Hutchinson came forward very soon after the public airing of Sarah Lewis's sighting of the "loiterer", indicating that he may have recognised himself as the loiterer and fabricated an account with the intention of superficially legitimising his "loitering" presense. It would indeed have been a case of "cart before the horse", but as criminologist John Douglas points out:
"...some killers — the more organized or premeditated type — sometimes even inject themselves into the police investigation to provide bogus information. They do it for different reasons. They may want to find out where the investigation is headed or look for cues that it’s progressing along nicely because, naturally, they’re concerned about that.
They may go to the police in order to beat them to the punch, just in case someone may have seen them or provided a description of their car. This way, if their names pop up later, they can come back and say, “Oh, wait a minute, I went to you guys a month ago. I was cooperative.”
"...some killers — the more organized or premeditated type — sometimes even inject themselves into the police investigation to provide bogus information. They do it for different reasons. They may want to find out where the investigation is headed or look for cues that it’s progressing along nicely because, naturally, they’re concerned about that.
They may go to the police in order to beat them to the punch, just in case someone may have seen them or provided a description of their car. This way, if their names pop up later, they can come back and say, “Oh, wait a minute, I went to you guys a month ago. I was cooperative.”
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