putting it, Clint. Sure is a very nice way of putting it. You're talking about a leak here, and that's why the chief is so angry.

VAN ZANDT: Well, yes. And, again, that anger, you know, this is a man, I mean this man is a saint. We've seen a tear coming down his face when a child is shot. So this man is an absolute saint. He's probably working 22 hours a day. The pressure in one of these cases, Paula, is absolutely phenomenal.

And, again, I fully appreciate that the police position is, "We have nothing to say to no one." But the reality is that it doesn't work that way. I found it out since I've left the FBI. I realize what that balance is and what the talking heads, what your experts have to be very careful of, is that we speak in generics.

That's like when we've been talking on your program, we've been very careful not to say well, this is a white male between 18 and 25 who's 6-foot-tall who dropped out of high school in the 11th grade, hypothetically.

You know, whether the FBI develops that specific profile or not, the last thing I would want to do, and I think anybody else would want to do, is say, "Wink, wink, nod, nod, let me tell you the secret profile that the bureau has." And therefore you, the public, can self-eliminate anyone else who doesn't fit that profile.

And the people that I've seen, the profilers, the psychologists, the former law enforcement officers, have spoken in generics about cases they have worked in the past. We've spoken in statistical probabilities.

And I think the media -- and I've been forced, kicking and screaming, to understand this from my time in the FBI -- serves a purpose because the public has this insatiable desire to know, sometimes just because we like to inquire, we like to know what's going on.
But the other part is we want to protect ourselves. We want to know, should we be out shopping, should we be buying coffee, should I go to the grocery store?
ZAHN: Before you go any further, his [Chief Moose's] message was loud and clear. He's essentially saying you guys are interfering with the investigation.
VAN ZANDT: Yes.

ZAHN: And he's saying if you're putting -- and I'm not saying you directly because he never said your name -- but if folks like you who are on TV talking about this are putting lives at risk, then shame on you.

VAN ZANDT: Oh, and I believe that, too. If they're putting lives at risk.
Now, the challenge is, of course, not giving away specific information, not suggesting who future targets could be and not challenging -- I mean we've heard the, we've heard the governor of Maryland get up on TV and say this guy is a coward. Well, that's kind of a challenge that's being issued by that level of government.

So the responsibility, I think, flows uphill and downhill in this case.

With no solid leads in their hunt for a sniper who has gunned down eight people in the Washington, D.C., area, investigators have turned to a relatively new technological tool: geographic profiling

(Court TV) -- Barring a lucky break, the technology currently seems like the police's best chance to find the shooter, who has killed six, left millions on edge, and single-handedly lowered the attendance rate in Maryland suburban schools.

The technique, first used in 1990, operates on the assumption that a serial murderer (or rapist) balances his desire to kill far from home to avoid being recognized with his desire to be in familiar territory. The tension between these two desires usually means that serial killers kill close to home, but not too close, leaving a "comfort zone" around their home that can be detected mathematically, according to Dr. Kim Rossmo, the technique's pioneer.
Investigators into the Maryland shootings have good cause to be hopeful about geographical profiling's potential. A software program that Rossmo developed called Rigel -- the only professional geographic profiling software currently available -- has in past cases pinpointed a criminal's home within a few blocks. On average, according to Rossmo, the program narrows the police's target area by 95 percent.

But while geographic profiling could help the investigation, it can't point directly to the perpetrator. Even Rossmo warns against seeing geographic profiling as a solve-all investigative device. He has described it as an information management tool that gives police a way to better allocate their time and money.

Rossmo has explained that geographic profiling can never solve a case alone. It can only help focus the investigator's search by pointing them in a direction most likely to produce tangible evidence or leads to the criminal.

Rigel works best when used by an experienced geographic profiler on a serial criminal who fits a specific profile. According to Ian Laverty, an engineer who helped develop Rigel and president of Environmental Criminal Research Incorporated, the firm that produces it, the software specializes in "hunters" -- criminals who leave their home base already planning to find a victim.

