Why do Behavioural Profilers
fail to catch Serial Killers?
The Thirty Year Hunt for the BTK Murderer
Professor Craig A. Jackson
Head of Psychology
The Problems with Criminal Profiling
Has never led directly to the capture of any serial murderers
Behavioural Profiling based on spurious science in 1950s1960s
• Small Data sets
• Limited numbers
• Biased sample
• Profiles too vague to be helpful to police
Given too much credibility as a scientific discipline
Behavioural profiling is not open, replicable or repeatable
No scientific test of the usefulness of this method
The "Cracker-Basher" article
Wilson D, Jackson CA, Kaur-Rana B. Against the Medical-Psychological Tradition of
Understanding Serial Killing by Studying the Killers. Amicus Journal, 2010; 22: 8-16.
UK Serial Murderers and Victims
12 (38.7%)
7 (22%)
5 (15.3%)
8 (25%)
Current serial murder case: UK
Stepping Hill Hospital
7 inpatients murdered over 7 weeks
Insulin overdose via saline tampering
Offender space
Victims
Un-sub
Arrest of 27yr Female nurse
Rebecca Leighton
Remanded for 1 month
Released - no grounds for prosecution
Suspect
4000 staff
700 possible “unsubs”
Joanna Yeates murder case
Myths about Serial Murderers
Are dysfunctional loners
Don't change the way they kill as they develop
Travel far and wide when killing
Insane or evil geniuses
Are white males
Are motivated by sex
Cannot stop killing
Want to get caught
While forensics yielded little...
The suspect fits the profile . . .
We were worried about John…
Night-terrors
Emotional breakdown
Paranoia
Cardiovascular problems
“Understanding Serial Killers . . . in order to
Capture Serial Killers” Why?
Prevent serial murder by understanding the killers’ minds?
“Climbing inside the heads of monsters"
FBI Behavioural Science Unit 1972
Questionnaire Interviews with 36
convicted serial killers
– a biased sample
57 page questionnaire:
“Thousands of questions”
Killers who Talk too Much
Killlers’ accounts of their crimes and motives
Suit nature and circumstances of their arrest
Motivated by imprisonment / freedom / needs
Parole
Prison / wing transfer
Activity
Image
Book deals
111 pages of autobiography
145 tape recordings
6,189 transcribed pages
“(Fred) West’s interviews were worthless except to
confirm that nothing that he said could be relied upon
as anything near the truth.”
John Bennet SIO Cromwell St Murders
. . . and Those who Don’t Talk at all
False Leads & Faulty Profiles
Yorkshire Ripper investigation
Three letters & one cassette tape
"You've had no luck catchin' me"
"Wearside Jack"
Police believed it was the genuine killer
Focused efforts on men from north bank of river wear
Distracted investigation - three possible deaths
John Humble – sentenced 8 years for perversion
The Crimes of the BTK
Serial killer in Kansas active from 1974 to 2005
Murdered 10 people from 1974 – 1991 (caught in 2005)
Victims
1974
Mr Joe Otero, Mrs Julie Otero, and children Jo jr & Josephine
1974
Kathryn Bright and wounded her brother Kevin
1977
Killed Shirley Vian
1977
Killed Nancy Fox
1985
Marine Hedge, was murdered
1986
Vicki Wegerle was killed
1991
The last confirmed victim of BTK was Dolores Davis
BTK's MO
Entered houses while occupier out
Cut phone wires outside house
Force way in with false ID and .22 revolver
Talked victims to compliance
"Escaped prisoner on the run"
Victims allowed themselves to be tied up
Strangles several times before killing
Sometimes sexually gratified himself at the scene
Steals tokens / souvenirs
Shirley Vian murder scene
Shirley Vian murder scene
BTK's First Letter to the Police
The Taunting Begins . . .
