Why the "Perfect Crime" is Becoming Easier, not Harder

The Alligators Ate Her, so Ha Ha!

One would think with the advances in science these days - better DNA analysis, greater analysis of all physical evidence, the ability to track phones and discover Internet search history - all of these things would mean a case is easier to prosecute and to see a murderer put away for good.

And, yet, in my opinion, science is actually turning out to be a bit of a disaster for seeing justice done; while more cases are solved and closed (via DNA matches), less of these are actually being successfully prosecuted. Did I just contradict myself? No, let me explain further.

Solving a case simply means you are sure enough who did it that you don't need to investigate further.                   If you have enough evidence, you can go to prosecution. But, sometimes, the case is simply closed administratively because the suspect is dead. Other times, cases are called solved without actually proving who did it, they are solved because the investigators believe or claim to believe they know who did it (by way of circumstantial evidence or limited physical evidence) and the case is closed administratively. Sometimes, someone is simply railroaded because it is easy to get a jury to believe he did it or someone simply gets the label of perp in an administratively closed case because it is believable and comforting to the family and citizens and increases the closure rate for the police department. Doing so also gets the family, press, and community of their backs. Often crimes linked without true proof are glommed on to serial killers who are already serving time and it isn't a stretch to think they committed yet another crime even if it is never actually proven.

So, while added scientific evidence can close cases, some properly and some questionably, does science really help in the courtroom? I don't believe so...I think science and TV CSI shows along with lay juries and squirrelly defense attorneys and their bought experts combine to make it nigh impossible to convict these days especially since a good portion of crimes still just don't have strong physical evidence; circumstantial evidence must take the criminal down. Once upon a time, it was almost always circumstantial evidence that brought a guilty verdict but now juries overwhelmingly mistrust even solid circumstantial evidence;, they want solid proof that the party is guilty, incontrovertible proof that doesn't allow for a smidgeon of a doubt, no matter how minuscule and ridiculous  that doubt might be. Juries don't have faith in their own ability to determine guilt by the totality of thee evidence; they want science to do the determination for them and, oftentimes, that level of physical proof does not exist. The prosecutor doesn't want to wreck his win rate (a politically bad move) by taking anything but slam dunks to court so we THINK the system works because the citizens are unaware of how many cases are shoved under the carpet and forgotten over time. Most of the time when tough cases (well, tough in terms of getting lay juries to convict) go to court, it is because the press has put so much pressure on the police

A good example of prosecuis when Robert Durst was found not guilty of the murder of his neighbor, Morris Black. Mind you, he confessed to pulling the trigger, confessed to killing Black. He admitted to shooting Black with his own gun in his own apartment. He confessed to chopping up Black's body and getting rid of the parts and cleaning up the apartment. While many parts were found (and some showed signs of severe bruising indicating the victim was beaten), the head with the location of the bullet hole was hidden well enough to never locate. Durst never told police where the head was. Durst had a motive (stealing Black's identity along with other possible motives) and following the crime, he went on the run. If that isn't a solid circumstantial case, I don't know what is. The jury let him off though because they accepted Durst's explanation (created, I am sure, of his lawyer) that he shot Black in self-defense when Black (after somehow getting into his apartment and locating his gun) came at him with the weapon. Durst claims he grabbed the weapon, and in the struggle, shot Black. And because the jury did not have physical 100% absolute proof this did not happen, Durst walked.

Casey Anthony also walked because the jury was willing to accept a ridiculous alternative theory conjured up by her attorney. OJ Simpson walked, I guess, because there wasn't a videotape of the crime. Now, mind you, there are some people who get convicted by juries based on nearly zero evidence but these are scapegoats selected because it is pretty obvious the jury won't like these defendants and the prosecutor is quite sure they would be happy to convict him. But, if there is a chance the jury will feel the slightest bit sorry for the defendant, a circumstantial case is likely to go down in only because too much science has made juries not trust circumstantial evidence (and the lawyers  and experts who present it).

There never has really been such a thing as a perfect crime, just a good-enough crime that won't be closed in court. Serial killers get away with most of their crimes simply because they are strangers and the police have no idea who to connect to the evidence. Bodies that disappear rarely have justice meted out to the one that turned them into just a body because the jury almost always has to have proof that the person is dead. Elizabeth Johnson, in spite of the fact she told her estranged husband she killed their baby and he hasn't been seen in six years, only got a short sentence for false imprisonment (interfering with custody) and she is already out of prison. But, since she also claimed she gave the baby away to a stranger in the park, the jury thought the less horrible of her claims might be true and didn't convict her of homicide.

