WK4 Discussion: Victim Vulnerability

Serial killers: offender’s relationship to the victim and selected demographics

Serge-Moses Pakhomou Criminal Justice Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 555 West 57th Street, Suite 603, New York, NY 10019. email: [email protected]

Received 11 February 2004; Revised and accepted 18 April 2004.

Serge-Moses Pakhomou specialises in crimes of sexual motivation, methodology of mental activity, competency and is currently affiliated with the program ‘Research in violent behavior’ at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA.

ABSTRACT

Currently it is generally accepted among members of the law enforcement community, forensic psy- chologists, criminologists and profilers that serial killers are mostly white males in their twenties and thirties of above average intelligence who usually commit intra-racial murders of strangers. The present paper focuses on validation of these hypotheses through the study of 21 serial killers (and their 97 victims), whose cases have been closed by arrest and finalised in terms of convic- tions and appeals. The issues of prior charges, military service, marital status, criminal organis- ation, modus operandi and psychiatric diagnosis are included in the analysis as well. It is con- cluded that though currently accepted hypotheses still hold in general, the melting pot trend of the modern society towards diversity and interde- pendence leads to far more complex a picture of serial killers than previously thought. Implica- tions of these findings for law enforcement, foren- sic psychology and profiling are discussed.

SERIAL KILLER: CURRENT THOUGHT The term ‘serial killer’ was coined by Robert Ressler (Ressler & Shachtman,

1992, 1997) in the 1970s in order to replace the label of ‘stranger killings’, and in order to reflect the repetitive (in series) nature of those murders. But as much as the denotation of this term reflected the series of murders committed by the same perpetrator at different times (as in serial rape and serial arson), the connotation of Ressler’s definition brought up an issue of sexual motivation, where ‘serial’ became a two-fold term, which meant a series of killings on the one hand, and their sexual nature on the other hand. As a result of this notion, at the present time there are two approaches to using the term ‘serial killer’. One perspective holds that a serial killer is the offender who commits repeti- tive sequential homicides of any nature (Dietz, 1986; Lane & Gregg, 1995; Pallone & Hennessy, 1994), while another per- spective views a serial killer as a sexual murderer, who commits repetitive (com- pulsive) sexual homicides (Michaud & Hazelwood, 1998; Schlesinger, 2004), and where serial murder is a subtype of sexual homicide (Schlesinger, 2000).

In the end, it is a matter of choice and agreement, because the former perspective is sound in terms of applying the same (uniform) serial criterion to a wide variety of crimes, like arson, burglary, rape and murder, while the latter perspective, imbed- ded in a serial nature of sexual drive, is also sound for the very same reason: it applies a uniform, only in this case a sexual criterion,

International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 6 Number 4

International Journal of Police Science and Management, Vol. 6 No. 4, 2004, pp. 219–233. © Vathek Publishing, 1461–3557

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to a range of crimes from petty theft to burglary and from arson to murder. Inter- estingly enough, both concepts will merge when it comes to offenders who perpetrate a series of sexual homicides. This group of offenders who committed a series of sex- ually motivated murders is referred to as serial killers in the present research.

Though the Crime Classification Manual (Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, & Ressler, 1992) interprets serial murders as the ones that involve three or more separate events, the present study does include the offenders who committed two and more documented killings. The reasoning for that is three-fold. First, the number of known killings does not mean the number of actual killings. For example, Hall (1982) states that there is a good reason to believe that only 20 per cent of serious crimes lead to the arrest of the perpetrator. Secondly, the current clearance of murders is only 62 per cent with the clearances of aggravated assault and forcible rape subsequently standing at 56 per cent and 44 per cent (US Department of Justice, 2002), which means that — unfortunately — almost half of violent crimes have no offender’s name associated with them. And finally, two events already constitute a cer- tain order and succession.

Serial (sexual) killers are believed to be mostly white males in their twenties and thirties (at the time of the crimes) with above-average intelligence who commit intra-racial (within the same racial group) murders of strangers (Douglas & Olshaker, 1995, 1997, 1998; Keppel & Birnes, 1995, 1997; Michaud & Hazelwood, 1998; Ressler & Shachtman, 1992, 1997). It is also reported that nearly half of them never had a consensual sexual experience with another adult; about 40 per cent of them went into the military (most of whom received less than honourable discharge); 47 per cent of them did not finish high school (Ressler, Burgess, & Douglas, 1988; Ressler & Shachtman, 1992); 32 per cent

to 42 per cent of serial killers had a history of burglary prior to sexual murders (Douglas & Olshaker, 1995; Ressler & Shachtman, 1992; Schlesinger & Revitch, 1999) and 3 per cent to 7 per cent of violent sexual offenders had a history of sexual offences (Guttmacher, 1963; Revitch, 1965; Revitch & Schlesinger, 1989).

