This a paper from devious and violence class

1. Globalization of Serial Murder 1
Globalization of Serial and Investigative Tools
Globalization of Serial Murder:
Investigative Tools and the Globalization of Data
Brenda Ross
Kaplan University
CJ266 Deviance and Violence
Professor Calvin Shaw
September 16, 2012

2. Globalization of Serial Murder 2
Serial murder is not just a problem in the United States; it is in fact a global problem.
In the United States, the local jurisdictions have the help of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and their Behavioral Analysis Unit to provide profiles and expertise in
solving these types of crimes. They also held a Symposium on Serial Murder to help
law enforcement learn new techniques involving a Multi Disciplinary Approach. This
Symposium involved mental health experts, investigators in the law enforcement field,
scholars, and representatives of the media who have as separate groups, been
studying this phenomenon for years (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2005).
The 187 member countries of Interpol, held a Symposium on Homicide and Serial
Rape in 2008, and have come to the conclusion that there should be more international
cooperation and sharing of information on these types of crimes (Investigation, 2008).
While a lot of serial killers tend to stay in their comfort zones, there are predators who
roam from state to state, or even country to country because of their job or hobbies
routinely, These criminals are harder to catch because of the multiple jurisdictions,
customs, and state or country government differences.
A good example of other countries investigative tools is Andrei Chikatilo from
Russia, and Pedro Lopez to discuss foreign investigations while comparing what their
law enforcement did in relation to what the FBI describes as “successful” techniques to
investigate this type of violent crime. While the phenomenon of serial murder is more
publicized in the United States, with countless books, television shows, and movies, this
violent crime happens all over the world. The investigative techniques, and the way that
the crime is perceived varies from country to country. Depending on local customs,

3. Globalization of Serial Murder 3
cultures, and whatever advances in technology are present or lacking in that particular
society. These same differences in cultural society also influence the techniques that
the killer uses along with their motivations to kill (Gibson, 2006) the wide public interest
in serial murder began in White chapel London in the late 1880’s with Jack the Ripper’s
crimes which were never solved, and continues today.
Unfortunately, most of the public’s knowledge of these crimes is based on
productions made in Hollywood, where they usually enhance the facts of the crimes to
sell more tickets instead of portraying the actualities of the crimes. Public pressure to
solve these crimes appears in the form of elected officials leaning on the investigators.
Pressure from the media arrives in the form of sensationalized coverage of the crimes,
along with conjecture produced and aired by so called experts which are discussed later
in this essay. Law enforcement personnel are subject to misinformation from
professionals employed as pathologists, investigators, and prosecutors by taking
experience from a single case, and trying to advise law enforcement with results and
circumstances from their experience (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2008).
The present problem is the “talking issue”. These people publicly state their
opinions as fact, and are given credibility by the media. They portray themselves as
experts, appear often on television and in the news, and hypothesize the reasons a
particular offender commits these heinous crimes or on the character or physical traits
of the offender. The sad truth, however, is that none of these people have access to the
confidential facts surrounding the case. The badly chosen commentaries just promote
more misunderstanding about the subject, and can actually damage law enforcement
attempts at solving the case at hand (Gibson, 2006)I have always wondered about the

4. Globalization of Serial Murder 4
many show on television about law enforcement. Some of the information just doesn’t
seem real
Professionals attending the Serial Murder Symposium all agreed that there is no
generic blueprint of a serial murderer; however, they did notice several traits that they
all seem to possess. These are: a need for sensation, a pronounced deficiency in
remorse or feelings of guilt, controlling nature, and impulsive or predatory behavior.
Because these traits are dependable indicators of psychopathic personality disorder, it
was noted of the importance of law enforcement and any other persons involved in the
criminal justice system to have an understanding of psychopathic personlities and the
relative nature that this contributes to investigating serial murder. (Investigation, 2008) I
agree with the way the Serial Murder Symposium and how it explains the average
(Lohr, 2008)
The Symposium participants recognized several successful analytical procedures
to investigate a serial murder case. These are as follows:
 Identification- The identification of a series of murders is the first and
foremost step, and can prove to be the most challenging step due to the
multiple jurisdictions and transient nature of the offender and the crimes.
 Leadership- The challenges of investigation crimes such as these is
greater than that of most homicides because of added pressure from
elected officials, the public, victims’ families, and the media. Because of
this, members of the Symposium concluded that the most important
aspect of the investigation remains to be the analytical role because that is

