John Norman Collins Associate - Andrew Julian Manuel, Jr.

Andrew Manuel's Arraignment in Ypsilanti.

It wasn't until Andrew Julian Manuel helped John Norman Collins fraudulently rent a seventeen foot house trailer in June of 1969 that his association with Collins made Andrew Manuel a person of interest to Michigan State Police.

Seventeen year old Oregon resident Roxie Ann Phillips was murdered while visiting Salinas, California. The prime suspect was someone named John, last name not known, who drove a silver colored car and was studying to be a teacher. He and a friend had driven a house trailer out from Michigan.

A search by the Salinas police found the abandoned trailer parked in the alley behind the home of Silver Manuel, Andrew's grandfather. Police soon learned that it was reported stolen from Michigan.

With only sandals on her feet and strangled with her own belt, Roxie's nude body was found at the bottom of Pescadaro Canyon in Monterey, California on Sunday, July 13, 1969 only two weeks after she was reported missing. Several weeks after that, a Salinas detective familiar with the Phillips case, sat down to his evening meal and turned on the national news. A university student, John Norman Collins, had been arrested for the murder of Karen Sue Beineman in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Miss Beineman's nude and strangled body, wearing only sandals, was found in neighboring Ann Arbor at the bottom of a gully off Huron River Dr.

The similarities between the two cases were striking and a call was placed to the Michigan State Police. Michigan sent two State Police detectives and a forensic crime lab specialist to California to share information they had on Collins. A Monterey County grand jury was looking into the particulars of the case of Roxie Ann Phillips.

Before John Collins and Andy Manuel left for California, they told their landlady that they would be in California for two months picking fruit. They asked that she hold their rooms for them. When they returned early from their California trip a few weeks later, she was surprised. Then Manuel fled Ypsilanti again on Saturday, July 26, 1969, the day Karen Sue Beineman's body was found.

A nationwide FBI search was instituted for Andrew Manuel on a fugitive from justice federal warrant. He was charged with larceny by conversion when he and Collins fraudulently rented the house trailer in Ypsilanti, Michigan with a forged, stolen check. The trailer was found abandoned in Salinas, California. By the time the FBI went looking for Manuel, Collins was already in Washtenaw County police custody for the Beineman murder.

The subsequent police investigation revealed that Andrew Julian Manuel was born in Salinas on May 13, 1944. He was described as twenty-five years old, 6'1" tall and weighing 235#. He was dark complected with dark hair and eyes, and he had a tattoo of an eagle on his left forearm. Initially, Manuel was described as Mexican-American, but soon he was found to be Filipino-American.

Manuel moved to Michigan around 1965, taking a job at the Ford Motor Company in the Detroit area. Over the summer of 1968, he worked at Bond Warehouse before moving to Ypsilanti in September. There he took a job in the machine department at Motor Wheel Corporation where he met John Collins, a twenty-two year old Eastern Michigan University student who had worked part-time there since August.

507 East Michigan Ave, Ypsilanti.

In August 8, 1969, Sheriff Douglas Harvey revealed to The Detroit News that Andrew Manuel had sold three guns, one shotgun and two rifles, to the owner of the Roy's Squeeze Inn on East Michigan Avenue, on the same day Miss Beineman's body was discovered in Ann Arbor. When Manuel's connection to Collins became known to the buyer of the stolen guns, he came forward with what he knew and turned the guns over to the police.

These were three of the four guns Collins was known to have owned. The sheriff showed the guns to Collins, who said they were his property and that Manuel must have stolen them from his room on Emmet St. So much for honor among thieves.

Sheriff Harvey's informant said he bought the guns from Manuel for $100, then he drove him to the Ann Arbor bus station where Manuel said he was going to California. Andy Manuel had offered to sell him a .22 caliber pistol, but he declined to buy it. The pistol has never been accounted for, said Harvey.

Andrew J. Manuel in FBI custody in Phoenix.

On a tip, FBI agents in Phoenix, Arizona seized twenty-five year old Andrew Manuel and arrested him on a fugitive warrant from Michigan on Wednesday, August 6, 1969. Manuel was arraigned before a U.S. District Commissioner in Phoenix shortly after he was arrested at his sister-in-laws apartment. A $10,000 bond was set and Manuel was taken to the federal detention center at Florence, Arizona to await his hearing.