At the present time there is no con- clusive evidence that any particular factor or fixed set of factors lead to sexual homicide. Some researchers believe that sadistic lust murderers have a brain disease associated with a tumour, head injury, neuropsychological dysfunction in a left hemisphere or low cortical arousal (Eysenck, 1998; Galski, Thornton, & Shumsky, 1990; Money, 1990). Others, on the other hand, are convinced that severe abuse during an early childhood reinforced by added neglect in school and ineffective social services, which is often associated with social imitation via vicarious con- ditioning, create a formula for producing a violent deviant personality (Pallone, 1996; Ressler & Shachtman,1992; Stone, 1998). And, finally, the third major perspective holds that criminals themselves are voli- tional, and they are the ones who cause crime, and not their bad neighbourhoods, inadequate upbringing or hereditary defi- ciency (Rhodes, 1999; Samenow,1984; Yochelson & Samenow, 1976).

Unfortunately, all of these hypotheses still remain as such, but at the same time evidence does suggest that biological, envi- ronmental and cognitive factors are inter- connected and interweaved into each other, creating a combination of factors that lead to serial (sexual) killings.

Despite deep divisions between various groups of researchers on the issues of causa- tion, all of them agree that the most mon- strous and most perverse sexual acts are usually committed by persons of sound mind, who are functionally rigid (in terms

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of a number of activities that they carry on), obsessed with fantasy and who have a deter- mination to do what they want (Hare, 1999; Krafft-Ebing, 1886/1998; Michaud & Hazelwood, 1998; Ressler & Shachtman, 1992).

The three most comprehensive recent studies of sexual homicide, conducted by Ressler, Burgess and Douglas (1988) on 36 sexual murderers (and their 118 victims), by Schlesinger and Revitch (1999) on 52 offenders (and their 106 victims) and by Godwin (2000) on 107 serial murderers (and their 728 victims) present more of a comprehensive addition to each other, rather than a set of fully comparable parallel studies. The first one is focused mostly on the self-reported background of offenders, including childhood attributes, family func- tioning, history of abuse and neglect, employment, sexualisation of fantasy and organisational level of crimes. The second one, on the other hand, predominantly addresses the issues of prior charges, includ- ing burglary and sexual offences, as well as explores the sexual dynamics of crimes. And finally, the third one offers a quantitative (statistical) analysis of crime scenes and offenders’ background characteristics in an attempt to create a numeric (objective) model of investigative profiling.

The present study attempts to bridge the informational gap between the first two studies, as well as to challenge some of their findings, and to discuss briefly the issue of objectivism of quantitative approach in the analysis of criminal behaviour and profiling raised recently in the work of Godwin (2000).

METHOD

Twenty-one offenders, whose cases have been closed by arrest and finalised in terms of convictions and appeals, were selected from 15 jurisdictions in the continental

USA on the basis of the following criter- ion: two and more sexually motivated homicides perpetrated by the same offen- der at different times. All of the selected murders had sexual gratification as a pri- mary objective.

As much as sexual motivation could be reasonably questioned at times, the selected cases had clear and convincing evidence not only of sexual activity per se (in all possible forms of coitus and functional equivalents of coitus), but of the objective behind the crime as well.

The criterion of clear and convincing evidence, which is a dominating require- ment in all types of judiciary inquiries, has been used for all statements and determina- tions in the present study. The criterion of beyond a reasonable doubt was not applied because the studied offenders were not charged and convicted for all of the crimes that they allegedly committed, either due to plea bargain (in some instances in order to locate the burial places or the disposed remains of the victims) or due to the fact that the perpetrators were already on death row at the time of newly discovered evi- dence, or because the evidence itself did not rise to the level of beyond reasonable doubt.

This study is solely based on the docu- mented records, which include offence/ incident (police) reports; investigative reports; crime scene photographs, videos and maps; transcripts of interviews with witnesses, surviving victims, relatives and offenders; physical evidence examination reports; reports of laboratory examination and certificates of forensic analysis; autopsy reports and verdicts of a coroner; surveil- lance reports; search warrants and property records; criminal and prison records; psy- chological profiles and psychiatric evalu- ations. No attempts to contact the offenders or the surviving victims were made. All identifying information was withheld from this paper on purpose.

