Brent E. Turvey: The Impressions of a Man:
An Objective Forensic Guideline to Profiling Violent Serial Sex Offenders
March, 1995
Note: Brent E. Turvey, MS
is a full partner of Knowledge
Solutions, LLC
He can be reached for comment or consultation by contacting:
Knowledge Solutions; 1271 Washington Ave #274; San Leandro, CA; 94577-3646; Phone (510) 483-6739; Email: bturvey@corpus-delicti.com
Author's Note: The following paper is done out of respect for, and in addition to, the important body of work generated by the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Also, the use of the generic term "he" to describe the violent serial sex offender is with the full awareness that a population of female serial offenders has been documented.
THE PROBLEM
To date, no universally accepted typology for violent
serial offenders exists. There is no common language that
both the law enforcement community and the mental health
community use to describe violent criminal behavior, or to
discuss motive and means. Even the best classification
efforts, produced by such groups of motivated and respected
individuals as the National Center for the Analysis of
Violent Crime, have yet to be widely accepted. This is
largely because everyone associated with the field has their
own idea about the criminal mind, and none of the
professionals involved like to be told how to think about
criminal behavior by someone else.
The progeny of this unhappy relationship between law enforcement and mental health is a lack of mutual understanding and discarded professional respect on both sides of the fence. Not enough Psychologists and Psychiatrists have been to a crime scene, and not enough investigators have studied principles of psychology, psychopathology, and human behavior. Each could greatly benefit from the experiences of the other. More importantly, the successful investigation of a violent serial offender often takes skills from both disciplines.
Even though a straight-forward typology for violent serial
offenders can be useful, this work does not presume to
present such a typology at this time. This work will discuss
some general concepts and guidelines to assist the
investigator of violent serial sex crimes in profiling and in
mentally navigating the inefficient coexistence between
mental health and law enforcement.
The science and art of profiling crime scenes, and
subsequently offenders, from physical and psychological
evidence is key to the investigation of a violent serial sex
crime for which there is no known perpetrator. The profiling
method is based on Locard's Principle of Exchange; anyone who
enters the scene both takes something of the scene with them
and leaves something of themselves behind. However, profiling
goes beyond a scientific reconstruction of a crime scene. The
unintended psychological ramifications of Locard's Principle
are powerful, but often ignored by even the most seasoned
investigator. It has been demonstrated that what can be
recovered at a crime scene, utilizing basic principles of
psychology applied to the physical evidence, is an impression
of the man who committed the crime (Burgess, et al.[2] &
[3], Douglas, et al [5], & Hazelwood, et al., [10], [11],
[12]) . That is the result of profiling. By the trained
investigator, an impression can be lifted from a crime
sceneresidual psychological traces of the individual who
created the world of that crime scene and lived in it for a
given time. Ultimately, profiling the scene or scenes of a
crime can give an investigator a more narrowed pool of
suspects, insight into motive, and linkages of a given crime
to other similar crimes. The opportunity to profile an
unsolved crime is not to be ignored or wasted.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
The first thing to consider in working up the profile of a
violent serial sex offender is the crime scene. It is a
living document of the offender's actions, and it is the
basis for much of the objective behavioral interpretation
(victimology provides objective and subjective
interpretation, but is not less valuable). Therefore, it is
critical to first preserve the crime scene and then process
it, documenting the physical evidence and being attentive to
the smallest detail. Any recovered physical evidence is grist
for profiling. Even the smallest item, such as a red fiber
from a car rug taken off the victim's body, can provide
valuable insight.
Every agency or department has its own crime scene
protocol, some better than others. The key concept to
remember here is choosing an approach that provides what is
needed from a given scene, and then sticking with it. As a
result, processing a scene becomes habit, and then eventually
it becomes second nature. Planned consistency is a good
investigative practice. For specific examples, reference
Crime Scene Investigation, by Henry Lee, Ph.D., et al.[16],
Physical Evidence, by Henry Lee, PhD.[17], Practical Homicide
Investigation, by Vernon Geberth[8], & Criminalistics: an
Introduction to Forensic Science, by R. Saferstein[19].