It was reported in The Detroit News on Friday, August 8th, that Mrs. Ernestina Masters, Manuel's sister-in-law, said she would cooperate with authorities in any way possible. Manuel had stayed at her apartment with her and her roommate since the previous Saturday night. Manuel had called Ernestina from California and asked for some money. She sent him $50, and he traveled by bus to her Phoenix apartment.

"He was scared and afraid he would be sent to jail for something he didn't do," she said. "Manuel claimed that he knew Collins for only six months and was surprised and shocked when he learned of the murder charge against him."

 

Andrew Manuel was extradited to Michigan and convicted on the fraud and a burglary charge on November 17, 1969. He was in possession of a stolen diamond ring appraised at about $450 from a ransack burglary on March 14th, 1969 in Ypsilanti. Manuel pleaded guilty on the possession of stolen property charge. When District Judge William F. Ager, Jr. asked Manuel where he got the ring, he rolled over on his buddy and said, "John Collins." On the fraud charge, Manuel told the court that Collins had signed for the trailer, but he was with him and knew the trailer would not be returned.

Judge Ager gave Andrew Manuel the same sentence for both counts, five years probation, a $50 fine, and $300 in court costs. Additionally, the judge ordered Manuel to pay up to $1,500 restitution to Hendrickson Trailer Sales in Ypsilanti. Andrew's wife Betty Sue and his mother from Salinas attended the court proceeding. It was Manuel's mother who paid his fees and fines for him.

After the trial, Ann Arbor Police Chief Walter Krasny was quick to report to the press that no link had been established between Andrew Manuel and the other unsolved slayings in Washtenaw County. Chief Assistant Prosecutor Booker T. Williams made a point at the end of Manuel's trial to mention that there was no evidence to connect Manuel with the other Michigan murders.

Even after given immunity to testify against John Norman Collins, Manuel tried to skip out on his probation, was recaptured, and sent to the Washtenaw County Jail to serve out his term. When he was finally forced to testify against his associate in the Collins' trial, he had little to offer prosecutors in the way of evidence.

Finding any information on Andrew Julian Manuel has been almost as difficult as locating him. After lots of effort and false leads, Ryan M. Place was finally able to locate him in Yuma, Arizona. Andrew Julian Manuel died taking his secrets to the grave on Saturday, February 19, 2011, only three months shy of his sixty-seventh birthday.

John Norman Collins Playbook Formula

For over three years, Ryan M. Place and I have been actively looking into the unsolved Washtenaw County Murder cases from 1967-1969. We have interviewed countless numbers of people connected with these cases from friends and family of the victims who allowed us to speak with them, to law enforcement officials who were involved with these cases, to various people drawn into the investigation one way or another, and some few supporters of John Norman Collins.

My contacts with Collins supporters usually take the form of hit and run verbalism because their arguments in his defense are unsustainable. John's ability to inspire loyalty in his supporters says less about him and more about their willing suspension of disbelief on his behalf. It is particularly difficult for his teammates who played high school sports with Collins at St. Clements High School in Center Line, Michigan. It is a shame that this tragedy casts a long shadow.

Although Collins' high school girlfriend has denied this to me, I've discovered from several unrelated sources, Collins himself for one, that she has been corresponding with him since he was imprisoned. He speaks about her with adoration in some of the prison letters I have obtained. In any case, she has shown John loyalty and refused to speak with me about her on again/off again relationship with Collins. After all these years, he still exerts some influence over her. She is only one of a number of people who still grant John Norman Collins a certain amount of power and control over them.

In a Facebook message I received on March 25, 2014, someone named Marcy Miller asked me if I had emailed her last year about John Norman Collins. I thought that sounded weird. I had no memory of contacting her, so I asked my Rainy Day Murders researcher to check his records of our contacts. Ryan was certain neither of us had made so much as a courtesy call to Marcy Miller, nor had her name ever come up in any of our research. That in itself made her contact with me interesting. Who is this mystery woman and what is her interest in this case?

