The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (94 page)

crimes, thus charting patterns that might otherwise be his blood, he killed repeatedly for refills to replenish his missed.

supply. More often, though, the thirst for blood is sex-Retained by the FBI in 1981, Brooks and former ual in nature, akin to CANNIBALISM in that it allows the Seattle detective Robert Keppel began hammering out vampire to “possess”—indeed, consume—his victim on the VICAP framework, drafting an investigating ques-the most intimate possible terms.

tionnaire for local officers, but they still had far to go, Curiously, there may also be an occasional profit in terms of winning over the Washington bureaucracy.

motive for vampirism, as suggested in a case reported Best-selling author Ann Rule beat the drum of VICAP

from Colombia. There, in the city of Cali, 10 adoles-with a series of editorials in 1982, joining Brooks and cent boys were found dead between October 1963 and others to plead the FBI’s case in July 1983 Senate hear-February 1964, their bodies drained of blood and ings. A year later, in June 1984, President Ronald Rea-270

ViCLAS

gan announced the creation of a National Center for isms set alarm bells ringing in her mind, and surveil-Analysis of Violent Crime, charged with the primary lance was established on suspect Steven Pennell. A 31-goal of tracking repeat killers. The VICAP computer year-old white man, Pennell was a professional network, based at the FBI Academy, went on-line in electrician, with two college semesters of criminology May 1985, accepting reports of murders and MISSING

behind him. His applications to local police depart-PERSONS and discarded corpses from across the nation.

ments had all been rejected, but he clearly fit the VICAP

Unlike fictional G-men and -women, members of the profile as a “police buff.” Scientific analysis of hairs, VICAP team and ISU are paid to analyze crimes rather fibers, and bloodstains from his van convinced a jury of than to conduct active field investigations. With fewer Pennell’s guilt in two murders, and he was executed by than a dozen full-time agents, ISU is not equipped for lethal injection on March 14, 1992.

staging manhunts, crashing into suspect hideouts, or VICAP spokesmen often cite Pennell’s case as proof gunning down desperate killers. On the rare occasions positive of their success in profiling killers, but when VICAP agents
do
visit a crime scene, their func-Delaware authorities—while grateful for the FBI’s tion is purely advisory, reviewing local task force opera-help—are more reserved. The fiber evidence was criti-tions and suggesting more efficient means of handling cal, they grant, but it had not connection to the suspect information. The national program’s success or failure profile, which local investigators now describe as “most ultimately hinges on cooperation from local agencies, general stuff.” The decoy operation was standard police where jealousy, resentment, or simple fatigue sometimes work, they say, and would have caught Pennell regard-conspire to frustrate VICAP.

less of his occupation, race, or age.

Six months of operation was enough to highlight Sour grapes? A touch of jealousy, perhaps? In any VICAP’s problems in the field. Overworked police case, while many frontline homicide investigators read-considered the 44-page federal questionnaire too cum-ily acknowledge VICAP’s value in connecting far-flung bersome and time consuming. If a killer picked off 10

crimes, some still insist that the program (in their opin-or 15 victims and the FBI required a separate ques-ion) has yet to prove itself capable of identifying a spe-tionnaire for each, some locals opted to ignore the fed-cific predator and bringing him to justice.

eral team and spare themselves a case of writer’s cramp. The current VICAP forms are two-thirds

shorter than their predecessors, but reduced paper-ViCLAS: Law enforcement tool

work has not solved all the Bureau’s problems in coor-ViCLAS—the Violent Crime Analysis Linkage Sys-

dinating manhunts. For many local officers, the FBI is tem—was the brainchild of Canada’s first criminal pro-still J. Edgar Hoover once removed, a headline-grab-filer, Sergeant Ron MacKay. Assigned to the General bing agency more interested in claiming credit for Investigative Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted recovery of stolen cars and the arrest of “Top Ten”

Police (RCMP) in North Vancouver, MacKay envi-

fugitives than helping out the average working cop.

sioned a system that would improve on the FBI’s VICAP

Some Bureau spokesmen are still too quick to shoot program for linking unsolved homicides and sexual from the lip—as when an agent in Atlanta blamed assaults across the country. When MacKay conceived anonymous black parents for the deaths of several his idea in August 1990, the RCMP already maintained murdered children—and many police departments still its Major Case File at headquarters in Ottawa, but view the feds as rank interlopers, their very presence a most local police departments refused to submit the tacit indictment of local methods.

voluminous paperwork required for case submissions.

