Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide And The Criminal Mind

by Hazelwood, Roy

  Because the crux of profiling is behavior, certain crimes may simply not yield enough information to infer what the unknown criminal is like. Among the most difficult cases to profile are those in which there is (1) no known cause of death, (2) an unidentified victim, or (3) lack of behavior to study and analyze.

  If I am brought into a case in which the only evidence is a skeleton, with no forensic information to indicate how the victim was killed, how can I arrive at opinions as to the type of person who committed the murder? I can’t.

  An unidentified victim presents another set of obstacles. As in Kathy’s case, a profile often starts with what we know about the victim. If a female, was she a housewife, student, drug abuser, hitchhiker, alcoholic, prostitute, sexually promiscuous, or a saint? Each possibility would take the process in a different direction. How would she have reacted to a violent attack? Would she have gone home with a total stranger? If we don’t know the answers to such questions, we are only guessing and not analyzing.

  I can hypothesize a case in which a rapist says nothing, commits no physical violence, and engages in no sexual behavior other than vaginal rape. This situation would provide insufficient behavior for me to study, and without that, I would have nothing to analyze. The same would be true of a homicide in which the only behavior is a single-shot murder. Profilers need something concrete. We don’t use crystal balls.

  The Right Stuff

  Clearly, profiling is not suitable work for everyone. Based on our experience at the BSU, here are some of the attributes we know are needed to be successful.

  John Douglas, Bob Ressler, and I used to interview FBI agent applicants for positions within the profiling section of the BSU. Every one of them had excellent investigative records and came to us with the highest recommendation from his or her respective FBI field office. But that did not necessarily make the candidates suitable for the training or the work. We established criteria that are used to this day.

  To begin with we looked for life experience. We wanted someone who was mature, had been successful in life before coming to the Bureau, and had at least five years investigative experience with the FBI. Consequently, almost every person we selected was between thirty and forty-five years of age.

  Open-mindedness was our second criterion. A profiler must be willing to consider different possibilities as well as the differing opinions of others. Too often an investigator locks in on one idea or explanation and refuses to budge. His self-worth seems to hinge on being correct. Such a person will not be able to profile successfully.

  A critical attribute is common sense, which to us meant practical intelligence. Common sense isn’t all that common. For example, intelligent, educated people sometimes allow what they’ve been taught to get in the way of their common sense.

  When I was stationed at the army’s Fort Rucker in Alabama, our family dog, Happy, developed mange and began losing hair in patches. I took the him to the vet, who gave Happy two injections. He also gave me salve to apply daily and a prescription for pills that the dog was to be given three times a day.

  After a week of medication, Happy’s condition showed no change. My neighbor, a helicopter pilot from Tennessee, suggested applying “burnt lube oil” (that is, used motor oil) to the infected areas. He said that’s how his family had always treated mange at home on the farm.

  Willing to try anything to help the long-suffering Happy, I purchased a quart of used motor oil and applied it. Bingo, the infection cleared up within a matter of days. When I later told Happy’s vet about the burnt lube oil, he said, “Oh, that’s what we used to do on the farm in North Dakota.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?” I asked, thinking of the expense and trouble of the ineffective pills.

  “Roy,” he said candidly, “I have too much education to prescribe burnt lube oil!”

  Another important criterion is intuition. Webster’s calls intuition, “The direct knowing of something without the conscious use of reasoning; the ability to perceive or know things without conscious reasoning; keen and quick insight.” Every criminal investigator will tell you about some legendary detective he or she knew who possessed uncanny intuition. Somehow this person just sensed the truth of a matter where no one else could. I’ve seen this faculty at work, and it is a critical asset to the profiler. I just don’t believe there’s such a thing as intuition.

  I prefer to think of the human mind as an immense hard drive, a massive collection of data from which nothing of potential value to its owner is ever deleted. This information may not be dancing around in your forebrain, but it is ready when you need it.

  I believe that what we call intuition is simply stored and forgotten experiences that the conscious mind somehow can instantaneously retrieve, combine, and process in a way that, superficially at least, seems miraculous or preternatural.

  Next, the prospective profiler must be able to isolate personal feelings about the crime, the criminal, and the victim. Deviant sexual crimes often are horrible. The analyst must isolate himself from that horror or else run the risk of becoming a vicarious victim. One of my close friends in state law enforcement, a trained profiler, eventually was overwhelmed by the continuous stream of grotesque rapes and murders and finally retired in order to regain his peace of mind.

  One way to keep the crime and criminal at a distance is to avoid using inflammatory language. As much as you naturally loathe the behavior you are analyzing, the use of slang pejoratives such as “weirdo” or “wacko” only threaten the dispassionate analysis necessary for accurate and thorough analysis.

  Often the greatest emotional challenge is to isolate oneself emotionally from the victim. Sympathy can hinder clear thinking. Antipathy can affect objectivity.

  Here’s a case in point. In Alaska, a fifteen-year-old Eskimo prostitute, also known to police as an alcohol and drug abuser, reported that a customer had flown her in his private airplane out into the Alaska wilderness. There the man had forced her to undress. Then he told the young woman he would give her twenty minutes to run and hide before he began to stalk and shoot her.

