A Partnership in Crime

by Stephen Singular

The night we met in the fall of 1990, Joyce and I spoke about my first book, Talked to Death, which chronicled the 1984 neo-Nazi assassination of Denver talk show host Alan Berg. She said she wanted to read it and a few days later I gave her a copy.

Independently, we’d early in life developed an interest in non-fiction crime books by reading Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and one day we’d journey together to Holcomb, Kansas, and the infamous Clutter farmhouse. After I gave her the Berg book, we started dating and launched a partnership in crime writing that has expanded over the course of two decades and 19 more books.

We were fascinated by the psychology of real crimes more than the violence, and in exploring that place the Italians call chiaroscuro, where the darkness meets the light in human behavior. During 1992-93, we got married and had a son, while I worked on a book called Sweet Evil. It was about Jennifer Reali, a young wife and mother in Colorado Springs who’d dressed up in her husband’s camouflage army clothes and gunned down Dianne Hood, the wife of her lover. Jennifer had two young children and her victim had three. Joyce, a new mother herself at the time, attended Jennifer’s sanity hearing and the trial of Brian Hood, who’d used seduction and religious manipulation to get Jennifer to murder his spouse.

The hearing was packed with females of every age and description, who’d come to the courtroom to study the kind of woman capable of firing two shots into chest of another young woman very much like herself. Joyce spoke with the women in the hallways and restrooms, getting their impressions of the killer and victim, taking notes and adding them to the book’s research. She picked up details I’d missed and provided insights into Jennifer’s psychology, which were unique to her experience as a female. Like many women observing the legal proceedings, Joyce viewed the shooter in a highly negative light.

In subsequent years, we worked on a book about Jill Coit, the “Black Widow” killer from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, who’d murdered her husband Gerry Boggs and may have been behind the deaths of several of her other spouses. Joyce attended Coit’s trial while I was busy with another project. We wrote about John Robinson, the first known serial killer in the history of the Internet, who went online and lured several women to a Kansas City suburb before ending their lives. This book, Anyone You Want Me to Be, was written in conjunction with ex-FBI profiler, John Douglas, but Joyce again attended Robinson’s trial and provided input on how he was able to manipulate so many females into extremely dangerous circumstances. She played a similar role in the creation of Unholy Messenger: The Life and Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer, which came out in the spring of 2006. In looking at complex criminal situations involving the interaction of the sexes, we found that the combined male and female points of view always added to our understanding of a killer and his or her victims.

Right after Unholy Messenger was published, Joyce suggested we drive down to southern Utah and look into the case of Warren Jeffs, who’d just made it onto the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list as a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist accused of forcing underage girls into marriage and other crimes against women. I took her advice, resulting in the 2008 book, When Men Become Gods, the story of Jeffs’ and his capture and conviction. Joyce sent a copy to Harry Reid (D-Nevada), the Senate Majority Leader and highest-ranking Mormon in American history. He found the book revelatory about how women were being abused inside a religious subculture and invited me to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2008, where I talked about alleged federal crimes associated with polygamy. Going to Washington, meeting Senators, and speaking to the committee were among the highest of our highlights as book-writing collaborators.

Around that same time, we were contacted by someone who’d been in prison and gotten to know Jennifer Reali, now doing a life sentence in a Colorado penitentiary. He wanted several copies of Sweet Evil to give to her now-teenage daughters so they could know who their mother was before she disappeared from their lives (one daughter would later visit her in prison). Almost 20 years had passed since Jennifer had killed Dianne Hood and the man who contacted us suggested we go see Jennifer. This presented a unique opportunity because it had been almost impossible for us to interview killers, even after they’d been convicted, let alone have a chance to talk with one who’d read a book about them. The appeals process keeps most offenders silent for decades.

As we drove to the penitentiary, Joyce reiterated how much she’d disliked Jennifer during her long-ago trial and wondered what she’d feel about her now. After three hours of our face-to-face discussion, we were both taken with her intelligence, sensitivity, and efforts to understand her crime and help herself and others not to follow her path. Eventually, she asked us to look over the manuscript she was writing about her childhood, relationships with men, and what had made her so vulnerable to Brian Hood’s scheme to kill his wife. While Jennifer had received a life sentence, Hood was given 37 years, but eligible for parole after twelve years.

Joyce (left) and Jennifer have been working on her book for about a year. Joyce feels her story is important to help women grasp what can happen when they give their power and identity over to a man in the name of love. This fall Joyce and I will be featured on a Discovery Channel program about women who kill. I’ll discuss the Jill Coit case and Joyce will speak about Jennifer.

Over the years we’ve constantly found that in the process of researching and writing books about crime, two heads and two perspectives, the male and the female, are better than one.

Stephen Singular, a two-time “New York Times” bestselling author, has written 20 books about high profile crimes, social criticism, and business and sports biographies. He’s appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” “Anderson Cooper 360,” FOX-TV, MSNBC, COURT-TV, ESPN, and many other media outlets. His latest book, THE WICHITA DIVIDE, about the assassination of abortion doctor George Tiller, will be published by St. Martin's Press in early 2011. He and Joyce live in Denver with their son.

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Criminal Profiling Basics

by Andrea Campbell

In John Douglas’s book, Mindhunter, he describes how he and others on an FBI team compiled the 1992 Crime Classification Manual, one of the most valuable tools used by profilers today. Douglas tells us about the operative style, which involves interviewing convicted murderers and rapists across the country. The task at hand: 1) study the crime, 2) talk to experts, 3) talk to perpetrators, 4) interpret those clues and 5) draw conclusions from patterns.

Douglas says the first step in profiling is advance preparation: checking police files, studying crime-scene photos, discerning autopsy protocols, reading trial transcripts, and looking for clues to motive or personality.

One of the first hurdles FBI agents faced in prison interviews was cutting through self-serving or self-amusing games convicts played. Douglas found he had to portray a persona, to sell the subjects his ideas to keep them interested so they would go along. He also says that contrary to popular belief, “just because someone acts like a maniac, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing.”

Part of the interview process replicated that used by any good reporter: the who (who are the victimizers, who are the victims?), what, where, when, how and why of any story. Key here, along with drawing out the narrative, was observing interviewees’ behavior, including body language, and being able to pounce first. Sexual killers, for example, become skilled in domination, manipulation and control. Some can be quite charming, according to those who met with Ted Bundy. Some were so convincing, Douglas hesitantly admits, that after many interviews, agents went back, checked the killer’s record, and even contacted police in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred, to ensure they had locked up the right guy!

Some of the things FBI researchers found in the course of their conversations: victimizers often had relationship problems with women, and they often dealt with other stressors, such as financial problems or debt. Some had abilities above their job level, some drank heavily, some felt helpless in the face of life's frustrations. Many had a terrible childhood or upbringing. Often agents found killers had taken photos or other souvenirs from their victims. Some visited their victim’s grave site or even rolled in the dirt to relive the pleasure of killing. In the end though, Douglas concludes that serial killers and rapists are hardest to catch of all violent criminals because their motivations are more complex. The patterns are more confusing, since they feel no compassion, guilt or remorse.

Profiling Basics

The premise that all profilers operate under is this: To know the offender, look at the crime. Or, as Douglas says, “If you want to understand the artist, look at his work.” The trick is that there is no trick. Simply put, the criminologist is collecting a bunch of disparate and seemingly unrelated clues and turning it into a convincing narrative. But there is more to it.

In addition to evaluating a wide range of evidence and data, they must walk in the shoes of both offender and victim. They recreate crime scenes in their minds; learn as much as possible about the victims to imagine their horror -- to put themselves in the victims' place and feel the emotions they experienced as they screamed with no hope for help. The other watchwords for the process include: Behavior reflects personality.

First off, the offender is an unknown subject, hereafter referred to as UNSUB. As part of the basic background the criminologist needs to know:

• What’s in the medical examiner's report, such as the nature and type of wound or wounds, cause of death, whether there was sexual assault, and if so, what kind?

• What was in the preliminary police report?

• What did the first officer see? Was the scene altered? Were there any changes (i.e., dignity moves like covering the face)?

• What do crime-scene photos and schematic drawings (where all directions and footprints are noted) show?

