Serial Murder: Motivations, Patterns, and Prevalence in the United States, Study notes of Anatomy

Download Serial Murder: Motivations, Patterns, and Prevalence in the United States and more Study notes Anatomy in PDF only on Docsity! 29 AN ANATOMY OF SERIAL MURDER Christina Powell’s parents had grown increasingly upset about their inabil- ity to reach their 17-year-old daughter at school. At first, they assumed that she was probably out partying. After all, this was August, 1990, orientation week for freshmen at the University of Florida, and she more than likely was out making new friends and buying things for her new apartment before hitting the books. But after a few more days without a word from Christina, the Powells became frantic. As a last resort, they called the Gainesville Police Department to ask them to meet at their daughter’s apartment in the Williamsburg complex. Suspecting that something was wrong, a Gainesville police officer entered the apartment by breaking down the door on the second floor to investigate. He was sickened by what he discovered. Immediately, he saw the bloodied and ravaged body of Sonja Larson, Christina’s 18-year-old roommate. She had suffered multiple stab wounds to her arm and right breast, and a large gash to her leg. From the pattern of blood marks on the sheets, she appeared to have been dragged across the bed so that her legs dangled over the edge in a hideous pose. Moving cautiously down the stairs to the bottom floor, the officer then encountered the corpse of Christina Powell. Revealing evidence of ritualistic murder, the young victim lay spread-eagled on the living room floor, a bottle of detergent and a towel placed between her legs. The nipples of both her breasts had been removed with surgical skill, leaving almost perfect circles, nearly 3 inches in diameter, where her nipples had been.
THREE   03-Fox.qxd 12/13/2004 10:18 AM Page 29 As shocking as these murders were, they appeared to be an isolated case. The police expected that they would soon find the culprit, perhaps a disgrun- tled boyfriend who had been rejected and went berserk. That theory soon dissolved in the face of new and equally chilling events. Only 2 days after the homicides at Williamsburg, 18-year-old Christa Hoyt, a part-time file clerk for the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, uncharacteristi- cally failed to report for work. A deputy sheriff was dispatched to her apart- ment on 24th Avenue to check on her. After getting no response at the front door, he walked around to the rear of the apartment and peered through the sliding glass door leading into her bedroom. The deputy was unprepared for what he witnessed. Hoyt’s lifeless, decapitated body was slumped over on the waterbed, naked except for her pink-trimmed athletic socks and tennis sneakers. Her nipples had been cut off and her torso sliced open from the chest straight down to the pubic bone. Hoyt’s severed head had been severed neatly at the neck and carefully placed on a bookshelf for all to see. The tranquil expression on her face masked the horror of her last moments of life. Similarities between the Powell/Larson murders and the Hoyt killing suggested to the police that they probably had a serial killer on the loose in Gainesville. Any hope that these killings were linked only by coincidence evaporated with the discovery of two more victims the very next day. Gatorwood was a popular off-campus apartment complex that had expe- rienced a series of break-ins over the past year, but no one had gotten hurt. Tracy Paules and Manny Taboada were not so lucky. Longtime friends from American High School in Miami, they had moved into Gatorwood just prior to the fall semester at the University of Florida. Disturbed by Tracy’s absence from class, a friend of hers contacted the maintenance man at Gatorwood, who used a master key to enter the apartment that Tracy and Manny shared. Because of the recent slayings, the maintenance man was understandably apprehensive about what horror he might find inside. Still, he was stunned when he opened the door. Paules’s nude body was displayed in the hallway. A trail of blood leading from her bedroom indicated that she had been stabbed in bed and then dragged into the hallway for effect. Manny Taboada also was dead, although it was clear from the defensive wounds on the insides of his arms and the blood sprayed on the wall behind the headboard that he had put up a frantic struggle. News of the five murders spread quickly throughout the college commu- nity, igniting widespread anxiety, if not hysteria, on the campus. In a massive evacuation, thousands of frightened students left town. All the flights out of 30 PART II: SERIAL MURDER 03-Fox.qxd 12/13/2004 10:18 AM Page 30 reference point. That is, for example, Theodore Bundy, whose murders spanned the years 1974 to 1978, having a career midpoint of 1976, is counted in the 1970s. Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, who was at large from 1978 to 1996, had a career midpoint of 1987 and thus is included among killers of the 1980s, even though he operated both before and after this decade. The trend is relatively flat for the first half of the century, hovering around 10 serial killers per decade. The pattern emerging in the second half of the century is radically different. In the 1960s, the number of killers or killing teams reached nearly 40. Remarkably, over the course of the next two decades, the 1970s and 1980s, the number of killers or partnerships quadrupled, sur- passing the 150 mark in the 1980s. Although rapid growth into the 1980s clearly suggests significant shifts in the prevalence of serial murder, these results are vulnerable, at least in part, to alternative explanations related to changes in data accessibility and quality of record keeping. As interest in serial murder increased, so did the likelihood that case histories would be published in some fashion. Additionally, as law enforcement became better