Seven Obstacles to Serial Murder Investigations
Any crime investigation has its challenges and protocols. In the case of serial murder investigations, there are seven major obstacles (Egger, 2002) law enforcement must overcome to be successful. They are presented here in no particular order of seriousness based on this authors perspective with the exception of linkage blindness which is all too common and at the top of the list.
�· Linkage blindness
�· Making a solid commitment to the investigation
�· Coordination
�· Analyzing large amounts of information
�· Pressure from the public and the media
�· Assessing the value of victimological information
�· Analyzing previous serial murder investigations in order to determine appropriate actions for the current investigation
Linkage Blindness – Murders occurring in many different jurisdictions may not be linked due to agencies’ lack of cooperation with each other or lack of information accessibility. Thus a serial killer may go undetected for long periods of time due to linkage blindness between several cases.
Making A Solid Commitment – Many law enforcement agencies are unwilling to publicly announce they are investigating a serial murder case, because it makes them “look bad” in the eyes of their community. Denial may also play a part in the unwillingness to commit to the idea of the serial killer at large in the community. “This couldn’t happen in our town.”
Coordination – When coordinating an investigation of serial murder, many specially trained homicide investigators are pulled off ongoing or new cases leaving investigation of these ongoing and new cases to less experienced investigators. This can lower the agency’s clearance rates making it appear as if they are not doing their job.
Analyzing Information – The vast amount of information that must be analyzed requires it to be entered into a computer. This is a problem because the level of computer literacy may be very low among police officers aside from basic training. Training an officer how to use specific functions of a program used to analyze information can be very time consuming and costly. Additionally, the agency hardware may not be capable of using or interacting with the analysis program.
Public Pressure – Many agencies are ill prepared to deal with high levels of pressure from the public and the media. They may not have established protocols for information dissemination. Information given out by officers who have little to no solid information can cause confusion and the appearance that the agency is failing in its investigation.
Victimology – Many victims of serial killers are prostitutes, runaways, hitchhikers and the homeless. Yet, these are the murder cases that get the least attention because they are considered the “less-dead,” disposable members of society. Because the agency does not look in-depth into these cases, they loose valuable victimological information on the type of victim the serial killer looks for and the area in which he or she may be killing.
Analyzing Previous Investigations – The failure to review previous investigators’ procedures in serial killer investigations is also a common problem. Prior serial killer cases, which have been solved, can give an investigative team vital information and direction on how to proceed with a current investigation. This information however, is rarely used.
This piece is not designed to be critical of law enforcement, only to point out the potential pitfalls inherent in a serial murder investigation. When one knows where the pitfalls lie, they can be avoided or a course over, around or through them can be charted.
References
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