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RESULTS

Demographics All of the 21 offenders were male with an average age (at the time of the arrest for the studied murders) of 32.6 years old. An aver- age age of victims was 25.8 years (female 26.2 years; male 23.3 years). The perpetrators were 76.2 per cent (n=16) white (‘European- American’), 19 per cent (n=4) black (‘African-American’) and 4.8 per cent (n=1) asian (‘Asian-American’) (see Table 1).

There were 97 known victims in total, and 76 (78.4 per cent) of them were dead. The age of the victims ranged from 9 to 55 years, while the age of offenders varied from 19 to 59. White killers were responsi- ble for 70.1 per cent (n=68) of the victims, while black and Asian offenders accounted for 26.8 per cent (n=26) and 3.1 per cent (n=3) respectively.

Among 53 (54.6 per cent) white female victims, 46 (47.4 per cent) were attacked by white males and 7 (7.2 per cent) by non- white males. Among 31 (32.0 per cent)

black female victims, 22 (22.7 per cent) were attacked by black offenders and 9 (9.3 per cent) by white perpetrators. One Asian female (1.0 per cent) and 12 (12.4 per cent) white males were the victims of white serial killers.

Despite the fact that the present-day concept of race is rather ambiguous, its use in law enforcement is very practical: it is used as an identifying tool together with such characteristics as scars, tattoos, weight, height, eye colour, complexion etc. At the same time, the evidence does suggest that there are profound socio-cultural differen- ces between various race-associated strata in terms of ontology, concepts of gender, mas- culinity, femininity, and normative behav- iour. For example, among 97 victims in this study, there were no black and Asian males at all, only one Asian female victim (1.0 per cent) and only one (4.8 per cent) Asian male offender.

It has to be noted, however, that as the current processes of inter-racial integration, inter-marriages and sexualisation continue, the probability of appearance of other than white serial killers will increase, while the current concept of predominantly intra- racial killings will cease to exist in its pres- ent form, or will be profoundly reformulated in the not so distant future.

In the meantime, the evidence clearly supports the notion of an intra-racial com- fort zone for serial killers, because 84.6 per cent of the victims of black offenders were black, and 85.3 per cent of the victims of white perpetrators were white.

Offender’s relationship to the victim

In some instances the offender’s relationship to the victim is the same as the victim’s relationship to the offender, but in the cases of voyeurism and stalking, the relationship becomes asymmetrical. The offender’s rela- tionship to the victim (or the best possible approximation of that relationship) carries

Table 1: Offenders by race and sex, and corresponding victims

Offenders n=21 W/Male n=16

B/Male n=4

As/Male n=1

Victims n=97 76.2% 19.0% 4.8%

W/Female n=53 46 4 3 54.6% 47.4% 4.1% 3.1% B/Female n=31 9 22 32.0% 9.3% 22.7% As/Female n=1 1 1.0% 1.0% W/Male n=12 12 12.4% 12.4%

Total of victims 68 26 3 70.1% 26.8% 3.1%

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much more substance in terms of under- standing the process of the offender’s think- ing and his possible modus operandi.

The categories (or items) of neighbour, employee, relative, co-worker and client, widely used in law enforcement and research, are obviously very practical and useful especially in the ‘check all that apply’ approach, but they do not represent the strength of relationship per se. These cate- gories present the potentiality of a possible relationship.

In order to counteract this flaw, the offenders’ relationships to the victims in the present study were placed into three main clusters (no established relationship, rudi- mentary relationship, established relation- ship) and then specified in terms of activity conducted by the victim at the time of assault or in terms of a pre-existing connec- tion between the offender and the victim (see Table 2).

Three main categories of offender’s rela- tionship were operationally defined as follows:

1. No established relationship (‘stranger’): just met, is not aware of victim’s back- ground and whereabouts;

2. rudimentary relationship (‘acquaint- ance’): knows victim for a period of at least days and has a rudimentary aware- ness of victim’s whereabouts — can locate victim if necessary;

3. established relationship (‘correlative’): knows victim for a period of at least months and is aware of victim’s back- ground and current whereabouts.

Out of 97 relationships, 3 (3.1 per cent) were not determined, 68 (70.1 per cent) of victims were strangers to the offender, 25 (25.8 per cent) were acquaintances and 1 (1.0 per cent) was a correlative.