  She refused to take any part in this game, so he flew her back to the airport and released her. The victim reported her experience but was not believed, partly because the man she had accused was a respected member of the community and partly because of her own unsavory history. Yet two years later, the man in question was arrested for the murder of seventeen women!

  Strong analytical logic and patience are necessary. Call it systematic reasoning, the ability to see how B logically follows A. Add to that a willingness not to hurry or leap to conclusions (intuitively or otherwise). A profiler must study the crime in detail, systematically capture behaviors as he or she detects them, and reason through the facts with meticulous care to a synthesis of the available information, the profile.

  In my classes I constantly remind students to proceed one step at a time. “But I know the answer,” they’ll say. So then I ask them to write down what they believe to be the answer and to continue to work on the problem. Invariably, when they’re done and I ask in private about their original answer, they’ll say something like, “Oh, I threw that away.”

  Finally, a profiler must be able to view the crime from the offender’s perspective; he must think like the criminal. To do so requires a special mind-set, since an aberrant crime probably will make sense only to the criminal, not to the victim, and certainly not from society’s perspective.

  You must enter the offender’s sphere of reality, take on the criminal’s point of view. People say, “Oh, I could never do that.” But with training, it becomes easier than you might think.

  For example, let’s say that a criminal buries his victim six feet deep in the middle of a forest. Why?

  Thinking like that criminal, I’d have to say that first of all, I didn’t want the body found, and second, I don’t mind (may even enjoy) the necessary physical exertion, and I obviously feel at ease outdoors. This line of reasoning would becom
e a piece of the profile.

  Life experience, open-mindedness, common sense, intuition, ability to isolate personal feelings, analytical logic, and the ability to think like the criminal. What attribute is missing here that you would expect to be included for such cerebral work? You’re probably thinking, what about education?

  To the consternation of our colleagues in the European mental health professions and academia, we established no preset educational requirements for becoming a profiler. Continental professors and doctors tend to assume that only the intellectually elite could possibly be qualified to profile or conduct the necessary research. We believe that if a person possessing the necessary attributes could also adequately express himself verbally, both orally and in writing, then an advanced degree was nonessential. Over time we’ve been proven correct.

  How Profiling Works

  How do you create a profile? The answer depends on who you ask. To me, the process involves four steps. Two individuals whom I respect and admire, John Douglas and Park Dietz, believe there are more. I often joke that four are all I can remember, but humor aside, simplicity has distinct advantages. The fewer steps involved, the fewer missteps you’re likely to make. Keep it simple is a useful slogan.

  The four steps taught in the Roy Hazelwood school of profiling are:

  Identify what significant behaviors occurred.

  Form an opinion as to why they occurred.

  Reconstruct the sequence of events.

  Determine what type of person would have committed this crime in this way for these reasons.

  To put it another way: what, why, how, and who. It is at this point that my students begin to realize why we chose analytical logic as one of a profiler’s fundamental qualities.

  Following is a hypothetical case presented strictly for the edification of the reader. Assume that an eighteen-year-old Caucasian woman was murdered in her apartment and left on the living room floor. The first step in the profiling process is to write out a list of what happened or did not happen (e.g., no theft) during the crime.

  This woman was reported to be a very aggressive person who would have fought an attacker. She did not date cross-racially. There was no forced entry, and nothing was known to be missing from the apartment. The disorder in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living room suggested a struggle; the victim had defensive wounds on her hands and forearms, and she had been struck on the head with a wooden lamp from the living room. She was stabbed several times with a paring knife and once in the heart with a butcher knife; both knives were from the victim’s kitchen. She had not been sexually assaulted, but her clothing had been displaced to reveal her breasts and vagina.

  Next, the profiler would ask the why questions and then supply possible answers. Why was there no forced entry? One possibility would be that she knew her attacker and admitted him. Why was nothing taken from the scene? The purpose of the attacker’s presence was not theft. Why were there signs of a struggle in every room of the apartment? The victim must have fought the attacker, and the offender didn’t control her. Why did she have defensive wounds? She was conscious and not bound. Why had she been struck with a wooden lamp? The subject hadn’t brought a weapon, and the lamp was immediately available. Why was she stabbed multiple times with a paring knife? The attack continued throughout the apartment with the paring knife. Why was she stabbed once in the heart with a butcher knife? The killer simply wanted to ensure she was dead. Why was her clothing displaced to expose her, but no sexual assault occurred? Perhaps the offender staged the crime to mislead police.

  Step three occurs simultaneously with step two. As we move through the why, we begin to observe factors that suggest the sequence of events. The offender knocked on the door and was admitted by the victim. An argument began in the living room, and he used the wooden lamp to strike her. She fought him and the fight continued into the kitchen, where the victim picked up a paring knife. The subject took it away from her and stabbed her. She retreated into the bathroom, then the bedroom, raising her arms to fend off the attack, and finally back to the living room, where she lost consciousness from loss of blood. The subject grabbed the butcher knife from the kitchen and drove it into her heart to ensure her death. He then attempted to stage the crime as a sexual offense by exposing her breasts and vagina.

