OK here goes.
2 initial thoughts.
1 = Motive.
MOTIVE is a reflection of intent, criminal or otherwise. Criminal liability requires criminal intent. Therefore arguing the motives of actions is a prerequisite for presenting criminal cases to judges and juries.
Assessing motive is not the responsibility of forensic professionals. Psychiatrists who evaluate whether someone is criminally insane, for example, do not necessarily have an opinion on why a certain crime happened, only whether the suspect was predisposed to carry it out or appreciated right from wrong.
Invariably however juries want to consider why a crime was committed while deliberating on the responsibility for it. Whether or not, motive has legal significance, it represents a human aspect of each case. When psychiatrists testify in court, particularly when a crime is unthinkable, jurors might attach more credibility to testimony that educates them about the defendants motive.
Forensic psychologists and psychiatrists are uniquely suited given the specific qualities of forensic examinations for criminal responsibility or pre sentencing issues- to probe motive. In doing so they review the entire case file of police investigation notes, autopsy results, physical evidence reports, past medical and psychological records, school and employment records, and drug and toxicology reports. As well as defendants financial transactions, email correspondence, phone calls and web activity. Moreover, the psychiatric examiner learns about important aspects and events of the criminal s life by interviewing eye witnesses, close friends, relatives, enemies, acquaintances and the actual defendant.
The comprehensive nature of forensic psychiatric examination provides the criminalist with a complete appreciation of the individual - how this person developed up to the time of the crime, and why he or she made certain criminal choices. From this painstaking turning over and fitting together of puzzle pieces - and ongoing quest for such pieces - comes the beginning of an understanding of motive.
FBIs Organized/Disorganized offender dichotomy.
The primary foundation of the FBIs system lies within the organized and disorganized offender dichotomy. The table below illustrates some differences the FBI draws on between these two types of offender.
Organized Offender
Average to above average intelligence
Socially competent
Skilled work preferred
Sexually competent
High birth order status
Fathers work stable
Inconsistent childhood discipline
Controlled mood during crime
Use of alcohol with crime
Precipitating situational stress
Living with a partner
Follows crime in news media
Disorganized Offender
Below-Average intelligence
Socially adequate
Unskilled work
Sexually incompetent
Low birth order status
Fathers work unstable
Harsh discipline as a child
Anxious mood during crime
Minimal use of alcohol
Minimum situational stress
Living alone
Minimal interest in news media
Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Motive.
Why did the criminal commit the crime?
For the forensic psychiatrist this obvious question is supplemented by: Why did the criminal do it at that time, rather than sooner or later? Motive may appear obvious in some cases, but experience in psychiatric examination reveals that often there is more to a story. If concrete matters such as guilt cannot be presumed neither can motive.
Motive are often complex or multi layered. A criminal may have a primary motive, secondary motive and tertiary motive.
Heres an example of this.
Bashra was an unassuming housewife in Gaza under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. Her Husband was a leading member of the terrorists group Hamas, which is dedicated to killing as many Israeli Jews as possible. Thus when Bashra went to a checkpoint and blew herself up when Israelis answered her contrived call for medical assistance, her allegiance to her husband appeared obvious. She left behind a videotape, as is the custom for Hamas terrorists, posing in military gear with her child and an automatic weapon.
Was Bashras motive terrorist mass murder?
Closer study of the case revealed that her family did NOT participate in demonstrative mourning, as is the custom when Gaza villagers gather to celebrate such deaths. Instead the family was quiet and unobtrusive, some even absent. Subsequently it emerged that Bashras husband had lost his love for her, so she had volunteered for the mission to win him back.
Was her motive then also romantic?
Later it was learned that Bashra had entered into an affair with a local man but had broken it off. When her family became aware of this, they had shunned her reportedly leaving her desperately sad and depressed.
Was she then suicidal in her motivation?
Was she vengeful toward the family that had shunned her?
Was she endeavoring to restore her honor by terrorism, the most decorated achievement in her culture?
Only a thorough investigation, including detailed interviews of witnesses and confidants and study of personal writings and other communications made at the time that the criminal decision was made, enables an examiner to determine which motive or motives maybe considered primary, and which motives had lesser influence.
