globalization of serial and investigative tools brenda ross

Globalization of Serial Murder 1

Globalization of Serial and Investigative Tools

Globalization of Serial Murder:

Investigative Tools and the Globalization of Data

Brenda Ross

Kaplan University

CJ266 Deviance and Violence

Professor Calvin Shaw

April 10, 2023


Serial murder is not just a problem in the United States; it is in fact a global problem.

In the United States, the local jurisdictions have the help of the Federal Bureau of

Investigation and their Behavioral Analysis Unit to provide profiles and expertise in

solving these types of crimes. They also held a Symposium on Serial Murder to help

law enforcement learn new techniques involving a Multi Disciplinary Approach. This

Symposium involved mental health experts, investigators in the law enforcement field,

scholars, and representatives of the media who have as separate groups, been

studying this phenomenon for years (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2005).

The 187 member countries of Interpol, held a Symposium on Homicide and Serial

Rape in 2008, and have come to the conclusion that there should be more international

cooperation and sharing of information on these types of crimes (Investigation, 2008).

While a lot of serial killers tend to stay in their comfort zones, there are predators who

roam from state to state, or even country to country because of their job or hobbies

routinely, These criminals are harder to catch because of the multiple jurisdictions,

customs, and state or country government differences.

A good example of other countries investigative tools is Andrei Chikatilo from

Russia, and Pedro Lopez to discuss foreign investigations while comparing what their

law enforcement did in relation to what the FBI describes as “successful” techniques to

investigate this type of violent crime. While the phenomenon of serial murder is more

publicized in the United States, with countless books, television shows, and movies, this

violent crime happens all over the world. The investigative techniques, and the way that

the crime is perceived varies from country to country. Depending on local customs,


cultures, and whatever advances in technology are present or lacking in that particular

society. These same differences in cultural society also influence the techniques that

the killer uses along with their motivations to kill (Gibson, 2006) the wide public interest

in serial murder began in White chapel London in the late 1880’s with Jack the Ripper’s

crimes which were never solved, and continues today.

Unfortunately, most of the public’s knowledge of these crimes is based on

productions made in Hollywood, where they usually enhance the facts of the crimes to

sell more tickets instead of portraying the actualities of the crimes. Public pressure to

solve these crimes appears in the form of elected officials leaning on the investigators.

Pressure from the media arrives in the form of sensationalized coverage of the crimes,

along with conjecture produced and aired by so called experts which are discussed later

in this essay. Law enforcement personnel are subject to misinformation from

professionals employed as pathologists, investigators, and prosecutors by taking

experience from a single case, and trying to advise law enforcement with results and

circumstances from their experience (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2008).

The present problem is the “talking issue”. These people publicly state their

opinions as fact, and are given credibility by the media. They portray themselves as

experts, appear often on television and in the news, and hypothesize the reasons a

particular offender commits these heinous crimes or on the character or physical traits

of the offender. The sad truth, however, is that none of these people have access to the

confidential facts surrounding the case. The badly chosen commentaries just promote

more misunderstanding about the subject, and can actually damage law enforcement

attempts at solving the case at hand (Gibson, 2006)I have always wondered about the


many show on television about law enforcement. Some of the information just doesn’t

seem real

Professionals attending the Serial Murder Symposium all agreed that there is no

generic blueprint of a serial murderer; however, they did notice several traits that they

all seem to possess. These are: a need for sensation, a pronounced deficiency in

remorse or feelings of guilt, controlling nature, and impulsive or predatory behavior.

Because these traits are dependable indicators of psychopathic personality disorder, it

was noted of the importance of law enforcement and any other persons involved in the

criminal justice system to have an understanding of psychopathic personlities and the

relative nature that this contributes to investigating serial murder. (Investigation, 2008) I

agree with the way the Serial Murder Symposium and how it explains the average

(Lohr, 2008)

The Symposium participants recognized several successful analytical procedures

to investigate a serial murder case. These are as follows:

Identification- The identification of a series of murders is the first and

foremost step, and can prove to be the most challenging step due to the

multiple jurisdictions and transient nature of the offender and the crimes.

Leadership- The challenges of investigation crimes such as these is

greater than that of most homicides because of added pressure from

elected officials, the public, victims’ families, and the media. Because of

this, members of the Symposium concluded that the most important

aspect of the investigation remains to be the analytical role because that is


what will catch the offender, and all other functions of the investigation are

secondary. A firm grasp must be maintained on the chain of command in

order to have a successful investigation, as the added pressures become

a factor of the job.

Task Force Organization- Lead agency must be established to take on

the main role in the investigation, all other law enforcement organizations

must have agents on the force, following this, a head and co-head

investigator is assigned to the case, from here, other officers and liaison

personnel are assigned tasks to perform for the head investigator. There

must be a clear line of communication between administrators and

investigators and maintain a definite rapport while keeping up with their

own tasks assigned on the case.

Resource Augmentation- While it is sometimes better to have fewer

people involved in an investigation, other personnel may be required to

complete tasks for the investigation either permanently or temporarily,

however the former is recommended over the latter to provide stability to

the investigation. The role of the head investigator is to run the

investigation while the role of the administration is to provide the

investigative team the tools and support they need to complete the task.

Communications- Daily briefings, face to face case briefings, and

submitting ViCAP reports are effective communication measures.

Data Management- Reports should be compiled as soon as the

investigation provides information to ensure that all agencies and parties


involved have real time information, ideally the reports would be generated

by a computer. The FBI Rapid Start program is an effective tool in data

management.

Analytic Tools- Crime analysts assigned to the head investigators to

provide information sorting, charting, and analyzing functions.