In the category of ‘stranger’ (no estab- lished relationship), the largest number of victims (23.7 per cent of the total and 33.8

per cent of the category, n=23) were soli- cited for sex or lured by an offer of drugs and sex. Eighteen victims (18.6 per cent of the total and 26.5 per cent of the category) were abducted by threat or blitz attack and 13 victims (13.4 per cent of the total and 19.1 per cent of the category) had their residences entered by deception (including ‘daytime stalking’ and entry by a confidence trick).

Table 2: Offender/victim relationship

No established relationship (‘stranger’) 68 (70.1%) Victim: 1. Was solicited for sex (and/or

was lured by drugs offer & sex) 23 (23.7%)

2. Residence has been entered by con (including ‘daytime stalking’)

13 (13.4%)

3. Residence has been broken into 1 (1.0%) 4. Was abducted (including threat

and/or blitz attack) 18 (18.6%)

5. Needed highway help 1 (1.0%) 6. Jogged 1 (1.0%) 7. Accepted job offer 8 (8.2%) 8. Gave a ride 2 (2.1%) 9. Unknown con 1 (1.0%)

Rudimentary relationship (‘acquaintance’)

25 (25.8%)

Victim: 1. Prostitute (including prositute-

alike and prostitute/drug user) 3+[1] (4.1%)

2. Date (including one-time dating, casual dating, occasional meetings etc.)

10 (10.3%)

3. Cab driver 1 (1.0%) 4. Waitress 1 (1.0%) 5. Client 4 (4.2%) 6. Neighbour (including former

neighbour), break-in 3 (3.1%)

7. Schoolmate [1] (1.0%) 8. Was stalked 2 (2.1%)

Established relationship (‘correlative’) 1 (1.0%) Victim: 1. Former girlfriend 1 (1.0%)

Unknown relationship 3 (3.1%)

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In the category of ‘acquaintance’ (rudi- mentary relationship) the largest number of victims (10.3 per cent of the total and 40.0 per cent of the category, n=10) were dates, including one-time dating, casual dating, occasional meetings and/or sexual engagements.

These results do support a current hypothesis that serial killers mostly attack strangers. At the same time, it is significant that 26.8 per cent of the victims were known to the offender as well as previously seen with the offender at some point in time.

Probably the most striking result is that none of the serial killers in this study mur- dered his wife, sister, mother or daughter, or any other current correlative, which, though not surprising in general, was not expected to have such an overwhelming consistency.

As a comparison, an analysis of 28 sexual assaults (rape, attempted rape, sodomy etc), conducted at the preliminary stage of the study, demonstrated that 39.3 per cent of the victims of these assaults were strangers to the offender, 35.7 per cent were acquaintances and 25.0% had an established relationship (‘correlatives’).

Evidence suggests that there is a trade- off between established relationship with the victim and ‘established relationship’ with the area of the crime among serial offenders. All 21 of the serial killers in the present study operated in the locations that they were familiar with: used to work, used to go to school (or college), used to go on vacation or visit their relatives etc. Combined with the reported studies of serial rapists, who also tend to commit their crimes in areas well known to them, current findings support the present notion in law enforcement of combining psycho- logical profiling with geographical profiling in the instances of suspected serial offenders.

Marital status Thirteen (61.9 per cent) of the offenders were either married, divorced, separated or had a live-in girlfriend at the time of their arrest for the studied offences. Eight (38.1 per cent) were single and never married. Seven (33.3 per cent) of the offenders had children (see Table 3).

It is hard to say how many of the offen- ders had consenting sexual relationship prior to their crimes (and arrest), but evi- dence clearly suggests that at least one-third of them did have such a relationship for certain, and another third probably had such a relationship.

These findings suggest that serial killers are not exposed to extreme deprivation when it comes to consensual sex (at least on the surface). At the same time the evidence shows that single serial killers are much more prolific in their assaults, and this esca- lation of killings has a strong correlation with the depth of marital status: single killers are responsible for 45.4 per cent of the victims, while married (divorced, sepa- rated) offenders with children account for 21.6 per cent of the victims.

Education All of the serial killers — with the excep- tion of one, whose upbringing was not documented in the records — had some- what troubled childhoods associated with parental neglect, divorce or separation of parents, death of one or both parents, trans- fer to a boarding school or orphanage, adoption, teasing by peers and juvenile incarceration, which spilled over into their performance at school.

Educational information was available only for 20 offenders.