Killers now know that if you can hide enough of the evidence well enough (especially a body), you won't need to have committed a perfect crime because a good-enough crime will have the jury rule, "Not guilty."


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

March 24, 2015

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Profiling for Dummies Case # 1

I thought I would start a series of homicide cases that will make newbie profilers and wannabes feel good about their profiling skills! Here is Case Number One! Ready?

Who Killed Kelly Gorham?

Nursing student Kelly Gorham went missing in Maine. She was engaged for two years to Jason Twardus. They broke up in June. Kelly went missing in early August and her body was found in a shallow grave during a search on the property of Brian Twardus, Jason's daddy.

Now put on your thinking caps! The police have not yet named a suspect in this crime, so you can be the first to figure out who could have committed this murder.

If you get this one right, you can go for the extra credit question!

Who COULD have killed Kelly Gorham? (warning: attorney profiling required for the answer to this one).

Hint: There is only one answer to the first question. There are a dozen answers to the second question depending on the lawyer's ability to tell tales and the estimated gullibility of the jury.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Let's Stop Screwing up Our Kids!

Two teenage girls in Australia just strangled a friend to death just because they wanted to see how it felt. Apparently not much else of life was worth experiencing for these jaded teens, so they had to experience the “thrill” of murder to get an adrenaline rush. I remember my years as a youth and I also wanted to be excited by life and so I worked with blind and deaf children, took karate, and dreamed of traveling to Africa. Never did it occur to me that violence would be a kick or that watching my terrified “friend” die a horrible death at my own hands would be an experience worth having. Something is seriously frightening about the psyche of some kids today.

Two other teenage girls in Australia took a different path. They killed themselves because they felt the world wasn’t worth living in. Participants in “Emo” culture, a mindset that over focuses on the “poor me” syndrome, they didn’t lack for a large group of friends (as their suicide notes named) but even the fact that they weren’t alone in the world didn’t stop these self-murders from occurring. I remember another teen who thanked her parents and siblings for being wonderful and her friends for being there for her who then hung herself because the world was “mean.” The world was kind of mean when I was growing up as well (and I wasn’t terrible popular in high school and didn’t have more than a couple of friends) but suicide never ever crossed my mind. Homicidal and suicidal ideation are being promoted constantly in our world today. I never heard of such things when I was growing up so my response to being angry was to lock my bedroom door and listen to show tunes (which didn’t do much to fuel my rage). Now, anger is bolstered by violent ideation from just about every corner of life – video games, movies, television, music, and news – and so it is no wonder kids now consider violence a way to express themselves when they become frustrated with the world around them.

Teenage years have always been difficult transition points. If we as a society care about our children, we need to surround young adults with soft cushions instead of providing them with vicious thoughts to spur them on to violent behavior. We also need to require niceness in our schools, in our communities, in our families, and in our society in general. All the nastiness we see on reality television, in music videos, with bullying in schools, in heated divorce battles, and in general discourse can hardly bring a feeling of happiness to stressed and saddened teens.

Keep posted for news of my new campaign, “Let’s Stop Screwing up Our Kids!” It is time to really do something about the environment our kids live in.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: The Phil Spector Circus

The Phil Spector dog-and-pony show is about to begin. This trial will illustrate the stupidity and economic waste of the American trial and jury system. Just watch (and we will as this entertainment for the masses gets televised daily) the pack of lies rolled out by the defense team in an effort to bamboozle a bunch of untrained folks-off-the-street (that you wouldn’t hire to do any other job you needed doing because they have no skills to do those jobs) into finding this man not guilty. Already the big fat liar celebrity defense lawyer, Bruce Cutler, is claiming if “there is no motive, there's no intent, there's no malice, there's no murder, and there's no crime.'' He isn’t planning on defending an innocent man; he is going to trying to use every con and ploy he can think of to get a almost unquestionably guilty-as-hell man out of receiving the punishment he should get for depriving an innocent woman of her life.