equipped to identify linkages between victims slain by the same killer or killers, the detection of serial crimes and criminals became more likely. Notwithstanding these concerns, the trend in serial killings into the 1980s is quite consistent with a more general rise in violent crime, including homicide, as well as in resident population, strongly suggest- ing that the rise in serial murder is more than just an artifact of increased reporting and improved detection. An Anatomy of Serial Murder 33 0 50 100 150 200 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s Decade K ill er s/ T ea m s Figure 3.1 Killers/Teams by Decade 03-Fox.qxd 12/13/2004 10:18 AM Page 33 Whatever the actual increase in the prevalence of serial murder in the 1970s and 1980s, it is fairly clear that fear associated with such crimes also grew during that time. Prompted by some exaggerated media reports (e.g., Darrach & Norris, 1984), the American public was scared into believing that there was an epidemic of serial murder in the United States, totaling as many as 5,000 victims annually (for critical discussions, see Fox & Levin, 1985; Jenkins, 1988, 1994). This grossly distorted estimate was not restricted to the popular press. Many academic researchers also accepted the 5,000 per year benchmark, at least initially. Although he has since modified his view (Egger, 1990), Egger (1984) placed the annual number of serial murder victims in the 4,000–6,000 range. Holmes and DeBurger (1988) also estimated that between 3,500 and 5,000 victims were murdered each year by serial killers. A close assessment of the reasoning behind the often-cited annual esti- mate of 3,500–5,000 victims exposes a fatal semantic flaw. Each year in the United States, there are approximately 4,000–5,000 homicides with unknown motive (i.e., the “unknown circumstance” code from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, an incident-based compilation of homicide victim and offender age, race and sex, weapon, victim/offender relationship, and circum- stance). Moreover, serial murder is popularly known as “murder for no appar- ent motive” or “motiveless” (Ressler, Burgess, D’Agostino, & Douglas, 1984). At some juncture, “unknown motive” was wrongly equated and confused with “no motive,” leading to the erroneous inference that serial murder claims 5,000 victims per year (see Fox & Levin, 1985; Jenkins, 1994). Even when the flawed reasoning was uncovered, there remained a tendency to inflate uncriti- cally the extent of the serial murder problem. When asked how many of the 5,000 homicides with unknown motives could be the work of serial killers, Justice Department sources speculated it to be two-thirds of the 5,000, or approximately 3,500 (Starr, 1984). In contrast to the Justice Department’s early estimate of thousands of victims annually, our data suggest that during the peak in the 1980s, between 1,190 and 1,760 Americans were slain by serial killers, or about 120–180 per year. This sig- nificant discrepancy—the FBI’s thousands per year as opposed to our hundred or two per year—may reflect more than just the difference between estimating and enumerating; nor can it be dismissed as the mere result of definitional inconsis- tency or methodological dissimilarity. More likely, according to Kiger (1990) and Jenkins (1994), organizational vested interests were at least partially responsible 34 PART II: SERIAL MURDER 03-Fox.qxd 12/13/2004 10:18 AM Page 34 for the gross exaggeration in the “official” estimates of the prevalence of serial murder. That is, congressional approval of expenditures for FBI initiatives related to serial homicide may have depended, at least in part, on establishing a convinc- ing case that the problem had reached alarming proportions. The 1980s were an unusual era in terms of the serial murder phenomenon. Not only was the term itself coined at the beginning of the decade, and the prevalence of serial killing surely peaked during that time, but both fear and fascination surrounding serial killers were widespread during those years. Even as the attention from the popular media and the academic community remained strong during the 1990s, however, the prevalence of serial homicide appears to have diminished. To a large extent, this decline parallels a sharp downturn in all forms of murder during the 1990s and is to some extent due to many of the same factors. The growth in prison populations, for example, kept many violent predators, and many potential serial killers, safely behind bars. It may also be that improved law enforcement investigative techniques—the development of DNA profiling and databases as well as interagency commu- nication—thwarted many would-be serial killers before they amassed a large victim count and a prolonged career in killing. It may also be that some cases occurring in recent years have not as yet been identified and solved, causing them to be absent from the database of known perpetrators. Finally, as society has become somewhat jaded, perhaps accustomed to seeing serial murder as a commonplace part of American culture, the more “routine” cases may not receive the same kind of publicity they would have in an earlier era. Whatever the extent of decline during the 1990s and whatever the reasons for it, the problem of serial murder remains a difficult and perplexing one for law enforcement and, of course, for the general public that could be victimized by these predators. Even with about 10 serial killers per year captured by the police plus an unknown number of others undetected or on the loose, the fear and suffering provoked by serial murderers is extraordinary, warranting an attempt to understand who these offenders are and why they kill. EXTRAORDINARILY ORDINARY In recent years, Americans have been fascinated but at the same time shocked by murder machines, operating here and abroad, commonly known as serial murderers. Although they occasionally surface in other countries, these killers An Anatomy of Serial