The average number of years in educa- tion prior to arrest for the studied offences was 11.5 (which could be associated with the surge in pubertal development in the 11th and 12th grades) with 10 (50 per cent) offenders not finishing high school and

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with 10 graduating from high school. Only four (20 per cent) offenders took some college classes, and only one (5 per cent) received full four-year college education (see Table 4).

Serial killers without high school educa- tion were responsible for 61.1 per cent (n=58) of the victims, while the perpe- trators who went to college accounted for 21 per cent (n=20) of the total number of victims (n=95).

The coefficient of correlation between the number of years in education and the number of (known) victims was –0.41, which does not represent a very strong correlation between two variables, but does indicate that years of education is a factor in the make-up of a serial killer.

A relatively low formal education level of serial killers probably speaks more about their inability or lack of desire to conform with the existing structures of educational

Table 3: Offender’s marital status and corresponding number of victims

Offenders n=21 Married, divorced, separated, living-in girlfriend

Married, divorced, separated, living-in girlfriend

Single

Victims per offender

With children n=7 (33.3%)

No children n=6 (28.6%)

No children n=8 (38.1%)

2 3 3 3 2 2 4 1 1 5 1 6 1 7 2 3 8 1 1

Total number of victims n=97

21 21.6%

32 33.0%

44 45.4%

Table 4: Offenders’ educational level and corresponding number of victims

Offenders n=20 Did not finish high school

Finished only high school

Some college Four-year college

Victims per offender n=10 (50.0%) n=5 (25.0%) n=4 (20.0%) n=1 (5.0%)

2 2 3 2 1 3 1 4 1 1 5 1 6 1 7 5 8 1 1 Total number of victims n=95

58 61.1%

17 17.9%

17 17.9%

3 3.1%

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obligations, than about their general intel- lectual capacity, because among five avail- able IQ scores the lowest one was 92 and the highest one was 130. Furthermore, only one of the offenders was considered to be ‘mentally challenged, but not retarded’ (10th grade special education) which did not prevent him from luring seven female victims, six of whom ended up dead.

Military service Eleven of the offenders (52.4 per cent) took part in military service (Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines): three of them were arrested while still in the military; one received an honourable discharge; five received other than an honourable dis- charge and two were discharged due to mental disability (psychomotor epilepsy and schizophrenia). Four (19 per cent) offenders in total committed murders while still being in the military.

The fairly large number (52.4 per cent) of serial killers associated with the military is significant, but it is noteworthy that the number of victims of the servicemen (n=47, 48.5 per cent) was similar to the number of victims of the perpetrators who did not join the military (n=50, 51.5 per cent) (see Table 5).

Evidence does not suggest that the mili- tary service led to profound changes in the behaviour of the offenders, despite the fact that some of them did use combat-related techniques acquired in the army during the commission of their murders. But it is very probable that the offenders chose the mili- tary environment as an escape from the constraints and discomfort of their social environment, evidently in search of a more suitable substratum for their rigidity.

Some of them, 54.4 per cent (n=6) were disillusioned or could not function in the military, and received their discharge within months or a year after their basic training. Others (45.5 per cent, n=5), on the other hand, carried on their duties for a longer

period of time. Among the ones who remained in the service, 90 per cent (n=4) committed murders while still being in the military.

Psychiatric diagnosis Eleven of the offenders (52.4 per cent) had some form of psychiatric diagnosis. The most prevailing diagnosis was antisocial per- sonality disorder (APD) (American Psy- chiatric Association, 1987, 1994, 2000): four of the offenders (36.4 per cent of the diagnosed) were considered to have APD, in one case together with schizoid and para- noid personality disorders, in one case together with bipolar disorder, and in one case together with sexual disorder.

Six of the offenders (28.6 per cent of the total and 54.5 per cent of the diagnosed) were diagnosed with various types of per- sonality disorders, including APD, paranoid, schizoid and character personality disorder.

Two offenders received a diagnosis of mood disorder, and two received a diagnosis of anxiety disorder; one was characterised as having an atypical psychosis; one received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and one was diagnosed with psychomotor epilepsy.

Table 5: Offenders with military background and corresponding number of victims

Offenders n=21 Military service No military service Victims per offender n=11 (52.4%) n=10 (47.6%)

2 3 3 3 4 4 1 1 5 1 6 1 7 2 3 8 1 1

Total number of victims

47 50

n=97 (48.5%) (51.5%)

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In only two cases was an issue of compe- tency brought to the attention of the court.

In one instance the offender raised an insanity defence, which eventually was rejected by the court. In the other instance the family of the offender raised an issue of competency at the time when the con- victed perpetrator was awaiting his execu- tion on death row. This motion was granted and the offender — diagnosed with schizo- phrenia — received an indefinite stay of execution.