"A hunter works from a home site and travels out with a purpose of finding a victim and a location to commit the crime," said Laverty. "So [to best use Rigel] we must look at the nature of the crime and see if it is a hunter pattern."

But not all serial killers are hunters. In his textbook on geographic profiling, Rossmo, now research director of the Police Foundation in Washington D.C., defines four other types: trappers who lure their victims to them; stalkers who follow their victims; poachers who travel away from home to hunt; and trollers who perpetrate crimes opportunistically while in the midst of other activities.

While not enough is publicly known about the Maryland shooter to determine his methodology, Rossmo believes that all criminals commit their first crimes close to home, only leaving the areas that they know as they gain confidence. By this logic, even if the shooter at large now modifies his behavior and expands his target zone, his first six shootings, all of which occurred within a five-mile area in Maryland, probably point toward his home.

Of course, by the time the profile emerges, the killer could have moved. But if geographic profiling leads to the location of his former base of operations, even that would be a huge boost to the Maryland investigation.

In the summer of 1998, Rossmo assisted an investigation of a Lafayette, La., serial rapist who had attacked as many as 15 women in the area over a period of 11 years. After reading an article on geographic profiling, Maj. Jim Craft of the Lafayette police, who led the task force devoted to the criminal, invited Rossmo to help out. His geoprofile, which he sent to Craft after one or two months, allowed police to narrow the areas they patrolled.
"It was helpful to prevent further attacks," Craft said. "Previously there was a pretty large area that we had to focus on to make sure we didn't have any further attacks. As a result of that profile we were able to narrow down our geographic area and focus our resources from an area of 60,000 people to a location with about 30,000 people in it."

Although the geoprofile accurately predicted the killer's home area, the information did not end up helping them capture him. The case was solved when the police received an anonymous tip with the rapist's name. At the time of his arrest, the rapist had moved outside the area Rigel predicted.

Still, Craft and the Lafayette Police Department were impressed with geographic profiling.
"It's not going to specifically identify a perpetrator but it will help you focus your investigative efforts and narrow down or eliminate information from other areas," Craft said.
Whether Rigel will help in finding the Maryland shooter remains to be seen, but some proponents think it can be useful for more than serial murders.

Says Laverty, "The technique itself is applicable to all types of serial crimes like robbery, burglary and arson."

Computer profiler aids in sniper hunt

By Jeordan Legon (CNN)

Police Foundation Director Kim Rossmo says geographic profiling "provides an optimal search strategy."

(CNN) -- Software is leading the way for investigators trying to pinpoint a Washington-area sniper.

Geographic profiling, developed by former Vancouver, British Columbia, police detective Kim Rossmo, tries to zero in on the suspect by using computers to track the mass of data flooding investigators' desks -- location, dates and times of crimes. The program then matches the information with what criminologists know about human nature.

Rossmo told reporters his software can help police determine where a suspect lives within half a mile. "In effect, it provides an optimal search strategy," Rossmo said.

Rossmo, director of the Washington-based Police Foundation, started assisting investigators in the sniper case last week. Calculating the path

His software, which was developed by a commercial vendor and named Rigel, carries out millions of mathematical equations to give investigators a better sense of a killer's "hunting area" and where he is likely to live.

Rossmo said he relies on what psychologists term the "least-effort" theory. Crimes typically happen "fairly close to an offender's home but not too close," he said.
"At some point, for a given offender, their desire for anonymity balances their desire to operate in their comfort zone," he said.

Rossmo's system has been used by Scotland Yard, the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and dozens of police agencies worldwide. Rossmo developed it while walking the beat in Canada and reading widely -- including a book on the hunting patterns of African lions. The geo-profiling technology was his doctoral thesis. Methods help solve serial murders

Geo-profilers claim their methods have helped detectives solve about half of the 450 cases they've studied -- everything from serial rapes to serial murders.

