A profiler must base his decisions and ideas on physical evidence. His interpretation of that evidence and ability to reconstruct the crime based on what he knows will give him insight into the victim's and offender's behaviors. When this behavior is analyzed, along with the crime scene photos, information about the neighborhood (racial, ethnic and social data), the medical examiner's report, information regarding the actions and locations of the victim prior to the assault, and that victim's background, habits, and history, the profiler can begin narrowing the suspect list from everyone to a group of suspects with specific habits and characteristics.
Now the profiler must look at the primary intent of the murderer. Why is he killing? And why this particular victim? Criminal enterprise means he is doing it in his line of work. Typically, his motivation is money. Gangs, hit men, and people committing insurance fraud fall into this category. If he gets some kind of sexual gratification from the act, he has a sexual motive. The last category is emotional, selfish, or cause-specific intent. This category is wider and includes self-defense, mercy killing, assassinations, cult, religious, and other organizational groups (such as the KKK).
Next our profiler assesses the victim's risk. He looks at the victim's age, gender, race, occupation, lifestyle, stature, resistance ability, and location. All of these are classified as high, moderate or low. High-risk places would be truck stops or bus depots. A low-risk place would be within one's own home.
Offender risk- how risky is it to abduct a person at a particular location or commit the crime-says a lot about the offender. A low-risk victim snatched under high-risk circumstances gives the profiler some ideas about the killer's personal stresses, his beliefs that he will not be caught, the excitement he needs in the commission of the crime, and his emotional maturity.
The profiler looks at escalation - has the offender moved from peeping to fondling to assault to rape to murder? Has he repeated crimes with less time between events?
How long does the crime take? Does the killer commit additional acts with the body? How does he dispose of the body? The time of day (or night) the event occurs is important and may provide information about lifestyle and occupation.
Other things that will give the profiler ideas about the offender include location factors - where the victim was first approached; where the crime occurred; and whether the crime and death scenes differ.
 |
Go To Page: 1 2
