Chapter 12 Chapter 9 Put yourself in your shoes

By the early 1980s, my annual number of cases had reached 150, and the number of days I went out to teach tours remained unchanged.I started to feel like Lucille Ball, the main character in the well-known burlesque, I Love Lucy.She is a worker in a candy factory, and she tries hard to pick up the fruits on the conveyor belt as soon as possible. As a result, more and more candies are sent, and she works more and more hurriedly, for fear that she will not be able to keep up with the conveying speed of the conveyor belt.In fact, it's impossible to expect a moment's respite by rushing ahead.

As our work and its results became known, telegrams pleading for assistance snowed in from all over the country and many countries.Like a triager in an emergency room, I had to prioritize cases.Rape-murder cases became the focus of my attention because of the obvious danger of further endangering lives. For those old cases or those where the perpetrators don't seem to be active anymore, I ask the police why they want us involved.Sometimes that's because the victim's family has put pressure on the police.That's certainly understandable, I've always felt sympathy for them, but I just can't devote my precious energy to analyzing a case that the local police would just put on the back burner and do nothing about it.

It's interesting to note where they're being sent from, for cases where the killer is working.In the early days of a profiling project, cases from the largest police departments—such as the NYPD or the LAPD—always made me wonder: Why on earth did they find us in Quantico?Sometimes it was because they had run into friction with the FBI over jurisdictional issues, such as who would take the surveillance tapes, conduct the interrogations, prosecute the serial bank robberies.Otherwise, it is also possible that the case involves difficult political issues, and the local police want to find someone else to use as a shield.In the question of how to respond to the signal for assistance, I will take into account the above factors, because I know that these factors will have a bearing on whether a particular case will be investigated or not.

Initially, we provided written analysis reports.However, with the number of cases rising exponentially, I no longer have the time to do so.I'll take notes as I research the case.Then during my oral analysis with local investigators—either in person or on the phone—I would go over the notes and recall the case.Usually, the police handling the case will record my analysis into detailed notes.If I was in the same room with a policeman occasionally and he just listened and didn't take any notes, I quickly lost my patience and told him it was his case and not mine. To get my help, he'd better get into work and work as hard as I do.

Because of the high volume of visits, like a doctor, I know how long each "office talk" should be.I'll know if I can help when the case is reviewed, so I'll start by focusing on crime scene analysis and victim studies.Why was this victim chosen out of so many potential victims?How was she murdered?From these two questions, you can start to answer the ultimate question: Who is the murderer? Like Holmes, I soon learned that the more commonplace and routine the crime, the less evidence of conduct could be drawn upon.I can't help much with street robberies.They are so common and their behavior so mundane that the number of suspects is enormous.By the same token, one stab wound is much less informative than multiple stab wounds in terms of speculating on the circumstances of the case.An outdoor case is more challenging than an indoor case.A single high-risk victim, such as a prostitute, does not give us as much information as a series of high-risk victims.

The first thing I would look at was the coroner's report, to know the nature and type of wounds, cause of death, whether there was sexual assault, and if so, what type.There are thousands of police precincts across the country, and coroner reports vary wildly.Some are true forensic pathologists, and their work is top-notch.For example, during Dr. James Luke's tenure as coroner for the city of Washington, we could always count on a complete, thorough, and accurate autopsy report.Since his retirement from that position, he has been a highly respected consultant in our department.On the other hand, I have encountered many times, the coroner in small southern towns is also served by the local funeral director.His concept for an autopsy was to show up, kick the corpse, and say, "Yeah, this guy must be dead."

After reading the autopsy findings, I'll study the preliminary police report.When the first officer arrived, what did he see?From that moment on, the scene could have changed, either by him or by someone on the investigative team.I think it is very important that the scene of the crime remains as possible as it was when the murderer left.If that's not the case anymore, I'd like to know why.For example, if the victim's face was covered with a pillow, who put it?Was the pillow there when the officer first arrived?Did a relative who found the body put it on it for the dignity of the deceased?Or is there another explanation?Finally, I look at crime scene photos to corroborate the images I've created in my head.