But as I read on, I saw a pattern emerge from her message that I recognized from reading a number of Collins' prison letters from other people who have written to him. Collins was attempting to solidify his diminishing number of supporters and obfuscate the facts of his case with his own talking points. She began with an if this/than that statement setting me up for a straw man argument:

"Remember when I told you that (Collins) sends me a birthday card every year? [No!] Well, John said that you said some not so nice things about me. I can't imagine what you could have said to hurt my reputation. [Me either.]"

Not for the first time has John Norman Collins used a woman for a third-party proxy to shield himself from our direct inquiries and poison the well of truth. What Marcy wrote next put things in some perspective for me:

"When you said you were a friend of John [Those words have never left my lips.], you misrepresented yourself. [Really?] "(John) says you are not a friend and that I should stay away from you [Now I really want to meet her.] because you only want to do harm and not give your readers the option to think otherwise."

From reading Collins' prison letters I have been able to discern a formula that he uses in his personal correspondence. It is the only way he can vicariously assert himself into the lives of his supporters to perpetuate the mythology of his innocence and persecution at the hands of the State of Michigan.

"I also told you [I still don't remember.] that we [Who?] got a hold of Ted Bundy's attorney before his (Ted's) execution, and he admitted that he (Bundy) was in Ann Arbor during the time of the murders, but he didn't admit to any of them (the murders)."

Now I had something concrete to dispute with her. There is evidence that Ted Bundy did cruise through Ann Arbor one weekend in 1974 while evading law enforcement out West. But Collins had been behind bars since July 31, 1969. That's a five year gap, yet this myth still circulates out in cyberspace. Marcy also asserted that the murders didn't end with Collins. They just moved over to Oakland County. This is another Playbook myth that Collins takes every opportunity to perpetuate. After her two bogus examples, I was amused by her next sentence, "Are you sure you have all your facts straight? Call me!"

So I did. Marcy Miller and I spoke on the phone for about twenty minutes that morning. The conversation was cordial, and I found out some background. She was not an ex-girlfriend as I had suspected, but she was dating Collins when he was arrested. Marcy met Collins at a local Michigan lake when she was sixteen and vacationing with her family. Her parents thought John was a nice guy, and he soon attached himself loosely to their family.

When the Miller family discovered that Collins had been arrested as the prime suspect in the unsolved Washtenaw County murders, they fell into denial. It couldn't be John, he was so nice. I didn't hear from Marcy for almost three months, but on June 14, 2014, I got another message from her. She had checked out some of my blog posts on Collins and began to realize that what he had been telling her for over forty years was not strictly factual. Not even close.

"John sent me a birthday letter in March warning me about you. I have not written him back since we last talked. Knowing the truth is terrifying. I spent over forty years wondering. Fifty percent of me thought they had the wrong man. I knew in my heart that one day I would know the truth. I prayed for that day.

"I spent years talking to him about Jesus and how he would be set free if he only believed, but John just didn't get it. That's when I slowed down and only wrote him once a year. When DNA testing came out, I was so excited, but John didn't want to have anything to do with it. He said they would use it against him [Isn't that an indirect admission?] and mix it all up. After that, he was lucky to get a letter from me every five years. I talked to an old boyfriend who was locked up with him. He told me John was strange, but I defended him. Boy was I an idiot!"

"(John) called me LC for Linda Carter (TV's Wonder Woman). I looked like her clone. I heard that from everybody, but he really knew how to charm me. Even after forty years, I'm still his LC. I just want to thank you for writing this book, doing this investigation, and setting me free."

What prompted me to write and share this post was a contact I had last week with a Collins family associate who accused me of exploiting the family's pain for profit and insisted that Ryan and my efforts are harmful and will do nothing to help anyone.

Really? I have received many thank yous from people who didn't have a platform or a community to share their memories about this terrible time. Some are now able to articulate their feelings and come to grips with these cases and John Norman Collins.

Rather than run every piece of correspondence I get, I chose to post remarks from this one because it clearly shows the formula Collins uses in his correspondence to his dwindling numbers of followers. I wrote Marcy asking if I could run her story and use her name.

"Marcy, can I use your recent responses in a blog post? Your remarks will resonant with some women and maybe help someone else break free from Collins' grip. He has a letter writing formula which your posts clearly depict. I would like to reveal that equation to my readers because he uses the same approach with everyone."

