Making a Killing off a Murderer: An Analysis of the Crime and Documentary - Part Three

While not all criminals are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are criminals, certainly a good portion of criminals have personality disorders and a good portion of psychopaths commit crimes of one sort or another. But, first I want to talk about what crime is.

A crime is something that society has deemed illegal, as something you should not do because it is harmful to others or the community. Drug use is often included as a crime because it is believed to not only harm the individual, but to bring blight and crime to the neighborhood, but let's put drug use aside and talk about other crimes; drug dealing, burglary, robbery, fraud, arson, rape, and murder. These are crimes that when an individual commits such acts he has done so in a premeditated fashion, knew he was going to break the law, knew he was going to cause harm to another person, and, yet, went ahead and committed the act anyway. There are only two reasons for stepping over that line: desperation (benefit triumphs harm) and selfish desire for power and control (what I want is more important than your rights; my ego needs to fed). Desperation might be something like stealing food to feed your child or committing a theft to pay for medicine for your very ill wife. You know it is wrong but you believe committing the crime is the only way to save a life and the harm it does is minimal in comparison. A person who commits this kind of crime may not be a bad guy or have a personality disorder; he just can't think of any other way to deal with a bad situation. Sometimes a drug dealer could fit in this category if he cannot find a way to earn legitimate money and he lives in a houseful of starving siblings. If he shows up on the corner with a lot of bling and is driving a BMW, probably he is not dealing out of desperation.

And most crime is not committed out of desperation. It is committed out of selfishness. I am more important than you and I will get mine. Even shoplifting is an act of selfishness; thrill seeking or a ha-ha to big business or desiring instant gratification rather than working to earn money to then purchase what you want. When shoplifting isn't about stealing food for your family, it is about selfishness. The reason criminals are so often repeat offenders is because they LIKE committing crime. Since the majority aren't committing crimes out of desperation, they are doing it because it make them feel good, it makes them happy. And since they don't care too much that they are harming others, there is no reason for them to stop unless they feel the punishment isn't worth it. If they don't get caught or don't mind the time in jail, they will repeat offend until the punishment is severe enough to keep them off the streets forever or until they get tired of incarceration or until they become physically unable to commit crime.

So by the time you get to repeat offenders - especially violent repeat offenders - you are usually looking at psychopathy or another serious personality disorder. Serial rapists and serial killers are always psychopaths...you just can't commit that kind of heinous premeditated crime without being a psychopath.

Steven Avery, as I pointed out in the previous post, has all the traits of a psychopath. He has all the traits of a serial killer. His claims about desiring a quiet life with a good woman is a lie; he would find that boring; he needs to have a much higher level of power and control and excitement. The police were well aware of his criminal capabilities which is why he was on their radar. When the sexual assault was committed on the beach and the woman gave a description that matched Avery, it is no surprise they thought it was him.

The mistake the police made was immediately thinking it must be that guy: there is often not a shortage of violent sexual offenders in the radius of any town or city. Attacking a female jogger is a very common crime for a rapist or serial killer. In fact, the majority of serial sexual crimes involving strangers are just this sort; few actually involve kidnapping and imprisonment and torture. Hollywood tends to make people think all serial killers are deranged geniuses who plot intricate crimes but this is simply not true. Most serial killers just see an opportunity (read: woman walking or jogging alone) and jump out and brutalize her. Consequently, there isn't much that looks different from one of these crimes to the next. There is no "signature," some calling card that would point to a specific guy. Pretty much any violent sexual offender could have done the crime, so you need physical, circumstantial, or witness evidence to link him to the crime. Unfortunately, the police just went with a witness ID from the victim and used this to put Avery away. It was unfortunate for Avery that he looked enough like the guy who really did the crime to be misidentified. Since there was DNA left in the crime, if it happened today, Avery would not have been charged, but at that time, DNA was not so advanced. However, even today, the right guy might not have been charged either because the police might have no clue who he is; they might just have to put his DNA into the CODIS system and hope he was previously a felon and get a lucky hit.

