Geographic Profiling

[erobitha]

My sense is that it might run deeper than that. Colin Ireland's desire to commit his murders 'elsewhere' could have a psychological component unrelated to mere habit or modus operandi.

Some depraved murderers seemingly have no problem with burying their victims under the kitchen floorboards. They have given up any pretense of normality or self-respect. They are 'all in.'

By contrast, maybe in Ireland's mind the 'distance' he placed between his 'normal' life and his crimes was a type of compartmentalization. He fooled himself into believing that if he killed people in a faraway place it wasn't really 'him' doing it. He allows himself to be 'Hyde' on these rare occasions, but insists on not polluting his own 'Jekyll' environs.

There's a whole advertising campaign based on this idea. 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.' As long as you commit your evil deeds is Sin City, you can still return home with your pretense of respectability intact.

Me agreeing with you is becoming a habit. I think I have entered the twilight zone.

Every Serial killer has his/her own nuances. Not all lust killers will live with body parts of their victims. Not all murderers with Necromutilomania tendencies will "enjoy" the dead there and then. I believe Jack took the various body parts as a "takeaway" for his gratification needs. Alone with these organs he could do whatever he pleased. Therefore, he needed a place of privacy and safety to do so. He is getting a multi-sensory experience. The Jekyl and Hyde analogy is a good one. Back to work on Monday as if nothing ever happened. Distance from his "main life" would give him that space to compartmentalise.

After all, engaging with prosititution by its very nature offers that ability to compartmentalise.

[rjpalmer]

Many years ago I was on vacation with my brother in another part of the country. He was given the keys to the family car and was driving like a complete lunatic--swerving all over, passing on blind corners, driving 30 miles an hour over the speed limit, etc.

I protested, and he said "Relax! statistically, automobile accidents happen within 10 miles from home; we're a thousand miles from home!"

His statement was true, of course, but surely he was missing the point?

I think of geographical profilers as insurance executives. There is a mangled car on the side of the highway, and they are predicting it will be a driver from within a ten mile radius, because statistically that fills the bill. Year in, year out, most of our driving is done close to home.

That's fine, but I worry about the lunatics who think like my brother.

[Abby Normal]

Me agreeing with you is becoming a habit. I think I have entered the twilight zone.

Every Serial killer has his/her own nuances. Not all lust killers will live with body parts of their victims. Not all murderers with Necromutilomania tendencies will "enjoy" the dead there and then. I believe Jack took the various body parts as a "takeaway" for his gratification needs. Alone with these organs he could do whatever he pleased. Therefore, he needed a place of privacy and safety to do so. He is getting a multi-sensory experience. The Jekyl and Hyde analogy is a good one. Back to work on Monday as if nothing ever happened. Distance from his "main life" would give him that space to compartmentalise.

After all, engaging with prosititution by its very nature offers that ability to compartmentalise.

hi ero!

Me agreeing with you is becoming a habit. I think I have entered the twilight zone.

thats because you both think the ripper was a non local ; )

[Abby Normal]

Many years ago I was on vacation with my brother in another part of the country. He was given the keys to the family car and was driving like a complete lunatic--swerving all over, passing on blind corners, driving 30 miles an hour over the speed limit, etc.

I protested, and he said "Relax! statistically, automobile accidents happen within 10 miles from home; we're a thousand miles from home!"

His statement was true, of course, but surely he was missing the point?

I think of geographical profilers as insurance executives. There is a mangled car on the side of the highway, and they are predicting it will be a driver from within a ten mile radius, because statistically that fills the bill. Year in, year out, most of our driving is done close to home.

That's fine, but I worry about the lunatics who think like my brother.

haha. that story is like the one of the guy waiting in line for his turn in the guillotine. the two prisoners in front of him are let off because the blade jams, and when its his turn he loudly exclaims-Im not getting in that thing till you get it fixed! lol

[JeffHamm]

Many years ago I was on vacation with my brother in another part of the country. He was given the keys to the family car and was driving like a complete lunatic--swerving all over, passing on blind corners, driving 30 miles an hour over the speed limit, etc.

I protested, and he said "Relax! statistically, automobile accidents happen within 10 miles from home; we're a thousand miles from home!"

His statement was true, of course, but surely he was missing the point?

I think of geographical profilers as insurance executives. There is a mangled car on the side of the highway, and they are predicting it will be a driver from within a ten mile radius, because statistically that fills the bill. Year in, year out, most of our driving is done close to home.