The quality of the photos wasn't always great, especially in the days when most police departments were shooting in black and white.Therefore, I will also ask for a sketch of the crime scene, showing directions and footprints.If the detectives have anything in particular they need me to look at, I ask them to write it on the back of the photo so that I won't be swayed by other people's observations the first time I look at the photo.For the same reason, I also don't want to know if a particular suspect tops their list.I will ask them to send it to me in an envelope to ensure that my analysis can be objective.

It is also important to try to find out if any items were removed from the victim or from the scene.Generally, cash, valuables or expensive jewelry are easily detected, any of which will help to understand the motive of the perpetrator.Other items are not always so easy to trace. When a police officer or detective tells me nothing has been taken, I ask, "How do you know? Are you going to tell me if I take a bra or a pair of panties from your wife or girlfriend's drawer?" Can you spot it too? If so, you're a sick lad." Losing something as small as a barrette or lock of hair can be hard to spot.The judgment that nothing appears to be missing has never been a definitive finding in my mind.When we finally capture the perpetrator and search his home, we often find unexpected memorabilia.

I learned very early on that there are plenty of people, inside and outside the Bureau, who don't understand what we do. In 1981, Bob Ressler and I gave a two-week course in New York on murderers.During this period, I had a deep understanding of this point.About a hundred detectives, primarily from the NYPD but also from jurisdictions in the New York metropolitan area, participated in the training. One morning, before my profiling class, I stood at the front of the room setting up the three-quarter-inch Sony VCR we used back then.The obviously overworked and exhausted detective, with bloodshot eyes, swayed to my side and asked, "Is this for profiling?"