Some suggestions- Always consider whether or not a scene
is primary or secondary. If you have a body in an isolated
location, conduct a spiral search pattern using the body as a
starting point; look for the suspect's path of entrance/path
of exit, and look for other bodies. Also, don't release the
body until you absolutely have to. Notify the M.E. or
Coroner, but give yourself some time to document and collect
the evidence. You only get one shot at the pristine body in
context, and once it's gone, that opportunity is lost
forever. If time of death is a viable consideration, that can
be reasonably established without removing the body from the
scene. But don't get hung up on it. No M.E. worth their salt
would give a time of death that isn't a block between 2-3
hours. Anything much more finite, with rare exceptions, is
ego.
Once the physical evidence has been collected and a scientific reconstruction of the crime has been done,
profiling can follow.
PITFALLS
Profiling tends to rely heavily on varied offender
typologies. Investigators put a series of questions to a
crime scene and to an offender's behavior, and then discuss
the answers in terms of a psychologically based typology. The
major failure of most typologies of violent serial offenders
is perspective. The offender is described in terms that
express the investigator's understanding of the motivation
behind offender's behavior. This can be very subjective and
may be misleading to an investigative effort to understand an
offender and link him to another crime.
Many investigators take psychology into their own hands
and start from possible subjective motives, then pick and
choose offender behaviors to explain their motive theories.
That is backwards. Profiling does not mean coming up with a
theory and then inserting an offender as best he fits.
Profiling means letting the physical evidence tell an
investigator what behaviors occurred, then thinking about
what was intended by the commission of those behaviors. By
reconstructing a sense of motive from offender behavior
patterns, the investigator can then reconstruct the
offender's fantasy. This may help in the area of predicting
patterns of future offender behavior.
Most investigators are chronically unable to overcome
their own perspective when faced with one or more disturbing
violent crime scenes. This is largely because they are not
serial sex offenders. They do not think as offenders think.
Marshall [18] puts a very fine point on it when he explains
that what distinguishes rapists and non-rapists is the
ability to perform the response of hostile aggression and
sexual arousal at the same time. The violent serial offender
can do this quite easily. Therefore, when we apply our own
values and belief systems to the scene of a violent serial
crime, we are necessarily at a loss for an explanation of
behavior and fall back on easy, trite, and meaningless
cliché explanations like, "crazy" and
"sick". Offenders have their own intricate set of
values. That is part of what defines a psychopath, according
to Burgess et al.[3]the lack of trust and commitment to a
world of rules and negotiation. That is the perspective
difference, and that is why many investigators are at a loss
to explain motive in such cases, and are necessarily
frustrated by the thought of attempting behavioral analysis.
In considering these factors, the most useful profile of a
violent serial offender should include objective terms that
best describe an offender's perspective and behavior towards
the scene and towards the victim. Start first by thinking
about what it is that they did at the scene. Describe
offenders first by their behaviors. Then begin asking what
desires those behaviors satisfy. Remember: violent serial sex
offenders, in general, do not commit their crimes by
accident. They are in possession, however elusive, of their
own reasons for the behavior they act out with a victim.
PROFILING
The accepted method for profiling most crimes in law
enforcement is prediction of behavior based on a known
motive. In violent serial crimes, the motive is unknown to
the investigator. It is not about money, and it is not about
uncomplex interpersonal revenge. Therefore, conventional
methods of behavior prediction fail. Profiling provides a
solution by approaching the problem from the opposite
direction. The unknown motive is explained in terms of known
behavior.
For successful and objective profiling, there are two
concepts that must be accepted by the investigator before
walking through the door of understanding violent serial sex
offender behavior. First, violent serial sex offenders have
generally lived out their crime in deliberate fantasy many
times before they realize it with an actual victim. Second,
most behaviors satisfy a wish, need, or desire. Accepting
these two basic concepts, an investigator can deduce what a
violent serial offender wishes, needs, or desires from crime
scene behavior.
FANTASY
The published research of the NCAVC over the past ten
years has established that fantasy occurs well in advance of
the crime in the cases of serial sex offenders, serial
rapists, and serial sexual killers(i.e. [10],[11], &
[12]). For most of society, fantasy is a means of escape or a
means of entertainment. It is temporary and generally
understood as unreal. For the violent serial sex offender,
fantasy evolves into something compelling and complex until
it becomes the central behavior of choice, rather than a
brief, unrealized mental distraction.