5. Globalization of Serial Murder 5
what will catch the offender, and all other functions of the investigation are
secondary. A firm grasp must be maintained on the chain of command in
order to have a successful investigation, as the added pressures become
a factor of the job.
 Task Force Organization- Lead agency must be established to take on
the main role in the investigation, all other law enforcement organizations
must have agents on the force, following this, a head and co-head
investigator is assigned to the case, from here, other officers and liaison
personnel are assigned tasks to perform for the head investigator. There
must be a clear line of communication between administrators and
investigators and maintain a definite rapport while keeping up with their
own tasks assigned on the case.
 Resource Augmentation- While it is sometimes better to have fewer
people involved in an investigation, other personnel may be required to
complete tasks for the investigation either permanently or temporarily,
however the former is recommended over the latter to provide stability to
the investigation. The role of the head investigator is to run the
investigation while the role of the administration is to provide the
investigative team the tools and support they need to complete the task.
 Communications- Daily briefings, face to face case briefings, and
submitting ViCAP reports are effective communication measures.
 Data Management- Reports should be compiled as soon as the
investigation provides information to ensure that all agencies and parties

6. Globalization of Serial Murder 6
involved have real time information, ideally the reports would be generated
by a computer. The FBI Rapid Start program is an effective tool in data
management.
 Analytic Tools- Crime analysts assigned to the head investigators to
provide information sorting, charting, and analyzing functions.
 Autopsy- An autopsy provided by the coroner or medical examiner is
essential for these types of crimes.
Symposium participants focus analytical procedures to investigate a serial
murder cases. They came up with this list solve every other crime of serial
murder. I just don’t believe that every case should be solving exactly the same.
Investigations of serial murder in the United States tend to have a clear plan and
investigative tools are used which have been ascertained by a group of people
who have dealt with offenders of this type. (Investigation, 2008)
Interpol also had a 2008 conference on Homicide and Serial Sexual Crimes,
that involved 36 countries altogether. The main focus of this conference was to
discuss the fact that serial murder and rape are global problems, needing a
global solution and cooperation exceeding national boundaries. The conference
also addressed the need for global databases for countries to collect DNA and
fingerprints and be able to run them globally instead of nationally. This
conference begins to address the issue of serial murderers having comfort zones
across multiple jurisdictions, countries, and cultures, laying the groundwork for
future globalization if data, through the utilization of Interpol (Noble, 2008).

7. Globalization of Serial Murder 7
Take the case of Pedro Lopez nicknamed “The Monster of the Andes”, who
was said to have killed over 300 girls in Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru beginning
in 1978 upon his release from prison. Pedro was born in Columbia, to a harsh
upbringing with a domineering prostitute mother whom he later blamed for all of
his problems. (Gibson, 2006)
In fact when Pedro was only eight years old he was caught having sex
with his sister and his mother kicked him out telling him to find his own way in life.
He ended up on the streets of Bogota after a year of sleeping in alleyways,
terrified of strangers because an older man tricked him into believing that he was
offering him help, and instead sodomized him for days before turning him back
out on the street. When he was in his late twenties he ended up in jail in Bogota.
When he was released in 1978 he went to Peru, where he began stalking and
murdering girls from the various Indian Tribes located there. When the Indians
turned him over to the authorities, they deported him back to Ecuador because
they reasoned that they didn’t have time to waste investigating Indian deaths The
death of the Indians is consider less dead in my opinion. Simply because of
whom they were no one care to investigate their deaths so it went further.
During the time that Lopez was travelling Ecuador, he would make frequent
stops in Columbia as well. Authorities were noticing the rise in cases of missing
girls in the area, but all dismissed the fact to a rise in human sex slave trafficking.
It was not until a major flood in 1980 in Ambato Ecuador, when four bodies were
unearthed by flood waters that authorities thought any differently. A few days