"Yeah, that's right," I replied, turning to the boxy VCR. "It's actually a profiling machine." He looked at me suspiciously, like a seasoned detective examining a suspect, but he watched me work patiently. "Give me your hand," I said, "and I'll show you how it works." He tentatively held out his hand to me.This video cassette recorder has a fairly large tape slot.I pressed his hand into the notch and turned the adjusters a few times.Meanwhile, Ressler was elsewhere in the classroom, working on his textbook.He heard our conversation, and was about to come over to rescue him, thinking that I was going to be beaten now. But the guy just said, "So what about my profile?" I said, "Why don't you wait until the class? You'll understand how it works." When I explained the profiling process in class and put the video recorder to its real use (showing a video of the case), the guy must have figured out what was going on.Fortunately, he didn't settle accounts with me after class.This is a joke, but I always wish it was that easy to come up with a usable profiling report.Not only can you stick your hand (or any other part of your body) into a machine and pull out a profiling report, but for years computer experts have been working closely with law enforcement officials to create programs that replicate the reasoning program.So far, they haven't made much progress. In reality, profiling and crime scene reports are much more than simply entering some data and cranking a computer.To be a good profiler, you must be able to sort through all kinds of evidence and data.You also have to put yourself in the shoes of the perpetrator and the victim. You have to mentally recreate the crime scene.It is important to know the victim as well as possible to envision how she might react.You have to put yourself in a situation where the attacker is intimidating with guns, knives, rocks, and fists.You have to be able to feel her fear as the attacker moves in.You had to be able to feel her pain when she was raped, beaten and stabbed.You have to understand what it's like to scream out of fear and pain, and at the same time realize that it's not going to help, not let him stop.You have to know what that is about.This is especially the case when you have to bear a heavy burden, and when the victim is a child or an elderly person. When the director and cast of the film came to Quantico to prepare for the filming, I brought Scott Glenn, who played the special agent Jack Crawford, who some say was based on me, on into my office.Glenn is a very enlightened guy, who believes that people can be transformed and redeemed, and that people are kind by nature.I showed him some of the gruesome crime scene photos we all face every day.I made him listen to live recordings made by the murderer himself as he tortured his victims.I played him a tape of one of two teenage L.A. girls being raped to death in the back seat of a van by two thrill-seeking perpetrators who had just been released from prison. Glenn wept as he listened to the recording."I didn't think anyone would do something like this," he told me. Glenn, a bright and compassionate father of two daughters, said he had seen the photos and heard the recordings in my office. From now on, the death penalty is no longer opposed. "What I saw at Quantico changed my view of the death penalty forever." But just as difficult, I also had to put myself in the shoes of the attacker, think in his way of thinking, plan with him, understand and experience his satisfaction, because at this moment in his life, he has been The repressed fantasy was finally fulfilled, he could finally control the situation, he could completely manipulate and dominate another person.I also had to put myself in the shoes of the perpetrator to experience all of this. The murderers who ravaged and murdered the two teenage girls in the van were named Lawrence Bitaker and Roy Norris.They even had a nickname for the van: Murder Mike.The two met while serving time at the California Men's Prison in San Luis Obispo.Bitak was serving time for assault with a deadly weapon.Norris is the rapist.They found each other's interest in dominating and hurting young women, and they hit it off.After they were released on parole together in 1979, the two met in a motel in Los Angeles and formulated a plan of action. They decided to select a girl at each age between the ages of 13 and 19 to kidnap, rape, abuse and kill.They successfully executed a plan of action against five girls, one of whom managed to escape after being raped and reported the case to the police. Norris, the less dominant of the two, eventually succumbed to intense police interrogation, confessed, and spared the death penalty in exchange for agreeing to identify the more sadistic and aggressive Bee Tucker .He led the police to various burial sites.One of the corpses had been reduced to a pile of white bones under the scorching California sun, and an ice pick stuck out of its ear hole. The heartbreaking tragedies of these otherwise promising young girls being ravaged and murdered were brought about for what Norris kept saying was "fun."In addition, what is interesting about this case is that the two perpetrators participated in the same crime, but showed different behavioral characteristics.What we usually see is that one person is more dominant and one partner is more submissive; often one person is organized and the other is not.Serial murderers are, first of all, people with a sense of inadequacy, and those whose crimes require the participation of accomplices are the people with the most inadequacy. Their crimes are appalling (Lawrence Bitaker is the most repulsive person I've ever dealt with), and it's unfortunate that two like-minded people come