INVESTIGATION OF THE VIOLENT CRIME (Part 2.)
Dr. Thomas O’Connor
Program Manager of Criminal Justice and Homeland Security
Director, Institute for Global Security Studies
Austin Peay State University
601 College Street
Clarksville, TN 37044
http://www.drtomoconnor.com/3220/3220lect03.htm
Continued from Part 1.
ESTABLISHING THE VICTIM'S ROUTINE
Next, you need to find out everything you can about your victim's background, especially their last activities in the previous 24 hours. This is called Applied Victimology, and it's your primary means of determining suspects. Examine telephone records, mail, email, food in refrigerator, business appointments, work and entertainment habits. Discretely inquire into romantic affairs.
Look into what enemies the victim had (business-financial; political; religious; love life; entertainment world). Find out if your victim has a prior criminal record. Obtain a list of previously known addresses. If you can, find out about your victim's medical and mental history. You will need to assess whether this is the kind of victim that could engage in provocation or not, just as you've already established whether or not the victim put up a struggle.
WORKING WITH WITNESSES & BYSTANDERS
Canvass the area and interview all cooperative, suspicious-looking, and even random, disinterested bystanders. Don't make any "off the record" comments to reporters, and certainly don't tell anybody anything about any evidence you may or may not have found. Use your interview and interrogation skills. Get specifics about time and place from people so you can compare these specifics with the story they tell you later.
ESTABLISH THE MOTIVE
At this stage, you're developing a viable theory about what happened. From your analysis of the crime scene and victim's background, you should be able to come up with at least 2-3 theories about what happened. Some standard motives are: anger, love, revenge, jealousy, and profit. More perplexing are hate crimes and senseless acts of violence. It may even be possible that you've got a serial killing on your hands.
Many investigators wait until they've gotten a feel for the geographical and cultural aspects of the area the victim (and possible suspects) are from before taking a stab at motive. This is the legwork of investigation; not so much putting people under surveillance, but checking out different parts of town, getting to know the habits and character of the people from that neighborhood, and linking this particular crime up with the patterns and motives from similar cases in similar neighborhoods. That, in short, is homicide investigation.
SEXUAL HOMICIDE, RAPE, AND CHILD ABUSE INVESTIGATION
All victims of sexual assault, whether living or dead, should be examined in the same manner as for live victims of rape. The optimal procedure is to have a sexual assault examiner (SART or SANE teams) conduct their business in conjunction with any criminal investigation and/or autopsy. SART stands for Sexual Assault Response Teams (consisting of first responders, special investigators, and victim advocates), and SANE stands for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. According to Gonzalez v. State of Texas 1991, SANEs are allowed to testify as expert witnesses.
The physical evidence that is most useful in a sexual assault case involves DNA, fingerprints, semen, hairs, fibers, and blood. Other evidence may be useful (such as footwear impressions or fingernail scrapings), but these are the standard trace items focused on in every so-called "rape kit", and by the way, rape victims are not called "victims" but patients (the medical community prefers this term). The logical solution to a rape case involves matching trace evidence from three places: the crime scene, the victim, and the perpetrator. Alcohol and drugs are involved in about 33% and 25% of rape cases, respectively.
Most forcible rapists are stupid, predictable criminals. 99% of the time, they will attempt an alibi defense by claiming mistaken identity. They will frequently say the rapist must be someone who looks like them. Hence, the importance of physical evidence, like DNA, that individualizes the offender should be obvious. A voice lineup may also be useful. Once the evidence identifies them, they often change their story, and claim it was consensual sex after all. "Oh yeah, I guess I was dating that girl", they will say, and those fingerprints of theirs must have been from one of their many sexual liaisons. Depending upon how effective their lawyer is, courts normally have little tolerance for these kinds of games, but it's played 100,000 times a year, year in and year out in America, and police only have about a 50% clearance rate for rape. Sex crimes that do not qualify as rape are called sexual assaults and occur 430,000 times a year. Criminal investigators should therefore understand the importance of things like lie detectors and recorded or sworn statements or depositions in these kinds of investigations.