Autopsy- An autopsy provided by the coroner or medical examiner is

essential for these types of crimes.

Symposium participants focus analytical procedures to investigate a serial

murder cases. They came up with this list solve every other crime of serial

murder. I just don’t believe that every case should be solving exactly the same.

Investigations of serial murder in the United States tend to have a clear plan and

investigative tools are used which have been ascertained by a group of people

who have dealt with offenders of this type. (Investigation, 2008)

Interpol also had a 2008 conference on Homicide and Serial Sexual Crimes,

that involved 36 countries altogether. The main focus of this conference was to

discuss the fact that serial murder and rape are global problems, needing a

global solution and cooperation exceeding national boundaries. The conference

also addressed the need for global databases for countries to collect DNA and

fingerprints and be able to run them globally instead of nationally. This

conference begins to address the issue of serial murderers having comfort zones

across multiple jurisdictions, countries, and cultures, laying the groundwork for

future globalization if data, through the utilization of Interpol (Noble, 2008).


Take the case of Pedro Lopez nicknamed “The Monster of the Andes”, who

was said to have killed over 300 girls in Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru beginning

in 1978 upon his release from prison. Pedro was born in Columbia, to a harsh

upbringing with a domineering prostitute mother whom he later blamed for all of

his problems. (Gibson, 2006)

In fact when Pedro was only eight years old he was caught having sex

with his sister and his mother kicked him out telling him to find his own way in life.

He ended up on the streets of Bogota after a year of sleeping in alleyways,

terrified of strangers because an older man tricked him into believing that he was

offering him help, and instead sodomized him for days before turning him back

out on the street. When he was in his late twenties he ended up in jail in Bogota.

When he was released in 1978 he went to Peru, where he began stalking and

murdering girls from the various Indian Tribes located there. When the Indians

turned him over to the authorities, they deported him back to Ecuador because

they reasoned that they didn’t have time to waste investigating Indian deaths The

death of the Indians is consider less dead in my opinion. Simply because of

whom they were no one care to investigate their deaths so it went further.

During the time that Lopez was travelling Ecuador, he would make frequent

stops in Columbia as well. Authorities were noticing the rise in cases of missing

girls in the area, but all dismissed the fact to a rise in human sex slave trafficking.

It was not until a major flood in 1980 in Ambato Ecuador, when four bodies were

unearthed by flood waters that authorities thought any differently. A few days


after the flood, Lopez tried to abduct a 12 year old girl. Local merchants chased

him down and held him until police could come get him. (Lohr, 2008)

When confronted with some evidence and an interview with an informant that

had gained his trust earlier, Pedro confessed to 100 murders in Columbia, 110 in

Ecuador, and over 100 in Peru. If the tools proposed by the FBI and Interpol

were in place when these murders were committed, these countries would have

had access to profiles, information, fingerprints and DNA profiles. Armed with this

information, the police in Peru might not have simply deported him, because

before they spent costly hours investigating, they could have looked at (Lohr,

2008)information gathered on this suspect, and made the decision that getting

him off of the streets would have been well worth their time. I think violence this

act of violence could have been prevented if the less dead weren’t ignored. Then

again I understand that other countries handle cases very different. (Lohr, 2008)

Another case worth looking at is the case of Andrei Chikatilo in Russia.

The globalization of information could have helped in another way to prevent the

loss of life in this gruesome manner. The first body was only bones mostly. It

was discovered by someone just walking in the woods. Although he was

convicted there was more bodies discovered after he committed suicide. They

had a lot of physical evidence to convict Andrei Chikatilo. (Ramsland)

After the killing spree of Chikatilo, Russian authorities have the ability to

study the phenomenon of serial murder in depth, and the permission to confer

with specialists from other countries including our own Federal Bureau of

Investigation. If the measures discussed in the Symposium in the United States,


and the conference held by Interpol would have been in place at the time of the

first semen discovery, information about the rare person who would secrete one

blood type, and actually register another may have been shared knowledge, and

Chikatilo would have been caught much earlier in his murderous spree. The

other noteworthy aspect of this case is that had the public been made aware that

there was a killer in their midst, people would have been more watchful and

would have noted more of the strange behaviors associated with this killer. It is

crazy to believe that it takes a gruesome murder to make law enforcement better.

(Ramsland)

In conclusion, law enforcement in our country and in other countries is

beginning to understand the value of sharing information for study, or cross

reference in an active investigation. Pressures from the media, elected officials,

and the public caused by the heinous nature of these crimes, enables them to

be viewed as high profile cases and makes them harder to investigate, and to

keep public fears at bay, due to the multitude of erroneous information coming

from both the media and the public’s perception of these offenders. Modern

police work is challenging. Criminals have access to advanced technology and

methodologies to make them better able to plan and commit crimes. To match

the pace of criminal activity, law enforcement's investigative work has become

more sophisticated and more agencies are employing analysts to help solve the

puzzles of these complex investigations. That just makes law enforcement job

that much harder. The investigative analytic approach encourages an


investigator to work methodically and thoughtfully toward successful

investigations and prosecutions (Ramsland).


Works Cited

Gibson, D. C. (2006). Serial Murder and media circuses. Westport : Greenwood Publishing.

Investigation, F. B. (2008). Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators. Retrieved

January 10, 2010, from Federal Bureau of Investigation:

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/serial_murder.pdf

Lohr, D. (2008). Pedro Lopez: The Monster of the Andes. . Retrieved January 10, 2010, from TruTV:

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/pedro_lopez/4.html

Ramsland, K. (n.d.). The Devil's Trail. Retrieved 12 10, 2010, from TruTv:

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/chikatilo/coat_1.html

globalization of serial and investigative tools brenda ross

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