"It's the high-tech version of the pin map," said Richard Bennett, a professor of justice at American University. "The concept is simple. But you can put a lot more information in. ... It's what you do with the information that is key."

Bennett said nothing takes the place of good, old-fashioned detective work but computerized geo-mapping techniques help.

"The advantage is you're using computer science and computer analytic abilities to solve a crime," he said. " You don't have a big city police chief out there who isn't using some form of this mapping."

Five Things We Know About the D.C.-Area Sniper

Eight people have been shot by an unknown assailant in the counties outside the capital. We all have questions — here are a few answers, BY JESSICA REAVES-TIME.COM, Tuesday, Oct. 08, 2002

If you have no idea what's behind the shootings in suburban Washington, D.C., you're hardly alone. FBI, CIA and local police forces are also puzzled — and residents are terrified. While we're largely in the dark about the shooter's cause, motive or methods, a few theories have emerged. What do we know so far about the sniper?

Is this an act of terrorism?

Yes — just not the type we've gotten used to thinking about lately. On the one hand, this killer is terrorizing a community and a nation, and so he is, by definition a terrorist, but on the other hand these shootings probably don't originate with al-Qaeda. Foreign terrorists, as we've come to understand them in the post-9/11 world, are not prone to calling attention to themselves. They prefer to get in, act, and get out as silently as possible. This sniper is taunting the police, surfacing again and again to perform identical crimes. This kind of violence is more in line with domestic terrorism, a la Eric Rudolph, the man suspected of bombing several abortion clinics in the South — and a suspect in the Atlanta Olympic bombing.

Why are police not having any luck finding the shooter(s)?

Unfortunately, the killer's not providing investigators with much information. Even clues that seem promising haven't really panned out: while ballistic experts have been able to link the shootings by analyzing the bullets and casings they've recovered, for example, the high velocity rounds found in some of the victims can be used in many different kinds of guns, including hunting rifles and military weapons. Another bit of evidence surfaced late Tuesday: a tarot card with the words, "Dear Policeman: I am God" scrawled across it. Did it actually come from the sniper or from a prankster? That's one more mystery for investigators to ponder. A side note on the tarot card: those familiar with tarot card meanings say that whoever left the card at the crime scene probably doesn't know much about tarot or how to read cards. The death card doesn't actually signal or predict death; it's a sign of transition or change — a "death," as it were, of a previous habit or way of life.

Police say that while they're working with extremely paltry evidence, they have gotten about 1,250 "credible" leads from more than 6,000 phone calls — which means there's probably someone out there with valuable information. Now the key is finding that person and putting the pieces together before the next murder. Can they do it? The good news is there are hundreds of extremely qualified people working this case. The bad news is that thousands of violent crimes go unsolved each year.

What is "geographic profiling?"

We've been hearing a lot about this forensic technique, in part because it's one of the only ways officials have to track the sniper. Geographic profiling is generally used when investigating serial crimes — rape, murder, robbery — and depends on mapping the location of each crime in order to determine the most likely point of origin for the suspect. In other words, if you pinpoint the place each shooting occurred, you can deduce a "center" for the criminal's activity, and that often ends up being the perpetrator's home.

They certainly appear to be — but they're probably not. Most likely, there is some pattern at work here, just one that investigators haven't been able to pinpoint yet. The shooting Monday outside a Maryland middle school, for example, was a departure from the previous shootings, in terms of both location and victim type. It could have been just another piece in a very complex puzzle, or it might have been the violent crime equivalent of a Bronx cheer in the direction of police — ("You think you know what I'm going to do next? Think again."). Either way, the killer seems to be acting in a very deliberate, controlled manner, and is clever enough not to have been caught yet — two factors that belie a slipshod, random methodology.

When will the killings stop?

