Thursday, February 25, 2010

Serial killers too ordinary to stand out

Toronto Star

Published On Thu Feb 25 2010

http://tiny.cc/morton678

James Morton

The culprit in a typical homicide is so obvious as to make an investigation almost superfluous. In many cases, the killer does nothing to hide the crime and readily confesses to police – indeed, many killers call the police before the crime is discovered. This ease of detection leads to the belief that where a killer is not caught right away someone must have slipped up on the job.

So the allegations against Col. Russell Williams, former commander of CFB Trenton, have led to questions of how someone could rise to a position of trust and power while having a criminal double life.

The answer is that serial killers are very different from ordinary murderers. Serial killers are seldom obvious wrongdoers and often escape justice for extended periods. Their motivation is often obscure and while they often choose victims with common characteristics, the deduction and capture of serial killers is not simple. Even identifying a series of killings as being the work of a serial killer can take a long time, and sometimes years elapse before a serial killer is caught.

No comments: