2.1.4Victimology

In cases a lot are just encountered by the serial killer who is hunting for the victim he needs: As for how are they stalked, approached, attacked, and trapped, each serial killers has his own personal mode and manner or form of current style and fashion ... the serial killer kills strangers 95 percent of the time because as the safest target in terms of avoiding detection ....

Children: young boys and girls are frequently desirable victims by the serial killer for sex .... Most serial killers have selected there murder scenes by the place they take there victims to: as for the relevant geographice areas selected by the offender (serial killer) this dependes on the seasons, and were the serial killer is killing.

— Clifford Olson’s description of how serial murderers select their victims and crime sites; Olson, 1992b, pp. 6–8, uncorrected quote

One of the purposes of victimology is to help explain the role of the victim in the occurrence of crime. It stresses the importance of dynamic behaviours, and environmental, situational, and triggering factors for an understanding of crime patterns. “In the victimological perspective, violent behavior is viewed not as a unilateral action but as the outcome of dynamic process of interaction” (Fattah, 1991, p. xiv).

The chances of any given individual becoming a victim of serial murder is extremely low, on par with the odds of being struck by lightning. Most homicide victims are killed by intimates or associates and stranger murder is rare (Silverman & Kennedy, 1993). Only 6% of homicides in the U.S. involve sexual assault. Serial killers are believed to be responsible for 1 to 2% of all murders in the U.S. and England; such murder would then account for only 1 out of every 10,000 U.S. deaths (Fox & Levin, 1992; Jenkins, 1988b, 1994). Hickey’s estimates are even lower (1997); he collected a total of 2526 to 3860 recorded serial killings in the U.S. from 1800 to 1995. Even for the peak period of his study (1975 to 1995, 974 to 1398 victims), the annual risk rate was only about 1 in 5 million. Cavanagh (1993) calculated a significantly higher total of 1424 U.S. serial murder victims for the period from 1976 to 1989. His figures are based on Newton’s (1990a, 1990b) collection of cases which, he cautions, includes incidents that might not be considered as true serial murders by all researchers.

It is essential to recognize, however, that risk of crime is not spread uniformly throughout the population. Particular types of people, by virtue of their sex, age, race, occupation, or location, are at much higher risks of victimization (Block, Felson, & Block, 1985). “Just as lions look for deer near their watering hole, criminal offenders disproportionately find victims in certain settings or high-risk occupations” (Felson, 1987, p. 914). Keppel

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(1989) lists six activities commonly engaged in by serial murder victims at the point of approach: (1) sleeping at home; (2) looking for a job; (3) going to a tavern; (4) prostitution; (5) walking on a college campus; and (6) hitchhiking. Hickey assessed victim facilitation as high in 16%, low in 72% to 75%, and mixed in 9 to 12% of serial murders. Godwin and Canter (1997) found in a study of 54 male U.S. serial killers, convicted of a minimum of 10 murders, that 92% of their victims were strangers, 4% were acquaintances, 3% were friends, and 1% were family members. Prostitutes accounted for 28% of this sample.

Sexual and physical assaults against prostitutes are disturbingly common. Between 1991 and 1995, 63 known prostitutes were murdered in Canada, almost all female (Duchesne, 1997). This represents 5% of all reported female homicides (n = 1118) during the same time period. The prostitute murder risk in British Columbia has been estimated at ranging between 60 to 120 times that of the general adult female population (Lowman & Fraser, 1995). Clients are responsible for the bulk of these homicides (n = 50), most of which occur in the offender’s vehicle. Stranger relationships and the private nature of the street sex trade make the identification of the killer difficult, and the majority of prostitute murders go unsolved (54% vs. 20% for murder generally).

Godwin (1998) states that the ecology of victim target networks can help police identify previously unknown victims and possible future victims. He proposes that the decision-making process of serial murderers is based on an assessment of gain (potential victims) and risk factors (surveillance, police, escape routes). Victim social networks also help define the areas of highest risk for victimization by serial murderers. Such places include urban subculture domains (e.g., bars, red-light districts), isolated landscapes (e.g., parking lots, jogging paths), neighbourhoods of the elderly or poor, skid rows, and university campuses. Hickey (1997) found that some serial murderers attacked only females or males, but many targeted either sex. Most victims are strangers but family members and acquaintances are not immune. Twothirds of serial murder victims are preyed upon by someone from their own (usually urban) community. Death is usually from strangulation or beating.

Victim choice may provide insights to the nature of the offender, and detailed victimology is one of the key information requirements in the criminal profiling process (Douglas, Ressler, Burgess, & Hartman, 1986; Holmes & Holmes, 1996). The victim is often symbolic and may remind the killer of someone from their past.12 Particular victim appearances, specific actions, or the elicitation of certain responses may trigger a murderous reaction from the offender. “The plan or fantasy constructed earlier [by the killer] may call

12 One study of sexually sadistic criminals, however, found only 17% (5) of the 30 cases involved a victim that resembled someone of psychological significance to the offender (Dietz et al., 1990).