Even with a living defendant who can be interviewed , that persons understanding of his or her own motives may change. A person reflecting on criminal behavior while in custody may reach an understanding that bears little resemblance to the motivation at the time of the crime.
Two Modes of Motive.
Mode 1 = Primary Secondary & Tertiary motive.
Perpetrator --------------------Primary Motive----------------- Crime
Perpetrator---------------------Secondary Motive-------------- Crime
Perpetrator---------------------Tertiary Motive----------------- Crime
Example: Bashras suicide bombing
Primary Motive: Allegiance to Hamas
Secondary Motive: Win back the love of her husband.
Tertiary Motive: Vengeance on her family.
Primary motive reflects the driving force of the criminals thinking and planning, compelling him or her to disregard the potential danger of fines, imprisonment or loss of standing.
Example 2.
Bobby planned and carried out a robbery breaking into a flat that seemed vulnerable. As he was rifling thru drawers he was surprised by Charles the 53 year old resident.
Charles showed no resistance when Bobby demanded that Charles go into the bathroom and stay there until Bobby had completed the robbery and left.
Bobby was a big bruiser and Charles was a meek mild mannered accountant couch potato type. Still Bobby attacked him and punched him around the face. Arrested for a violent crime that was totally unnecessary Bobby conceded that he had not planned to victimize Charles, only to rob him. Ultimately he reflected that there was something familiar about Charles voice he reminded him of a teacher who had suspended him when he was in high school, but he had not recognized this motive until much later.
Mode 2 = Conscious Versus Unconscious Motive
Perpetrator---------------------------Conscious Motive------------------- Crime
l (Down arrow) ----Unconscious Motive---------------- Crime
Example: Bobby robs a flat and assaults Charles
Conscious Motive: Robbery
Unconscious Motive: Vengeance on a former teacher.
Conscious Versus Unconscious Motive
The unconscious has great relevance in criminal motivation.
The idea for criminal action germinates and elaborates into a chosen target. Chosen accomplices or chosen modus operandi on a chosen date. These features can indicate the influence of conscious and unconscious motivation.
The complexity of criminal motivation should not be seen as an excuse for bad behavior. However respect should be given to the individuals particular circumstances. Seeing each defendant as a person enhances justice, whether it is at a trial, sentencing or a later parole hearing. Understanding primary vs secondary motives and conscious versus unconscious motives invariably improves a jurys ability to determine the severity of a criminal act, such as manslaughter versus murder.
Motive & Gain.
Understanding the nature and extent of gain is helpful to making sense of motive. Primary gain is the most obvious benefit of a crime to a criminal. Secondary gain is less obvious but still important.
Predatory motives
Predatory criminal motives share the common feature of exploiting a vulnerable person or target for material gain. Profit is one of the most obvious of predatory motives. In larceny or robbery the criminal gains money and no matter how it is rationalized, when one person gains others lose.
Profit may also be a secondary motive, even to a psychological motive.
Proprietary gain is another predatory motive. Violent sexual assaults, particularly on strangers, clearly demonstrate proprietary sexual motivation. The criminal uses violence as a means of exerting power, control, and possession of the victim. Stalkers are proprietary although their agenda is to further a pathological attachment, a romantic of perverse expression. Even if non violent, their actions are geared to insinuate themselves into the victims thinking to control and perpetuate as intense a connection as possible.
Proprietary crimes encompass the range of material and psychological benefits that one person might want from another.
Power, property, collectibles and prestige are all sufficient lures to motivate predatory crime.
Not all predatory crimes however are carried out for material or physical gain. For example some sex offenders, particularly drug facilitated sex assaulter s, and child molesters seek sexual gratification in their predatory acts.
Occasionally there are reports of senseless crimes that are never the less predatory.
Predatory crime can be carried out for psychological gain with no proprietary motive.
Attention-seeking crimes, may also be predatory in nature, In such cases, criminals typically want to promote political causes. Popular films suggest that there are killers who search out victims to play games with police. However, seeking attention without an apparent agenda or another motive is rare. Those guilty of such crimes are usually disorganized and do not devote as much effort to escaping police as they do to the spectacle of their crimes.
