find the person who committed this crime? Obviously, we could look at the results of
any forensic tests, we could talk to eyewitnesses and so on. But, forensic tests take time,
and don't always provide a conclusive result. They might only provide part of the information
you need, and eyewitness accounts are not always available. Now, obviously in our case, we have some eyewitnesses,
and we will return to consider eyewitness evidence shortly in a future episode.
But
let's start by trying to identify the suspect from what we know about the crime itself.
This is called offender profiling, and one famous example of profiling, is in the case
of the Washington Snipers. Between the 2nd and 22nd of October in 2002, 10 people were
murdered and a further 3 wounded in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC in the United
States of America. All victims were shot at a distance, with a single rifle shot, and
every time the killers disappeared in amongst the confusion that resulted. The shootings appeared random.
They took place
in grocery store car parks, at petrol stations, while victims were mowing their lawns or sitting
reading a book. There was nothing to link the victims. These shootings appeared for
all intents and purposes to be random. Now understandably these shootings caused fear
and panic in the community.
The pressure was on to apprehend the culprit, but for investigators
there wasn't really that much to go on. Eyewitness accounts were few and often contained
conflicting information. The media was incredibly interested in this case and many were called
on to give their opinion as to who it was that was committing these crimes. Those who
commented ranged from forensic psychologists, to criminologists, to homicide detectives
to self-taught and FBI trained criminal profilers.
These publicly available profiles, while far
less detailed than would be developed in use for a typical case, give us a unique opportunity
to look at what the profilers said the culprit or culprits would be like. And we can compare
these descriptions with the known characteristics of those who were subsequently caught and
convicted of these crimes. So, if we limit ourselves to just those profiles provided
by self-professed profilers or FBI trained profilers we can see that there are some inconsistencies
in their comments. So on the topic of who is the sniper, Pat Brown, who is a self-taught profiler and author, stated on CNN on October 11, 2002, so at this stage 9 days and 9 shootings
into this spate of criminal activity: "This guy is a psychopath...He's involved in power control, and he might like Rambo movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger, anything that gives him the feeling of power that he controls the universe." Five days later on October 16, 2002, Candice DeLong, a retired FBI agent and field profiler, was quoted in the New York Times as stating
the following: "I see him into all this stealth ninja stuff, walking around with a swagger, used to bossing people around, maybe a fireman or a construction worker." So here we are starting to get a picture of
what the perpetrator is like.
And note that both suggested that it is a single person
committing these crimes. We are also starting to get a hint of their possible occupation.
Gregg McCrary, a former profiler and instructor at the FBI Academy's profiling unit, is
quoted in the Washington Post on October 23rd, the day after what turned out to be the final
shooting, as drawing on the demographic make up of the Washington region to suggest the
following: "When you break down the demographics of the Washington region, there's a statistical probability that the sniper is a white man." Now in terms of the geographical location
of the perpetrator's home, Robert Ressler, a former FBI profiler, commented on CNN on October 18, 2002 that: "It is clear that this individual, and in my opinion, these individuals, were going to stay in the major metropolitan Washington area, which tells me that they're residents. These people are long-term residents." Now note in this profile, Ressler makes it
clear that he thinks that there is more than one person involved in committing these crimes.
And this is different to the assumptions made by Brown, DeLong and McCrary in their
profiles. Brown publicly disagreed with Ressler and said on CBS on October 22, 2002: "I have surmised from the beginning that he probably lives in the - somewhere about three miles from the Olney, Maryland area." So from these few excerpts of the many profiles
offered by trained and self-taught profilers we can see there are inconsistencies.
The
same information has not led to an agreed on perspective of the probable characteristics
of the offender. For example, in this case, the profilers cannot agree if it is a single
individual or multiple people or indeed where that person or people are likely to live.
And in fact, when you consider those caught and convicted of these crimes - that is, John
Muhammad, a 41 year old Gulf War veteran and 17 year old John Lee Malvo, an immigrant from
Jamaica, you can see that there are some other issues in the profiles. For example, the assumption
made on the ethnic make up of the Washington region was that the perpetrator would be white.
They were also not firemen or construction workers, and no comment was ever made in regard
to their love or otherwise of Rambo movies. So why the mismatch? Well perhaps we have biased our sample by
only showing you those profiles that got it wrong.
It's a possibility, but there
is nothing to suggest in the many articles and books that have been written on this subject,
that an accurate profile helped apprehend the suspects. Rather, it seems in this case
that a phone call from someone claiming to be the shooter that linked these crimes to
an earlier shooting, where a fingerprint had been found and kept on file, was actually
critical in solving this case. Maybe the profiles offered differed because
of the point at which they were made, that is they were all made at different points
in the sequence of the shootings, and possibly more information about the characteristics
of the shooter or shooters emerged as time went on. And this is certainly true.
But there was a startling consistency in the
way these crimes were committed, the modus operandi if you like, that didn't seem to
evolve over the course of the crime sequence. It is also fair to say that at this point
in time these were unusual crimes and so profilers, like the police, really didn't have that
much to go on. It is hard to comment on what a perpetrator who commits this sort of crime
is going to be like when you don't have instances or examples where this sort of crime,
or this type of sequence, has been seen before. So now lets consider how profiling, in perhaps
more typical crimes, might assist in investigations..
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