"Yes, use my name and photo. My family and friends will be glad I finally came to my senses. I normally would never believe an inmate, but I knew him before he went in. I was a fool."

"Thanks, Marcy. There are people who suspect and accuse me of making this stuff up."

After reading many of Collins letters and/or speaking with people he has written to, a definite pattern emerges from his correspondence. First, he creates an exclusive nickname for his pen pals which creates a unique identity and a special bond with them. Marcy was called "LC" for Linda Carter. A woman he was courting by mail called Sandra was given the pseudonym of "My Georgia Peach." A British woman named Katie who wrote Collins for some time was given the sobriquet, "My Wild Irish Rose." A woman from Australia was called "Vix", and Collins' Canadian cousin was rechristened "Little Brother."

Collins always finds a way to interject himself vicariously into the personal lives and affairs of the people he is writing. He never misses sending people birthday cards/letters and Christmas greetings. They seem to be hooks that bind people to his claustrophobic circle of personal intimacy. He plays on their sympathies and complains about his prison treatment, the food, poor healthcare, the prison store, his family that doesn't write him anymore, and how he never has any money.

Within the last year or so, my researcher and I have been mentioned as bad guys to be avoided at all costs. Collins told his recent pen pal, Sandra, that my researcher Ryan had threatened John's Canadian cousin with a beating. I immediately called the cousin and told him what I had learned. He laughed and said, "Where does my cousin come up with this stuff?

It amazes me that some people still allow John Norman Collins the power to influence what they say and do. I can faithfully report that their numbers are declining as is his ability to manipulate people.

Staying in the Writing Zone

 

An entrepreneur from another age came up with an ingenious invention for eliminating distractions for writers called the Isolator. As the above photograph depicts, there was a mechanical solution for even the most human of behaviors, our inherent distractability. I had to laugh when I saw this product and wished I could go on the Internet and order it.

Whether this photo was originally a sight gag or a serious attempt to keep the writer distraction free and focused, the thinking behind the Isolator is as true today as it was in the past. Writing requires intense concentration over sustained periods of time. Even the slightest distractions can derail a writer's train of thought.

When writers are deep into the creation process, time and space seem to disappear, their creative juices begin to flow, and they write as if they could go on forever poring wisdom and enlightenment from the ends of their keyboard tapping fingers.

Then the doorbell rings, a telemarketer calls, or the neighbor's dogs start barking nonstop and the spell is broken. Being in the writing groove is nothing less than sacrosanct for writers. Not every writer is lucky enough to have a sanctum sanctorum immune from such distractions.

The image of the pastoral poet who creates beautiful verse next to a babbling brook amid warbling songbirds is stereotypical. Most of those cavalier love songs were written in noisy taverns by young bloods under the influence of the local grog. My point is that most writers create amid the distractions and cacophony of everyday life. 

As much as writers try to control life around them, writing doesn't happen in a vacuum. Dealing with interruption is a part of life and unavoidable. As annoying as distractions are, it is too easy for writers to get lost in their manuscripts and forget the greater world around them. For serious writers, the act of writing is a solitary obsession.
 

What drives every serious writer is the knowledge that when the muse strikes, she better find you working. Passion for the work trumps everything else. Without that, it doesn't matter what you write or how long you have worked on it.

Retrospective John Norman Collins Serial Killer Profile - Part Four of Four

Compiling a criminal profile after an offender has been captured is like forecasting yesterday's weather tomorrow. It takes little skill and runs counter to the purpose of profiling which is the apprehension of a prime suspect. Still, by reversing the process, I hope to develop a convincing profile of serial killer John Norman Collins (JNC).

JNC was charged and convicted of the sex slaying of Karen Sue Beineman in January of 1970. Karen was a freshman at Eastern Michigan University in July of 1969 when she willingly took a motorcycle ride from a handsome stranger who seemed harmless enough. She was never seen alive again.

Convicted of Karen's murder, JNC was believed by the court of public opinion to be responsible for the murders of at least six other women, though he was never formally charged with any of them. Washtenaw County Prosecutor William Delhey held the other cases in abeyance against the day that JNC would try to maneuver his way out of prison. He did not want to take a chance that Collins would ever get released without serving his full life sentence.

