Related Research Articles
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons, usually in service of abnormal psychological gratification, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or lessen it to two.
The National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) is a specialist FBI department. The NCAVC's role is to coordinate investigative and operational support functions, criminological research, and training in order to provide assistance to federal, state, local, and foreign law enforcement agencies investigating unusual or repetitive violent crimes.
The Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) is a department of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) that uses behavioral analysts to assist in criminal investigations. The mission of the NCAVC and the BAU is to provide behavioral based investigative and/or operational support by applying case experience, research, and training to complex and time-sensitive crimes, typically involving acts or threats of violence.
Robert Kenneth Ressler was an FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", though the term is a direct translation of the German term "Serienmörder" coined in 1930 by Berlin investigator Ernst Gennat. After retiring from the FBI, he authored a number of books on serial murders, and often gave lectures on criminology.
My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers is a book written by Helen Morrison and Harold Goldberg. It presents the cases of ten serial killers, and touches on many more. Morrison spent hundreds of hours in face-to-face interviews, over many years, with several of the subjects. She uses the individual stories to explain and put forth her ideas on what makes a serial killer. The book has received criticism for being factually inaccurate on several topics.
In criminology, a disorganized offender is a type of serial killer classified by unorganized and spontaneous acts of violence. The distinction between "organized" and "disorganized" offenders was drawn by the American criminologist Roy Hazelwood. These profiles were also studied and modified in the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit located in Quantico, Virginia. By classifying these offenders into different categories, the FBI is able to track down offenders by studying their behavior and habits. One well-known example of a disorganized offender is Jack the Ripper.
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. Multiple crimes may be linked to a specific offender and the profile may be used to predict the identified offender's future actions. In the 1980s, most researchers believed offender profiling was relevant only to sex crimes, like serial rape or sexual homicide, but since the late 1990s research has been published to support its application to arson (1998), and then later terrorism (2000) and burglary (2017).
John Edward Douglas is an American retired special agent and unit chief in the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was one of the first criminal profilers and has written books on criminal psychology.
Robert Roy Hazelwood was a former FBI profiler of sex crimes and is generally regarded as the pioneer of profiling sexual predators. He worked for much of his career for the FBI, retiring in the mid-1990s.
"Autopsy" is a television series of HBO's America Undercover documentary series. Dr. Michael Baden, a real-life forensic pathologist, is the primary analyst, and has been personally involved in many of the cases that are reviewed.
The FBI method of profiling is a system created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used to detect and classify the major personality and behavioral characteristics of an individual based upon analysis of the crime or crimes the person committed. One of the first American profilers was FBI agent John E. Douglas, who was also instrumental in developing the behavioral science method of law enforcement.
The Morgan P. Hardiman Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC) is part of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). CASMIRC was established as part of Public Law 105-314, the Protection of Children From Sexual Predators Act, passed by Congress on October 30, 1998. The legislation creates the center to reduce crime involving child abductions, mysterious disappearances of children, child homicide, and serial murder.
The Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) is the original name of a unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Training Division at Quantico, Virginia, formed in response to the rise of sexual assault and homicide in the 1970s. The unit was usurped by the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) and renamed the Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit (BRIU) and currently is called the Behavioral Analysis Unit (5) (BAU-5) within the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). The BAU-5 currently works on developing research and then using the evidence-based results to provide training and improve consultation in the behavioral sciences—understanding who criminals are, how they think, why they do what they do—for the FBI and law enforcement communities.
David J. Icove is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Profiler and FBI Academy Instructor in the elite Behavioral Analysis Unit. He was one of the FBI's first criminal profilers to specialize in the apprehension of serial arsonists and bombers. He is Fellow in the National Academy of Forensic Engineers and co-author along with Gerald A. Haynes of Kirk's Fire Investigation, the leading textbook in the field of fire investigation.
Homicide Investigation Tracking System (HITS) is a violent crime database program of the Washington State Office of the Attorney General. The system tracks homicides and rapes in and/or relating to the states of Washington and Oregon and also receives data from at least three other states and Canada. The database provides information on over 14,000 murders and over 10,000 sexual assaults to local law enforcement agencies as well as advice and assistance in ongoing investigations. Notable cases that have been assisted by HITS include Gary Ridgway, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, and serial killer Robert Lee Yates.
Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004) is a non-fiction true crime history by Peter Vronsky, a criminal justice historian. It surveys the history of serial homicide, its culture, psychopathology, and investigation from the Roman Empire to the early 2000s. The book describes the rise of serial murder from its first early recorded instances in ancient Rome to medieval and Renaissance Europe, and Victorian Britain, and its rise and escalation in the United States and elsewhere in the world, in the postmodern era. The book also surveys a range of theoretical approaches to serial killers interspersed with dozens of detailed case studies of both notorious and lesser known serial murderers, illustrating the theory in practice. Considered by some a definitive history of serial homicide, this was the book serial killer Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, was reading when he was arrested in 2005.
Investigative genetic genealogy, or forensic genetic genealogy, is the emerging practice of utilizing genetic information from direct-to-consumer companies for identifying suspects or victims in criminal cases. As of September 2021, the use of this practice has led to the discovery of over 150 suspects of murder and sexual assault. The investigative power of genetic genealogy revolves around the use of publicly accessible genealogy databases such as GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA. On GEDMatch, users are able to upload their genetic data from any direct-to-consumer company in an effort to identify relatives that have tested at companies other than their own.
James R. Fitzgerald is an American criminal profiler, forensic linguist, and author. He is a retired FBI agent and best known for his role in the UNABOM investigation, which resulted in the arrest and conviction of Ted Kaczynski.
Ann C. Wolbert Burgess is a researcher whose work has focused on developing ways to assess and treat trauma in rape victims. She is a professor at the William F. Connell School of Nursing at Boston College.
GEDmatch is an online service to compare autosomal DNA data files from different testing companies. The website gained significant media coverage in April 2018 after it was used by law enforcement to identify a suspect in the Golden State Killer case in California. Other law-enforcement agencies started using GEDmatch for violent crimes, making it "the de facto DNA and genealogy database for all of law enforcement", according to The Atlantic's Sarah Zhang.
References
- 1 2 "FBI—Investigations & Operations Support". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
- ↑ "Convicted Killer Linked to 90 Murders FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program Connects Cases to Prolific Serial Killer". FBI News. FBI. 2018-11-27. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
