Victim Vulnerability
Contrary to a popular belief that serial murderers secretly want to be apprehended, most go to great lengths to avoid detection. One way they try to evade identification and arrest is by choosing victims who are unlikely to ward off attacks and thus report incriminating information about them to law enforcement. In addition, serial murderers often victimize populations who are on the fringes of mainstream society. Victims from these populations are unlikely to generate as much police effort as victims from conventional society and are likely to be missing for a lengthy period before someone reports their disappearance. In contrast, the victims of mass murderers are chosen in a much more random fashion and can be considered as having been “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Using victims to profile murderers therefore is usually limited to serial, not mass, murderers.
Review Chapter 15 of your course text, Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool. Reflect on victim characteristics, such as physical traits and marital status, frequently used in the profiling process. Consider how these characteristics would be useful in identifying populations vulnerable to serial or mass murder.
Review the article “Serial Killers: Offender’s Relationship to the Victim and Selected Demographics.” Pay attention to the relationships between serial murderers and victims.
Review the article “Serial Sexual Murderers and Prostitutes as Their Victims: Difficulty Profiling Perpetrators and Victim Vulnerability as Illustrated by the Green River Case.” Reflect on why prostitutes are frequent targets of serial murderers.