Another type of rapist is more insidious and uses newer drugs to erase the memories of victims (LeBeau & Mozayani 2001). The victim, out at a social event, meets and mingles with a respectable-looking person, who secretly slips gamma-hydroxybutyric (GHB), rohypnol, or ecstasy into the victim's drink. The victim, totally unaware, becomes incapacitated and is taken by the perpetrator to an apartment where she is raped, sodomized, and photographed while unconscious. She later awakes somewhere else unaware of what has happened, save for the bruises or lethargic aftermath of the drug. She may only realize 24 to 48 hours later that she has been sexually assaulted, too late for most examinations to be useful. GHB can be easily made in the kitchen from industrial solvents and paint remover, and recipes can be easily found on the Internet. Other rapists of this type use their own barbiturate or benzodiazepine prescriptions, and those employed in health care may use various hypnotics or sedatives they have access to. Investigation of drug-facilitated rape usually requires extensive medical and expert witness assistance.
Another type of insidious offender abuses or molests children. Victims and their families frequently report the offender was the nicest person you would ever want to meet. Although a mandated reporter system works well in detecting much child abuse, involving those who work in medicine, social services, psychology, child care, education, and law enforcement, some pedophiles and organized rings of pedophiles go to great lengths at planning and carrying out their crimes. They are increasingly using the Internet for solicitation and trafficking in child pornography. About 500 of these types are rounded up every year by the FBI and other law enforcement task forces via investigators posing as bait (e.g., children in chat rooms). The typical offender is an upper-middle-class, educated white male between the ages of 25 and 45. Most apprehended offenders will mount an entrapment defense, so it's important for investigators to document everything said or done very precisely.
PROTECTING THE VICTIM
Nothing is probably more important in a sex crime investigation than protecting the victim, which is an oft-misunderstood phrase that goes beyond interviewing the victim in private. It means respecting the victim, relating to the victim, building a rapport with the victim, and at least a dozen other things that males cannot ordinarily understand. For this reason, some police departments prefer or require that female officers be assigned to the investigation of such cases. While documentation of everything said is important with sex crimes, there has to be some flexibility and room for the victim to "vent", express their emotions, and bounce thoughts and feelings off a sympathetic listener all without worrying about someone recording everything to be used against them later. Victims of sex crimes often "act out" in strange ways afterwards, and sometimes they are the ones who need protection from themselves. Subsequent contact between the victim and any potential suspects must be avoided at all costs.
WORKING WITH THE CRIME LAB
A sex crime investigation requires continual, ongoing two-way communication between the police investigator and crime lab personnel. Most crime lab directors know this, and have set up procedures for it. The problem is that all the different pieces of trace evidence are going to need background control samples, not so much from the time the crime was committed, but from the need to include and exclude all the possible suspects that each laboratory test reveals. Many instruments used in the kinds of lab tests required are destructive of the evidence, and more evidence needs to be continually available. Investigators need to be prepared for when a lab analyst calls and says they need more evidence. You should also be aware that potential suspects in sex crime cases frequently sue police departments for sloppy investigative work by not taking background samples (shoeprints, vacuuming fibers, etc.) from their apartments.
SPECIAL CRIME SCENE PROCESSING
The sex crime investigator is going to need special equipment or special expertise. Extracting fingerprints, debris, or DNA from duct tape or other binding material like rope knots is extraordinarily difficult to say the least. Obtaining semen evidence, for instance, requires the use of forensic light sources. Semen has a faint fluorescence under a Wood's lamp (long-wave ultraviolet light), and many fibers have a strong fluorescence under this kind of light. Both the victim's body and their clothing should be subjected to forensic light analysis. The victim's clothing not only tells if a struggle ensued (torn or buttons missing), but clothing worn after the assault may reveal evidence (from anal or vaginal discharge). Don't rely exclusively on semen evidence, as more and more rapists are starting to use condoms.