Prior charges: burglary and sexual offences; Outdoorsmen versus indoorsmen Seventeen of the offenders (81.0 per cent) had criminal charges prior to the studied assaults and four (19.0 per cent) did not have a prior criminal record (see Table 6).

The most prevalent type of offence was sexual, including rape and attempted rape, sodomy, voyeurism, flashing, panty snatch- ing and masturbation in public. Thirteen of the serial killers (61.9 per cent) were charged with sexual offences prior to the arrest for the crimes included in this study.

Eight of the offenders (38.1 per cent) had burglary charges, including breaking and entering, as well as trespassing, in their background.

Eight serial killers (38.1 per cent) were outdoorsmen and operated exclusively out- doors. The same number of offenders (n=8, 38.1 per cent) were indoorsmen, who con- ducted all of their assaults indoors. Five perpetrators (23.8 per cent) operated in both environments (‘mixed’), outdoors and indoors.

Among outdoorsmen half of the offen- ders (n=4, 50.0 per cent) had prior charges

Table 6: Burglary and sexual offence as prior charges, and corresponding environments of studied crimes

Prior charges Burglary (including breaking and entering, trespassing)

Sexual offence (including rape, sodomy, voyeurism, flashing)

No prior charges

Environments n=8 (38.1%) n=13 (61.9%) n=4 (19.0%)

Indoorsmen 4 (19.1%) 5 (23.8%) 2 (9.5%) n=8 (38.1%) [50.0% of [62.5% of [25.0% of

indoorsmen] indoorsmen] indoorsmen] ‘Visitors’ 3 (14.3%) 3 (14.3%) 0 (victim’s residence) n=4 (19.1%) 1 (4.8%) 1 (4.8%) 1 (4.8%) ‘Mixed’ n=2 (9.5%) 0 1 (4.8%) 1 (4.8%) ‘Homers’ (offender’s residence) n=2 (9.5%)

Mixed 3 (14.3%) 4 (19.1%) 0 n=5 (23.8%) [60.0% of ‘mixed’] [80.0% of ‘mixed’]

Ourdoorsmen 1 (4.8%) 4 (19.1%) 2 (9.5%) n=8 (38.1%) [12.5% of [50.0% of [25.0% of

‘outdoorsmen’] ‘outdoorsmen’] ‘outdoorsmen’]

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for sexual offences, and 12.5 per cent (n=1) had prior charges for burglary.

Among indoorsmen, on the other hand, 62.5 per cent (n=5) had sexual offences in their background, and 50 per cent had burglary as a prior charge.

The mixed offenders (n=5), who con- ducted their criminal activity outdoors and indoors, constituted the group with the largest baggage of prior crimes: 80 per cent of them had prior charges associated with sexual offences and 60 per cent of them had burglary in their background.

Two of the serial killers with no prior charges were outdoorsmen and two were indoorsmen.

In the group of indoorsmen (n=8, 38.1 per cent) the offenders who perpetrated their crimes in the victim’s residence (‘visi- tors’) had the largest amount of prior char- ges, while the killers who committed assaults in their own home (‘homers’) had the smallest amount of charges in their past (see Table 6).

These results correlate very well with existing findings of the frequency of bur- glary as a prior charge in the background of sexual murderers but, at the same time, they suggest that the current thought of a rela- tively small amount of sexual offences per- petrated by serial killers prior to their sexual homicides, is not supported. Evidence sug- gests that serial killers have a very rich history of sexual offences (which may not be the case in single homicides of sexual motivation) and a relatively high favour- itism with regard to the environment that they choose to operate in.

Organised versus disorganised and habitual offender versus dedicated offender

The dichotomy of organised versus dis- organised offender has been applied to all 21 offenders. Their criminal behaviour has been analysed in terms of their level of

organisation on all basic stages of the perpe- tration of the crime, like planning, isolation of the victim, control of the victim, manner of killing, disposal of the body, post- mortem mutilation, cleaning of the crime scene, concealment, escape and timing.

Fifteen serial killers (71.4 per cent) were considered to be organised, two (9.5 per cent) to be disorganised and four (19.1 per cent) were characterised as ‘mixed’ (with the elements of both organised and dis- organised criminal behaviour).