Take for example Edward Wyatt, a convicted serial rapist
from the central and western United States. At age 18, he was
convicted of criminal trespassing for peeping through a
neighbor's window. Several years later, he was convicted of
the same offense. He was found to be carrying a buck knife at
the time. Over the next several years, while married and
starting a family, he moved a number of times and changed
jobs with the same frequency. When he began his series of
rapes, he used a buck knife as a means of threatening and
controlling his victims. He would enter their houses when
they were alone. He would use the knife to threaten them, and
then tie them up with duct tape. Once they were bound and
blindfolded, he would force them to submit to vaginal, anal,
and then oral intercourse, in that order. All the while, he
would script them, saying repeatedly, "Tell me how good
I am," or "Beg me to fuck you in the ass,
whore!". When he kidnapped 17 year old Allison Shaw, to
his own house, Edward Wyatt escalated to audio-taping and
photographing the ordeal. It lasted several hours and took
place in the living room in front of the Wyatt family
Christmas tree. Allison was let go and later identified Wyatt
as her assailant. During an interview while incarcerated for
that crime, Edward Wyatt explained that he did not know if he
would have eventually started killing his victims. In 1991,
after serving 9( years, Edward Wyatt was granted parole.
Fourteen months later, he was charged with burglary. After
getting a search warrant, police discovered a ski mask, a
video camera, and a stool in the trunk of his car. A
subsequent search of his home revealed videotapes of Edward
committing other crimes such as masturbating over a ten-year
old girl while she slept (Flynn, [7]).
This case demonstrates a clear escalation from fantasy to
behavior. Note that the escalation of behavior keeps true to
the flavor of the original fantasy. Edward Wyatt carried the
knife with him from the beginning of his criminal career. The
buck knife represented a wish, or fantasy, that was already
present before the commission of the crimes, as the nature of
his later crimes indicates. In the beginning, the knife was
the link to an unrealized fantasy waiting in his mind for an
opportunity. Later on, it was the means. It's consistent
presence clearly suggests a deliberate escalation.
The crime itself is the fantasy planned and played out by
the offender. The victim is subsequently cast and scripted.
The victim is inserted into a role that the offender needs
occupied for his fantasy to come true. The victim, then, is a
reinforcing element. The victim serves as fortification to
the fantasy. The escalation of fantasy and behavior requires
constant reinforcement, and consequently a succession of
victims. This kind of escalation has a great deal of
momentum, and ultimately the burgeoning fantasy is the
behavior of acting out the escalated fantasy. The fantasy
becomes the motive and establishes the offender's signature
[5].
Tandem escalation of fantasy and behavior itself serves a
number of complex ends for the offender. The most basic
values of the escalable fantasy to the offender are 1)
provision of control 2) disassociation from the victim/crime
to support the superficial personality veneer & 3)
provision for later reenactment and fantasy fueling. This is
where in the fantasy the trained investigator finds motive.
CONTROL
The fantasy provides an offender with a
means of controlling a situation. As long as he can keep the
world he creates with the victim true to his fantasy, he is
in control.. Levin & Fox, [6], put it this way:
"Domination unmitigated by guilt is a crucial element in
serial crimes with a sexual theme. Not only does sadistic
sex consensual or forcible express the power of one
person over another, but in serial homicides, murder enhances
the killers sense of control over his victims." The
offenders engage in behavior that establishes that they are
unquestionably in control.
One such way to establish control is a fantasy theme of
extended periods of victim degradation and devaluation. With
a live victim, offenders can use scripting (i.e. repeating
severe epithets to the victim, or simply getting them say how
powerful the offender is, etc..), sex (i.e. forcing the
victim to engage in painful anal sex then immediately fellate
the offender), and torture (i.e. biting and ripping away
nipples, or pre-mortem cutting). Some offenders do not feel
that they have control until the victim is dead, so they kill
the victim relatively early on. Once the victim is dead and
under control, they proceed to freely master the corpse by
such means as postmortem mutilation (such as numerous
curiosity incisions made throughout the body, or removal of
an appendage), defeminization (which includes severe damage
or removal to the sexual areas of a female), and ritual
displaying of the corpse (leaving the body in a purposeful,
humiliating position, unclothed, in a place where it is
certain to be discovered, perhaps by loved ones). In both
cases, the behavior clearly establishes the offender's
control over the victim. To the offender, the fantasy that is
played out, which elicits fear and humiliation from the
victim, establishes the dominance of the offender over the
world he creates; the world of a victim in a crime scene.