Because Collins was charged and convicted of only one murder, he is not officially considered a serial killer in accordance with FBI guidelines. His case has largely escaped public notice outside of Michigan and fallen into obscurity. That does not change the reality that he murdered more than one woman in the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area.

In addition to the Washtenaw County murders, JNC was indicted by a Monterey, California grand jury for the murder of seventeen year old Milwaukie, Oregon resident Roxie Ann Phillips. This murder case had hard physical evidence to link Collins to the victim. It was the strongest case against Collins, but Michigan Governor William Milliken denied California Governor Ronald Reagan his extradition request and California dropped the case.

George Bush Sr, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and William Milliken

***

Of the four FBI Behavioral Science Unit classifications for serial murderers, the Anger-Retaliatory Rape/Murderer and the Anger-Excitation Rape/Murderer classifications provide the most revealing profiling characteristics relevant to JNC. Each will be handled separately. Serial killers who represent in more than one category are called "mixed." John Norman Collins is one of those.

Anger-Retaliatory Rape/Murderer profile traits:

• Violent sexual assault with elements of "overkill." (All seven victims.)
• The fatal hostility may be directed at a mother, wife, or some dominant female who has belittled, humiliated, or rejected the subject. (JNC may have had repressed anger towards his domineering mother, or he felt anger when he was rejected by his high school sweetheart. It was recently learned that Collins' first intimate girlfriend at Eastern Michigan University turned up pregnant by another guy, and she dropped him.)
• A substitute victim is chosen who usually comes from the general area where the aggressor lives or works. (Four of the seven murdered young women lived within blocks of JNC.)
• The substitute victim is chosen while the murderer is conducting his daily routine, as when cruising his neighborhood or a public place, the aggressor may find a potential victim who reminds him of his mother or girlfriend. (Five of the seven victims were local.)
• The scapegoating retaliation does not eliminate the direct source of hate, so it needs to be episodically repeated. (Six of the seven victims.)
• Often uses a ruse to get the victim inside an enclosed place. Once inside, the victim is isolated and the killer confronts her. (The Karen Sue Beineman murder.)
• Beating around the face and mouth in response to the victim's rejection. As the assault becomes more combative, weapons of opportunity are used to brutalize the body. (All of the seven murders.)
• The body is often placed in a submissive position. (Three of the seven victims.)
• The crime scene tends to be unorganized following the aggressor's intense anger venting. (Three of seven murders.)
• The perpetrator often takes a small trinket or souvenir. (At least five of the seven but thought to be more.)
• When the sexual assault and murder is deemed a success, the perpetrator walks away feeling cleansed and refreshed. He has transferred the blame for the murder onto the victim, and he will not experience any sense of guilt or wrongdoing. (Over the forty-seven years since these events took place, JNC has yet to show any feelings of remorse for any of the victims or their families.)

Anger-Excitation Rape/Murderer profile traits:

