1. What does “behavior reflects personality” mean? How is physical evidence related to behavior? Explain modus operandi and signature aspects of violent crimes. Finally, explain the components of crime classification that you learned about.
The term “behavior reflects personality” refers to the fact that although every crime committed is unique in its own way, certain behaviors related to these crimes fit noticeable patterns. By focusing on the distinct pieces of these patterns, it is then easier to determine the profile of the suspect’s personality. According to an article from the American Psychological Association, “In a homicide case, for example, FBI agents glean insight into [a] personality through questions about the murderer's behavior at four crime phases” (Winerman, 2004). The article states that these four phases include Antecedent, Method & Manner, Body Disposal and Post-offense Behavior.
Physical evidence is related to behavior in many important ways. By carefully analyzing physical evidence from a crime scene, investigators can then reconstruct the crime scene and use it to determine many characteristics regarding the suspect’s behavior. Evidence such as wounds, footprints, bloodstain patterns, and bullet trajectory can say quite a lot about the suspect’s behaviors and likely narrow down their list of possible suspects using that information.
Modus operandi “is a learned behavior that evolves over time as offenders gain experience and confidenceoffenders continually reshape their MOs to meet the demands of the crime” (Douglas & Munn, 1992). An example of modus operandi would be if the offender used items found at a crime scene to gag the victim during his first two attacks and then brought duct tape to his next three attacks to use for gagging the victims.
On the other hand, signature aspects of a crime, also known as a “calling card,” stay constant for each and every offender, although it may evolve as the offender continues to commit more crimes. An example of a signature aspect would be if a serial rapist carries out the same sexual acts on all of his victims, all within the same exact specific order.
The components of crime classification include asking questions about the victim, crime scene and the nature of exchange between the victim and the offender, but more specifically: motive, victimology, crime scene indicators, staging, and forensic findings. It is possible to determine the motive of the crime once all other components have been determined and factored into the investigation. Victimology is crucial to the investigation, as it will provide a complete history of the victim’s life and present findings as to why the victim was targeted, thus eventually leading to the person(s) responsible for the crime. The more information provided about the victim, the better the chances are of determining the motive.
Regarding the crime scene indicators, investigators should mainly focus on the phases of the crime, the number of crime scenes, the environment and place & time, the number of offenders, organized/disorganized, physical evidence, weapons, body disposition, and items left or missing. According to the text Crime Classification Manual, “A crime can generally be divided into four phases. The first is the pre-crime stage, which takes into account the ‘antecedent behavior’ of the offenderThe second phase is the actual commission of the crimeThe third phase is the disposal of the bodyThe fourth and final phase is post-crime behavior” (Douglas, Burgess, Ressler, 2013).
Staging occurs when the offender purposely alters the crime scene, more than likely to either deter investigators from pinpointing them as a suspect, or to make one crime look like another. An example of staging would be forging a suicide note after murdering a person, to make it look as though that person had actually killed themselves.
Forensic findings also play a crucial role in the investigation, mainly because it can tell investigators whether a person’s death was from natural causes or other outside factors potentially caused or induced by someone intending to hurt that person. It can also indicate trauma and sexual assault, which investigators might not immediately be able to see simply from looking at the physical condition of the body.
2. Review the crimes of John Wayne Gacy. Classify his crimes and explain the classification. Examine each component of the classification modeling the examples used in the text. Use what you can find in published articles, interviews, and scholarly information on the web. Make sure to reference your sources.
John Wayne Gacy was a respected, successful contractor in his Chicago suburb during the 1970s. He was very active in the community and well-known for his charitable services at fundraising events and children’s parties where he dressed up as a clown to entertain the children. Between 1972 and 1978, Gacy had murdered at least 33 male victims after physically and sexually torturing them. He would lure his victims to his house, promising them that he would give them a job doing construction work with his contracting business. Once they arrived at his house, Gacy would sexually assault the victims and then strangled them to death with a rope. The victims were then either buried under his house or garage, or thrown in a nearby river. In some of the cases, Gacy actually dressed up in his clown costume while carrying out the crime.
Gacy could be classified as an organized serial killer, as one can see just by looking at the number of victims he killed. Gacy could also be classified as a homosexual pedophile because all of his victims were men, some of them being teenage boys. Some speculate that Gacy may have also suffered from severe mental illnesses, causing him to truly believe that by killing these young males, he was making the community a better place.
Regarding victimology, all of the victims were not known to Gacy prior to the crimes being committed. The victims might have had an increased chance of becoming a target for violent crime if they identified themselves as being homosexual. Gacy took a risk in perpetrating these crimes by presenting himself to the victims out in public, where he could have been seen taking the victim away and off to his house. Regarding crime scene indicators, there were not any indicators immediately visible or available to investigators, until a search of Gacy’s home had been conducted. All of the crimes took place inside Gacy’s home, and the majority of the victims’ bodies were buried under his house and garage. There was only one crime scene, which would be at Gacy’s home, because that is where the sexual assaults and murders took place. Regarding the environment, place and time of the crimes, they all occurred indoors at Gacy’s house, likely picked up on a busy street in the nighttime. Gacy remained at the scene of all of his crimes because that is where he lived. This tells us that Gacy was extremely comfortable committing the murders at that location. Gacy was very organized in the way he carried out his murders, using chloroform to knock his victims out, very methodically strangling them with a rope, and finally burying the body under his home. Although he did keep quite a bit of evidence from his victims, it was all kept inside his home, away from the public eye. The body dispositions were not openly displayed to be found by the public, as they were buried under his home and garage to prevent discovery. Forensic findings proved that the victims had been strangled with a rope, and had also been sexually assaulted.
References
Douglas, J., Burgess, A., Ressler, R. (2013). Crime Classification Manual. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Douglas, J.E., Munn, C. (1992). Violent Crime Scene Analysis: Modus Operandi, Signature, and Staging. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Vol. 61, 1-10.
John Wayne Gacy. (2014). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 03:02, Jun 11, 2014, from http://www.biography.com/people/john-wayne-gacy-10367544.
Winerman, L. (2004). Criminal profiling: the reality behind the myth. American Psychological Association, Vol. 35, 66.