Am I convicting this man without a trial? No, I believe there should be a final say in whether this man has committed a crime and what penalty he should pay for doing it, but anyone who has the least bit of logic probably could wrap this case up in ten minutes (if they aren’t being confused by the showmanship and lies of Bruce Cutler). Let’s look at the basic facts in order:

1) Spector has been known to wave guns around while working with bands in the studio.
2) Spector has a 1970’s misdemeanor gun conviction.
3) Spector has evidence of 13 firearms in his mansion.
4) Women (not one woman, but multiple women) will testify Spector has threatened them with guns,
5) The driver told police Spector said to him, “I think I shot someone.”
6) The police found Spector in the foyer slumped in a chair with the gun at his feet.
7) Spector told the police, “I didn’t mean to shoot her. It was an accident.”

Seems pretty clear to me why Spector was arrested and charged with murder. But, our renowned defense lawyer, Cutler, claims, “Lana Clarkson accidentally killed herself fooling around with Spector’s gun.” Now, Cutler is either one of two things: the dumbest man on the face of the earth or the biggest liar on the face of the earth. Since I can rule out that Cutler is that stupid, then we are left with Bruce Cutler being a lying scumbag of the lowest sort. But, this is what our criminal justice system has come to: buying the best liar one can afford to convince lay people that the guilty are not really guilty. Cutler will claim that Spector was in shock when he made those statements, that he had no beef with the woman and ,therefore, no motive, that the lady could have been fascinated with a gun Spector had lying around or had hidden suicidal ideation, and that because there was gunpowder residue on both her hands, she likely pulled the trigger herself.

Hopefully, the prosecution will be able to convince the jury this is all hogwash and the poor woman was desperately trying to protect herself as she grabbed the gun to push it away when Spector shoved it in her face. But, who knows if Cutler will be able to create that little speck of doubt for this famous man and the jury will fail to convict him for a crime he undoubtedly committed.

The amount of time and resources that will be wasted on this open-and-shut case will be nauseating. Something stinks in the American criminal justice system and I think we need to stop saying we have the best system of justice in the world because we don’t.
(Photos of Spector's old and new "dos" courtesy of The Daily Pulp)

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: How to Get Labeled a Psychopath

Sometimes when I am doing crime commentary on one of the network news shows, the host will toss out, “So you are a criminal profiler, Pat Brown, what kind of guy do you think this is?” I am being asked to label a person of interest in psychological terms based on his behaviors and at times I have identified that individual as a psychopath. In fact, I have been accused by some of tossing this label out awfully quickly without the benefit of doing a clinical analysis. These critics would be right. I have made a determination in a matter of minutes. But, truthfully folks, sometimes it doesn’t take that long to figure out what kind of character we are dealing with. Take the case of missing Michigan wife, Tara Lynn Grant, who disappeared on February 9, 2007. Her husband, Steven Grant, claims his wife returned from a business trip that day and then around 11 PM that evening, he overheard her talk to someone on the telephone and then he sees her walk out of the house and get in a dark-colored sedan. She hasn't been heard from since.

Steve Grant doesn’t bother to report his beloved wife and mother of his two young children missing for five days. He claims he wasn’t worried. He figured she would show back up. Meanwhile, he has been spending time emailing an ex-girlfriend and saying how he would like her to give him a sponge bath and do a naked modeling session with him. During those emails he notes how he “doesn’t care about being married” probably due to “that no conscience thing” he has and how marriage is like speed limits; meant to be broken and the only issue is to not get caught.

The police check into that phone call his wife supposedly made and to no one’s surprise neither her cell phone or home phone records have any phone call made at the time hubby claims he overheard her conversation. Since Tara disappeared, her cell phone and credit cards remain unused. Meanwhile, Grant refuses to turn over the home computer because he probably has a lot of incriminating behavioral evidence (I am guessing lots of pornography and emails as he was likely trolling the net for sex - the stuff he wrote to the ex-girlfriend is predator language).

So, while this criminal profiler cannot say Steve Grant is a psychopath, I will copy the language style of the Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel who said Grant isn’t a suspect but his behavior is “suspect.” Steven Grant may not be a psychopath but he sure behaves like a psychopath. He claims he has no conscious which is a hallmark of psychopathy, he doesn’t care if he breaks rules, he lies, he manipulates, and he has a lack of affect and a lack of empathy, all more signs of being a psychopath. So, if Steve Grant isn’t a psychopath, he is doing a fine job imitating the behaviors of one. Grant is whining that he is being over focused on as a suspect in his wife’s disappearance. Well, tough luck, Steve. If you don’t want to be a suspect in a crime, don’t act so suspicious. Oh, wait, I forgot. Blaming others is yet another behavior of a psychopath. Keep racking ‘em up, Steven!