A VICAP case where everything apparently worked MacKay and colleague Keith Davidson sought to rem-out as planned occurred in Wilmington, Delaware, edy that problem with computers, recruiting two stu-where five young prostitutes were tortured to death dents at Ottawa’s Algonquin College—Paul Leury and between November 1987 and October 1988. FBI profil-John Ripley—to write the necessary software pro-ers reviewed the case evidence, sketching a portrait of a grams.

suspect who was white, a local resident employed in the Although actively employed from 1992, ViCLAS was construction trade, age 25 to 35, fascinated with police formally unveiled on December 16, 1993, with a press work, and using a van for transport and disposal of his conference held at the Ontario Provincial Police Acad-victims. Fiber samples taken from bodies narrowed emy outside Toronto. Present for the system’s public down the range of carpeting inside the van, and VICAP

launch were various RCMP leaders, together with offi-agents recommended a decoy operation to lure the cers from 23 Canadian law enforcement agencies, the killer with policewomen disguised as hookers. One such FBI, New York State Police, New Jersey State Police, decoy managed to obtain some carpet fibers and a and members of Iowa’s Sex Crimes Analysis Section.

license number for the “creepy” trick whose manner-Administration of ViCLAS was assigned to the new
271

VICTIMOLOGY of Serial Murder

Canadian Association of Violent Crime Analysts selecting their prey by means so convoluted that it takes (CAVCA).

a psychic or computer wizard to unravel their design, the Like VICAP, the ViCLAS program requires submis-truth is rather different. In fact, the real-life victims of sion of detailed questionnaires from field investigators.

random slayers are as ordinary as their killers first Submission forms consist of a 36-page booklet with appear to be. Their ranks include male and female, 245 questions (cut from an original 262 in 1995) or a young and old, all races, affluent and destitute, well-edu-shorter eight-page form with 83 questions. Within 18

cated and illiterate. They are drifters and debutantes, months of its launch, ViCLAS had drawn 57 links housewives and hookers, retirees and runaways, with the among 584 unsolved cases on file. By the end of 1995, occasional celebrity thrown in. Some are aware of the the system permitted MacKay to estimate that Canada risk when they take to the streets; others are hopelessly hosted 12 to 20 active serial killers at large. While some blind to their danger when murder comes calling at resistance lingers, voluntary ViCLAS submissions home. Indeed, the only trait they share in common is increased from 124 cases in 1992 (the year before its their moment in the spotlight of a killer’s twisted fantasy.

formal launch) to 120,362 cases by September 2001.

Male murder victims in America normally outnum-Since its inception, interest in ViCLAS has spread ber females three to one, but serial killers nearly reverse rapidly around the world. Authorities in Austria and the that trend, claiming 65 percent female victims and 35

Netherlands committed to its use on February 9, 1995, percent male. Victims both sexes range from infants to four days before MacKay presented the system at an the elderly, depending on the killer’s personal quirk. In international conference in China. Since then, ViCLAS

terms of ethnic breakdown, American serial murder vic-has been adopted in Australia, Sweden, and several U.S.

tims are 89 percent Caucasian and 10 percent black; states. FBI agent Mike Cryan, assigned to the VICAP

Asians and Native Americans divide the other one per-program at Quantico, Virginia, described ViCLAS as cent. Forty-two percent of America’s serial slayers tar-

“the Cadillac system in the world,” and VICAP pioneer get victims of the opposite sex exclusively, while 16