Consider the case of Dayton Leroy Rogers of Portland,
Oregon. By the late 1980s, Rogers is known to have killed
eight women, all prostitutes. He had just married his first
wife, when after an attack on a 15 year old girl with a
knife, he was put into a sex offenders program. There, his
fantasies grew and became more violent. He used narcotics, he
drank heavily, he masturbated chronically, and he admits to
having violent sexual bondage fantasies while engaging in
intercourse with his second wife. He claims this heightened
his sexual arousal. He would pick up prostitutes late at
night and drive them to a remote location in Molalla forest.
Once there, he would coerce them into letting him tie them
up, but the nature of the bondage would be extreme and
methodical. At some point he would engage in masturbatory
acts with their feet. He would also torture them
intermittently by slicing their feet, and biting or cutting
their nipples. This would last until the early hours of the
morning. According to some of the victims who escaped, he
would regularly pause his assaults, leaving them in his truck
to urinate outside, as he was consuming alcohol during the
entire ordeal. Rogers would also script his victims by
calling one of them "Maureen" after Maureen Ann
Hodges, a favorite prostitute and eventual victim. Moreover,
while Rogers had them tied up, tightly and painfully, he
would threaten to strangle them, over and over, if they
didn't verbally submit to his requests. Unless his victim
could escape, he would kill them and dump their bodies in the
forest. The decomposed bodies would not be found for some
time, generally by hunters (King, [15]). Rogers would seek
out his victims, take them to a location where he could gain
control, and force them to play the object role in his
fantasy.
Gilgun[9] finds the theme of control in sex offender
fantasy so pertinent, she uses the classification
"Controllers" in her typology continuum of child
sex offenders. She cites one such offender as saying "I
liked...the actual sex...Then the controlling, being in
control of her life completely was a thrill for me. I thought
about it more than I thought about my wife." Gilgun also
found a recurrent theme of bargaining with
"controllers," for example such statements to
victims as "Do this[masturbate me] or you're not going
out again!".
Behavior fuels the fantasy. Part of the fantasy is
offender control or dominance, by any or all of the means
mentioned above. The behavior of violent serial sex offenders
clearly seeks to establish that control or dominance. It can
be prescribed, among many other offender behaviors, by the
location choice of the assault, by the script he uses with
the victim, by weapons he may use or bring with him, by the
mutilation he may inflict upon the victim, and so on. The
offender does what he feels will keep him in control, and
thereby fuels and reinforces his fantasy. Ultimate
manifestation of the fantasy is offender behavior, which in
turn reinforces the fantasy, which is again manifested in
later behavior, which further reinforces the fantasy. This is
an important concept to be mindful of in the development of a
profile.
DISASSOCIATION
To successfully blend in with
society, many violent serial sex offenders develop a thick
superficial veneer of personality that is entirely
disassociated from their violent criminal behavior.
Disassociation is not an aberrant human characteristic. It
is something that we all do to some extent, like the careful
superficial behavior many individuals exhibit with their
co-workers vs. their emotional transparency with close
family. Violent serial sex offenders merely carry a human
self-protective behavior to an unhealthy extreme.
Violent serial sex offenders are successful criminals.
They are intelligent enough to avoid detection and persist in
the repeated commission of their crimes. They live in our
society with little or no leakage as to their true nature.
Many are married or in a relationship. But it is
disassociated.
Fantasy enables the disassociation. The more intricate the
fantasy, the more objectified the victim, the more distance
that is mentally created between the violent criminal
behavior and the superficial veneer of personality.
Mutilation of the victim and scripting of the victim that is
dehumanizing also further the distance.
The true behavior of choice is successfully suppressed in
social contexts by the offender's practiced superficiality.
This may sound like indications of paraphilic fugue episodes
or a second personality, but this is not the case. The
behavior of the serial sex offender deliberately avoids
detection, indicating that the offender knows full well that
the behavior is not acceptable to society. The practiced
superficiality of the violent serial offender in social
contexts is deliberate, because it is practiced, and it does
prevent leakage of the behavior of choice. Without that
veneer of superficiality, provided for by the fantasy and the
ritual, the violent serial offender would not be able to live
in society and avoid detection for prolonged periods. There
must be a disassociation from the crimes while in a social
context.
Take for example Jerry Brudos of Salem, Oregon. Brudos began fantasizing about dressing up in women's clothes and
kidnapping women for sexual purposes as an adolescent. He
escalated to kidnapping a 15-year old girl at knife point
when he was in his late teens. When he was married and
starting a family, he procured his victims through various
cons but also used a revolver for intimidation. He had a
large collection of women's shoes and some women's lingerie.
