Not-So-Shabby Profiling 101

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

CB,

If you can imagine yourself as Carrie Brown and want your case solved, what do you think about shaking the tree of her usual clients or the average punter type?

I know she would associate with criminals but would they be likely to kill her like that? Pimps or hoteliers of questionable premises? It would be tantamount to destroying your own or someone’s merchandise.

[Caroline Brown]

Hi Markus,

I imagine the kind of man who did that to Carrie B would have had an 'easy come, easy go' mentality regarding women in her situation. He could have been a regular client, pimp or landlord, who considered the 'merchandise' to be disposable when the urge to be sexually violent took over. But if he had associated freely with the other criminal types who associated with CB, one would think he'd have been easier to pin down than a total unknown, who kept himself to himself and hid his violent character from everyone but the victim.

I don't suppose that helps much!

Love,

Caz
X

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

He could have been a regular client, pimp or landlord, who considered the 'merchandise' to be disposable when the urge to be sexually violent took over.

I would pretty much agree with the candidates in that descending order, with any client as the A1 candidate. An outsider client would be impossible to pin down because they wouldn't recognize him even if they saw him which they always do.

The unknown in "unknown local", I believe, means unknown to investigators and researchers. They're not unknown locally. Although I think there's a misconception that he would be unknown and unrecognized by the locals.

As for the other two, I'd list them lower down in probability and I would disagree with the idea of someone she knew on a daily basis suddenly victimizing her completely out of the blue, especially for those reasons.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I think that if the victim is a prostitute, the murder is automatically considered a sexual homicide. Even when there's no overt evidence that it is, except for the fact of her profession. And the probability that they engaged in some act of that nature prior to the murder.

In this case, as I believe in the Ripper case, you'd have to find something that was more symbolic and/or paraphilic to fit the Lust Murder definition. Paraphilia is rare so I'd narrow it down to symbolic which doesn't sound to me like some kind of urge that overtakes someone who is a pimp or landlord. Does not the Diary remove any kind of lust or philia from the crime?

You could call it Vengeance or Wrath Killing rather than a Lust Killing. They don't suggest two different types of physical actions done in "tandem". The violent act itself provides the pleasure the Diary talks about. That in itself is an unprecedented view of homicide if you look at the predominant literature. I think it's also correct.

[Caroline Brown]

Lots to think about.

When it comes to a criminal who has inflicted rare sexual violence on his victim - whether it's a one-off instance or a whole series of apparently connected attacks - I suspect his violent streak will have been there, bubbling away just below the surface for a long while, before it erupts and fully reveals itself. I'm not sure anyone should be above suspicion if they happened to have 'previous' for mistreating CB or other women like her. If it's there in a man's nature, he may actually seek out the very situations which will give him free access to use and abuse vulnerable women and girls. The vast majority of cruel and violent men would stop well short of what was done to CB, but it would only have taken the one in a million with a special taste for it, who suddenly found himself with an opportunity and no off switch. If CB knew her killer, however, it would suggest to me an unplanned and spontaneous attack by someone of low intelligence, who didn't stop to think that he'd be putting himself in the frame - which is why I doubt there was any known connection between killer and victim.

If there was any planning involved, it would suggest the kind of predator who knew what he was looking for, but didn't know who until he'd found some nameless woman who couldn't be connected to him when he'd finished with her.

Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of watching a Channel 5 documentary on The Railway Killers - two men who committed a series of rapes and at least three murders in the 1980s. I have yet to watch the final part, but I gather that the sexual element of the crimes was less of a thrill for one of the men, who got more pleasure from the violence he inflicted on the victims.

It's clear that one size does not fit all, so I feel that the diary author was not 'wrong' in the way the killer's motivation is portrayed, because someone, somewhere, at some time, will have been of the same or similar mindset. The diary also appears to reflect a man who had been permanently horny, fornicating his way across the pond and back, who has been plunged unceremoniously into midlife crisis by suspicion of his much younger wife and his own health concerns. If one such concern is impotence, and the image he can't get out of his head of Bunny looking elsewhere, he seems to be in denial when writing about seeing his mistress. The incredible brutality of the murders could be seen as the boiling over of his frustrations, providing the only kind of thrills left to him.

If 'Jack' began murdering unfortunates in middle age, it would not surprise me if this was a man who had recently lost his mojo.

Love,

Caz
X

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

That’s fair enough, Caz. Although that last bit, shall we say, goes into the TMI realm for me, sort of like childhood bed wetting, and I don’t know how much investigatory value it has unless it’s his partner doing the investigating!