Either when the police find the killer(s) or when the shooter loses interest — and that, sadly, may not be for quite a while. According to former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt, the killer's pattern shows every indication that he is toying with the police, using the media for information, challenging assumptions we make about him, and generally taking great pleasure in outsmarting all of us. The shooter knows he's got our attention, Van Zandt speculates, — he gets all the confirmation he needs whenever he turns on the television — and hints like the carefully placed tarot card mean he's playing to the spotlight. We don't know anything for sure about the killer's state of mind, but chances are he's enjoying himself enormously.

A Different Kind of Killer - Gunman Doesn't Conform to Usual Patterns, Experts Say

By Patricia Davis and Carol Morello, Washington Post Staff Writers, Wednesday, October 9, 2002; Page A01

Most mass killers relish watching their victims die. They are motivated by anger or revenge and kill people or categories of people they hold responsible for their problems.

But the sniper who has killed six people and wounded two others in the Washington area is different, experts on mass killings say. By firing a high-powered weapon at long range, he doesn't have the same connection with his victims as other killers, they say.

"He stops and shoots and doesn't hear the screams," said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University. "Others enjoy squeezing the last breath from their victim. It makes it easier for him psychologically to murder."

Keeping his distance and firing just one shot also has made him that much harder to catch. With no known motive and little physical evidence, experts and police officers who have chased mass killers agree that absent luck or an alert witness, the shootings will be difficult to solve.

The experts said the man who eludes police -- and experts believe the sniper is a man -- is not comparable to other mass or serial killers they know. The Washington area sniper doesn't appear to be shooting in an act of rage, Fox said. Most mass killers will open fire and continue until they run out of bullets or time or are shot by police, he said. This gunman has no category of victim -- women, for example -- and no exclusive geographic area for his killings.

But last night, after police sources said that the killer apparently had left a taunting message for police near the school where a 13-year-old boy was shot Monday, Fox said the sniper also wants authorities to know what he has done.

"He feels extremely proud of his ability to outsmart the police and he wants us to know it's him," Fox said. "He chose a school after police held a press conference saying schools are safe. Then he traveled outside Montgomery County after police said they were doing a geographic profile. At the school, he could've switched weapons but wants us to know it's him."

Fox said the message on the Tarot card is part of the thrill for the killer: "He's playing God. It is a game for him. That's his motive. It's all sport."

Robert K. Ressler, a former FBI profiler who directs Forensic Behavioral Services International in Spotsylvania County, said a killer will often leave clues by what he does to a body -- how it is positioned, whether there was a sexual assault, the kind of wounds.

Terrorism cannot be ruled out, but there is no evidence that it is the motivation, Fox said. Terrorists generally advance an agenda, and "we don't know what his agenda is," he said.

"A lot of people say [serial killers] want to get caught," said Joseph Borrelli, a retired New York City detective who investigated a string of killings in 1976 and 1977 by David Berkowitz, who became known as the Son of Sam. "I don't believe it. If he's hiding out, he doesn't want to get caught. He's playing with them."

In the Son of Sam cases, Berkowitz wrote Borrelli a letter objecting to something he thought the detective had said. Berkowitz also received a parking ticket near one of the killings. Investigators in the sniper case need a similar break.

"He may think he's so smart he could talk to them," Borrelli said. "And that could be the first break in the case."

Peter Smerick, a former FBI profiler now with the Academy Group, a consulting firm, said a mistake by the killer may ultimately prove to be the break. "A great many resources are being directed toward this investigation, and the offender is aware of it -- meaning he's going to be a little paranoid," he said. "He may have already slipped up without realizing it."

Louis Graham, chief deputy of the DeKalb County, Ga., sheriff's department, who investigated a series of child killings in the Atlanta area in the 1980s, said the hundreds of tips pouring into the Montgomery County tip line may seem overwhelming, but they have to be investigated.

"You can't get flooded with too much information," said Graham, who was assistant police chief of Fulton County, Ga., during the Atlanta killings. "One of the things that we didn't do is we got information and didn't document it, and it really came back to haunt us."