together. Like Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, James Russell Odom and James Clayton Lawson Jr. met in prison.It was the mid-1970s, and both men were incarcerated at Atascadero State Psychiatric Hospital in California for rape.Looking back at their criminal records today, I would see Russell Odom as a psychopath and Clayton Lawson as a schizophrenic.During Atascadero's sentence, Clayton provocatively described to Russell his intended course of action upon release.He claims to have been inspired by Charles Manson and his followers.Lawson made it clear that sexual intercourse was not part of the program.He doesn't see it as "something he's going to do." Odom, on the other hand, sees sex as one big thing he's going to do.Once out of prison, he drove off-road in his 1974 sky-blue Volkswagen Beetle to Columbia, South Carolina.Lawson lived here with his parents after parole and worked as a plumber. (As I mentioned earlier, the VW Beetle seemed to be the car of choice for serial killers, as well as for FBI agents with no savings.) Odom sees their interests as both similar and different. Can form a good pair of partners. A few days after Odom arrived, the two were out looking for a target in Lawson's father's Ford Comet.They stopped in front of a convenience store on Highway 1 and spotted a young woman at the counter.Because there were too many people nearby, they had no choice but to leave and watch a third-grade movie. I think it's important to stress here: when they realized they might be resisted or witnessed and would not be able to successfully carry out the kidnapping, they left without committing a crime.Both men were mentally ill, and Lawson, in his case, could have been considered an insanity leading to a crime.However.When circumstances are not conducive to their successful commission of crimes.They refrained from doing it.They're not in that state where they can't control their behavior.So I want to reiterate: In my opinion and experience, simply having a mental disorder does not exonerate a murderer.Unless he is completely at the mercy of the delusion, unable to comprehend its actions in the real world, he is making a choice about whether or not to harm others.The truly insane are not hard to catch.Not so with Serial Killer. The night after their first hunt, Odom and Lawson drove to a drive-in movie theater.It was past midnight when the movie ended, and they drove back to the convenience store.They went into the store and bought a few small things, like a bottle of chocolate milk, a bag of peanuts, a bottle of pickles.This time, they were the only customers in the store, so Odom hijacked the female clerk with a .22 caliber pistol.Lawson also had a .32 caliber pistol in his pocket.A customer then called the police after finding the store unattended.When police arrived, they found the cash register hadn't been tampered with, the clerk's wallet was still behind the counter, and nothing of value had been taken. The two drove to a secluded place.Odom ordered her to strip naked and then raped her in the backseat of the car.Lawson stood by the driver's side door, urging Odom to move faster before it was his turn.Five minutes later, Odom was done, buckled his belt, got out of the car and let Lawson take over. Odom got out of the car, according to him, to vomit.Lawson later argued that Odom told him, "We've got to get rid of her," though Lawson had assurances from the woman that she wouldn't turn in them if she was spared.Anyway, five minutes later, Odom heard the woman in the car screaming, "Oh, my throat!" By the time he got back to the car, Lawson had slit her throat and was dismembering her naked. The knife he used was bought from the convenience store the night before. The next day, two people sat in Odom's Volkswagen and disposed of the victim's clothes that had been bundled into two bundles.The grisly mutilated body was found in a prominent location and the killer was arrested days later.Russell Odom quickly confessed to the rape, but denied involvement in the murder. Clayton Lawson made it clear in his statement to police that he did not have sexual intercourse with the victim. "I didn't rape that woman. I just wanted to destroy her." They were judged separately.Odom was sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years in prison for rape, unlawful possession of a weapon and serving as an accomplice before or after the murder.Lawson was convicted of first-degree murder and executed by electrocution on May 18, 1971. As in the case of Bitaker and Norris, the case exhibited a mixed character of conduct due to the participation of two persons of different personalities, as reflected in the behavioral evidence.Dismemberment is a dehumanizing act, and the discovery of semen inside a victim is a strong indication of the murderer's methodical personality.We used the Odom and Lawson case as a textbook at Quantico.This case came to my mind automatically when I got a call from Chief John Reed of the Logan Township, Pennsylvania Police Department.I was just starting out in profiling at the time.Reed is a graduate of the National Academy.Through Special Agent Dale Frye of the Bureau of Investigation's Johnstown Permanent Office, he and Blair County District Attorney Oliver Matas Jr. requested our assistance in the detection of a woman named Betty Jane Shea. A case in which a young woman in Germany was raped, murdered and dismembered. The facts they provided me are as follows: Almost a year earlier, on May 29, 1977, the 22-year-old woman was walking home at 10:15 p.m. from get off work as a babysitter.Four days later, a man claiming to be on a field walk stumbled over her badly mutilated but well-protected body at an illegal rubbish dump atop Woopsonnock Mountain, near Altoona venue.Her blonde hair had been