This is an ongoing process even for me to assess Jim as Jack according to the Diary. I had Jack as a high class of serial killer which I figured would make Jim a good fit as a well-off patron of prostitutes. But now I think that terrorists are perhaps culled from the higher classes. And Jack should be classed as that.

Or perhaps it’s just the most successful terrorists….
Unabomber, Anthrax….

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

It's clear that one size does not fit all, so I feel that the diary author was not 'wrong' in the way the killer's motivation is portrayed, because someone, somewhere, at some time, will have been of the same or similar mindset.
Love,
Caz
X

One size might not fit all but one size does fit most. Or more than others. Stores work that way so why not profiling? How is the Diary or the Diary author not right in this case?

When the Diary always fits Jack with the most fitting fit and the rest of the people are fitting him up with a lesser fitting fit, then it’s not about someone somewhere fitting the fit. Where doesn’t he fit the best?

Although “fitting people up” has a connotation of frame-up, I believe “fit the bill” has a theatrical origin from “fill the bill”.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Caz,

What do you think of this case and the title of the book--A New Kind Of Monster? Born in 1963 and his first murder was in 2009.

This guy was from Bromsgrove. I haven't looked up where that is. If he was a Mr or Mrs Hammersmith like yourself, I might consider it something new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russel...iams_(criminal)

[Jay Hartley]

Caz,

What do you think of this case and the title of the book--A New Kind Of Monster? Born in 1963 and his first murder was in 2009.

This guy was from Bromsgrove. I haven't looked up where that is. If he was a Mr or Mrs Hammersmith like yourself, I might consider it something new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russel...iams_(criminal)

I hadn’t come across this story before. It is fascinating in the sense of this switching psychopathic focus from successful career to murderer.

Serial killer psychopathy can be argued is as much neurological as it is environmental. If you are constantly in hunt mode, then the focus of the prey will be relentless until you have mastered the art of the hunt, and often beyond.

In Williams’s case he had ascended the career ladder in his chosen field to the very top. To then switch that focus from career to sexual murder is a fascinating gear change.

He most likely always had dark tendencies but never acted on them whilst his career remained his main focus. Over time as his career presented less challenges the dark thoughts probably began taking more centre stage in his mindset.

It’s no coincidence that so many blue chip CEOs would be diagnosed as psychopathic. Obviously not all psychopaths have a desire to torture, rape or murder. However, all serial killers are invariably psychopathic or psychotic.

[R. J. Palmer]

It's a rather infamous case in Canada.

Williams is said to have once flown Queen Elizabeth II across the Atlantic.

I suppose his deplorable and bizarre double-life gives hope those who suspect successful people like Walter Sickert and Michael Maybrick and Henry Sutton of being Jack the Ripper.

It can also be seen as a small kick in the pants to the objections Christer Holmgren recently made on this website in reference to Monty Druitt's supposed non-involvement in the murders--that he was 'too successful' or 'too normal.'

[Caroline Brown]

Afternoon All,

I had not heard of this case until just now! Just shows how impossible it would be to predict who might be secretly unfulfilled, despite giving everyone the opposite impression, and harbouring increasingly dark desires that won't go away on their own and may not remain dormant forever.

How many individuals have such thoughts but never act on them, for whatever reason? Is Williams the tip of an iceberg of similar 'monsters' in waiting, who mostly manage to control themselves until old age or premature death take it out of their hands?

Williams seems to have readily confessed to a whole series of appalling crimes, presumably intelligent enough to admit to himself when the game was finally up. But that same intelligence did not stop him offending in the first place and putting his freedom and reputation at risk every time.

Love,

Caz
X

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Over time as his career presented less challenges the dark thoughts probably began taking more centre stage in his mindset.

I was still looking for an IOU for women like Maybrick. His parents did divorce but his marriage appears to have been okay. So I think yours is the best explanation for the ultimate motivation for his late-stage entry to serial killing (age 46).

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Russell Williams was in the military but his acts did not compare to Jack's. RW wore a mask so as not to be identified by a live victim. There's nothing online about him writing poetry. JtR though compares to the poetic serial killer/campaign killer.

TV Tropes has Poetic Serial Killer and Warrior Poet. These variations of Jungian archetypes are made distinct from each other by the Tropers, with the SK handing out "poetic justice" and not necessarily being a true poetry writer. The Warrior Poet though writes poetry. I think there's some truth in the Troper's distinctions.

I see JtR the same way as in the Diary. He's a Campaign Killer so, of anyone, he'd write poetry,... while perhaps still being a poetic serial killer, as per the Tropes, and handing out his idea of "poetic justice".

Poetry (except free verse) is built on the optimal deployment of limited resources — words that fit together with other words, and with words that aren't there — not unlike the strategic decisions a soldier makes on the battlefield.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WarriorPoet