That's fine, but I worry about the lunatics who think like my brother.

Hi rjpalmer,

Actually, that's a good analogy. And it's correct, in a way. If most accidents happen within 10 miles of home, then yes, given you spot a random accident the odds are the driver is within 10 miles of home. Your brother, however, is misunderstanding that statistic and presuming there's a causal relationship - that being within 10 miles of home somehow makes driving more dangerous. Rather, as you point out, both are related to the fact more driving is done close to home. So if you spot a random accident, odds are the driver is close to home (in fact, if you spot a driver, accident or not, the odds are they are close to home). Effectively, that's the idea under geographical profiling, an offender commits crimes in areas they spends more time in, making those the areas they are familiar with, which tend to be close to their anchor points (home, work, etc), because those activities also allow them to become familiar with the area and learn where potential targets are located (and become familiar with the activities in those areas, how busy is it, etc). It's not a causal thing, and there are exceptions.

But the idea is to find those areas where it appears the offender is spending more of their time, just like in the driving/accident analogy you've given. Or, like checking out a victim's spouse, family members, and other close contacts, because statistically speaking, those are the most common relationships between a victim and the offender in violent crimes.

That doesn't mean a given case has to be one of the more common ones. Nor is implying that the area causes the crime. It's just a fact that offenses tend to be committed close to those anchor points. This is why these outputs are information to be considered, but not blindly followed.

- Jeff

[caz]

Me agreeing with you is becoming a habit. I think I have entered the twilight zone.

Every Serial killer has his/her own nuances. Not all lust killers will live with body parts of their victims. Not all murderers with Necromutilomania tendencies will "enjoy" the dead there and then. I believe Jack took the various body parts as a "takeaway" for his gratification needs. Alone with these organs he could do whatever he pleased. Therefore, he needed a place of privacy and safety to do so. He is getting a multi-sensory experience. The Jekyl and Hyde analogy is a good one. Back to work on Monday as if nothing ever happened. Distance from his "main life" would give him that space to compartmentalise.

After all, engaging with prosititution by its very nature offers that ability to compartmentalise.

Yes, I too thought it a bit weird that I found myself agreeing with RJ Palmer on this one.

Your last sentence sums up precisely my own thoughts, erobitha.

I can't pretend to know the habits of regular users of prostitutes, including kerb crawlers, but I would think the majority don't go out of their way to advertise their predilections, and prefer to keep this part of their lives completely separate from home and the workplace, and secret from their family and friends. Easier to do for a loner, or someone who doesn't have to explain his every move to anyone. But for anyone else, geography can be a useful way to section off their less acceptable social activities. The seedier, anonymous parts of town lend themselves perfectly to anyone with a double life to maintain, and a tiny, tiny percentage will have much darker issues and desires, which they can experiment with in the same way, and often in the same places used by so many others for their jollies.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Just to add...

A man is not more likely to become a prostitute killer if he is surrounded by prostitutes where he happens to live or work. Just as vicars aren't tempted to fiddle with choirboys because they are there.

People with the inclination to do such harm will gravitate towards a location, lifestyle or career, which enables them to fill their boots. If their preferred prey is not already on their doorstep, they will travel or even make it their life's work to get where the action is.

I wonder how much we can ever really put it down to coincidence when a serial offender is found living and working right in among his victims of choice. Dr Harold Shipman didn't suddenly wake up one morning, realising he was in the very best position to bump off the patients in his care with gay abandon.

Was JtR a dirt poor local man, whose only luck in life was to be stuck in a place that was rich with vulnerable, equally poor women? If he had the means to live anywhere more salubrious [and serial killers must be among the more resourceful members of society, who will lie, cheat, beg, steal or borrow for their basic creature comforts], I can't see him choosing to live there just because of the easy pickings. So that's why I feel this may be a special case, where it could actually be more likely that the killer was able to live well apart from his victims of choice and the sheer squalor of their existence, and only dipped into the honey pot when his violent urges got the better of him.

Love,

Caz
X

[erobitha]

Just to add...

A man is not more likely to become a prostitute killer if he is surrounded by prostitutes where he happens to live or work. Just as vicars aren't tempted to fiddle with choirboys because they are there.

People with the inclination to do such harm will gravitate towards a location, lifestyle or career, which enables them to fill their boots. If their preferred prey is not already on their doorstep, they will travel or even make it their life's work to get where the action is.