• The sexual assault and homicide are designed to inflict pain and terror on the victim for psychological gratification. (At least six of the seven known murders.)
• Unlike other types of murderers, the luxury of sadism is found in the process of killing, not the death. Prolonged torture satisfies a lust for power and control. (At least five of the seven murders.)
• The homicide pattern is characterized by a prolonged, bizarre, ritualistic assault on the victim. (At least four of the seven murders.)
• The killer may be attracted to victims who meet certain criteria. (JNC's victims were brunette with shoulder length hair, they were small of stature, all but one had pierced ears, most lived near him, they were all young - thirteen to twenty-three years old, and all students but one.)
• When encountering a victim, these organized offenders can invoke a disarmingly charming manner that dispels the immediate fears of the victim. (Most if not all of Collins' victims appeared to go willingly with him.)
• The perpetrator uses a con or a ruse to dupe the victim from the time of contact until the victim is isolated. (The Joan Schell and Karen Sue Beineman murders for certain, the others likely.)
• Bondage and domination play a significant role in the killing process. (Four of the six murders.)
• The body may be left in a bizarre state of undress after possibly cutting the clothing off the victim. (Four of the seven victims.)
• Takes clothing items as souvenirs. (One souvenir box was destroyed by JNC and one was found under his bed. The Michigan State Police have these items in evidence boxes.)
• This type of serial killer leaves few if any signs or clues at the crime scene. (It was the fourth murder victim before a crime scene was found.)
• The murderer often moves the dead body to a different location from the crime scene and dumps it in a familiar location within his comfort zone to conceal or reveal his work. (All but one of the bodies was dumped within a ten mile radius in the sparsely populated farm country of Washtenaw County.)
• To avoid detection, this organized offender tends to commit his offenses distant from his usual activities. (JNC chose his victims from people not in his circle of known acquaintances for five of the seven murders.)
• For added stimulation, the murderer may attempt to interject himself into the criminal investigation. (JNC was known to have breakfast and/or lunch at the Bomber restaurant in Ypsilanti across the street from the Michigan State Police Post. Because he was the clean cut nephew of State Trooper David Leik, Collins traded on his uncle's name and often sat in with the local police and listened to their conversations about local police matters.)
• The subject derives great satisfaction by avoiding and taunting police creating a phantom scenario where the police are publicly criticized by the press and the public. (Leaving five of the seven bodies where they could easily be found, and dumping Karen Sue Beineman's body less than a mile from police Task Force headquarters were defiant acts.)
• In his daily habits, he is often compulsive and structurally organized. Educationally, he may have two years of college and/or have graduated. (JNC was about to begin his last year of college to earn a teaching degree.)
• These murderers can successfully segment their criminal interest into a private world of protected ritualism. (Collins still publicly denies killing anyone while smugly guarding his closely protected secrets.)
• The killer's souvenirs are often contained in a private chamber of horrors. This specialty place may be a dark closet, room, basement, or a hole in the ground. He may also use an abandoned barn, cabin, or garage. (It is known that JNC collected crime scene souvenirs in a BOLD detergent box that he disposed of, and he kept another box under his bed which Michigan State Police have in their custody.)
• Generally, the timing between murders lessens with experience. The anger-excitation rape/murderer is a predatory jackal who refines his skills at hunting and learns from his mistakes. When the satisfaction from the killing becomes brief and situational, the killing rate increases. (JNC's murder chart indicates this phenomenon which statisticians call The Devil's Staircase.)

Without a hardcore confession from John Norman Collins himself, the full truth of these matters will never be known. With JNC securely locked away, it is unlikely that he will ever be charged with any of the other six murders his name is associated with. But once what is known about these other cases is revealed, the court of public opinion will have little trouble deciding on Collins' guilt or innocence in the murders he was never charged with.

***

If you missed this four part series on profiling serial killers, here is the link to part one. http://fornology.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-fbis-violent-criminal-apprehension.html 

What Serial Killers Look Like On Paper - Part Three of Four

After special agents from the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) took the data from their Victim Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) study of serial killers, they were able to adapt it to an existing framework for rape cases by adding provisions for rape/murder cases. It became readily apparent from the data that serial killers fall into two large categories, either organized or disorganized.

Organized murderers tend to plan and display control of the victim at the scene. Disorganized murderers may have a vague plan but generally react in a haphazard manner. This distinction does little to help investigators narrow down the field of suspects in an investigation.

When the data was compiled and analyzed within the four classifications of rape/murderers, profiling characteristics began to appear which described serial killer behavior that investigators could understand and utilize in their field work.

1. The Power-Assertive rape/murderer plans the rape but not the murder. He has a need for power and control that may escalate into violence and increasing aggression. The rape is an expression of his virility, mastery, and dominance over a vulnerable victim. The killing eliminates the threat of identification. The killer will brandish weapons of symbolic importance to him, a knife, handgun, rope, or anything easily concealed.
2. The Power-Reassurance rape/murderer plans the rape but not the murder. These killers want to act out some fantasy and seek reassurance from the victim. They are motivated by an idealized seduction and conquest fantasy. Perpetrators need reassurance of their sexual adequacy. When the victim doesn't yield to the killer's planned seduction, his failure and anger drives him to a murderous assault.
3. The Anger-Retaliatory rape/murderer plans the rape and the murder which involves overkill. This offender is usually in his mid-to-late twenties and he has an explosive personality that is impulsive, quick tempered, and self-centered. In dealing with other people, he is not reclusive but a loner in the midst of a crowd. Generally, his social relations are superficial and limited to drinking buddies. Although a sportsman, he prefers playing contact sports. The murder is an anger-venting act that expresses symbolic revenge on a substitute victim.
4. The Anger-Excitation rape/murderer is usually an organized killer and a normal-appearing person who is bright and socially facile with others when he chooses to be. Based on his ability to appear conventional and law abiding, he can cunningly deceive others because he has the ability to separate his general lifestyle from his criminal interest. The sexual assault and homicide are designed to inflict pain and terror on the victim for psychological gratification. Victims show evidence of prolonged torture and ritualistic carnage.