Brudos would get his victims to his garage, by force or con.
There, he would force them to take off their clothes, put on
some of the shoes and lingerie from his collection, and then
tie them up. Jerry would masturbate while photographing them
and himself, sometimes using mirrors rigged to his garage
ceiling. Jerry would then strangle his victims. He tied them
to heavy engine parts so that they would sink when he dropped
them into the Willamette river. He is suspected of at least
five similar murders including Jan Whitney, a college student
who's car broke down, 19-year old Karen Ann Sprinkler, a
freshman at Oregon State University, and Linda Dawn Salee.
Police were issued a warrant and finally searched his home.
Even though Jerry knew that they were coming to search home
and garage and had several days notice, the police were still
able to find evidence linking him directly to several of the
murders. Among those possessions that Jerry chose not to
remove from his garage were; his collection of photographs of
the victims depicting their unwilling nudity and bondage in
his garage, his collection of stolen footwear, the clothes of
several of his victims, his collection of stolen lingerie, a
molded paperweight made from the cast of one of the victims
breasts. Also of note is that nude pictures of Ralphene
Brudos, his wife, were found as well. All of this material
facilitated his reenactment of the fantasy and subsequent
offense in the absence of a victim. His wife Ralphene
testified that he spent hours out in the garage, and got
upset with her if she ever went in and violated his privacy.
But to this day, as Jerry Brudos sits in the State
Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon, he denies any and all
knowledge of the crimes for which he was convicted. Despite
his initial confession, claiming innocent by reason of
insanity, then his recantation of that confession once the
insanity plea was denied, he will not admit that he committed
the crimes. Despite photos, despite eyewitness accounts,
despite engine parts and rags found roped around the bodies
of dead victims linked to his possession, despite a large
amount of damning physical evidence, Jerry claims to be
innocent.
This author found Jerry Brudos quite polite and engaging
during interviews (Turvey, [20]). He bought me a Coke and
eventually showed me some of his prison scars. He was
generally soft spoken, and although he wouldn't discuss his
crimes, we did discuss the O.J. Simpson case.
His social veneer is so practiced, so polished and so
believable, that he has become a trusted inmate at the Oregon
State Pen. He has been allowed to work on state criminal
computer records, and he installed the penitentiary's cable
system (he is an electrician by trade). He is also in charge
of restocking and repairing the penitentiary vending
machines. The Penitentiary staff have only good things to say
about Jerry as an inmate, and clearly had an amount of trust
for him. In fact Jerry's largest complaint to this author,
regarding the conditions of his incarceration, was the fact
that he was denied his technical journals. All despite the
fact that he is a convicted serial killer. This is not to say
that his conditions should have been more miserable given the
severe nature of the crimes he committed. However, clearly
there did not exist an atmosphere surrounding Jerry Brudos
that he was dangerous whatsoever during my visits to the
state pen. We met in an open room with many other inmates and
visitors, sat across from each other at short knee-high
tables, and the only supervision was one guard and some
video-cameras.
Because of the terms of his incarceration, Jerry Brudos
comes up for parole every two years. He has been in the
Oregon State Penitentiary for twenty-five years.
The use of a practiced social veneer provided for Jerry's
existence in marriage, and continues to provide for him in
prison. It is so believable that the prison staff have very
little fear of him and give him their trust. This deliberate,
protective social veneer, provided for by an intense
ritualistic fantasy life, which is easily disassociated from
because of it's complexity, may yet serve to free Jerry
Brudos.
REENACTMENT
Each offense, each victim experience,
is a part of the offender's collective fantasy. Both are, if
only in part, relived before, during and after subsequent
offenses. The behavioral aspect of the fantasy is cumulative
in that respect.
Reenactment serves two very important purposes for
offenders that investigators must not forget; 1) it feeds
back into the fantasy which reinforces the behavior to
escalate, and 2) it gives sexual pleasure.
Reenactment is largely a mental exercise for the offender,
often physically facilitated by periods of ritually
orchestrated masturbation with various victim related props.
It reinforces the control aspect of itself, because the
fantasy can be engaged at the whim of the offender. It is
also in itself stimulating for the offender while being
preparatory for future offenses.
Each of the violent serial sex offenders mentioned in this
work provided for the later reenactment of their crimes in
fantasy. Edward Wyatt progressed to the point where he
photographed and audio-taped his deliberately scripted rape
of Allison Shaw. He then videotaped his later offenses.