Now, to the Halbach crime. I am not going to detail all of what makes Avery guilty. If you want to examine each issue in depth, here is a fabulous analysis of each and every segment of "Making a Murderer" by a non-profiler - broadcaster Dan O' Donnell.

http://www.newstalk1130.com/onair/common-sense-central-37717/rebutting-a-murderer-14280387/

What I want to do here is just point out the basic profiling and crime analysis issues relating to the Halbach crime.

1) Where victim's body is found

The body was found on Avery's property. This is why the police went to Avery and talked to him. He wasn't targeted. You have the corpse of a murdered individual on your property; you are going to become a person of interest.

2) Where the victims' vehicle is found.

That was on Avery's property as well. Again, police are not targeting Avery. They are doing their job which is to investigate where the vehicle was found and who could have put the vehicle at that location. Since it was hidden on Avery's property, he is going to become a person of interest.

3) The last place the victim was seen

That was on Avery's property. Anyone who lives on the Avery property is going to become a person of interest; this includes Steven Avery

4) The last person to have contact with the victim

That would be Steven Avery. The police are obviously going to investigate the last person who was in contact with the victim or was with the victim.

5) Where physical evidence of the crime exists

That would be in the Avery fire pit, in the Avery burn barrel, in Steven Avery's house, and in the victim's car on Avery's property. All the physical evidence implicates Steven Avery (his DNA in the car), the victim's body parts, DNA, and personal items in the firepit and barrel, and the key and his DNA in his house.

6) Witnesses

The only people that claim to have seen Teresa Halbach right before or after her disappearance are Bobby and Brendan Dassey. Bobby Dassey states he say Halbach photographing a car and then heading toward Steven Avery's house. Brendan Dassey states he saw Halbach tied up in Steven Avery's house, saw Steven Avery kill her and saw Steven Avery burn her. There are no witnesses saying they saw Teresa Halbach anywhere else or with anyone else.

So, it comes down to this. Overwhelming evidence that Steven Avery is guilty of the murder of Teresa Halbach. Unless he was framed.

Framing Steven Avery would require:

Someone knowing or getting lucky that Halbach was coming out to Avery property that day.
Someone getting lucky that there are two witnesses to say she was with or near Steven Avery that day
Someone getting lucky that a witness can describe the crime in detail so that most of it matches the evidence
Someone has to kill Halbach for some reason and burn her body on the property right under the nose of Steven Avery (or bring her burned body parts (this did not happen) to the property and mix them in with the stuff Steven Avery had already burned.
Someone had to hide the victim's car on the Avery property
Someone had to hide the victim's car key in Steven Avery's house
Someone had to plant Steven Avery's DNA in the victim's car and on the key

So either law enforcement found out Halbach was going out to Steven Avery's house and just as she was leaving, they kidnapped her, killed her, burned her up, and spread all the evidence and DNA around Avery's property and house OR someone else saw the opportunity to kill Halbach, killed her, burned her up somewhere and spread her cremains and personal items around the Avery property and then law enforcement saw a great opportunity and jumped on board by planting Avery's DNA and the key.

Or maybe Steven Avery is just guilty as hell and all the evidence proves it.


Part Two 

Part One


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

January 21, 2016

The Crime of Noah

Yes, I am talking about the movie directed by Darren Aronofsky....I am still trying to recover from my wounds the morning after (what an April Fool's joke that was!). Aronofsky should be charged with a crime against the masses....oh, I know it was just a movie, just entertainment...wait, that's just it, it was not entertaining in the least, it was just plain torture. Arrest the man (Aronfsky, not Noah).

Spoilers ahead! Please read anyway so you don't think you actually need to see this piece of crap.

Let's see, where can I start to dissect this piece of dung. Okay, let's start with the point that he is telling a Bible story. Yeah, so, under pressure Paramount decided to label the film "inspired" by the Bible story rather than being one, which ends up being accurate because Aronofsky not only took the artistic license to fill in the blanks (otherwise the movie would have been less than an hour - oh, that would have been a blessing) but he just plain out changed the story for reasons that really made no sense except he liked adding a really sick twist to the whole thing.

