SeesSeas
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Why did it take so long to arrest the Golden State Killer suspect? Interagency rivalries, old technology, errors and bad luck
Why did it take so long to arrest the Golden State Killer suspect? Interagency rivalries, old technology, errors and bad luck
MAY 25, 2018 | 4:35 PM
[...]
Staples of modern investigative work weren't available at the time. Cellphones weren't around to help authorities retrace a suspect's location through GPS. Home security cameras that would capture a prowler's image weren't as prevalent.
Forensic science was still evolving. Crime scene analysis could pull a blood type or determine whether someone was not a "secretor" — an unusual genetic trait of not secreting blood type in saliva — but little more was available.
Authorities mapped the crimes with corkboards and pins. They relied on guesswork, the occasional stakeout and in one case a trip inside the trunk of a potential victim's vehicle.
At the peak of the East Area Rapist's rampage, Phillips folded himself into a woman's trunk with her permission, then rode inside to her home. He didn't emerge until the garage doors were closed in case anyone was watching. The woman's profile and where she lived fit with the other attacks.
By nightfall, with black grease paint smeared on his face and skin, he set himself up at the end of the hallway steps from the woman's bedroom, facing the window through which the rapist was most likely to enter if he attacked that night.
Then he waited.
"If he came in that window, he wasn't going back out," Phillips said.
But the suspect never appeared.
[...]
Why did it take so long to arrest the Golden State Killer suspect? Interagency rivalries, old technology, errors and bad luck
MAY 25, 2018 | 4:35 PM
[...]
Staples of modern investigative work weren't available at the time. Cellphones weren't around to help authorities retrace a suspect's location through GPS. Home security cameras that would capture a prowler's image weren't as prevalent.
Forensic science was still evolving. Crime scene analysis could pull a blood type or determine whether someone was not a "secretor" — an unusual genetic trait of not secreting blood type in saliva — but little more was available.
Authorities mapped the crimes with corkboards and pins. They relied on guesswork, the occasional stakeout and in one case a trip inside the trunk of a potential victim's vehicle.
At the peak of the East Area Rapist's rampage, Phillips folded himself into a woman's trunk with her permission, then rode inside to her home. He didn't emerge until the garage doors were closed in case anyone was watching. The woman's profile and where she lived fit with the other attacks.
By nightfall, with black grease paint smeared on his face and skin, he set himself up at the end of the hallway steps from the woman's bedroom, facing the window through which the rapist was most likely to enter if he attacked that night.
Then he waited.
"If he came in that window, he wasn't going back out," Phillips said.
But the suspect never appeared.
[...]