  Step four, what are the characteristics and traits of someone who would commit this crime in this manner for the reasons set forth? In an actual case, a profile would not offer an opinion based on so little information. But for the sake of continuing our hypothetical exercise, we can take our profiling efforts a few steps further.

  Most crimes of this nature are committed by men; and because this victim did not date cross-racially, the offender was most likely a white male. If she admitted him, the subject was probably an acquaintance. The victim was a healthy eighteen year old who put up a great struggle that did not cause her attacker to cease. Therefore it could be assumed that he was in his early to mid-twenties, in good physical condition, and was equally as aggressive as the victim. The impulsiveness, extreme violence, and persistence of the attack indicate that the killer had an explosive temper.

  We’ll stop the exercise at this point. In its basic outline, this hypothetical crime serves to take some of the mystery out of profiling. Of course, much more analysis would have been accomplished in an actual case, and many more characteristics and traits would be provided. The point is the facts of a crime can be interpreted to create a portrait of an offender.

  9

  A Serial Rapist

  The dark imaginings of a ritualistic sexual criminal are never static. He is always considering new assault scenarios, new victims, new props and gear. This chapter will detail a case in which a seemingly power-motivated serial rapist evolved into one who committed his crimes primarily out of anger.

  Power-motivated rapists are the most common type of ritualistic, stranger-to-stranger rapists. Anger-motivated rapists, while less common, are more apt to physically brutalize their victims. They also tend to increase the frequency of their attacks as time passes.

  Since I retired from the Bureau, the bulk of my profiling assignments have been from law enforcement organizations. Rarely do I take on a private citizen as a client. When Mark Burget* first contacted me, identifying himself as the father of a victim of a so-far unidentified serial rapist, I hesitated to get involved. I explained that it was a strict condition of mine that the local police approve of my involvement and that they provide their reports for my review. He said that would be no problem. In fact one of the detectives working his daughter’s case had recommended me to him.

  I also warned Burget not to expect miracles. Profiling does not magically identify criminals. He said that had been explained to him. I added that I would require full and complete descriptions of all the offender’s sexual assaults, including the one against his daughter. Again, Burget assured me he understood. Curiosity prompted me to ask why he was involving himself this way.

  He said his daughter, Frankie, was highly intelligent and mature, and she had dealt with the horrible crime so capably that both he and his wife looked to her as a model. As he spoke, I realized how sincere he was. He was brimming with the pride of being the father of this young woman.

  “Roy,” he said, “my daughter is my hero.”

  I took the case.

  This serial rapist preyed on the student district of a southern university town. All of his victims were single, white, female college students.

  The first known victim was Margaret Jones,* twenty-six, who lived alone in a ground-level apartment. On Saturday evening, March 18, 1995, Margaret went jogging, came home, watched some television, and took a shower. Later she couldn’t recall if she locked the front door, which in any event could be easily opened with a credit card or laminated driver’s license.

  As Margaret emerged from the shower about 9:30, a white male grabbed her by the neck from behind and pulled her into her bedroom.

  Although he had tie
d one of her green kitchen towels over his face, the lights were on and Margaret could see that he was a white male in his mid-to-late twenties.

  She struggled. He choked and hit her, leaving bruises on Margaret’s right thigh and knee, plus scratches around her collarbone and lower knee. Her lower lip was severely swollen. The victim reported that she dissuaded him from vaginal rape. Instead, he placed a pillow on her face as he performed cunnilingus, then rubbed his penis over her until he ejaculated.

  As he wiped the semen from her body with the green towel, he said that he had been watching her, and he apologized for the assault. Nothing was stolen. On his way out he told Margaret to stay on the bed and not to call the police.

  The next assault occurred the following month. Frankie Burget,* twenty-four, lived in a ground-floor apartment similar to Margaret Jones’s. On Saturday night, April 22, the third-year pharmacy student attended a party, from which she returned at about 1:30 A.M.

  Frankie shared her apartment with a male law student who spent most of his time at his girlfriend’s. He was gone that night as she telephoned her boyfriend, undressing in her bedroom as she spoke. The window had no shade and was open as usual. After saying good night, Frankie read until 3:30, when she turned out the light and went to sleep.

  Approximately forty-five minutes later, the young woman was awakened in her bed by a man’s voice. He put his hand over her mouth. “Don’t scream or I’ll kill you,” he said. “Just do what I say.”

  From his breath, she could tell he had been drinking. Later, an empty beer bottle was found on her kitchen counter.

  The police learned that the intruder had already menaced at least two other young women in the same neighborhood that night. The first was twenty-two-year-old Lory Taylor,* who lived in a ground-floor unit in the same apartment complex. About 10:15 Lory’s cat began acting strangely. The animal jumped from its perch on the bathroom windowsill and scampered behind the refrigerator. She shut and locked all her windows, turned the lights out, and went to bed.