Reactive motives.
A response to provocation or perceived provocation is a common motive. The likelihood of a reactive motive warrants more consideration when financial or material gain is unclear.
Vigilantism is a vivid example of reactive motivation driven by revenge and retaliation. More common however, are responses to slights or actual attacks. Reactive crimes often occur during periods of inflamed emotion, uninhibited drug use or emotional vulnerability. For this reason, they are often impulsive and manifest more disorganized modus operandi. That said, reactive crimes particularly when carried out by those who frequently break the law, may follow considerable planning.
Likewise, poorly planned and impulsive crimes may nevertheless be driven by predatory motives. Opportunistic offenders, those who devise a modus operandi to exploit circumstances they encounter, may be impulsive in their decision making.
Motiveless crimes.
Is it possible for a crime to occur without a motive? Perhaps this is the embodiment of the senseless crime. The term senseless is typically used to convey an idea that a crime had no purpose. More often than not however, it means that the crime accomplished nothing. The criminal may regret the crime after the fact, but at the time may have had specific short term objectives that inspired the criminal choice. The notion of a motiveless crime evokes immediate consideration of psychiatric issues. If there is no motive for a crime, a persons behavior is at least irrational, and consciousness may be severely impaired.
Psychosis and Motive
Psychosis is a manifestation of irrational ideas, perceptions, emotions, communication, orientation, or behavior. All have a bearing on criminal motive and the expression of it.
Psychotic ideas are known as delusions, and a delusional individual maintains specific ideas despite all evidence to the contrary. The content may be persecutory, jealous, romantic, (eroto-manic) or grandiose. Crime driven by a delusion of persecution is typically reactive; delusional eroto-manic crimes are proprietary, and crime driven by grandiosity may compel a variety of motives.
Deeper probing, beyond the mere existence of a delusion, can resolve why a belief drove a person to a crime. The reason that person made a criminal choice may not necessarily be explained by the delusion itself, unless the person was convinced that he or she was involved in a criminal enterprise, perhaps as a mobster or terrorist, or member of a pedophile ring.
Many individuals with major psychiatric illnesses develop significant hostility. During times when the effects of the illness are more pronounced, the person may act on that anger, with no regard for the consequences. The provocation may be substantial or minor. Some who suffer delusions also think they hear voices which may encourage or order them to break the law. Senseless crime? Sure, when you consider that the drive to act stems from the orders of something that does not exist. Is the crime motiveless however?
Without examination, the motive remains unclear. Even when hallucinations are of the command type, the people who experience them do necessarily follow their directives without critical thought. Assessing the motive for following the hallucinations instructions at a particular time resolves the motive itself.
Psychosis expressed as irrational emotion may also act as a motive. Some who are psychotic may produce an unjustified extreme reaction to relatively minor provocation. This scenario is more frequently associated with intoxication or substance abuse.
Psychotic crimes, therefore, are not necessarily motiveless at all. One situation that does pose that possibility, however, results from the disorientation and confusion of delirium. While suffering acute medical conditions, some individuals may develop delirium, an altered state of consciousness that muddles rational thought.
Acutely confused individuals may carry out purposeless crimes, such as random physical blows or grabbing.
Resolving questions of motive.
The examiner must keep an open mind and look beyond seemingly obvious motives; the criminals admitted motive may merely be the easiest for him or her to reveal. Closer probing can uncover other motives that the person would rather conceal because they may be psychologically or legally harmful.
Reviewing the criminals history acquaints the examiner with any conflicts, sensitivities or ongoing or building issues.
The information is relevant when determining the motive for the offense. The criminal reaches the event in question as a product of past experience and motivations. Not even the wisest examiner can divine motivation without untangling the criminals life.
2 = Criminal profiling.
Criminal profiling.
Recent books television programs and films have brought a new crime solving hero into the limelight the profiler, who is able to lead detectives to violent serial criminals by careful observation and deduction. While it is true that profilers can play a very useful part in solving serial crimes, in reality this does not happen as often as the fictional accounts would have us believe. Most serial cases are solved by good old fashioned detective work, and forensic investigation.