Ultimately, fibers from a rug and bedspread and hairs from a family dog found on two bodies fished from a river led to the conviction of Wayne Williams in 1982 in two of the more than two dozen cases of missing or slain children.

But the most telling lessons may come closer to home.

A decade ago, a shotgun-wielding assailant terrorized two Northwest Washington neighborhoods with a series of attacks. The attacker, dubbed the shotgun stalker by police and residents, shot at 14 people in Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant.

Once D.C. police concluded that a serial shooter was on the loose, they saturated the affected neighborhoods with round-the-clock foot and car patrols. But their presence did not stop the attacks.

Police who investigated that case say it is virtually impossible to catch a serial shooter in the act. "Prevention is something you have to do, but it's not how you stop it. Apprehension is how you stop it," said J.T. McCann, a former D.C. homicide detective and supervisor who works as a private investigator. "There are thousands of people on the street. There are thousands of street corners."

McCann said police tried to cast as wide a net as possible when searching for the shotgun stalker, researching sales of shotguns and ammunition, running down leads of vehicles that fit one witness's description and searching for connections among the victims or locations that might show why they were targeted.

The assailant was caught after he changed his pattern: Instead of shooting at night, he became brazen and fired during the day, allowing a witness to get a partial license plate number. The gunman's car eventually was spotted by an off-duty officer who saw it going through red lights.

William O. Ritchie, former head of criminal investigations for the D.C. police, said there are almost certainly clues in the neighborhoods the sniper has targeted. "Something has drawn the suspect or suspects to that area," he said.

But McCann said the best chance for a break may come from a person the sniper knows.
"People out there are probably aware of some very strange and bizarre behavior of a co-worker or a partner or a husband or something," McCann said.

The Mark Of a Killer Who Strikes Over and Over

By David Montgomery, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, October 8, 2002; Page C01

The sniper attacks terrorizing the Washington region seem more in the tradition of Andrew Cunanan -- killer of fashion king Gianni Versace and four others in 1997 -- than of David Berkowitz -- the notorious New York City killer known as Son of Sam in the mid-1970s.

The deeds appear to track more closely Charlie Starkweather's murderous spree in Nebraska and Wyoming -- inspiration for Bruce Springsteen's song "Nebraska" -- than the massacre at Columbine High School committed by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.

In other words, people who kill and kill again come in different varieties.

A mass murderer should not be confused with a serial killer. And a spree killer is something else entirely. In many respects, the current sniper attacks resemble spree killings -- murders of three or more people in different locations without a "cooling-off" period between crimes.

After fatal shootings of three men and two women in Montgomery County last Wednesday and Thursday, the slaying of one man in the District Thursday, and the wounding of a woman in Spotsylvania County on Friday, a sniper attack seriously wounded a boy outside his school yesterday in Bowie, police said.

Criminologists caution that we won't know for sure what motivates the suspect or suspects until much more is learned. But noting distinctions among mass killers matters to investigators. The origins, motives and patterns of the violence are different for each type, even if the result is always too many funerals. Understanding the differences can help police catch the criminals.

Crime analysts used to lump multiple homicides into two categories: Mass murders were slaughters that took place all at once at one location. Serial murders were slayings that came over time.

In the last decade or two, criminologists began to recognize spree killing as its own activity, different from serial killing, which tends to include cooling-off periods of 30 days or more.
Spree killers are comparatively rare. "There aren't that many spree killers we know that much about," says David Fabianic, professor of criminal justice at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Think of notorious killers who murdered in streaks: John Wayne Gacy, who killed 33 young men and boys in the 1970s and was executed in 1994. Ted Bundy, who claimed to have killed dozens of women in the 1970s and was executed in 1989 for killing one. Wayne Williams, who was linked to the killing of 29 young men and boys in Atlanta, and was convicted in two of the murders in 1982. Berkowitz, who shot to death five young women and a man, and wounded seven other people over 13 months in 1976 and 1977 in New York City.