Dayton Leroy Rogers kept some of his victims' clothing. He
also committed his crimes in the same remote areas, so that
with each progressive victim he could revisit the associative
feelings elicited from previous victims; location type was an
important part of his ritual. Jerry Brudos took photographs,
and kept bags of his victim's clothes and shoes. Jerry also
removed body parts, particularly a victim's foot which he
kept in the freezer in his garage and a breast from which he
cast a paperweight.
To mentally and sexually re-experience the emotional
flavor from past episodes of victim degradation and
dehumanization is the purpose of reenactment. It is also the
time when offenders plan and "rehearse" escalatory
behaviors. Offenders of violent serial sex crimes behave in a
way that provides for reenactment. Investigators may gain
insight into the elements of the crime that are the most
stimulating to the offender by examining those providing
behaviors closely. I.E.examine still photographs taken by
the offender for a reoccurrent body position, props such as
shoes, or point of view.
It is not to be ignored that a great deal of fantasy
behavior can be sexually motivated, because much of the
fantasy behavior is sexual in nature. As will be discussed
shortly, increased sexual arousal and offender satisfaction
has been shown to be correlated with offender domination,
victim resistance and victim degradation. The sexual stimulus
of the behavior is intensified for the violent serial sex
offender when coupled with those sadistic acts of brutality
that elicit a fear/humiliation response from a victim.
The balance of fantasy behavior is rehearsed and
deliberate. Reenactment is self-reinforcing for the violent
serial offender. It can have both mental and physical
expression. Disassociation and control also feed into the
relationship between the offender and his crimes. As integral
parts of the fantasy behavior, all three are a part of the
central behavior of choice for violent serial sex offenders.
BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
DSM-IV and the general population of the mental health
community have accepted a fairly helpful definition of a
psychopath or sociopath (these terms are interchangeable).
Mostly it consists of a Chinese menu; fulfillment of 7
behaviors from a list of 10 known psychopathic behaviors
equals a diagnosis of psychopathy. This is indeed a helpful
laundry list of behaviors. However, many such lists are
problematic and tend to be riddled with judgment and morale
evaluation, often avoiding objectivity. For example, at a
professional lecture on serial child molester/murderers, the
author notes that respected Portland, Oregon psychologist
Stanley Abrams used the phrase "evil" several times
to describe offender behavior (Abrams, [1]).
The trained investigator should be able to understand that
value judgments do not help, and can distract, a successful
offender profile and subsequent investigation. Trained
investigators and mental health should not harness an
investigation to personal morals or belief systems. It will
not solve the crime.
A golden calf of psychopathy check-lists and the DSM-III
& IV is the idea that not only are psychopaths morally
bereft, they are not capable of intimacy, and they are not
capable of empathy, being entirely egocentric. The phrase
"cold and calculating" is used over and over to
describe violent serial sex offenders in court, many
considered psychopaths, because this is what the mental
health expert sees during a pretrial examination and then
later in the courtroom. A cool, practiced disassociation from
behavior.
This final section will discuss some of that untouchable
reasoning.
Part of psychopathy is antisocial behavior, which means
behavior against society. Everyone agrees that these
offenders do not reason in a way acceptable to society. What
must be established is how their alternative reasoning works.
That is the only doorway to explaining fantasy and
subsequently motive. Making a morale judgment may make
investigators feel better, but it will not get investigators
closer to an unknown perpetrator of a series of violent
offenses.
The NCAVC has generated some impressive work on the
characteristics of violent serial sex offenders. Of note is
Burgess et al.,[2] which discusses organized and disorganized
crime scenes left by sexual killers. Also, they showed
evidence of the frequency of certain offender behaviors over
time in Burgess et al., [3]. Burgess and her colleagues
showed evidence from their population of violent sexual
offenders that several characteristic offender behaviors were
quite frequent, and most notably consistent at a high rate of
frequency were (reported in over 80% of the sex offender
population in the study);
1) Compulsive, chronic masturbation.
2) Constant daydreaming.
3) Social isolation.
4) More likely to force fellatio and anal intercourse
upon their victims. Decrease in the frequency of vaginal
intercourse over time.
5) Average to superior intelligence with 15% in the very superior range.
The first three behaviors were reported to be consistent
from childhood to adulthood. All provide for and are
conducive to a rich and intense fantasy life.