John Norman Collins

Each of the four areas of the rape/murderer classification above is much more detailed than my thumbnail summary indicates. Of special interest to me are #3 and #4. These are the most relevant to my study of John Norman Collins, the Washtenaw County coed killer. In the last entry of this four post series, I will detail more specific behaviors in those categories and relate them to the Collins' cases.

FBI Behaviorial Science Unit's Serial Killer Characteristics - Part Two of Four

Profiling serial killers is as much art as science. The complex psychological factors that make up the motivation, justification, and rationalization within the minds of disturbed individuals is difficult for a sane person to fathom. That said, recognizing those psychological behaviors helps law enforcement apprehend these predators and limit the damage they do to families, the communities where the murders occur, and the general well-being of society at large.

Before the FBI's VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) study on profiling serial killers in the 1980s, previous violent crime models categorized these multiple murders cases generally in groups like sexually orientated killings, power and control killings, greed or gain killings, nuisance killings, cult killings, and revenge killings. 

The basic problem with grouping these murders by type is that it doesn't address the crime scene details or the signature characteristics of the assailant. These murder taxonomies are of limited value to law enforcement when trying to learn the motivation or the identity of an unknown serial killer.

These categories of murders are general indicators that may have some descriptive value, but they fail to provide homicide investigators with the necessary tools to evaluate a crime scene effectively and to capture the perpetrator quickly. These static descriptions do not address the issues of the offender's identity and do not affect his or her apprehension.

To learn how serial killers think and to study their behavior, FBI Special Agents conducted exhaustive interviews and collected data on thirty-six incarcerated multiple murderers from their prison confines. The logic behind the study was self-evident, interview convicted serial killers to learn how they think and what motivates them. After all, they are the experts in what they do.

FBI researchers had a captive audience but studied only willing participants. Serial killers who did participate in the study did so for several reasons:

1. Some confessed killers wanted the opportunity to clarify other people's conclusions about them.
2. Some wanted to point out why it was impossible for them to have committed the murders.
3. Others wanted to teach the police how the crimes were committed and motivated.

With these men serving life sentences in maximum security portions of various prisons, they look forward to opportunities to get out of their cells and maybe get a warm cup of coffee and a stale doughnut out of it. As for the prisoners' candor, most had nothing left to lose and they answered freely. Other prisoners took longer to establish a rapport with investigators before they were comfortable talking about their crimes to FBI researchers.

Once this new data was entered into the Bureau's computer system, some common characteristics of these sexual predators began to take shape:

• Their motivation is usually psychological gratification of some sort (sex, anger, thrill, gain, or simply attention).
• They often suffer from mental illness with psychotic breaks.
• They lack remorse or guilt and project blame on their victims.
• They have a compulsive need for power and control.
• They exhibit impulsivity and predatory behavior.
• They often wear a mask of sanity in public for protective coloration.
• Their boundaries between fantasy and reality are lost.
• Their fantasies turn to dominance, control, sexual conquest, violence, and finally murder.

Researchers found that serial killers suffer from antisocial personality disorder, a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others. They have an impoverished moral sense (conscience) and usually a history of petty crime. These killers seamlessly make the leap from sociopaths to psychopaths when the predatory urge overcomes them.

