As frustrated authorities try to close in on the sniper who has been randomly murdering Washington-area residents, a complex interplay has emerged among the perpetrator, the police and the press.
The shooter has been responding to police pronouncements in ways that are both respectful and taunting. It seems the killer has adjusted his tactics in defiance of police statements and strategy–a pattern of behavior that experts believe could help lead to an arrest.
When police noted that the sniper strikes during rush hour, he picked off his next victim at 9:15 p.m. When police began discussing the “geographical profile” of the targets, the shooter left a 10-mile attack zone to shoot a woman in Virginia. And when officials insisted schools were safe, the sniper shot at a 13-year-old boy in front of his school.
These shifts in tactics suggest the killer is closely following the news coverage about him, and that introduces a third player: the news media. Police have relied on the news media since the shootings began Oct. 2–holding briefings in the hope that the public will call in clues–but they have also lashed out at journalists for reporting leaks.
“It can become a sadistic game of cat-and-mouse,” said University of Georgia sociology professor Dean Rojek, referring to the killer’s response to police statements in the press. “There is an element of sadistic cleverness that emerges out of a psychopathic sickness.”
At the scene of the 13-year-old’s shooting, the sniper reportedly left a Tarot “death” card, scrawling on it, “Dear policeman, I am God.”
The press obtained this information and disseminated it to the public, prompting Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose to angrily accuse news organizations of interfering with the investigation. Yet it was a police source who evidently leaked the information, hoping it would alert the public to look for an individual familiar with Tarot cards.
Police chief fumes
“I have not received any message that the citizens of Montgomery County want Channel 9 or The Washington Post or any other media outlet to solve this case,” Moose fumed to reporters Wednesday. “If they do, then let me know. We will go and do other police work, and we will turn this case over to the media and you can solve it.”
Late Friday, hours after the latest killing at a gas station in suburban Virginia, The Washington Post reported that unidentified law-enforcement sources said ballistic evidence linked the shooting to the sniper. It would be his eighth killing.
Yet the police have not hesitated to use the press for their purposes. They have labeled the killer a “coward,” for example, apparently to taunt him into making a mistake.
On Friday, investigators announced they would soon release an ad they would like broadcast or published, giving information about the killer and urging people to be on the lookout.
Some of the investigators’ best leads have come from public tips, and Moose told reporters that with each briefing comes an increase in calls. But he insisted that is not the reason the conferences are held.
James Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston, said the sniper is clearly reacting to the messages police are relaying to the public, and the police would do well to keep close tabs on the facts they release.
“I think they need to be real careful with the kind of intelligence that they are distributing,” he said. “Because it may have more impact on the killer than the community.”
For example, the police have told the public that witnesses have seen a white van at some of the shooting scenes.
“There’s obviously a very good chance that he will switch cars,” Fox said. “I’m just hoping that they don’t inadvertently challenge the perpetrator to change his plan in a more deadly way.”
And the professor said the police tactic of asking the shooter to turn himself in is not necessarily the smartest move.
“It’s perceived by him as being begging, which intensifies his feeling of power,” Fox said.
Some analysts worry that the constant media attention feeds the killer’s desire to carry out another murder.
“The 1st Amendment is dear to my heart, but there are times when it can harm society,” Rojek said.
And it is still unclear what type of dialogue, if any, the sniper is attempting to pursue. A murderer who kills from a distance, as this one does, is not confrontational, experts said.
The killer’s mindset
The Tarot card, if indeed left by the shooter, could mean a variety of things–or nothing at all. Depending on the killer’s level of sophistication and mindset, it could denote a sense of superiority, a fascination with mysticism or fortune-telling, or it could be just an attempt to throw the police off.
“It may just be a gimmick on his part,” Fox said. “I think we have to assume that it was the killer’s [message], and that he has come to feel a little bit smug and comfortable in his ability to kill without discovery. So maybe in this feeling of safety, in his ability to be elusive, he left that message.”
Scott Thornsley, a professor of criminal justice at Mansfield University, said the handwritten message left at the crime scene does not necessarily rise to the level of a calling card but is significant nonetheless.
“Calling cards are as varied as the offenders they represent,” he said. “It may be to engage in acts of domination, manipulation or control, or simply to use exceptionally vulgar language. But whatever it is, it is a personal expression specific to that offender.”
A killer’s signature, calling card or marks left at a crime scene are often helpful to investigators, Thornsley said, because they signify a loss of some of the control, however unwittingly, the killer has over police.
“If the sniper has begun to delight in taunting the police, he may begin to leave a trail of evidence that will eventually lead to his demise,” he said.
Other serial or mass murderers have left their calling cards or attempted to engage in a dialogue with their adversaries.
David Berkowitz, a serial killer who prowled the streets of New York with a .44-caliber handgun in the late 1970s, sent several letters during his killing spree. Police, members of the media and neighbors received notes from him.
One of notes read, “Police: Let me haunt you with these words: I’ll be back! I’ll be back!”
Berkowitz was eventually captured through a parking ticket.
Another serial murderer, known as the Zodiac Killer, was never caught, but delighted in leaving notes and clues for California police and reporters during a killing spree that ran from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s.