Long-term follow-up on the victim is important for photography purposes. As with domestic violence, some bruises don't show up until long after the assault. Bruises are bluish-red after a few hours, purple within a few days, green-yellow at the end of a week, and brown after a week. Most bruises take 2-4 weeks to disappear. Documentation of internal damage to the vagina and rectum is going to require the services of a forensic gynecologist (if you can find one) or a medical professional. They can usually conduct what is called a colposcopic examination (which produces photographs) and detect abrasions, fissures, transections, synechiae, petechiae, and edemas which may indicate microscopic evidence of a rape. Not too much should be made of these photographic blowups, however, since courts frequently exclude them for being too gruesome, prejudicial, or subject to expert disagreement.
MOTIVE, MEANS, AND OPPORTUNITY
When developing your theory or theories about what happened, it's important in violent crime investigation to give equal consideration to motive, means, and opportunity. A lot of the literature on serial killers and repeat offenders is too heavily slanted toward motive and motive-based typologies. Equally, if not more important, is means (who had the physical strength to commit this particular crime) and opportunity (who had access to or could have been present at the crime scene). It's helpful to create what is known as a time line, which accounts for the whereabouts of all the principals in the case before, during, and after the crime. Suspects can be systematically eliminated one-by-one on the basis of opportunity alone. You can always go back and consider motive and means later. Criminal personality profiling should be reserved for when there is no apparent motive.
To sign up for e-mail alerts when new articles are posted Click HERE ==> Request E-Mail Alerts
INTERNET RESOURCES
All About Pedophiles by Mark Gado
Anatomy of a Murder
Case Management of a Homicide Investigation
Crime and Clues Group Website
Crime Scene Investigator's Website
Drug-Facilitated Rape and Date Rape Drugs Resources
Dying and Death
FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
International Homicide Investigators Association
Medico-Legal Guidelines for Death Investigation
North Carolina's Sex Offender & Public Protection Registry
OVC Report on S.A.N.E. Programs
S.A.N.E./S.A.R.T. Home Page
The Varieties of Homicide and its Research (pdf)
Time Since Death
Criminal Behavior of the Serial Rapist
Understanding Motives and Developing Suspects in Unsolved Serial Rapes
PRINTED RESOURCES
Allison, J. & L. Wrightsman. (1993). Rape: The misunderstood crime. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Axelrod, A. & G. Antinozzi. (2003). The complete idiot's guide to criminal investigation. Indianapolis: Alpha Books.
Ball, J. (2000). Conducting crimes against persons investigations. Austin: Thomas Investigative Publications.
Burgess, A. et.al. (1978). Sexual assault of children and adolescents. Lexington: Lexington Books.
Dix, J. & M. Ernst. (1999). Handbook for death scene investigators. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Emsley, J. (2005). The elements of murder: A history of poison. NY: Oxford Univ. Press.
Geberth, V. (2006). Practical homicide investigation. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Gregory, J. & S. Lees. (1999). Policing sexual assault. London: Routledge.
Groth, N. (1980). Men who rape. NY: Plenum.
Hazelwood, R. & A. Burgess. (1999). Practical aspects of rape investigation. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Hughes, D. (1974). Homicide investigative techniques. Springfield: Charles Thomas.
LeBeau, M. & A. Mozayani. (2001). Drug-facilitated sexual assault. San Diego: Academic Press.
Marshall, W., D. Laws & H. Barbaree. (1990). Handbook of sexual assault. NY: Plenum.
Morn, F. (2000). Foundations of criminal investigation. Durham: Carolina Academic Press.
O'Connor, T. (2001) "Sexual cannibalism" in The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior. London: Taylor & Francis
Osterburg, J. & R. Ward. (2000). Criminal investigation. Cincinnati: Anderson.
Pyrek, K. (2005). Forensic nursing. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Prensky, R. & V. Quinsey (1988). Human sexual aggression. NY: NY Academy of Sciences.
Ressler, R., A. Burgess & J. Douglas. (1988). Sexual homicide. Lexington: Lexington Books.
Sherwood, L. (1997). Human physiology, 3e. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Last updated: Aug 15, 2010
Comments