cut off and hung from a nearby tree.The county coroner, Charles Burkey, told local newspapers it was the "most horrific" death he had ever seen.He found that Betty Jane Scheider had been sexually raped, her jaw was broken, her eye sockets were bruised, and her body was covered with stab wounds.The cause of death was a fatal blow to the head.The dismembered body had numerous stab wounds and both breasts had been cut off. The food in her stomach was partially digested, suggesting she was killed shortly after she disappeared, but her body is too well preserved to have been at the dump site for four days.The usual phenomenon of larval infestation and parasitism or being bitten by animals was not found.And the police have been investigating complaints about illegal dumping of rubbish in the mountains, so they would have found the body themselves if the dump had happened a few days earlier. I carefully reviewed the case file sent by Reed, provided a profile, and narrated it in a long telephone conversation.In this session, I tried my best to teach the police how profiling works and what we are looking for.I think what they should be looking for is a white man between the ages of 17 and 25, although I point out that if he lives in a very remote area, he may be older as his social development may be slower .With a lean, wiry build and withdrawn personality, he was an unlikely middle-school prodigy, possibly obsessed with pornography.His childhood background would have been typical: a dysfunctional divorced home with an absent father and a dominant, overprotective mother.She may have instilled in him the idea that all women are bad women except her.The perpetrator would therefore be afraid of women and would not be able to have a normal relationship with her, which is why he had to render her unconscious or powerless so quickly. He knows her very well.This is evident from the severe facial trauma.He built up a great deal of rage, trying to depersonalize her by mutilating her face, breasts, and genitals.Cutting off hair has a different meaning in my opinion.Although this could also be considered an attempt to depersonalize, I know from my research on the victim that Scheider was a neat and meticulous man who took great pride in his well-groomed head of hair.So, cutting off your hair is an insult, a derogatory act.And this also implies that the perpetrator is very familiar with her.Unlike the Bitaker and Norris cases, however, no signs of antecedent sexual abuse or ravages were found.A man of his kind would not derive sexual satisfaction from inflicting torture. I told the police not to bother looking for "an extrovert like a used-car salesman down the street."If the guy has a job, it's something less respectable, like a janitor or some other blue-collar job.People who dump bodies into that sort of dump must be doing something less respectable, perhaps working with mud or grime.The time of the abduction at night, the amputation of the breasts, the apparent movement of the body, and the eventual return to the dump site all told me that he was primarily nocturnal.I expected him to go to the cemetery, maybe attend the funeral, and delusional, convincing himself that he had a "normal" relationship with Betty Jane.For this reason, I think it would be of little use to use a polygraph on a suspect, even if the police had captured him.The murderer's residence was most likely somewhere between her home and the place where she left off from babysitting after get off work. While lacking any hard evidence needed to make an arrest, the police told me they had two people they believed to be prime suspects.One is her cohabiting boyfriend and self-proclaimed fiancé Charles Salter Jr., known as "Big Boss".He must be the key consideration.But the police were clearly leaning toward someone else: the man who found the body and gave an inconsistent account.He was a mechanic on the railway, and he left his job due to disability.He claimed he was on a field walk when he found the body in a prominent dump.An elderly man who was out walking his dog said he had seen the man urinate at the scene several times.He was not dressed for a walk, and besides, it was raining and he was dry from head to toe.He lived only four blocks from Betty Jane Schneider's house, and tried unsuccessfully to get her a ride several times.He was nervous when dealing with police and said he was afraid to go to the police because he didn't want to be involved in the case.This is a common excuse used by perpetrators to proactively stand up and devote themselves to investigation work in an attempt to draw suspicion away from themselves.He liked beer, smoked cigarettes a lot, and must have been strong enough to kill and dispose of the body on his own.He had a history of antisocial behavior.He and his wife claimed that they watched television at home on the night of the murder, which did not provide them with a strong alibi.I told the police that people like this are going to hire a lawyer and not cooperate afterwards.According to the police report, that was exactly what happened later.He hired a lawyer and refused to take a polygraph test. All this makes it possible to solve the case.But what confuses me the most is that he is married, lives with his wife, and has two children.This should not be his style.If the murder was committed by a married man, he sexually abused the woman in a big way.He would prolong the killing process and inflict more insults on her before she died, but he would not dismember her body after death.Plus, he's over thirty, which makes me feel older. I think Salter seems more likely.He fits nearly every point of the profile.His parents divorced when he was very young.The mother is a dominant woman who interferes too much in the life of her