I wonder how much we can ever really put it down to coincidence when a serial offender is found living and working right in among his victims of choice. Dr Harold Shipman didn't suddenly wake up one morning, realising he was in the very best position to bump off the patients in his care with gay abandon.

Was JtR a dirt poor local man, whose only luck in life was to be stuck in a place that was rich with vulnerable, equally poor women? If he had the means to live anywhere more salubrious [and serial killers must be among the more resourceful members of society, who will lie, cheat, beg, steal or borrow for their basic creature comforts], I can't see him choosing to live there just because of the easy pickings. So that's why I feel this may be a special case, where it could actually be more likely that the killer was able to live well apart from his victims of choice and the sheer squalor of their existence, and only dipped into the honey pot when his violent urges got the better of him.

Love,

Caz
X

Couldn't agree more with this.

[rjpalmer]

That doesn't mean a given case has to be one of the more common ones. Nor is implying that the area causes the crime. It's just a fact that offenses tend to be committed close to those anchor points. This is why these outputs are information to be considered, but not blindly followed.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff.

Is it possible there is a correlation between the intelligence (or mental stability) of an offender and the distance between his living arrangement and the location of his crimes?

I suppose human behavior is too complex to come up with any reliable answer, but the current debate over MJ Druitt made me wonder if a more intelligent perpetrator might be more likely to commit his nastiness at a further remove than the standard neighborhood reprobate.

A few years ago, we had a creep in the U.S. who traveled from the West Coast to West Viriginia (a couple of thousand miles) specifically to murder a 'working girl' whose advertisements he had found on-line. The murderer and his would-be victim had no prior connection--they were complete strangers. Clearly, he chose her because she was on the other side of the country.

Fortunately, she managed to wrestle the gun from him and shot him dead, or the police would have been focused on an unsolved murder with the ever-popular profile of the 'local white male, early twenties.' There were strong indications that he had killed other women in the past.

Further, in theory it could be that this lack of connection between the killer and the victim makes these 'commuter' crimes far more difficult to solve, so any study of 'solved' cases, might make the 'local man' theory appear more prevalent than it actually is. The results are skewing the statistics.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff.

Is it possible there is a correlation between the intelligence (or mental stability) of an offender and the distance between his living arrangement and the location of his crimes?

I suppose human behavior is too complex to come up with any reliable answer, but the current debate over MJ Druitt made me wonder if a more intelligent perpetrator might be more likely to commit his nastiness at a further remove than the standard neighborhood reprobate.

A few years ago, we had a creep in the U.S. who traveled from the West Coast to West Viriginia (a couple of thousand miles) specifically to murder a 'working girl' whose advertisements he had found on-line. The murderer and his would-be victim had no prior connection--they were complete strangers. Clearly, he chose her because she was on the other side of the country.

Fortunately, she managed to wrestle the gun from him and shot him dead, or the police would have been focused on an unsolved murder with the ever-popular profile of the 'local white male, early twenties.' There were strong indications that he had killed other women in the past.

Further, in theory it could be that this lack of connection between the killer and the victim makes these 'commuter' crimes far more difficult to solve, so any study of 'solved' cases, might make the 'local man' theory appear more prevalent than it actually is. The results are skewing the statistics.

Hi rj,

I'm not aware of any study that has looked at intelligence separated by commuter/marauder classification, but if there is a difference I could see it turning out either way. One possibility is as you suggest, commuters reflect a "smarter" strategy. It also requires the ability to travel and the ability to refrain from acting upon their impulses when unable to do so. The alternative is that commuters require a more nomadic lifestyle, a "drifter", who is unable to hold down steady employment, and more likely to suffer from mental health issues. I did see an article somewhere awhile back, though, where they report that the typical serial offender has a rather low IQ, and the "smart clever serial killer" is the exception rather than the rule. Of those typically thought of as the clever ones such as Ted Bundy and Ed Kemper, both were marauders.

I rather suspect that commuters are the exception, though, for the pragmatic reason I've suggested above. It is simply very difficult for most people to travel great distances on a whim. I suspect most "commuters" will somehow have travel as part of their daily life, such as a long haul truck driver. Even those offenders, however, are not really explorers, they are anchored to their work (their trucking route), but it just so happens that their anchor point isn't really anchored but a mobile one.