The FBI study further discovered that most serial killers share many of the same formative experiences growing up:

• They had a history of being bullied or socially isolated as children and adolescents.
• They often engaged in petty crimes like theft, fraud, or vandalism.
• They are compulsive and practiced liars.
• Many come from unstable families and have experienced a serious family disruption like divorce, separation, or a breach in the child/parent relationship.
• Many serial killers have a history of being abused emotionally, physically, and/or sexually in their youth.
• They frequently manifest attachment disorder due to early childhood trauma like violence, neglect, rejection, or pervasive alcohol or drug use in the home.
• They suffer from low self-esteem and retreat into a fantasy world where they are safe and in control.
• They show a fascination with fire starting.
• They show cruelty to younger children and/or small animals.

The above listed traits form a composite picture of common characteristics of many serial killers and their crimes, but they are only useful after the capture of the perpetrators. They are of little or no use in capturing them. 

Sexual homicide has long been studied by various professional disciplines and perspectives. Law enforcement came late to the party. Sociologists want to examine sexual homicide as a social phenomenon that occurs within the context of the greater society. Psychologists are most interested in the psychiatric diagnosis of these murderers and developing techniques for treating sex offenders. 

Law enforcement is interested in the study of sexual homicide from the standpoint of how best to investigate these crimes, how to identify suspects quickly, how to apprehend and convict suspects, and how to protect the public from further senseless carnage.

The FBI's Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) was able to expand on the work of researchers, Robert D. Keppel and Richard Walter, previous developers of rapist categories for the FBI. The BSU entered their research data on rape murderers into that database and revised the dynamic characteristics of the four existing classifications to provide a more discerning and functional view of serial killers.

In my next two posts, I'll review the FBI's four rape/murder classifications and go into more detail on how they form a composite profile of Washtenaw County serial killer John Norman Collins.

The FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and Serial Killer Profiling - Part One of Four

In the 1960s and into the early 1980s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) noticed a rise in serial killing cases across the country. Special agents of their Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) began profiling criminals informally using crime scene information to deduce common characteristics and behaviors of serial killers.

After this informal criminal profiling program began to show promise, the study was formalized during the Reagan administration in 1982 with a grant from the National Institute of Justice. The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) studied thirty-six convicted and incarcerated sex slayers from a law enforcement perspective. Extensive data was collected from 1979-1983 of one-hundred and eighteen crime scenes and victims (mostly women) from these thirty-six serial killers.

In 1985, the first data was entered into the VICAP computer system, and it was operational on June 1, 1985. It marked the pioneering use of artificial intelligence technology in crime scene analysis and criminal personality profiling. Today, the FBI's VICAP database is massive and linked to other crime fighting database institutions worldwide like the International Police (INTERPOL) in Europe and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Linkage Analysis System in Canada.

The data in the VICAP study focused on characteristics consisting of physical evidence found at the crime scenes that may reveal behavioral traits of the serial murderer and profile characteristics which are variables that identify the offender as an individual. Together, they help to form a composite picture of the suspect.

A VICAP Crime Analysis Report runs for ten pages of detailed law enforcement reporting. Factors such as age, gender, occupation, intelligence, acquaintance w/victim, residence, mode of transportation, modus operandi, ritualistic behavior, characteristics of the victim, and crime scene signature of the offender are noted and entered into their database. Criminal profiling gives investigative agencies the ability to connect details, recognize patterns of offender behavior, and review national fingerprint and DNA databases which makes manageable the work of narrowing down suspects.

When two or more murders have been committed over time by the same person(s), a dynamic synergistic comparison can give investigators a systematic look at the presence or absence of evidence, the crime scene signature, the comfort zone of the killer, and the possible motives for the murder. Other indicators such as emotional intensity, the rationale for the murder, and any number of factors that stand out to investigators can help make connections.

The intent of crime scene investigation and psychological profiling is to identify the key elements of the scene and the behavioral factors related to the killer, enabling homicide investigators to prioritize leads and apprehend serial killers before they can kill again.

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More detailed information on the BSU's groundbreaking study can be found in Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives co-written by Robert K. Ressler, former FBI Profiler and late director of Forensic Behavioral Sciences; John E. Douglas, former Unit Chief of the FBI's investigative support group; and Ann W. Burgess, Professor of Psychiatric Mental Health at the University of Pennsylvania.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Sexual_Homicide_Patterns_and_Motives_Pap.html?id=j2rdEgUIMLcC