Because the dichotomy of organised ver- sus disorganised is just an organisational scale, it was decided to add some historical depth by applying another dichotomy, that of habitual offender versus dedicated offen- der, where the perpetrators were analysed on a scale of their criminal versatility. For this purpose the criteria set for item 20 (criminal versatility) in Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (Hare, 1991, 1999) were applied. Serial killers who committed three or fewer types of offences — such as burglary, rob- bery, drug offences, assault, murder, posses- sion of weapons, sexual offences, criminal negligence, fraud, escape, kidnapping, arson, obstruction of justice, crimes against the state, minor offences — were con- sidered to be dedicated offenders (in terms of their dedication to specific category of crimes), while the offenders who com- mitted six and more types of offences were characterised as habitual offenders.

Out of 21 serial killers, 16 (76.2 per cent) scored as dedicated offenders with predominantly sexual offences in their background, while five (23.8 per cent) scored as habitual offenders.

The cross-reference of organisational scale with the scale of criminal versatility resulted in 13 dedicated offenders (86.7 per cent) and two habitual offenders (13.3 per cent) among 15 organised offenders, and an even split (50/50 per cent) of dedicated and habitual offenders in the groups of

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disorganised and ‘mixed’ offenders (1×1 and 2×2).

These results suggest that a ‘prototypical serial killer’ (if such a term could be put forward) is not only organised (or largely organised) in his criminal activity, but highly specialised in terms of sexual offen- ces as well.

It is interesting that despite their macho image, 13 offenders (61.9 per cent) admit- ted their crimes — which does not mean that they confessed in a strict legal sense of this term — while six (28.6 per cent) did not admit. One offender did not admit and did not deny, claiming that he could have committed the murders, but had no recol- lection of them. In the case of the last (ie the 21st) offender the issue of admittance was not reflected in the records, because his conviction was based on beyond reasonable doubt matches of both DNA and fingerprints.

Out of 20 offenders, all of the disorga- nised offenders (100 per cent) and eight (out of 14, 57.1 per cent) of the organised ones admitted their crimes, while in the group of four ‘mixed’ offenders (with orga- nised and disorganised features), three (75 per cent) admitted and one (25 per cent) did not admit/did not deny, which suggests that, on the one hand, the probability of admittance (‘admittance vulnerability’) increases with the decrease of organised features in an offender’s criminal behaviour, and, on the other hand, even very organised serial killers are prone to admittance, if approached adequately.

DISCUSSION The cases of suspected serial killers (aside from the issues of competency and terror- ism) present one of a few instances when law enforcement agencies are looking for assistance from psychologists, psychiatrists, criminologists and profilers. The reasoning for that is at least two-fold: first, this group

of crimes is most likely to have some sys- temic patterns, where actuarial knowledge of the documented crimes and behaviours could be applied; and secondly, the mount- ing pressure from the communities where these atrocities take place, to capture the perpetrator as soon as possible.

Modern-day reliance on computers and quantitative data, and very much a qual- itative approach to clinical assessments and criminal behaviour profiling, led some sci- entists (Godwin, 2000; Icove, 1986) to believe that the panacea for subjective qual- itative troubles lies within the domain of multi-dimensional scaling procedures, embedded in statistics and mathematical modelling.

This approach does not present a nov- elty per se and goes back to the works of Kelly (1955), Osgood, Suci, and Tannen- baum (1957) and Lefebvre (1992). But the problem is, that while Kelly, Osgood et al. and Lefebvre clearly realised that their work ‘contains a colossal simplification’ (Lefebvre, p. 93), current proponents of mathematical models believe that their work is objective, scientific, and presents reality as it is.

Aside from the fact that extrapolation is probably the weakest link in mathematics, and all current models are based on extrap- olation, the researchers who exclude qual- itative data analysis as not valid, are missing three very significant points:

1. quantitative data is only a numeric over- simplified representation of qualitative data, and this reflection is only as reliable and stable as the selected operational definitions;

2. any type of numeric coding could be accomplished only with existing data, or with already known facts; and

3. every research, study or experiment, no matter how well organised and struc- tured it is, presents only a fraction of

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reality, only a slice of ever-evolving con- tinuum, and should be treated only as such.

Every attempt to design mathematical mod- els of human behaviour in general, and criminal profiling in particular, is plausible, but the notion of quantitative objectivism is not only profoundly erroneous, but creates an illusion of development, when the mod- els are becoming the goals in their own right for the sake of themselves, and not the means for applied activities as they should be.

As inductive method cannot be applied without deductive, because both of them constitute one dialectic method, quantita- tive data cannot be generated without qual- itative categories, because they do not oppose each other, but rather contribute to each other, and this is how the results presented in this paper should be viewed.