A criminal profiler will usually be called in on a case when traditional investigation methods are not making headway, perhaps because there is little hard evidence to point to a potential suspect. His or her purpose is to steer the investigation in the right direction, helping to narrow the search for a suspect. The profiler does this by studying all the evidence from the crime scene, and coming to conclusions about the type of person who committed the crime. These can include the criminal background, intelligence, education, age, and possibly even job and marital status.
Many of these deductions are based on statistical information gathered from past crimes, the assumption being that certain types of crime, committed in the same manner, are carried out by people with similar personalities.
A profilers knowledge of criminal psychology and his or her experience of past cases also play a major part in the preparation of a profile. Profilers are often very effective in the investigation of serial crimes, simply because these crimes produce more information to work with.
Violent criminals often leave more information to indicate their personality at crime scenes than lesser offenders, because their violent crimes are often personality driven. A series of frenzied attacks on women for example, could indicate that the killer had a deep hatred of women, for example, prompted by some experience in his past, such as a girls rejection of him as a teenager, or perhaps having a domineering mother.
The study of serial crimes by a profiler can lead to the identity of signature or common features at each crime scene. These are useful in attributing a series of crimes to a particular offender, and can lead to the inclusion of crimes beyond the initial scope of an investigation.
Profiles work best when the offender displays obvious psychopathology, such as a sadistic torture, post mortem mutilation, or pedophilia. Some killers leave a signature a behavioral manifestation of an individualizing personality quirk, such as staging the corpse for humiliating exposure, frenzied stabbing in a specific area, or tying ligatures with a complicated knot. This helps to link crime scenes and alert law enforcement to the presence of a serial rapist or killer. Sometimes the signature will also alert them to other types of behaviors to look for.
What a profile can offer that tends to be helpful are clues to the offenders likely, general age range, racial identity, ideas about the modus operandi, estimates about living situation and education level, travel patterns, the possibility of a criminal or psychiatric record, and probably psychological traits. A profile may also describe a fantasy scenario that drives the person, or even pinpoint an area where he or she probably resides.
A responsible profiler will also caution the investigators that profiles are valuable but limited. They are based on known data from other similar crimes and there is always some chance of anomalous human behavior. No one can predict everything that a person is capable of.
Criminal Investigative Analysis Program, is a multi faceted approach to many types of crime which divides an investigation into 4 clear stages:-
1. Determine that a crime has been committed.
2. Try to accurately identify the crime.
3. Try to identify and apprehend the offender.
4. Present evidence in court.
Profiling takes place during the third stage!
Since 1960 in the USA, some 200,000 murder cases have gone unsolved and even more rape cases. Some forensic professionals who notice how families are deeply affected by lack of closure, or who believe that the victims of these unresolved crimes should gain a voice, have developed programs to bring focus, information and talent to the task.
Similar to the Vidocq Society, is the Institute for Cold Case Evaluations at University of West Virginia. (
www.coldcases.org) They match forensic scientists with police departments that lack the means to form cold case squads, offering a newsletter, cold case review, and web site to facilitate the connections.
Apply this logic when trying to assess IK motives and trying to profile him and his behavior.
All cases are individual... while there are similarity's between cases frequently it's not entirely safe to just assume that because one criminal does something a certain way that all others will do so.
I'm not familiar at all with the IK serial killer victims..& crimes to be able to make specific comment, I have enough trouble keeping up with the ones I do have on my plate, without going looking for more in a foreign nations jurisdiction I'm sorry.
If I had that time i'd gladly sort thru whats known - but again that's not easy to do from media reports as distinct from factual case file data.
He seems to have been a serial killer nutter of some repute - but if he's indeed dead I don't see the fascination (or anything of practical value to be gained) with continuing the discussions myself.
I'm sure the victims family's however feel different, (and I understand & accept that) and would no doubt still like answers - but getting those from the grave is going to be mighty tough.
I can't see a forum thread likely providing them with many answers of practical value tho.
Its just being pragmatic... you have to do so to be effective at anything related to potential serial killers - there's one born every minute unfortunately.
Sorry of these aren't the answers you were looking for.