• Time of day, condition of location, signs of a fight, documents, letters, etc.; telephone calls made, position of the victim, check of closets, furniture, blood spatter, collecting of physical, trace, or impressions evidence.

• Anything taken? Even subtle objects like a lock of hair, a barrette, etc. need to be anticipated. (And so as not to be influenced on first pass-through, profilers always request that police notes should be on the back of photos.)

The “victim profile” is prepared. Some questions to be answered are: High- or low-risk victim? What did she say or do? Did she fight back? Why was she selected over all other potential victims? How? Who? In actuality, the victim profile can be every bit as extensive as the killer’s.

Methodology Means more Questions

Criminal (and victim) profiling is knowing about race, personality, job, home life, car, hobbies, familiarity with the area, relationship to police. Was the criminal organized or disorganized? Is there a violent crime in the past? Is the criminal on parole? Are there known stressor factors, such as a commemorative date? Is there any evidence of posing or staging? So many questions, so little time.

As Dr. Park Dietz says, “. . . none of the serial killers . . . has been legally insane, but none has been normal either. They’ve all been people who’ve got mental disorders. But despite their mental disorders, which have to do with their sexual interests and their character, they’ve been people who knew what they were doing, knew what they were doing was wrong, but chose to do it anyway.”

Definitions of some terms involved in criminal profiling:

psychotic — being legally insane, out of touch with reality. (“. . . voices made me do it.”)

psychopath or sociopath — knows right from wrong and consciously chose to do wrong. Lacks conscience or remorse.

necrophilia — sexual stimulation from seeing, touching corpse.

necrostuprum — theft of corpse for sexual pleasure.

lust murder — sexual compulsion to kill.

psychometric tests — administered by a forensic psychologist, they involve motives, background, family life.

modus operandi — What the perpetrator does to commit the crime. It is learned behavior, and it can change.

signature — What the perpetrator has to do to fulfill himself; it doesn't change.

staging — Offender tries to throw off investigators by making them believe a different crime occurred. I.e.: A rapist tries to make his intrusion look like a burglary.

posing — The signature; leaving the victim in a certain posture

serial offender — Doesn't stop till caught or killed. Learns by experience, tends to get better. Virtually all are male.

anthropophagy — Sexual gratification achieved through cannibalism

gerontophilia — Sexual obsession in which elderly victims are raped and murdered.

pedophilia — Having sex with children

Myths or common beliefs:

• Serial killers want to be caught. Not really. They're demonstrating their power over society by coming close to getting caught, and then showing their smarts by evading capture. They keenly desire infamy, but they would rather their fame be anonymous.

• Crime is all about people who know each other. Not any more, although family associations are statistically still the most violent.

• Witches, werewolves and vampire stories may be about actual murderers. True.

• Compulsion to kill: When circumstances didn't favor the success of their crime, perpetrators refrained from committing it. They were not compelled to act.

Bibliography: • Douglas, John and Mark Olshaker. Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit. New York: Scribner, 1995. • Feldman, Philip M. Criminal Behavior: A Psychological Analysis. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978. • Kelly, Delos. Criminal Behavior: Text and Readings in Criminology. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. • Mactire, Sean. Malicious Intent: A Writer’s Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists and Other Criminals Think. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 1995. • Roth, Martin. The Writer’s Complete Crime Reference Book. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 1990. • Territo, Leonard and Max. L. Bromley and James B. Halsted. Crime and Justice in America: A Human Perspective, St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Company, 1995. • Wingate, Anne, PhD. Scene of the Crime: A Writer’s Guide to Crime-Scene Investigations. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 1992.

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Really, THIS Time I am Telling the Truth!

by Pat Brown

A myth about interviewing leads one to believe that a crack interviewer will know just the right thing to get even a psychopath to confess. There is an old story about criminal profiler John Douglas who cleverly plans a strategy to push the buttons on the suspect in the brutal rape and murder of 12-year-old Mary Frances Stoner. Darrel Gene Devier is brought in to a carefully staged interview room by a huge team of law enforcement. Files are stacked up (most of them are fake) with his name conspicuously displayed on them. Then the investigator talks about the blood spatter he knows is on Devier's clothes (though there is actually no evidence). Now the suspect is very unnerved. But the key, Douglas says, to breaking this man down, is the big, bloodied rock he used to kill the girl. It is placed on a table in the room.

