Investigative Psychology Conference (University of Liverpool)
How serial killers move ever closer to their home
By Russell Jenkins The London Times (September 1996)
POLICE investigating serial killers should focus on finding the spot where the murderers abducted their victims rather than where they dumped the bodies.
The "points of fatal encounter, where the victim is chosen and kidnapped, is much more closely related to the offender's home and his daily routine, new research suggests. Maurice Godwin, a former police officer from North Carolina, is conducting research into geographical profiling involving 54 American serial killers. He is a third-year PhD student at Liverpool University's investigative psychology unit. He told the fourth International Investigative Psychology Conference on Merseyside yesterday that police traditionally favoured psychological profiling built up from an examination of the site where the body was found. But an analysis of the crimes of the 54 killers, who had each murdered at least ten victims, disclosed that the average distance between the killers' home and his chosen dumping ground was 14.3 miles while the abduction area was only 1.4 miles away.
At each successive murder the killer would travel a smaller distance both to choose and grab his victim and to get rid of her body. A killer would travel considerable distances to dump a body for the first four or five murders but by the ninth or tenth murder he ‘is usually almost back at his home." Mr. Godwin added: "You look at the last of the series of body dump sites rather than the first....
"The psychology of this is that as the killer becomes more confident with his crimes, he incorporates the abduction and dumping of his victims into his daily lifestyle and activities, which are normally close to home."
Mr. Godwin said the team investigating the crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper could have focused on Chapeltown, Leed's red-light district where four of his victims were picked up. They would have learnt much about the murderer's lifestyle by studying the "victims' targeted networks."
"Police are overwhelmingly concerned with offenders' characteristics and totally neglect victimology, the study of the victim and their lifestyle. "
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