All serial killers. Serial killers tend to be white guys who favor particular types of victims to fulfill a private fantasy, according to Robert K. Ressler, a former FBI profiler who now directs Forensic Behavioral Services International in Spotsylvania County. (Williams is black, however. Beware: This field is full of exceptions.) Serial killers also often get a sexual charge out of their acts, even if they are not overtly sexual crimes, Ressler says.

Then there are the mass murderers: Richard Speck murdered eight student nurses in their Chicago dormitory in 1966 and died in prison. Disturbed Atlanta day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine and wounded 12 in an Atlanta office complex in 1999 after also killing his wife and two children; he committed suicide at the scene. James Huberty killed 21 people in a McDonald's in San Ysidro, Calif., in 1984, and was then shot dead by police. George Hennard, 35, killed 22 people in a cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., in 1991, then committed suicide.

Mass murderers frequently suffer from mental conditions -- depression, paranoia -- and the violent outburst is precipitated by some stressful incident, such as losing a job or a wife, Ressler says.

A spree killer is a bit in between. He is killing in a streak, like a serial killer. But his actions are more impulsive, and his victims seem chosen at random, people who simply crossed his path, as with many mass murderers. It's as if he has taken his mass murder on the road.

"Many of the psychological dynamics are the same as with mass murder," Ressler says. "It's a mass murder on the move."

The spree killer is typically a white male in his twenties or thirties. Something has set off rage and resentment in him, and he has started killing to express rage rather than to fulfill a private fantasy. He may be suicidal, perhaps expecting to die on his spree, like a mass murderer.

"There's more expression with a spree killer -- expression of anger," Fabianic says. "While the serial killer can be expressing himself, he's also very intent on getting satisfaction, pleasing himself in some way. With a spree killer it's more 'I'm angry, I'm acting this out, I want to hurt somebody, I want to hurt somebody again and again and again.' "

Cunanan, 27, killed five men over three months in 1997, starting with a friend and a former lover in Minneapolis. He never lived to explain his actions, but his life had seemed to reach a point of personal failure when his spree began. He killed two more people in Chicago and in New Jersey, apparently for their cars, shot Versace when he encountered the fashion king in Miami, and committed suicide on a vacant houseboat where he was squatting when a caretaker surprised him.

The archetypal spree killer was Starkweather, 19, who went on a rampage with his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in January 1958. The month before, Starkweather had killed a gas station attendant during a robbery. When Fugate's family objected to his relationship with the girl, Starkweather killed her stepfather and mother and Fugate's toddler half sister.

The couple fled Lincoln, Neb., and left seven more people dead in their wake. The victims were people who happened to cross their path, shot most often while trying to help the young travelers, who did not look like killers.

The National Guard was called out to help with the manhunt. Children were kept home from school.

After eight days on the road, Starkweather and Fugate were captured in Wyoming after a passing motorist wrestled a rifle from Starkweather, then the killer sped away alone and police chased him down. Starkweather was convicted and died in the electric chair; Fugate was sentenced to life in prison and eventually paroled.

Some local cases have had elements of spree killings. Joseph C. Palczynski Jr., 31, killed four people who crossed his path or got in his way when he kidnapped his former girlfriend, Tracy Whitehead, in Baltimore County in March 2000. Three of the victims tried to help Whitehead, the fourth was killed during a carjacking attempt. Whitehead escaped, and Palczynski was shot to death by police after he took three other hostages.

James E. Swann Jr., then 29, the "shotgun stalker" who terrorized the District's Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods over two months in 1993, killed four and wounded five in 14 attacks. He was caught after a police officer spotted him running red lights.

Swann was declared not guilty by reason of insanity and ordered confined to St. Elizabeths Hospital. Psychiatrists said he was driven to attack by disembodied screaming voices that only he could hear.

