There was a podcast that had three retired FBI Special Agents who all seemed to think a "lair" had been set up by the killer. It was discussed because the crime scene he brought them to was secluded, not easily seen from the bridge area and was on private property away from hikers.
I don't disagree that the hosts of that podcast offered the possibility that the Delphi killer pre-selected a "lair."
However, that's not the definition of "staging," though, that FBI agents would know and use as it applies to a scene. Staging doesn't mean "pre-arranging, "stocking," or "preparing" a place in advance with tools, implements, or supplies in order to perpetrate a crime. It does not mean choosing a site in advance.
In current professional literature there are varying definitions of staging. Geberth (Practical Homicide Investigation, 4th ed) says, “Staging is a conscious criminal action on the part of an offender to thwart an investigation. ”
The Crime Classification Manual defines staging as, “Someone
purposely alters the crime scene prior to the arrival of police. There are two reasons that someone
employs staging: to redirect the investigation away from the most logical suspect or to protect the
victim or victim’s family.”
Some criminalists believe, however, that these definitions may be too narrow and recommend dividing staging into three classifications:
1. Primary staging - alterations done to the crime scene with the purpose of re-directing investigators from the truth. This can be pre-meditated (ex. A wife wants to kill her husband and tries make it look like a suicide) or ad hoc (decision is made on the spur of the moment to mislead investigators - the common example given is, a teenage couple has consensual sex. Afterwards, they realize they may get in trouble if sexual activity is discovered and so they stage a rape that implicates a "stranger").
2. Secondary staging - offender behaviors that alter the crime scene that are not done to thwart investigators but are a part of fulfilling the offender’s fantasy, or intended
to shock and offend society, humiliate or degrade the victim. The scene alteration is performative and done strictly for the psychological pleasure of the offender. These are defined as
behaviors done at the scene,
not objects brought to the scene. A common example would be posing a body sexually post-mortem. Some criminalists, however, do not agree with the inclusion of these acts as "staging" and prefer all of this offender behavior that is done for psychological reasons to be classified in a separate category as "personation" or "signatures."
3. Tertiary staging takes place when a well-meaning person with no criminal intent comes upon a person who has died in an embarrassing or degrading situation and alters the scene with the intention of sparing the victim or the remaining family from shame. An example of this would be re-dressing or taking away paraphernalia that indicate a person died during an autoerotic asphyxiation event.
Ives never used the word staging in his interviews, only "signatures." But he himself said he was not an expert on the behavior of serial killers.
MOO.