But, before I get into that, I just want to say this: what is wrong with telling a rich, faithful story? If you are going to tell a Biblical story, follow the Biblical story! And do so with great passion. You don't have to be a Christian or a Jew to appreciate a great story from that particular religious persuasion and even if you are a believer, you don't have to believe every detail (okay, you do if you are a die hard but that is a whole other issue) to appreciate the story and the sentiment. I just finished watching the Ramayana, the Indian epic that was over 80 episodes on YouTube (the Indian epic, The Mahabharata, is even longer) and I don't have to believe every supernatural event to enjoy immensely   the grand story and all the wisdom contained within. I am not a Christian, per se (okay, I am Hindu) and I have always found the story of Noah to be a bit peculiar and hard to understand, but I certainly can appreciate the faith of the man, to be in awe of his dedication to his God, that in the face of what had to be intense disbelief in his project and his sanity from both his family and any other human in the vicinity, he soldiered on for years, building his colossal boat.

Which brings me to my second point: what a massive amount of material for Aronofsky to work with but he didn't touch on any of that! Noah's family simply complied without question and he was so far from civilization that no one else questioned him. We really saw none of the despair Noah must have suffered through all those years leading up to the flood and really none of the despair while aboard the ark, nor none of the despair after he left the ark to start mankind over again (there were a few vague references to said despair but Aronofsky didn't waste time dealing with it). He was busy turning Noah into a psychopathic homicidal maniac who no longer follows God's (oh, excuse me, the "Creator's" will - we mustn't use the word "God" in this film because they didn't call him that back then....).

So, what drove Noah to want to kill off his granddaughters? Let me take you back through Aronfsky's convoluted illogical mess of a rewrite of the Biblical tale.

In the Bible, Noah enters into the ark with his wife and his three sons and their wives. In other words, four couples to keep renewing the earth and at least not require total incest to get things going again. But, Aronofsky decides to only let one older teenage son (the others appear to be young teenage and child) have a lady friend (Aronfsky's adopted daughter, so, maybe no biological incest, but incest just the same in my opinion - and any parent of an adopted child will tell you the thought of that child mating with one's biological child is gross). Actually, she is just his sister/girlfriend because they aren't actually married. And, Dad, sort of doesn't really think about them as having offspring because the girl is supposed to be barren. But, due to fairy magic, just when they are running toward the ark as the rain starts falling, the girl gets major horny and practically rapes bro in the woods.

The other teenage brother tries to bring a girl back to the ark - Ham, the bad boy - but Dad interferes during a human stampede and leaves the girl to get trampled on. Ham is mighty pissed because he figures he isn't going to get laid for eternity. Younger bro hasn't figured out yet he is going to be eunuch. I am not sure why adopted daughter can't screw them all, but I digress.

Anyhoo, somewhere about the time the doors close, Noah has some kind of mental meltdown and determines that humankind sucks so much, he will not allow his family to repopulate the earth. He is pretty sure all is good in that vain (I guess he can give up sex with wifey) but then he finds out his daughter is miraculously pregnant. Of course, he doesn't seem to think this is a sign from God, um...The Creator....so, he tells his family that if the young woman has a boy, she can keep it, but if it is a girl, he will kill it. Everyone is shocked and for nine months they all worry about the  sex of the baby. Now, let's not deal with logic here. If the girl got pregnant once, she can do it again, so instead of killing off all the babies, why not just knock off that girl? (And your still fertile wife while you are at it). But, no, we await the big day. The girl has two babies...two girl babies...so here comes Grandpa with a knife! And she stands there, waiting for him to stab the babies....where the hell is her brother/husband? Where are the other two boys? Where is her Mom? Oh, yeah, doing nothing. But, not to worry! At the last minute, Dad - again going his own way and not what he thinks is the Creator's (hah, got that right this time)...can't kill the girls because love overwhelmed his heart (eyeroll time).

And so the ark comes to dry land and the family disembarks. Now, instead of Noah's sons having sex with their wives, they stand around plotting how to screw sis-in-law or how many years they have to wait to do their nieces. Oh, wait, Ham saw his father naked and went wandering off to die in the wilderness alone, so only the youngest will get to bang the two babies (hopefully, when they at least can stand and speak).