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for a victim who meets certain criteria, and many murderers have been known to seek out a victim who is exactly right for the fantasy” (Ressler et al., 1988, p. 50). Several of the sexual murderers in the FBI study admitted they hunted nightly for victims,13 though the proper circumstances for an attack only arose occasionally.

Some serial murderers have specific and articulated victim criteria. Joel Rifkin, who strangled 17 street prostitutes in New York, confessed to driving around for hours, circling the red-light strolls of Lower Manhattan in a search for just the right type of woman — petite, with straight dark hair and sexy jewelry (Pulitzer & Swirsky, 1994a). He only killed those who accepted money for sex and then did something to anger him. Robert Hansen, Alaska’s worst serial killer, had three triggering requirements. Victims had to approach him for sex, refuse to do a requested sexual act, and then try to escape (Du Clos, 1993; Gilmour & Hale, 1991; Pulitzer & Swirsky, 1994b).

By comparison, Clifford Olson varied both the age and sex of his victims (Ferry & Inwood, 1982; Mulgrew, 1990). He picked up potential victims at bus stops, offered them jobs, and enticed them into his car through beguilement and seduction (Worthington, 1993). Some he drove home, others he sexually assaulted or even murdered. Olson himself does not seem to know why he killed those he did; on one occasion he stated he murdered so the victim would not report the sex assault to the police, and on another he blamed his use of alcohol and pills.

Victim selection may depend upon serial murder type because of variations in offender motivation (Holmes & Holmes, 1996). Nonspecific victim selection is associated with the visionary serial murder type, known victims with visionary and comfort killers, and relational victims with comfort serial murderers. Barrett (1990) observes that over time serial killers become less selective as they become constrained by victim availability.

In an excerpt from an interview with a convicted serial murderer, Holmes and Holmes (1996) presents an offender’s perspective on the issue of victim selection:

The traditional school of thought has it that serial murderers, on the whole, select their victims on the basis of certain physical and/or personal characteristics … male or female, black or white, young or old, short or tall, largebusted or small, shy or forward, and so on. … [W]hen a typical serial killer begins an active search for human prey, he will go to great lengths to capture and victimize only those individuals who closely fit the mold of his preferred “ideal.”

13 See the discussion in Ressler and Shachtman (1992) on the hunting behaviour of David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam.

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I am personally convinced that every serial killer does indeed nurture a rather clear mental picture of his own ideal victim ... Notwithstanding this point, however, I strongly believe that in the case of most serial killers, the physical and personal characteristics of those on their respective list of victims only infrequently coincide with the desired traits of their imagined “ideal”...

There are two basic, interrelated reasons for this disparity. The first centers upon the extreme caution exercised by a serial killer in his predatory search for a victim; the second, upon the nature of the compulsion that drives him to violence .... This unremitting sense of caution has direct ramification on victim selection in that, during the course of his search for human prey, a serial killer is seldom apt to find his preferred ideal victim in a position of safe and easy capture. In truth, it is a difficult and time-consuming task to locate any potential victim who can be readily seized without risk of detection.... A serial killer could, of course, bide his time. He could reject all other easy prey until, at last, his ideal victim appeared in circumstances perfectly suited to his caution. In actual practice, however, he rarely will choose to wait very long.

Why is this so? Because as the second reason given earlier, the nature of a serial murderer’s compulsion for violence is such that it precludes any prolonged or self-imposed delay in acting out his brutal urges. Initially, he may have set out fully determined to succeed at capturing his ideal victim … But, as time passes without his promptly accomplishing this specific end

— a common occurrence within his many hunts … his intense and mounting hunger for real life violence against a real life captive inevitably compels him to settle for any soonest-available victim of opportunity. (pp. 69–70)

As suggested by this offender, target choice is not just determined by fantasy and psychological pathology; it is also influenced by such factors as victim availability and attack opportunity (Jenkins, 1993b). By definition, a serial killer must have been responsible for at least three separate acts of homicide, and to achieve this status a criminal needs to escape apprehension. Consequently, murderers who prey on “easy victims” whose actions make them easy targets and whose lifestyle socially marginalizes them, are more likely to be repeatedly successful (Cleary, Klein, & Luxenburg, 1994). Egger (1998) refers to these victims as the “less-dead” — the prostitutes, street people, runaways, homosexuals, and elderly who are society’s throwaways. Opportunity is thus important in understanding and explaining patterns of victimization. “Fashions in multiple homicide appear to change over time in ways that reflect changes in potential victim populations .... Victimological factors can ... [also] go far toward accounting for distribution by place and region” (Jenkins, pp. 471–472).

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