Dark Side: Linkage Blindness

 

Police authorities throughout England have taken much criticism in cases like the Yorkshire Ripper, serial killer Frederic West, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, and the investigation into the murder of Rachael Nichole. A product from these various inquiries was the development of the Murder Investigation Manual. This manual provides a structure for homicide investigation in the UK. The consultant list is quite extensive resulting in a very thorough and comprehensive manual of procedures for homicide detectives.

We can fairly presume the investigation of homicide represents the supreme test for the detective. It is akin to managing a drama; often alive in media interest and, sometimes, political intrigue, while bringing to bear every professional skill in policing and many other disciplines too. Recognition and Acknowledgment of Serial Murder ever frustration the individual departments might have felt at their inability to solve the mysterious murders of young women or the missing persons cases in their jurisdictions suddenly became, on the one hand, compounded by the recognition that the same killer might be operating in a 300-mile radius across two states, but relieved, on the other hand, by the understanding that the individual agencies were not alone, and that there might be a solution in a joint task force investigation. The inability of officers to link murders or missing persons to the same offender is referred to as “linkage blindness”.

Specifically, linkage blindness occurs when police administrators and investigators refuse to admit or do not know that a serial killer is operating. The reason for this blindness has been attributed to officers not recognizing the characteristics of a serial victim, and more importantly, not having the ability to track murders in a central repository of information. At worst, you cannot tell until the killer tells you.

As we will see, even though a series of murders is linked to the same killer, a homicide may not fit the pattern of facts the police have established for their series. Therefore, the killer is investigated separately in the different homicides, and important clues or leads to the rest of the cases may go unnoticed. Recognition is the single most important concept in serial murder investigations, primarily because it is the beginning of a required sequence in the understanding of the serial murder investigative process along with acknowledgment and control. Without it, the realization that a serial killer is operating is nonexistent, the probability of solving cases diminishes, and, worse yet, the likelihood someone else being killed rises. A recurring theme throughout our study of the psychology of a serial murder investigation is the mismanagement of information; either problems with collecting, storing, analyzing, and prioritizing incoming information or the inability of  recognizing information that is useful to the investigation. Therefore, in serial murder cases, the root of those problems begins with the concept of recognition: How are victims identified as one in a series of killings committed by the same offender?

 

There are three main methods used to link murders prior to a killer’s

 apprehension. They are

·       physical evidence,

·       offender description, and

·       crime scene behavior.

Each method has its strengths and weaknesses. It is not uncommon for a series of crimes to be connected through a combination of these means. The first question that immediately arises is: Why should investigators care to link cases? Police investigators and prosecutors need cases linked for their own purposes. From an investigative standpoint, the linking of crimes enables investigators to pursue the same suspect instead of operating without the knowledge that the cases are linked. Prosecutors want similar cases linked so the defendant can be tried on multiple charges in the same trial.

 

But what happens when there is both an administrative and a psychological denial of the recognition process, when connections may not want to be made in the first place? It has been discovered that some homicide departments were reluctant to declare a serial murder case because the investigations were expensive, sometimes futile, and ultimately frustrating endeavors that, more often than not, made the members of a task force look confused and inept. In other words, the very act of taking the first step to solving the case is also, in the minds of police commanders, the first step in encountering failure, a resulting loss of morale, and, perhaps, even public humiliation.

 

Those who predicted the size of the force and resources needed greatly underestimated the number of murders that had been committed up to that point. The task force members soon became experts in processing outside crime scenes, but that function alone didn’t catch the killer. It was almost like the killer had intentionally dispersed the bodies in remote locations so those investigating him couldn’t recognize the extent of the series of murders.

 

Acknowledgements:

www.politie.nl  and a Chief Inspector – Mr. Henk van Essen©

www.aivd.nl       AIVD – Mr. Erik Akerboom ©

 

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