Also, the NCAVC has generated serial sex offender
research[12] supporting the theory that the increase of force
and sadism at each progressive crime scene is correlated
positively with offenders who have more victims over a
shorter period of time. Earlier research[11] on the same
population of offenders indicated from offender reports that
increased offender sexual pleasure and satisfaction were
positively correlated with victim resistance and an increased
duration of the crime. That data shows that the mean average
duration of an offense increased from 36 minutes to 94
minutes when the victim resisted. The bottom line here for
the investigator of violent serial sex offenders is this
violent serial sex offenders have the most number of victims,
over the shortest periods of time, and victim resistance
evokes offender sexual arousal and subsequently offense
duration is increased. Again, violent serial offenders commit
more offenses in less time, and spend more time at the scene
with the victim when the victim resists, because sexual
arousal is increased. In such cases of victim resistance and
increased arousal, it is noted that intercourse was delayed
significantly by the offender.
EMPATHY
The author had a very interesting
experience in a parenting seminar during his final term as a
psych major. At a round table discussion of the behavioral
development of deviant children, the professor stated that we
(the mental health community) can determine that a new stage
in moral development has been reached by a child when he or
she first begins to tease. Teasing requires perspective
taking and empathy. The teaser must first assume the role of
the teasee and understand what bothers them. Once they know
what hurts, they can use it against them. Teasing behavior
requires basic empathic skills and is a definite, measurable
marker for a new stage of moral development.
Extending that logic; to receive any kind of sexual
pleasure from a victim response such as humiliation, pain and
submission, the offender must first understand what
humiliates, frightens, and subordinates the victim. The
violent serial offender does just that. He understands what
is humiliating, what is degrading, and what is painful to the
victim. He has already taken the viewpoint of the victim into
full consideration, and understands it well. In fact he is
dependent upon it. That is often how he is able to achieve
and maintain control. That is often where he derives his
pleasure and satisfaction. That is generally the only way he
can fulfill the fantasy; he knows how to behave to get what
he wants, needs, and desire from his victims.
This is further evidence that violent serial sex offenders
have a very clear understanding of the consequences of their
behavior towards the victim. They understand that the victim
is humiliated and in pain, and in fact that is part of why
they are doing it. They feel aroused and powerful when they
are assured by victim responses denoting a state of
submission and painful humiliation. To be aroused by the pain
and domination of the victim, the offender first must
understand that the victim is in pain and is dominated, and
to successfully elicit those victim responses the offender
must understand what behavior on their own causes it. Their
behavior is ultimately self serving, but not born of a single
perspective. Their behavior cannot, therefore, be described
as purely egocentric. The violent serial sex offender uses
non-egocentric, perspective taking thought processes to
arrive at his egocentric pleasure.
Violent serial offenders do not lack empathy. They often
depend upon it for successful engagement of their fantasy. It
makes them feel good to know that they have made their
victims feel bad. That is the essence of the violent serial
offender's point of view. Egocentric entitlement coupled with
a necessary empathy.
INTIMACY
Intimacy is a great concern for most
violent serial sex offenders. As Marshall[18] points out, sex
offenders probably desire intimacy but lack the skills to
achieve it in a healthy form.
What offender behavior suggests is a sort of one way
intimacy where the victim is physically revealed to the
offender, and completely under his control. Through this
forced opening of physical intimacy, the offender may
perceive an emotional and spiritual intimacy as well. Yet the
offender takes pleasure in either the notion that intimacy is
being forced from the victim, or the fantasy that the victim
really has a desire for him to experience her intimately. He
has revealed the victim in a private, intimate and violent
way, devouring the victim's own sense of personal security
and control. Though incredibly unhealthy and destructive,
this is how the violent serial offender achieves intimacy.
That is how he understands it; through his violent criminally
sexual behavior.
Consider a stanza of poetry written from that perspective,
which was downloaded from the Internet, address:
mimir@hardy.u.washington.edu (Al Billings), by "Hakim
Bey" -
"Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave
Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them
happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the
heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortunesay 5000
square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or
an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemal mss.
Later they will become to realize that for a few moments they
believed in something extraordinary, & will perhaps be
driven as a result to seek out some more intense mode of
existence.
Bolt up a brass commemorative plaques in places (public
or private), where you have experienced a revelation or had a
particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc.
Go naked for a sign."
The brilliant psychopath who wrote this passage believes in creation by control via sexual domination. In the act of
controlling something, dominating it and forcing it (a
kidnapped victim) to submit, something spiritual will happen.