David Cavanaugh (at Harvard University) was equally percent kill only same-sex victims; 39 percent kill at impressed. “The Canadians,” Cavanaugh said, “have least one victim of each sex, and the offender’s sex done to automated case linkage what the Japanese did remains unknown in 3 percent of all cases, with the with assembly line auto production. They have taken a killers still at large, unseen by living witnesses. Ninety-good American idea and transformed it into the best in four percent of America’s “normal” murders involve the world.” On December 13, 1995, summarizing police killers and victims of the same race, but serial slayers failures in the case of Ontario TEAM KILLERS Paul fall below the norm, with 65 percent of their recorded Bernardo and Karla Homolka, Justice Archie Campbell murders in the same-race category; another 10 percent recommended that ViCLAS submissions should be

kill only members of a different race, while 11 percent mandatory throughout the province. He wrote:

cross the color line impartially, from one crime to the next. (A lack of evidence leaves the killer’s race
Experience shows that it is not enough merely to
unknown in 14 percent of American cases.)

encourage ViCLAS reporting by means of the standard In terms of selection, some 40 percent of America’s policies and procedures of individual forces. Encour-serial stalkers choose their prey on the basis of gender, agement is not enough. Unless the entry of information with female victims outnumbering males by a ratio of into ViCLAS is centrally mandated and enforced 10-to-1. (Male victims selected by gender alone nor-throughout Ontario, and its operation supported mally fall prey to homosexual killers, a group outnum-through training and strong reinforcement of the
bered 6-to-1 by “straight” serial slayers.) Potential
reporting requirement, its power to link predatory ser-profit ranks second on the list of criteria for victim ial crimes is greatly weakened.

selection in serial murder, accounting for 7 percent of American cases. “BLUEBEARD” killers and “BLACK WID-Despite such widespread praise and multiple requests OWS” are especially prone to kill for cash, but the FBI’s from its own analysts, FBI headquarters remains stub-Crime Classification Manual
(1992) presents a wide bornly opposed to adoption of ViCLAS in place of range of “criminal enterprise” MOTIVES, all founded in VICAP. Given the bureau’s history and elitist attitudes, greed, which may apply to serial killers.

that resistance is unlikely to subside in the near future.

Age is the next most common factor in serial victim selection, with 6 percent of America’s random killers preying on children or the elderly. A victim’s health or
VICTIMOLOGY of Serial Murder

physical condition is the killer’s prime consideration in 3

While serial killers in FICTION AND FILM are often percent of American serial murders, generally involving depicted as twisted geniuses or mute, unfeeling beasts, MEDICAL MURDERS. Race is the dominant factor in vic-272

VLASSAKIS, John

tim selection for 2 percent of America’s predators, while Except in contract murders, where a victim is selected another 2 percent apparently choose victims on the basis for the killer by third parties, serial killers generally seek of their residence (or lack of same, where killers like out “targets of opportunity,” taking victims as they VAUGHN GREENWOOD prey on homeless targets).

come to minimize personal risk. This trait, at least to A victim’s specific appearance—as opposed to gen-some degree, accounts for the frequent victimization of eral characteristics of sex, race, or age—seems to be the prostitutes and hitchhikers, both of whom (although for prime criterion for selection in 1 percent of American very different reasons) specialize in catching rides with serial murders. (William Hanson, San Francisco’s total strangers. Other “easy marks” include the home-

“Paper Bag Killer,” shot only middle-aged men who less, couples parked in a secluded lover’s lane, patients in walked with a limp, mistaking each in turn for the man hospitals or rest homes, and victims surprised in their who once raped his sister.) Occupations doom another own beds by lethal home invaders. Wherever they strike, 1 percent of American serial victims, with prostitutes of psychologists and law enforcement officers agree, serial both sexes dominating the list of job-related murders.

killers behave much like predators in the wild, stalking (College coeds and exotic dancers also rank signifi-the weak and unwary, lying in wait for their prey as they cantly among victims of choice.) Finally, 13 percent of thin out the herd.

American serial killers appear to change their criteria
See also
MODUS OPERANDI

for victim selection over time—as when Robert Shawcross switched from killing children in the early 1970s to prostitutes in 1989—while the basis for selection is
VLASSAKIS, John

See
SNOWTOWN

unknown in 12 percent of all reported cases.

273

W

WAGNER, Robert

See
SNOWTOWN

scene, and he often donned oversized clothing and shoes to confuse witnesses. Police captured him on
WANG Ganggang