son. At 26, he appears clumsy and incompetent when it comes to interacting with women.He told police he had only had sexual intercourse twice in his life.Both times it happened to the same older woman, and she laughed at her for not being able to get an erection.He said he and Betty Jane were deeply in love and engaged, although he said she dated and had sexual relationships with other men.I am sure that if she had been alive, a very different version would have been told.He said that at the funeral he really wanted to dig out the coffin and climb in to sleep with her.He cried over the loss of Betty Jane when interviewed by the police. Police reported that "Big Rough" Salter and his brother Mike were garbage haulers. "Gosh, that doesn't sound too bad," I replied. They had free access to the dump, had a reason to be familiar with the place or went there, and had means of transporting the dead. Although I'm inclined to see "Big Boss" as a suspect, two things confuse me.First of all, as I expected, he was more or less an idiot, not much taller than Shade.I don't think he had the strength to carry the body, or to put it in the frog-like position, with legs apart and knees bent, which is the position the body was in when it was found.Secondly, semen was found in the victim's body, which shows that this is a rape in the traditional sense.I wouldn't be surprised if semen was found on the body, panties or other clothing of the deceased, but this is an odd situation.This guy should be a masturbator like David Berkowitz, not a rapist.He has to obtain sexual gratification in indirect forms.Facts do not vote with my profile. This is a mixture of methodical and disorganized manifestations, similar in many ways to the murder of Francine Elfson in New York. organ.Elfson's nipples were cut off, while Shade's entire breast was cut off. But in the New York case, the muscular Carmine Calabro lifted the diminutive victim up several floors and dumped it there.Ejaculation is all caused by masturbation. With the teaching of the Odom and Lawson cases in mind, I think only one possibility is logical.I believe it went something like this: after Betty Jane got off her babysitting, "Big Rough" Salter met her in the street, they got into an argument, and he beat her up, probably to the point of losing her life. regain consciousness, and then remove her to a secluded location.I also believe he may have dealt her the fatal blow, cut off her hair, disassembled the body, and kept the breast as a souvenir.But between her initial attack and her murder, she was brutally raped, and I don't think a disorganized, sexually dysfunctional, mother-dominated young man like Pixelt was up to it.And I don't think he carried the body himself. "Big Rough" brother Mike is the logical second suspect.He comes from the same family background and has the same job.He had spent time in a psychiatric hospital, had a violent criminal record, behavioral problems and lack of anger control.The main difference is that he is married, although their authoritarian mother also dominates him.The night Betty Jane Scheider was kidnapped, Mike's wife was in labor in the hospital.Her pregnancy was a great source of stress for him, and it robbed him of the opportunity for sexual expression. After the attack, the "Big Rough" called his brother in a panic, and while Mike raped the young woman, the "Big Rough" stood by and watched and disposed of the body after killing her. I told the police that an indirect, quiet approach would work best.It's a pity that they had already met "Big Boss" several times and had him tested with a polygraph.I knew it would be like this: the test results showed that he was not cheating, but had an inappropriate emotional response.I think the most effective course of action right now is to focus on Mike, repeating that he just had sex with Shade and helped dispose of the body.If he still refuses to cooperate at this point, he will be in as much trouble as his brother. This trick really worked.The brothers and their sister, Cassie Weisinger, were arrested at the same time.Cassie claims to be Betty Jane's best friend.According to Mike's confession, Cassie was also involved in disposing of the body. So what happened?I believe that "Big Boss" has been trying to have sex with the sexually attractive, sexually experienced woman and has been unsuccessful.His resentment was smoldering in his chest, and it flared up easily later.After he had attacked Shade, he was terrified and called his brother.However, Mike was able to have sex with her and he couldn't, which made the anger in his chest even more intense.He was so angry that he dismembered the body four days later, and he "made the final close." One of the victim's breasts was recovered.I wasn't surprised when Mike told the police that Big Rough had another one.Wherever he hid it, it was never found.Charles "Big Rough" Salter was convicted of first-degree murder; Mike was committed to a psychiatric institution on appeal.Director Reed publicly stated that we played a direct role in the promotion of the investigation and the fact that they were able to obtain a confession from the murderer.We are also fortunate to have a local partner like him.He had been trained by us in crime solving techniques and understood the procedures required for cooperation between the police and Quantico. It is with this cooperation that we can bring killers and their accomplices to justice before they have a chance to strike again.Chief Reed and his officers and men continue to maintain law and order in Logan Township, Pennsylvania.I went back and tackled the more than 150 cases that were still being solved, hoping that putting myself in the shoes of the perpetrator and the victim would help me solve at least one of them.