Devier can't keep his eyes off the rock.

Douglas explains the methodology and the results of this psychological strategy:

I warned the interrogators that they'd have to sink to Devier's level. They would need to project blame onto the victim by suggesting that she'd seduced him. Allowing Devier a face-saving scenario was their only chance of getting a confession because Devier knew that Georgia is a death penalty state.The instant Devier entered the interrogation room, he was transfixed by the rock. He started sweating, breathing hard and cowering. As planned, interrogators projected blame onto the victim. Devier got really quiet. An innocent man will scream and protest, but a guilty man will listen to what you have to say if you've surprised him with a chance to save face.

This may sound like a pretty brilliant ruse conducted by a skilled interrogator but Devier's confession had nothing to do with saving face. It had everything to do with saving his butt.

I will use a more recent case as an example of how this works. Keep in mind that a psychopath has no empathy or shame so he feels no remorse nor does he care what you think about him. He only does what is he thinks will get himself the best results. Clever though the interrogator may be, the manipulation has less to do with psychology than conning the suspect into believing you have more evidence than you do so he will confess.

Recently in Maryland an interrogation was videotaped. The video shows exactly why this is true. Gary Smith, a former Army Ranger, is being questioned about the shooting of his roommate, a fellow Ranger. He tells three stories.

Story One: Smith tells the police he arrived home to find his friend, Michael McQueen, dead. No gun was present at the scene.

Obviously the police label this a homicide as dead men do not get rid of guns. They focus in on Smith, something he was hoping they would not do. But now that they have focused on him, he has to come up with a good story to get them to go away. He decides he will convince them it is a suicide.

Story Two: Smith weeps and tells the police he altered the crime scene because he was afraid he would be accused of killing McQueen. He said he came home and found his roommate slumped over in the chair, the gun on the floor below his right hand. He guessed his buddy had found Smith's gun from under the counter where it was hidden. He took the gun and threw it in the lake. Smith swears on his dead buddy's grave this was the truth.

The police let him know that his story isn't adding up. The gun hadn't been in the house under the counter; they learned it had just been brought from his mother's house. Now Smith knew that it would seem like a premeditated homicide if he brought the gun the night the man was killed. He needed a more believable story.

Story Three: Smith brought the gun to the house that night and either left it on the counter or on the floor. He warned his roommate the gun was loaded but while he was in the shower, he heard the gun go off. With so little time between his arrival and the gunshot, Smith figures the police will believe the shooting could have been accidental.

The police have evidence that the blood-spatter patterns do not match Smith's story. Plus, if Smith's statement were true, the gun should have been on the floor below McQueen's right hand. But that's where the TV remote control was found, not the gun.

Smith has been inching closing and closer to the truth, not because the interrogator is breaking down his psychological barriers, but because each time he believes the police have a certain added bit of damning information, he reassesses his situation and decides what is the next best thing he can say to get the lowest penalty possible.

At this point in the interview, Smith has admitted to bringing the gun and being in the house when the gun went off and altering a crime scene by removing and disposing of the weapon that killed McQueen. He tried to be totally innocent and get no charge, but when he couldn't get around the gun issue, he was willing to admit to disposing of the gun because this is by far a lesser charge than murder.

Now the police are letting him know the blood-spatter pattern contradicts his story. And in this interview saga, the remote control becomes Douglas's bloody rock. Look, they say. Look at that television remote control over there. We think, Mr. Smith, that he had that in his hand when he died and he wasn't holding the gun.

Now for the confession. Smith believes they have him cornered. He stares at the remote and tries desperately to come up with the next best story that will keep him out of the electric chair. He needs to believe the police will accept this story and charge him accordingly. He will confess but not out of remorse or because he wants to save face. He wants to get out of a death penalty conviction. What will his story be? What story will the investigator offer for Smith to agree with so that he thinks he will get out of the most serious charge? Readers?

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