The findings reported in the present paper suggest that ‘prototypical’ serial (sex- ual) killers are predominantly white males in their twenties and thirties with a troubled childhood, who hardly finished high school, and attempted to form a marital bond and join the army. These offenders have a rich history of sexual offences as well as burglaries; they are mostly highly orga- nised, have an average IQ and some form of a psychiatric diagnosis. Serial offenders have explicit preference in the choice of environ- ment of their operations and commit mostly intra-racial attacks on female strang- ers in the areas intimately known to them; they are also prone to admit their crimes if confronted adequately.

Having said that, it is important to note that the age of offenders at the time of arrest for the studied crimes varied from 19 to 59, 23.8 per cent of the perpetrators were not white, 25 per cent of them took some form of college education, 47.6 per cent did not join the military and 33.0 per cent were never married. Thirty-eight

per cent did not have sexual offences; 61.9% did not have a history of the com- mission of burglaries in their criminal records, 28.6% were not strictly organised offenders, the (available) IQs varied from 92 to 130 and 47.6 per cent of the perpetrators in the study did not have a psychiatric diagnosis. The intra-racial ‘comfort zone’ was trespassed by 14.7 per cent of white offenders and by 15.4 per cent of black offenders, 26.8 per cent of the victims were known to the offender, 12.4 per cent of the victims were male, and 28.6 per cent did not admit their crimes.

This comparison just on a dozen vari- ables illustrates that as much as it is useful and important to try to capture certain patterns and typical characteristics of the offenders, it is even more important to keep in mind the wider picture of reality, where the serial killers are much more elusive, fluid and multi-dimensional than their reflection in the mirror of research.

As long as law enforcement personnel, psychologists, psychiatrists and profilers realise the limitations in their knowledge and employed methodology, they will be in a very good shape, because this dissatisfac- tion will drive their knowledge forward. But as soon as they accept the partial reflec- tion as the reality itself, then they will find themselves at a disadvantage.

CONCLUSION The presented findings demonstrate that the vital majority of serial killers do not have a mental disease or defect that significantly impairs their capacity to know or to appre- ciate the wrongfulness of their conduct. They know what they are doing and are aware of the consequences of their behaviour.

At the same time it is also clear that serial murderers have an inherent rigidity in their functioning, a rich world of sexual fantasy, and do not hesitate to apply their perfectly

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controlled world of fantasy into the reality that surrounds them, where victims of opportunity become just the material for sexual gratification within a context of opportunistic plans, conceived in their ideal world of sexual fantasy.

So far, it is not clear how this transforma- tion takes place. There are some ominous signs of potentially violent sexual behav- iour, like childhood abuse, pathological lying, sadistic fantasy, animal cruelty, need to control, fire setting, voyeurism, assault on females (Schlesinger, 2001), but these signs are more the observable consequences of underlying processes than the mechanisms that could be referred to in terms of causality.

It is possible to hypothesise that these ominous signs are embedded in a break- down of adaptation processes, where in terms of Piaget (1952/1963, 1972), assim- ilation (applying of existing behaviour without modification) takes over the accommodation (modification of existing behaviour), which results in a rigid mental- ity and behaviour. But the questions about the origins of this breakdown (if it does take place) still remain unanswered. It could be due to ostracisation from the existing functional structures (associated with parental abuse, collapse of family or exclusion at school), when the growing adolescent is removed from the existing normative activities, and has no other option but to create his own norms at the time when pubertal development brings sexual urges to the forefront of his thoughts. It could also stem from a variety of other reasons interlinked with short- comings in upbringing, perception of the world by the child, diathesis of cognitive and environmental factors, vicarious imita- tion, catathymic crisis etc.

Apprehension and punishment of serial killers are both extremely important, but so is the prevention of their crimes. What should be done when the ominous signs of

potentially violent behaviour take place? Should this behaviour be modified, and if so by whom and how? Or should the practices and policies that brought about this behaviour be profoundly changed?

Without research directed towards the origins of violent criminal behaviour, law enforcement personnel, psychologists and profilers will remain undoubtedly quite busy, but will constantly remain behind the potential criminals. At the present time, unfortunately, the preventive studies direc- ted towards potential offenders, as well as towards potential victims are almost negli- gible and should be encouraged, especially when the annual number of forcible rapes in the country exceeds 90,000 and the number of murders nears 16,000 (US Department of Justice, 2002).

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