I'm unaware of the case you allude to above, but it made me think of Israel Keyes, who also travelled great distances and even would leave "murder kits" buried in a location so that when he would come there again he could dig them up (contained a gun, and restraints, etc) rather than risk travelling with them. He's a good example of a real commuter. I think he also had a fairly high IQ, but as I say, so did Bundy and Kemper, who were marauders. The case you've mentioned above sounds like a good example of a true commuter too, although I would want to know more about it.

One thing to keep in mind is that the marauder/commuter is a classification that is really centred on the spatial pattern of the offenses. Marauder patterns can include quite large distances. I've just had a paper accepted, though still have to get the proofs and make any final corrections/edits to deal with typos and so forth, so it's not out yet, where I suggest it might be useful to use marauder/commuter when describing the observable spatial patterns (as it is used that way now), but when referring to the proposed decision making processes (the non-observable thinking patterns of the offender which are thought to be reflected in the observable spatial patterns) to use the terms "anchored" or "exploring". The anchored/exploration type division gets at the idea that an offender could be choosing locations based upon their daily life patterns, but their crimes can still form a pattern that doesn't encircle their residence (or some other major anchor point). So their spatial pattern would be a commuter despite their decision making being anchored. Conversely, someone like whom you describe, if they travelled in many directions, but did so specifically to create that distance, their spatial pattern might still classify them as a marauder (the circle would be huge of course) but they are using an explorers decision making. While the general pattern would be marauders tend to be anchored and commuters tend to be explorers, it's not a 1:1 relationship because as with anything, we're making inferences about non-observable "quantities" (the thinking patterns of an offender) from observable quantities (where offenses were committed relative to the offender's anchor points). That's true of any science (we observe physical changes in position over time and make statements about non-observable gravity, for example). And because theory is the explanation that contains the non-observable quantities, we can never be sure if that explanation is correct and complete, but we can derive from it predictions about what we should and should not observe, leading to the next study.

And so yes, it is of course entirely possible that commuters, being harder to catch, are vastly under represented in the solved cases. In philosophy that's often described as a "grue problem" (There's a mineral, called grue. All the grue that has ever been dug up is green, but that doesn't mean there isn't any blue grue. No matter how much grue you dig up, even if every last piece you find is green, you can never be positive there is no blue grue - you just haven't found it). So if commuters are the blue grue, we at least have uncovered some. What we can't know directly is the ratio of "marauders:commuters" in the cases that have not been solved.

However, the notion is that commuters are much more difficult to catch. I think that leads to the prediction that the ratio of commuters should be much higher if one compared cases based upon how long it took to solve them. For example, take all the solved cases, order them by the length of the investigation, and plot the "probability the case is a commuter" over time. We should see that as the solution time increases the probability of being a commuter also increases. And if that suggests a regular relationship, one might even be able to make an estimate on the expected number of commuter patterns in cases not yet solved.

Another way might be to look at cold cases that get solved due to new techniques. Those cases should likewise show a greater percentage of commuters (because the idea is that new technology, like using ancestral DNA linkage as with the Golden State Killer, isn't tied to any spatial aspect of the offenses; and note, he was a marauder). Of course, one could argue that even with cold cases the marauders are still the easier to solve, which just restates the "grue" problem all over again). I suppose one could collate all cases, solved and unsolved, and calculate the range of possible ratios of marauders:commuters (i.e. by considering the possibility that all unsolved cases are marauders and then considering the possibility that all unsolved cases are commuters). That would provide a lower and upper limit to the "probability is a commuter", untill the grue problem kicks in again and one agues that we're only considering cases we know about, and that commuters might be far more represented in serial cases that have not been identified as being a series! There is always the possibility of blue grue!

Sadly, I don't know of any studies where they've been able to look at that sort of thing (partly because I'm a bit sceptical about the more "behavioural profiling" side of things - the "Mindhunter" type profiling, and some of the issues we're talking about here are getting into that). I do know there are some articles where they try and work out if a crime pattern is more likely to be the result of a commuter and therefore unsuited to the spatial analysis routines (which are based upon the idea the offender is a marauder). That's sort of like working out if there is evidence that the offender is most likely a stranger then it becomes less likely that the offender is a family member, friend, etc, so that ordering of close relationships becomes less useful information despite it being very useful most of the time. One of the questions that I'm particularly interested in is looking to determine if there are any useful patterns underlying actual commuters. If there are, then a different set of analyses would be required than the ones used on marauder patterns.