Something will become. The fantasy being that sexual
domination equals the re-creation of the victim, and the
enlightenment will follow that amounts to the offender giving
life to something that was before lifeless. The offender sees
himself as a god (the author is a member of the LOKI
Society), making from every victim a new source of energy. In
fact, from this individual's perspective, the offender is
doing the victim a large favor. Each victim would then
reinforce this fantasy. Again, the victim is the object for
offender, selected here in generally non-random ways for
scripting into a complex fantasy of spiritual and artistic
metamorphosis.
Some might theorize that the inclusion of the victim in
the fantasy of the offender suggests a desire to express
intimate feelings on the offender's part. He is, after all,
sharing with the victim his most private desires and personal
feelings. However, the investigator must be aware that the
victim remains an object to the fantasy. Not an equal
partner.
The offender forces an unwilling victim into a role as the
object of his fantasy. The offender gets what he wants from
his object, and then disposes of it. Disposal can mean
dumping the victim on the side of the road, badly in need of
medical attention, or it can mean ligature strangulation of
the victim's throat to the point of death and ritual display
of the broken body on the front lawn.
CONCLUSION
Only when the crime scene is documented thoroughly and
then the evidence collected properly can an objective profile
of the violent serial sex offender begin. This means all
scenes and relationships to scenes can be established or
dismissed, and that all behavioral avenues can be explored by
the trained investigator without barrier. The physical,
scientific reconstruction should be the starting point of the
offender profile, and all elements of the profile should
match the realities of the physical evidence. This grounding
of the profile in physical evidence is essential for
objectivity.
Most investigators do not bother to or do not have the
training to overcome their own perspective towards violent
serial sex crimes. Subsequently, crime scene and behavioral
analysis can be misleading and destructive to the
investigation, yielding few clues from sparse evidence and
providing little true insight into the genuine nature of the
crime and the criminal mind responsible for it. Therefore,
investigators should be trained to profile the offender and
the crime scene in terms that are objective to the offender's
perspective. Deduce motivation from behavior, rather than the
other way around. Do not marry into one person's idea about
the crime; investigate the nature of the offender's behavior
in relation to all physical elements of the crime.
Violent serial sex offenders have an alternative morality.
It is by definition antisocial. The question for the
investigator is not whether or not behavior is right or
wrong, or even good or bad. Once a victim or series of
victims has been confirmed, morality ceases to be the most
important issue. The only important issue at this point is
how do we capture or neutralize the individual responsible.
The question for the trained investigator is what insight
does the offender's behavior provide into his own morality,
and how does that lend itself to motive and signature. What
does the behavior say about what the offender has done in the
past, is doing in the present, and will do in the future.
Violent serial sex offenders fantasize about their crime
well before committing them. The fantasy has value to the
offender because it provides for the control he
needs/wants/desires, it supports the superficial nature of
the offender's social personality, and it provides for later
reenactment of the offense while fueling and rebuilding onto
the original fantasy. From the behavioral elements of
fantasy, motive can be deduced, and signature can be
identified. The pool of suspects will necessarily shrink, and
elements of behavior may become more predictable.
Clearly, the investigators who must undertake the task of
solving such cases cannot be from either of the traditional
schools of thought. Investigators cannot be strictly from law
enforcement because they lack the psychological and
sociological training regarding human behavior. Investigators
cannot be strictly from the mental health community because
those lack insight into the true nature of these type of
crime scenes and advanced training in the forensic sciences.
Also, professional jealousy and territoriality tend to keep
both sides from consulting with, or truly communicating with
each other. An investigator must be devoid of any weighty
investment in the ends of either discipline to keep
objective. An investigator has but one duty, and that is to
the victim. Solve the crime. Apprehend the offender. Any
other social, political or organizational consideration must
take a far second.
The successful investigation of a violent serial sex
offender, due to the lack of obvious suspects and the extreme
nature of fantasy behavior displayed by the offender,
involves extensive behavioral profiling. Profiling takes
strong skills from both the mental health and law enforcement
community. In light of the rising number of serial crimes and
the intense human suffering involved, the need for more
objective profiling guidelines, cooperation and communication
between both fields is evident.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) Abrams, Stanley, PhD., "Anatomy of Apprehending a Murderer," Issues in Public Safety lecture series, Portland State University campus, March 28, 1994
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to Forensic Science, 4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1990
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Updated 10/12/97
© Knowledge Solutions LLC 1997.
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