But human behavior frequently defies the neat categories of killers. In 1949, a 28-year-old World War II veteran named Howard Unruh took his Luger and 30 bullets and began his notorious "walk of death" through his East Camden, N.J., neighborhood. He picked off the shopkeepers and neighbors who he believed had been making his life difficult, and killed others at random. After 12 minutes, 13 people were dead. When he was apprehended, he said he stopped firing only because he ran out of bullets. He was confined to a state psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.

It was the highest death toll by a single killer in the United States at the time. Unruh became known as the father of modern mass murder. But was his crime a mass murder or a spree killing? Criminologists still debate it.

And they are following the sniper attacks with caution, withholding final judgment.
"We really don't know enough yet -- and hopefully the investigators won't tell us," Fabianic says. "We would do ourselves a favor not to go too wild with all the speculation."

Ressler says so far the current sniper attacks fit the pattern of spree killing.
But if the attacks continue in this area, as if the person or persons responsible were enjoying themselves and perhaps becoming "titillated" by the havoc they were creating, "then what appeared to be a spree killing could shift to a serial."

He added: "If these guys are turning on to the control aspects of their crime, that could be an incentive to keep these things going in the area. It may have started out spree and moved in to serial. Who knows?"

Staff researchers Don Pohlman and Julie Tate contributed to this report: Other sniper killings in recent history, Officer killed

A rookie police officer was killed when he was shot while standing beneath an overpass on Interstate 580 in Oakland, California. Chad Rhodes is set to go on trial later this year in the shooting death of Officer James Williams Jr. At the time of the shooting, Williams, 41, was on the freeway's shoulder with two other officers and an evidence technician searching for a weapon that had been tossed from a car during a high-speed chase. Police said Rhodes, then 19, fired six to eight shots from an AK-47. Rhodes also faces charges of attempted murder and three counts of using an assault weapon. If convicted, Rhodes could face the death penalty.

Sylvester murders

Peter Sylvester shot three people in three separate incidents on July 22 and 25 and August 3, 1994, in Suffolk County, New York, killing one person. Using a .35-caliber rifle, he fired at two diners at a restaurant, at an attendant at a gas station and at an employee at a Burger King. On September 12, 1995, Sylvester pleaded guilty to murder, assault and other charges. He received a sentence of 35 years to life in prison.

"Outdoorsman slayings"

Thomas Lee Dillon shot and killed five southern Ohio hunters and fishermen from 1989 to 1992 in what became known as the "outdoorsman slayings." Police got a break in the case through a remark by a former friend of Dillon. Both men enjoyed hunting, and Dillon's one-time friend told authorities the two of them used to drive around rural areas shooting at animals and discussing how to get away with random murders. The FBI began following Dillon, saw him visit a victim's grave and arrested him. He's now serving life in prison. Source: AP

Yusef Rahman launched a sniper spree by killing a man at an automobile customizing shop in Flanders, New York, on December 5, 1988. He shot three more people in the following three days and fired at a police car January 1, 1989. During his trial, he maintained an insanity defense, saying he performed the shootings as part of a top-secret military mission. He was convicted of murder and other charges and sentenced to 42 years to life. He later was convicted for a 1987 murder in Kansas City, Missouri, and sentenced to another, and concurrent, life prison term.

Racially motivated

Joseph Paul Franklin was arrested and later convicted for the Salt Lake City, Utah, killing of two black men that he had had spotted jogging with white women. Franklin was linked or indicted in a series of racially motivated killings around the nation from 1977 to 1980, which he has said he hoped would inspire a race war. He is awaiting execution in Missouri for the 1977 slaying of a Jewish man outside a synagogue, and he also received life sentences for killing an interracial couple in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1977. Nearly all victims were shot sniper-style, with a high-powered rifle. He also claimed to have shot then-Urban League President Vernon Jordan in 1980 in Indiana and Hustler publisher Larry Flynt in 1977 in Georgia. He was acquitted in the Jordan shooting and was not tried in the Flynt case.