- Jeff

[spyglass]

Hi all

Sorry but all this scientific location profiling is just all "style over content " as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's fair to assume that there is a very good chance the killer did live in the East end at the time by just using common sense...but even that isn't something I would lay a decent amount of money on for a bet.
I remember reading that Flower and Dean Street was a favourite....but any of the streets in that area are just as equally likely.
All these graphs and the like remind me of Spending a day off work on a box ticking Marketing Workshop course, and coming out of it none the wiser of what it was all about or why I was even sent.

Regards

[JeffHamm]

Hi all

Sorry but all this scientific location profiling is just all "style over content " as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's fair to assume that there is a very good chance the killer did live in the East end at the time by just using common sense...but even that isn't something I would lay a decent amount of money on for a bet.
I remember reading that Flower and Dean Street was a favourite....but any of the streets in that area are just as equally likely.
All these graphs and the like remind me of Spending a day off work on a box ticking Marketing Workshop course, and coming out of it none the wiser of what it was all about or why I was even sent.

Regards

Hi Spyglass,

What's your basis for that concern other than being none the wiser of what it is all about? I don't really understand theoretical physics but I don't think it's garbage simply because I myself don't understand it beyond a superficial level. I do know that I originally became interested in spatial analysis of offense locations because I was sceptical about some of the methods used, and while some of those concerns were well founded, others were not. I've recently published a paper on that, showing how some of the analyses used just don't work and why shouldn't be used anymore. However, that doesn't make all of it garbage, and some of it does produce useful information. It's important, though, to remember that how this is presented in both the media (when referring to real cases, either news or true crime documentaries) and entertainment (when used as a story device) is not a good basis for concluding it is rubbish. The media tends to present extreme views, where it either looks far more exact than it generally is, or for more "off base" than it generally is. Entertainment, of course, is just that, entertainment, and so has nothing to do with reality.

In the end, though, it does help in the same way that listing a victim's known relationships (spouse, ex-lovers, family, friends, co-workers, etc) provides an increasing set of "rings of personal relationships" which are a good starting point for prioritising "who" to question, spatial analysis provides a set of "increasing rings of locations" as to "where to look for evidence". It doesn't solve the case anymore than listing known personal relationships solves a case. It is about prioritising the search for evidence, and if you start your search in areas that generally are more likely to contain the solution then you will, in the long run, solve more cases faster. Not every case, and some may even end up delayed if they happen to be one which bucks the trend - but those will be far fewer in number than the ones that benefit.

Your example above about "Flower and Dean" is a result of media spin, including statements by some researchers who also have very expensive software to sell. The reality is that as you say, there are many streets that end up being highly likely as well, but that's exactly describing the actual output of spatial analysis software. What is presented in the media is just the peak (i.e. like listing only a victim's spouse). But just because it doesn't pinpoint an offender's residence (or some other anchor point) doesn't mean it isn't useful all the same. But at the same time, being useful doesn't mean discard any suspect for whom there is actual evidence to suggest they are worth following up just because they aren't in the high probability area (that area isn't claiming to be 100% after all). It's a probability distribution indicating areas that have a greater chance of producing useful evidence, it is not a guarantee.

- Jeff

[caz]

Hi spyglass,

Take a look at the case of Colin Ireland, from 1993.

If Ireland had not tipped off the police anonymously that his male victims were linked to one killer, their deaths would have been considered unconnected and either domestic in nature, or sex games gone wrong.

Once the police reacted to Ireland's information, they'd have begun looking for someone who lived or worked close to where the five gay men, found dead in their own homes, might have been picked up. The police could have looked in the wrong places forever, if CCTV had not captured Colin Ireland with one of his victims on the way to his home, allowing him to be identified and investigated.

Ireland was not particularly bright, but he didn't really need to be. If he hadn't become frustrated by the failure to connect his murders, and if he'd been more careful not to be seen on CCTV, nobody might ever have known that his victims formed a series, let alone that a commuting serial killer was responsible.

Ireland travelled up from the Essex coast by train, purely to pick up strangers from a particular pub in west London, where he wasn't known to have any connections, for the purpose of murdering them.

All the while these murders went unsolved, it would have been considered so much more likely that the person responsible in each case was local to where the victim was found. But serial killers don't concern themselves with statistics and how others believe they would most likely operate.

Love,

Caz
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