Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide And The Criminal Mind (16 page)

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 become 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:

1. Identify what significant behaviors occurred.
   
2. Form an opinion as to why they occurred.
   
3. Reconstruct the sequence of events.
   
4. 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.

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 tied 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.

At approximately 10:40 she heard a noise and saw a flashlight beam through her window. Turning off her air conditioner, Lory could hear someone attempting to remove the wood-frame screen from her bathroom window. She turned on her apartment lights, peeked out the front door, called a friend in the complex, and then ran to the friend’s apartment. From there she telephoned the police.

The responding officer accompanied Lory back to her apartment, where he noted that the screen had been removed from the bathroom window. Lory spent the night at her friend’s place. The next morning she returned to her apartment and found that her bedroom had been ransacked. The bathroom window screen had been slashed several times in the center.

Nearby lived twenty-two-year-old Beth Freedman.
^*
From what investigators were able to piece together, sometime after 11:00 that Saturday night, the intruder tried to get through a window of her apartment. He slashed the screen, removed it, and broke out the pane. However, her front door was locked, and there was no evidence that the offender had gotten into the apartment.

The police surmised that after the attempts against Lory Taylor and Beth Freedman, the intruder remained on the complex grounds, still searching for a victim. When Frankie Burget arrived home, she must have caught his attention.

He apparently entered Frankie’s apartment through an unlocked living room window. When he awakened her, she screamed. He struck and choked her, telling her, “Just go limp and I won’t hurt you.”

He had brought with him a filthy, ragged towel, with which he tried to mask the bottom of his face, but it kept slipping. When it did, Frankie could see he was a white male, in his late-twenties or early thirties, and that he wore his hair in a crew cut.

He began to fondle her and to compliment her on her “gorgeous” body. He said he knew that the only way he could ever have her was to “fuck” her. “Do you know you look like a goddess?” he asked. “You look so beautiful. As soon as I saw you through the window, I knew I had to have you.” He also said that he had tried to speak to her on two occasions, and she had ignored him.

Frankie Burget struggled again, and he reacted by hitting her and choking her until she couldn’t breathe. When she went limp, he tore up a pillowcase to make ligatures. She ran for the window and tried to scream for help. He grabbed her again, managed to dodge a kick from her knee, closed the window, and pulled her back to the bed.

“I won’t hurt you if you just stay still,” he said again. “I’m going to have to tie you up because you aren’t cooperating.”

He ripped the pillowcase and ordered Frankie to lie down on her stomach with her arms behind her. When she asked to have her wrists tied in front so that she could breathe more easily, he refused.

He raped her anally. As he did so, one of her hands came loose. As Frankie brushed back hair from her face, he hit her again and tightened the knot.

In all, Frankie Burget suffered scratches and bruises to her hands, right arm, and lower neck. Her right eye was severely swollen and bloodshot, and her lower lip and jaw were bruised. She also suffered the physical and psychological traumas that usually accompany a rape.

When he finished with the anal rape, she thought he was about to leave. Instead, as the intruder sat on the edge of the bed looking down at her, he changed his mind. “You know,” he said, “I was only seeing you from the back. You look so good from the front I just can’t leave yet.”

The victim later reported that he now had trouble maintaining an erection. He pushed her onto her back and raped Frankie vaginally even as he lost rigidity. “You feel great,” he said.

Frankie told him he was hurting her and asked him to stop. He responded by saying, “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” But he didn’t stop.

When she asked again, he answered, “Just shut up! You try anything, I’ll kill you.”

When he finished for the second time, he said he planned to stay all night to prevent her from calling the police. She told him that if he intended to avoid detection, leaving while it was still dark was a smarter idea.

He saw the logic in what she said. Before departing, however, he made a strange request. “I want you to do something for me. I don’t want you to hate me. Hate will just eat you up inside. So don’t hate me.” He apologized for the assault and then added something even odder. “I know this is going to sound stupid. I feel like we have been friends for years. You know, like we’re old friends and we’re just sitting here.”