There you have it. I didn't even get into the gigantic rock-angels who help build the ark and fight off the bad men and then returned to heaven having redeemed themselves. The worst of this whole movie is there wasn't a bit of spiritual wisdom shared. The television series, The Ramayana and The Mahabharata, both had very little action (and really cheesy war scenes with very early attempts at special effects) but, both series were fabulous because of the great scripts, incredible acting, the moral dilemmas, and the profound wisdom shared in each and every episode. Noah had nothing....absolutely nothing redeeming in the script (what script?), the characters, or the supposed spiritual message. The film was simply devoid of anything worthwhile...it wasn't a Bible story, it wasn't a sci-fi story, it wasn't a parable, it wasn't a story about ethics or morals, it just wasn't anything but a big, huge, soulless turd from Hollywood and I hope Aronofsky offers all moviegoers an apology for making that disaster...we deserve it.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

April 2, 2014

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: "Call the Cops! There is a Woman in Psychological Trouble in Aisle Three!"

I was introduced to a new concept while doing Nancy Grace last night (hmm....that doesn't sound quite right, now does it?). One of the other guests aired the view that a woman who was caught shoplifting (at 38 years old and her tenth arrest) doesn't need jail time but counseling. Clearly, this expert declared she has psychological problems and we shouldn't be taking up space in the prisons with this woman when there are pedophiles who need to be kept inside. Interesting argument....

I am trying to wrap my head around this thinking. We have laws on the record and police to catch persons who break these laws, but this is really only a psychological screening process set up to identify citizens in need of mental health counseling? Considering the woman's lawyer actually said she had already been in counseling and was already on probation for another crime, at what point do we decide that the woman is actually a criminal as opposed simply an emotionally disturbed individual?

At what point do we decide breaking the law is actually deserving of punishment and removal from society as opposed to a free offer of psychological services? Couldn't a pedophile be just as emotionally disturbed as a shoplifter? What about a murderer? Isn't he so emotionally distraught that he can't help himself from striking out?

I have no problem with criminals receiving mental health care. I just think they ought to do their time as well. After all, what is the point of even having laws if breaking them is only considered a cry for help? If this is what the law is all about, I think we should take all laws off the books and set up a system of emotional guards instead of security guards. The next time this woman tries to walk out of a store with hundreds of dollars of stolen goods, one of these guards can get out his megaphone and shout, "Lady in need of counseling! Lady in need of counseling!" Maybe she will get the message and stop by customer service and pick up her free counseling coupon to be redeemed at any counseling counter at her local Walmart store.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Prostitutes 'R Us

What a surprise! Craig’s List is in the prostitution business! Like the Internet and the The Yellow Pages, unless you are standing on the street corner, you have to advertise your business somewhere. Of course, there are those people who insist that adult web sites like AdultFriendFinder, massage parlors with untrained masseuses and water beds, photography services which allow a man to photograph naked girls alone in a booth, taxi dancing, go go clubs, and strip joints, and, of course, the escort services that the Duke University dancer came from, in no way permit females to exchange sex for money; they are all legitimate businesses that just provide girls for companionship and innocent amusement. Well, if you believe that, then you must believe that Anna Nicole Smith was a girl scout.

Sadly, on a more serious note, most communities really do ignore the many prostitution services out there and they are rarely shut down. Either we should make prostitution legal or we ought to do something about these blatant sex services that are proliferating in our towns and in cyberspace. We as a society should decide what we believe is legal or illegal and stand behind it. I would like to see massage parlors with masseuses who haven’t completed any accredited school required to give massages with a video camera taping them. The monitoring agency could then come by unannounced and view the tapes straight out of the machine. Want to see how fast massage parlors go out of business?

Of course, prostitutes don’t get much in the way of sentencing nor do the johns that use them, or the pimps that manage them, or the owners of the establishments that hire them. There is a tendency to think of these crimes as victimless, but this has never been true. Many of the women who get sucked into the life are only there because it exists as a means to make money, some of the johns get robbed or murdered, the wives of the johns get diseases, crime proliferates in the area, and the surrounding community suffers from the sliminess of it all. In some instances, children pay the price as they get pulled in as homeless teens to a life that will ultimately destroy them. No society benefits from prostitution; it is degrading and despicable. If you ask anyone if they would like to have prostitution on their street, the responses would be unquestionably in the negative. If this is the way we all feel, perhaps we ought to work on eradicating humankind's oldest profession instead of pretending it doesn't exist just because we can't see the girls in plain view on the corner.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown