Applied Profiling

During the period 1982-86, 24 sexual assaults occurred in North London near to railways. It was believed that one man was involved, though on some occasions he had had an accomplice. Between 1985 and 1986 three murders occurred, and forensic evidence together with certain aspects of the perpetrator's modus operandi suggested that there were links between the rapes and murders.

When Canter joined the detectives working on the case they compiled a table of all the offences with comprehensive details in an attempt to establish a pattern. A profile was subsequently drawn up which included the following description:

1. · Lives in the area circumscribed by the first three cases (1982-83):

2. · Probably lives with wife/girlfriend, possibly without children;

3. · Mid to late 20s, right-handed, A secretor (evidence of blood group A in bodily fluids):

4. · Semiskilled or skilled job, with weekend work:

5. · Knowledge of the railway system;

6. · Criminal record, involving violence,

When John Duffy was arrested in November 1988 he turned out to live in Kilburn, was separated from his wife, was in his late 20s, right-handed and an A secretor, was a travelling carpenter for British Rail and was known to the police for having raped his wife at knifepoint. Duffy was initially 1505th in a list of 2000 suspects and the profile enabled prompt action to be taken. Canter compiled his profile by analysing the detail of the offences, e.g. what had been said, the nature of the sexual activity, knowledge of police procedures, etc.

Comparison of profile of Arthur Shawcross and his actual personality

Main points of profile	Arthur Shawcross
Lone male, 35 years+ Menial occupation Appears innocuous Functional clothing Functional vehicle Potential ‘police buff’ Returns to dead victims Police record	44 years old Cut food for salads Correct Correct Ex-police car Hung around ‘police bars’ Caught on bridge near eleventh victim On parole for earlier child murders

Source: ‘Murder in Mind’, 1993.

Within the history of FBI profiling, the case of Arthur Shawcross, captured in 1990, is seen as a classic. Shawcross had murdered eleven women in the Rochester area of New York State. The key part of the profile was the belief that he would return to the dead victims later to re-experience the pleasure of the killing, so the police set up a surveillance of his eleventh victim, and he was caught masturbating on a bridge near the body.

To aid profiling and to seek patterns in murders, in 1985 the FBI set up a computer database on murders called VICAP. After any murder in the USA detectives have to send a detailed report to the FBI headquarters. There the report is compared to information on the database to see if the murder is the work of a serial murderer.

The British Approach

This approach developed independently of the police authorities from the separate work of David Canter and Paul Britton. There is some debate about which case was the first in Britain to use profiling. Many see Paul Britton’s help in the 1983 case of Paul Bostock as the first time a psychologist was used to profile the offender. This case involved two separate murders with ‘black magic’ associations found near the victims. Britton gave a limited profile to the police of a young, isolated man, who had access to knives, with an obsession for ‘black magic’ (what Britton called a ‘belief dysfunction’). The police eventually arrested Bostock, who was a nineteen-year-old loner, a meat factory worker, with a house full of ‘black magic’ items. He did not confess to the murders, so Britton advised a line of questioning based on Bostock’s fantasies, which proved fruitful (‘Murder in Mind’, 1993).

The first well-known case in Britain to involve direct help to the police in profiling came in 1986, when David Canter started to help in the case of the ‘Railway Rapist’, John Duffy. This case involved 24 sexual assaults near railways in North London, and three murders (between 1982 and 1986). All the crimes showed signs of having the same offender. The first attacks were rapes, which initially were thought to be the work of two offenders together. Then the pattern became clear, and with the later murders, it was definitely one man. However, later evidence did show that Duffy was helped by his friend Mulcahy. Canter was able to analyse the details and drew up the profile.

Main points of Canter’s profile

Characteristics of offender

Lived in area near to area of first crimes (1983) Probably lives with woman Aged mid-to late-20s Right-handed Semi-skilled or skilled job with weekend work, but relatively isolated work Knowledge of railways Previous criminal record for violence (maybe arrested between October 1982 and January 1984) Be a loner, with few friends Physically small, with feelings of unattractiveness Interest in martial arts Needs to dominate women Fantasies about rape and bondage Fascination for weapons, especially swords and knives Fantasies about sex and violence Keeps souvenirs from crimes

Lived in area suggested Recently separated from wife Aged late 20s Correct Travelling carpenter Worked for British Rail Raped wife at knife point Duffy had only two male friends, one of which was his co-offender David Malcahy 5feet 4inches with acne Member of a martial arts club Attacked wife Tied up his wife before sex Had Kung Fu weapons at home Had hard-core porn videos Had 33 door keys from victims

Source: Canter, 1994.

David Canter (1994) believes that criminals, like most people behave consistently. An analysis of the pattern of behaviour observed over a number of crimes committed by a serial offender will give clues about the non-offending everyday behaviour of the criminal. We all operate within a social context. Interviews with victims about things that were said at the time of the crime could give an indication of how the criminal normally interacts with others. For example, a rapist who is hesitant and apologetic to his victim could well be committing the rape because he does not know how to go about forming a genuine close relationship with a woman in his everyday life. The British approach involves advising police officers about correlations between sets of data, such as time, place and choice of victim. Also the content analysis of speech is used as a way of gaining an insight into the everyday behaviour of the perpetrator of a crime.

• The offender (John Duffy) had been 1,505th on a list of 2,000 suspects before the profile. Canter

found that the rapes turned to murder because Duffy was almost recognized by a victim when in court for assaulting his wife. Duffy also learnt police procedures for forensic evidence as he was searched

after the rape of his wife, so this encouraged him to burn his dead victims to remove any forensic evidence.

Another famous case in which David Canter’s offender profiling was helpful to the police was that of Adrian Babb.

The case of Adrian Babb

Between January 1986 and March 1988, seven attacks on elderly women took place in tower blocks in south Birmingham. Women aged in their 70s and 80s, often infirm, were followed into the lifts by a stocky young man who overpowered them and took them to the top floor of the tower block, sometimes carrying them up the last two flights of stairs to the landing near the roof. There he raped them and escaped. Consistent patterns appeared to suggest the work of the same man. The offender had a limited repertoire of locations, victims and actions, which suggested a man operating in a constrained world. Canter noticed that the tower blocks were like islands surrounded by major dual carriageways.

Victims reported the attacker as black, athletic, without body odours and carrying a sports bag. After the first offence he made no attempt to disguise himself; so he had no fear that he would be recognized locally — the paradox of deep familiarity of tower blocks with the confidence in anonymity.

From the details of the case, Canter drew out his profile with the following main points.

• Not violent because only necessary force used.

• Athletic build suggests solitary sports interest — for example, bodybuilding or swimming.

• Cleanliness and organization suggests he was obsessive.

• No attempts to avoid forensic evidence suggested he was not aware of police procedures, thus not convicted before for this type of crime. Possible previous conviction for minor sexual offences.

• Ease with older women suggests dealing with elderly people in non-offence context.

• Knowledge of tower blocks suggests he lives in one. Based on this report, a police detective searched through the records of minor sexual offenders, and found a match between Babb’s fingerprints and those at the scene of crime. It was the lack of forensic awareness that led to his arrest. Babb was a swimming pool attendant, hence the cleanliness and lack of body odour, and he looked after sessions for the elderly.

Source: Canter, 1994.

The mad bomber of New York

In 1956, James Brussel, an American psychiatrist, drew up what turned out to be an uncannily accurate profile of a bomber who had been terrorising New York for several years. In fact Brussel (1968) relied heavily on his prior knowledge of psychopathology, common sense, and revealing evidence left at the crime scenes, all of which contributed to the eventual arrest of George Metesky and the astonishment of the press. Significantly Metesky was identified not because of the profile, but because of information in the personnel files of the company against which he held a grudge. Nonetheless, Brussels description of Metesky was very accurate and is probably the first well-publicised example of the potential of profiling.

James Brussel predicted that the suspect would be:

• a male high school graduate, aged 40—50 years

• living in Connecticut or Westchester, probably with a sister or maiden aunt

• Slavic and Catholic

• likely to wear a buttoned-up double-breasted suit.

When George Metesky was arrested he turned out to be 54, Polish, living in Connecticut with two older sisters, and wearing a double-breasted suit, but Brussel already knew that:

• bombing is a crime associated with paranoid personality disorders which tend to peak around the age of 40 years

• bombs at that time tended to be a middle European protest strategy

• errors in the letters indicated non-US origins

• most middle Europeans are Catholics, and in New York tend to concentrate in either Connecticut or Westchester-, where there are strong family ties

• the bombing style was meticulous, suggesting someone for whom order was important, and this could translate into the dress sense of the day

• there was evidence in the letters from the bomber that he believed he had been treated badly by his employers, Consolidated Edison.

Reading

Ainsworth Peter B., 2000, Psychology and Crime, Longman, ch 6

Brewer Kevin, 2000, Psychology and Crime, Heinemann, pp 37-42

Dwyer Diana, 2001, Angles on Criminal Psychology, Nelson Thornes, pp 47-52

Harrower Julie, 1998, Applying Psychology to Crime, Hodder & Stoughton, pp56-62.

Harrower Julie, 2001, Psychology in Practice, Crime, Hodder & Stoughton, pp 51-64