3 letters from BTK to media (1 was a poem)
"Oh Death to Nancy"
A letter sent to a potential victim who accidentally evaded him
in 1979, Anna Williams
"Oh Anna why didn't you appear"
A recording of his voice calling for an ambulance after killing
Nancy Fox
Witnesses by an off-duty fireman
Kathryn Bright murder scene
Dolores Davis murder scene
"Oh Anna Why Didn't You Appear"
T'was a plan of deviant pleasure so bold on
that Spring nite
My inner feeling hot with propension of the
new awakening season
Warn wet with inner fear and rapture, my
pleasure of entanglement
Like new vines so tight
Oh Anna why didn't you appear
A Gift for the Profilers…
Two teams of FBI profilers assessed all case details
1979 The Hot Dog squad & 1985 The Ghostbusters
Used best known Profilers from FBI
Profiles were so varied as to be useless
Contradictory
Vague
Non-Specific
Unhelpful Criminal Profiles
“Look for an American male with a possible connection
to the military. His IQ will be above 105. He will like to
masturbate, and will be aloof and selfish in bed. He will
drive a decent car. He will be a ‘now’ person. He won’t
be comfortable with women. But he may have women
friends. He will be a lone wolf.
But he will be able to function in social settings…he will
be either, never married, divorced or married, and if he
is married his wife will be younger or older. He may or
may not live in a rental, and might be lower class, upper
lower class, lower middle class or middle class. And he
will be crazy like a fox, as opposed to being mental.”
Gladwell (2007)
BTK Goes Quiet…
From 1991 - 2004 BTK was silent - no murders, no letters
Was he dead
Was he in prison
Was he bored of killing
Was he too old or not fit
BTK Returns…
Resumed taunts in 2004
14 years after last killing in 1991
14 letter drops 2004-2005
Wrote to Chief Detective
Kenny Landwehr via local papers
Began leaving packages and notes in parks, libraries
and car parks
BTK Returns
The Taunting Continues . . .
BTK Returns
New Victims Selected
Pen Pals again with SuperCop
“COMMUNICATION.
Can
I
communicate
with
Floppy and not be traced to a computer. Be
honest. Under Miscellaneous Section, 494,
(Rex, it will be OK) run it for a few days
in case I’m out of town-etc. I will try a
floppy for a test run some time in the near
future – February or March.”
At the End of it All.....
BTK sent the floppy disk to detectives
Contained a word processed letter
Metadata of the disk showed the following words
"Dennis“
"Christ Lutheran Church“
"Park City Community Library"
Who was BTK?
Dennis Lyn Rader
Married father of two
Heterosexual
ADT home security installer (1980s)
Scout Leader
Church Minister
City dog warden (1990s)
Who was BTK?
Who was BTK?
Bondage
BDSM
Violent sexual fantasist
Combined offending with his job
Questions about BTK?
Why undetected by wife and children?
Why so long between kills?
How evaded Police for so long?
Why correspond with police and journalists?
Why not stay undercover – 14 years after his last kill?
Any more kills after 1994?
Preventing Serial Murders
People from marginalized groups are the focus of serial killers
If we want to reduce victims of serial murder . . .
. . . We need to treat those groups better
Gay people
Older people
Homeless
Immigrants
Sex workers
Young people
Refrences
Canter, D.V., Alison, L.J., Alison, E. and Wentink, N. (2004), ‘The organized/disorganized typology of serial
murder: Myth or model?’, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10, pp. 293-320.
Douglas, J. and Dodd, J. (2007), Inside the Mind of the BTK: The True Story behind the Thirty Year Hunt for
the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Douglas, J., Ressler, R., Burgess, A. and Hartman, C. (1986), ‘Criminal profiling from crime scene analysis’,
Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 4, pp. 401-421.
Jackson CA, Wilson D, Kaur-Rana B. The usefulness of criminal profiling. Criminal Justice Matters, 2011; 84:
6-7.
Keppel, R.D. and Walter, R. (1999), ‘Profiling killers: A revised classification model for understanding sexual
murder’, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 43, pp. 417-434.
Snook, B., Cullen, R.M., Bennell, C., Taylor, P.J. and Gendreau, P. (2008), ‘The criminal profiling illusion:
What’s behind the smoke and mirrors’, Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35, pp. 1257-1276.
Snook, B., Eastwood, J., Gendreau, P., Coggin, C. and Cullen, R.M. (2007), ‘Taking stock of criminal profiling:
A narrative review and metal-analysis’, Criminal Justice and Behavior, 34, pp. 437-453.
Trager, J. and Brewster, J. (2001), ‘The effectiveness of psychological profiles’, Journal of Police and Criminal
Psychology, 16, pp. 20-28.
Wilson, D., Jackson, C.A. and Rana, B. (2010), ‘Against the medical-psychological tradition of understanding
serial killing by studying the killers: The case of BTK’, Amicus Journal, 22, pp. 8-16.