Murder 35 03-Fox.qxd 12/13/2004 10:18 AM Page 35 consequence of racially disparate linkage blindness. Serial murder, like murder generally, tends to be intraracial (i.e., whites killing whites and blacks killing blacks); serial killings of black victims, especially those who are impoverished and marginalized politically, are less likely to be connected, prioritized for inves- tigation, and subsequently solved. The disproportionate involvement of males in serial homicide in part reflects, of course, their greater numbers in murder rates generally. Curiously, however, according to these statistics, the gender ratio among serial killers (86% male) is slightly less pronounced than for murder generally (about 88%), a finding that is at odds with the prevailing view among most researchers that almost all serial killers are men (e.g., Holmes & DeBurger, 1988). This seeming discrepancy between our data and the common view can, however, be understood as a difference in definition. We have cast serial 38 PART II: SERIAL MURDER Table 3.1 Characteristics of Serial Killers Active Since 1900 (N = 558) Offender Category Percentage Sex Male 85.8 Female 14.2 Total 100.0 Race/ethnicity White 81.5 Black 14.6 Hispanic 3.6 Other 0.3 Total 100.0 Age Under 20 13.0 20-29 41.2 30-39 29.1 40-49 12.3 50+ 4.4 Total 100.0 Partnerships Solo 80.8 Pair 12.2 Team 7.0 Total 100.0 03-Fox.qxd 12/13/2004 10:18 AM Page 38 homicide in the broadest terms to encompass any personal motive for repeated homicide (including profit and revenge, as well as dominance); others (e.g., Ressler, Burgess, & Douglas, 1988) restrict their attention almost exclusively to sexually motivated killers, virtually all of whom are men. Using a broad definition of serial killing, we can see in Table 3.2 signifi- cant gender differences in victim preference. Male serial killers, frequently sexual predators, tend to target prostitutes, women, or young boys and girls as victims—strangers whom they can stalk, capture, control, and kill to satisfy their sadistic impulses and violent fantasies. About two-thirds of victims of male serial killers fit this characterization. Female serial killers, by contrast, generally kill victims with whom they have shared some kind of relationship, often in which the victim is dependent on them. More than 70% target family members or patients of some kind. Gwendolyn Graham and Catherine Wood of Grand Rapids, Michigan, suffo- cated to death at least six nursing home patients under their care. At the extreme, Marybeth Tinning of Schenectady, New York, killed nine of her own children, not all at once in a murderous fit or rage, but one at a time in a cold, deliberate, and selfish attempt to win attention. More than half of the female serial killers target family members, including a number of so-called black An Anatomy of Serial Murder 39 Table 3.2 Victim Preference by Sex of Serial Killer Sex of Offender (percentages) Victim Category Male Female Family 4.2 53.7 Acquaintances 2.2 1.7 Children 2.6 12.7 Boys 5.5 0.7 Girls 3.0 0.0 Men 8.0 1.4 Women 33.0 2.8 Patients/elderly 7.8 16.9 Prostitutes 12.2 0.7 Varied 21.4 9.3 Total 100.0 100.0 Note: Classification is by killer’s primary target. Entries in the columns do not add to 100.0% because of rounding. 03-Fox.qxd 12/13/2004 10:18 AM Page 39 widows who sequentially marry and then murder several men to collect on their inheritances. One of the very few female serial killers to target strangers was Aileen Wuornos, a Florida prostitute who murdered seven middle-aged “johns” in 1989–1990. Erroneously labeled by the press as the “first female serial killer,” Wuornos was indeed exceptional only in her victim selection and modus operandi—her style of killing closely resembled that of a male predatory killer. By contrast, female serial offenders usually murder victims they know, either in their personal life or on the job. Overall, the victim-offender relationship pattern is one of the most striking dissimilarities between serial murder and criminal homicide generally. Unlike single-victim murder, which commonly arises from some dispute between part- ners, family members, or friends (less than one-quarter of solved murder cases involve strangers), serial murder typically is a stranger-perpetrated crime (see also Riedel, 1993). Among 399 serial killers from 1800–1995, Hickey (1997) reported that 61% targeted strangers exclusively, and another 15% killed at least one stranger among their lists of victims. The unusually large share of stranger-perpetrated crimes in serial homicide may reflect more than just the killer’s tendencies for victim selection. A more practical issue related to appre- hension may also be involved. Because stranger-crimes are far more difficult to solve, those killers who target victims known to them are less likely to remain at large long enough to accumulate a victim count that satisfies the definition of serial murder. Another well-studied pattern of serial murder is its geographic location (see Rossmo, 1996). In the modern mythology of serial murder, the killer is characterized as a nomad whose compulsion to kill carries him hundreds of thousands of miles a year as he drifts from state to state and region to region, leaving scores of victims in his wake. This may be true of some well-known and well-traveled killers such as Ted Bundy, Andrew Cunanan, and Henry Lee Lucas, but not for the majority. John Wayne Gacy, for example, killed all of his 33 young male victims at his home in Des Plaines, Illinois, conveniently bury- ing most of them there as well. Gacy, like Milwaukee’s Jeffrey Dahmer, Kansas City’s Robert Berdella, and Long Island’s Joel Rifkin, operated within driving distance of home. Moreover, most serial killers are not the recluses that movies often portray them to be. They typically have jobs and families, go to church on Sunday, and kill part-time . . . indeed, whenever they have some free time to kill. 40 PART II: SERIAL MURDER 03-Fox.qxd 12/13/2004 10:18 AM Page 40