Monday's teenage killer

Armed with a .22-caliber rifle, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer opened fire on an elementary school across the street from her house in San Diego, California. Spencer killed two people and wounded seven as children arrived for class that morning. She gained more notoriety when she was asked why she began shooting and replied, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." She is in prison.

Holed up in a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana, 23-year-old Mark James Robert Essex opened fire with a .44-calibre rifle when police followed him to the hotel after he shot a grocer. Essex, an African-American who had been thrown out of the Navy and was apparently angered by racial discrimination he had encountered in the service, targeted white people. He killed seven people before police sharpshooters aboard a Marine helicopter killed him. He also was found to be responsible for killing two New Orleans police officers seven days earlier. During the rampage, Essex wounded 10 people, while 10 more were hit by stray police bullets and shrapnel. Essex also set fire to the building, damaging 44 rooms.

Whitman mass murders

After stabbing his wife and mother to death the evening before, Charles Whitman opened fire from the top of the University of Texas Tower in Austin. Armed with two rifles, a shotgun and handgun, he killed 14 people and wounded 31 others before being shot to death by a police officer. David Gunby, one of those wounded by Whitman, suffered from kidney problems for the rest of his life. When Gunby died in 2001, 35 years after Whitman's shooting spree, his death was ruled homicide by the local medical examiner.

http://members.fortunecity.com/mastercrime/thecrimeweb/id31.html

Serial killers tend to share a number of characteristics.

In a paper presented to the International Association of Forensic Sciences in 1984, FBI Special Agent Robert K. Ressler and several of his colleagues listed the following characteristics, serial sex-murderers:

1. Over 90 percent of them are white males

2. They tend to be intelligent, with IQs in the hight normal range.

3. In spite of their high IQs, they do poorly in school, have a hard time holding down jobs, and often work as unskilled laborers.

4. They tend to come from markedly unstable families. Typically, they are abandoned as children by their fathers and raised by domineering mothers.

5. Their families often have criminal psychiatric, and alcoholic histories.

6. They hate their fathers. They hate their mothers.

7. They are commonly abused as children psychologically, physically, and sexually. Sometimes, the abuser is a stranger. Sometimes, it is a friend. Often, it is a family member.

8. Many of them end up spending time in institutions as children and have records of early psychiatric problems.

9. They have a high rate of suicide attempts.

10. They are intensely interested from an early age in voyeurism, fetishism, and sadomasochistic pornography.

In addition to the above list, there are also three more characteristics:

1. Enuresis (bed-wetting) more than 60 percent of serial killers were still wetting their beds over the age of twelve.

2. Fire starting children like to play with matches because they are intrigued by the bright, colorful, flickering flames. But budding serial killers carry this interest to a frightening extreme. Their fascination with fire is an early manifestation of their fondness for spectacular destruction. Otis Toole the cretinous sidekick of Henry Lee Lucas burned down a neighborhood house when he was six. Teenage thrill killer George Adorno was even younger when he first displayed his pyromaniac tendencies, setting fire to his own sister when he was only four. The incorrigible Carl Panzram was thrown into a reformatory when he was eleven. A few months later, he torched the place, cause damage to the tune of $100,000.

3. Sadistic activity before they are big enough to inflict harm on other human beings, future serial killers get their kicks from tormenting small creatures (Animal torture).
Serial killers tend to be white, heterosexual, males in their twenties and thirties. Their methodical rampages are almost always sexually motivated. Their killings tend to be part of an elaborate sexual fantasy that builds up to a climax at the moment of their murderous outburst. Serial killers usually murder strangers with cooling off periods between each crime. Many enjoy cannibalism, necrophilia and keep trophy-like body parts as reminders of their work. Their violent behavior is mostly directed towards women and children. However some homosexual killers like to hunt gay men. Prostitutes, drifters, male hustlers and hitchhikers seem to be their victims of choice. Most serial killers grew up in violent households, tortured animals and were bedwetters when they were young. As adults, most serial killers have some sort of brain damage and are addicted to alcohol or drugs.