She noted that he hadn’t brought a weapon or worn gloves. But Frankie did see him wipe the doorknob with his shirt on his way out.

The next known assault took place nearly four and a half months later, on Friday, September 8, 1995. Peggy White,
^*
twenty-three, had just graduated from college and was spending her last night in the apartment she had occupied with another young woman during the previous nine months. This evening her roommate was out of town.

Peggy spent most of Friday packing and hauling trash to a Dumpster located a hundred feet from her apartment. She was in and out so often throughout the day that she saw no need to lock the door.

That evening, a male friend visited her from 5:30 until 10:30. Afterward, Peggy continued packing for another forty-five minutes or so before carrying out one last load of trash. She left her apartment door open while she was outside then closed it and went upstairs to watch television.

Moments later, a white male she would later describe as being in his early forties jumped out from a closet and ordered her into her roommate’s bedroom. There he produced a pocket knife.

“Get undressed,” he demanded.

As she began to do so, he asked if she had a roommate. Peggy said the woman was away in Augusta, Georgia. She took off her outer clothing and then stopped. He touched her with the knife, and she removed her undergarments.

She tried to cover herself, but he told her to move her arms so he could see her breasts. When she sat on the bed, he removed her only remaining garments—her socks.

White asked that he not rape her anally, as it would be too painful. He seemed agreeable to the request, telling her that if she performed oral sex he would leave. But after she began to do so, he pulled away. “You’re not doing a good job,” he said. “Stop.”

Then he told her to lie on her stomach as he applied lotion to her anus and penetrated her with his finger. She pleaded again that it was painful, so he rolled her over, lubricated her some more, and raped White vaginally.

As he did so, he asked if she had a douche. He didn’t want her to become pregnant.

“That wouldn’t help,” she said.

“It would a little bit,” he answered.

“Why don’t you just pull out?” White asked.

He said he had already ejaculated.

She asked him to leave.

“I want to do it some more,” he said, and vaginally raped her again.

“You’re sexy,” he said. “You have a really nice butt.”

When he stopped, he told her that he was going to leave. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I had to do this to you.”

But he didn’t leave. When Peggy asked if she could dress, he said, “No, I want to watch you lie there naked.”

After allowing her to use the bathroom, he raped her a third time. Finally he dressed and prepared to go. When he tried and failed to unplug her telephone, White helped him in order to keep him from breaking it.

Before leaving, he used a towel to wipe her vaginal area, the lotion bottle, and the doorknob.

More than six months passed before he struck again. On Sunday, March 17, 1996, Marti Joseph,
^*
twenty-one, went out for a bottle of milk about seven in the evening then came home and cooked dinner. Around 8:15 she slipped into the shower. As Marti washed, she heard footsteps in the hallway and assumed that her male roommate had returned home.

After the shower she wrapped a towel around her and walked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Just then a white male, somewhere in his thirties, “sort of wrinkled and scary-looking” with “saggy,” bloodshot eyes, came up behind her wielding a butcher knife from the kitchen.

Marti immediately asked him not to kill her. He said that he wouldn’t as long as she did as she was told. He asked her age.

“Drop the towel,” he demanded. Marti did so. He placed the knife tip on her navel, and with his other hand he touched her breast.

“Stand right there and turn around,” he told her. “Stand right here in front of me.” He then fondled her vagina from behind.

“Turn around and get down on your knees.”

As Marti did so, her roommate suddenly knocked on her door. He had come home from school and wanted to know if she was on the telephone. She called out that she was.

The intruder instantly headed for the closest window, which was painted shut. Marti helped him open a second window located above her dresser, which he crawled through with an assist from the victim.

The butcher knife and a towel from the house were later recovered outside.

The final assault occurred three hours later. Mary Gilbert,
^*
age twenty-two, spent the early evening painting the front bedroom of the duplex apartment she shared with another young woman. At nine o’clock Mary, her roommate, and her roommate’s boyfriend shared a pizza. The couple then left.