8. Globalization of Serial Murder 8
after the flood, Lopez tried to abduct a 12 year old girl. Local merchants chased
him down and held him until police could come get him. (Lohr, 2008)
When confronted with some evidence and an interview with an informant that
had gained his trust earlier, Pedro confessed to 100 murders in Columbia, 110 in
Ecuador, and over 100 in Peru. If the tools proposed by the FBI and Interpol
were in place when these murders were committed, these countries would have
had access to profiles, information, fingerprints and DNA profiles. Armed with this
information, the police in Peru might not have simply deported him, because
before they spent costly hours investigating, they could have looked at (Lohr,
2008)information gathered on this suspect, and made the decision that getting
him off of the streets would have been well worth their time. I think violence this
act of violence could have been prevented if the less dead weren’t ignored. Then
again I understand that other countries handle cases very different. (Lohr, 2008)
Another case worth looking at is the case of Andrei Chikatilo in Russia.
The globalization of information could have helped in another way to prevent the
loss of life in this gruesome manner. The first body was only bones mostly. It
was discovered by someone just walking in the woods. Although he was
convicted there was more bodies discovered after he committed suicide. They
had a lot of physical evidence to convict Andrei Chikatilo. (Ramsland)
After the killing spree of Chikatilo, Russian authorities have the ability to
study the phenomenon of serial murder in depth, and the permission to confer
with specialists from other countries including our own Federal Bureau of
Investigation. If the measures discussed in the Symposium in the United States,

9. Globalization of Serial Murder 9
and the conference held by Interpol would have been in place at the time of the
first semen discovery, information about the rare person who would secrete one
blood type, and actually register another may have been shared knowledge, and
Chikatilo would have been caught much earlier in his murderous spree. The
other noteworthy aspect of this case is that had the public been made aware that
there was a killer in their midst, people would have been more watchful and
would have noted more of the strange behaviors associated with this killer. It is
crazy to believe that it takes a gruesome murder to make law enforcement better.
(Ramsland)
In conclusion, law enforcement in our country and in other countries is
beginning to understand the value of sharing information for study, or cross
reference in an active investigation. Pressures from the media, elected officials,
and the public caused by the heinous nature of these crimes, enables them to
be viewed as high profile cases and makes them harder to investigate, and to
keep public fears at bay, due to the multitude of erroneous information coming
from both the media and the public’s perception of these offenders. Modern
police work is challenging. Criminals have access to advanced technology and
methodologies to make them better able to plan and commit crimes. To match
the pace of criminal activity, law enforcement's investigative work has become
more sophisticated and more agencies are employing analysts to help solve the
puzzles of these complex investigations. That just makes law enforcement job
that much harder. The investigative analytic approach encourages an

10. Globalization of Serial Murder 10
investigator to work methodically and thoughtfully toward successful
investigations and prosecutions (Ramsland).

11. Globalization of Serial Murder 11
Works Cited
Gibson, D. C. (2006). Serial Murder and media circuses. Westport : Greenwood Publishing.
Investigation, F. B. (2008). Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators. Retrieved
January 10, 2010, from Federal Bureau of Investigation:
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/serial_murder.pdf
Lohr, D. (2008). Pedro Lopez: The Monster of the Andes. . Retrieved January 10, 2010, from TruTV:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/pedro_lopez/4.html
Ramsland, K. (n.d.). The Devil's Trail. Retrieved 12 10, 2010, from TruTv:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/chikatilo/coat_1.html