Signature Crimes

A signature on a document is intended to identify the person issuing the document, such as a letter, or loan agreement letter etc.
A signature Crime is one that specifically identifies the criminal. What is their preference? Is is burglary, fraud, some type of deviat sex assault or at the top of the list, the serial killer.

Most crimes are crimes of opportunity combined with a persons abilities. A guy that needs money and is not concerned about stealing may have no problem coming into your home to take your stuff. How he gets into your home is where the signature starts.

The investigative reality for us is that if we understand the concept of how people do anything, we can apply it to how a criminal does his/ her thing. People are creatures of habit. We do things repetatively. Look at yourself. do you have a morning "routine"? Bathroom, then coffee, jogging, etc. etc.

Some people are  not morning people, they don't function well at first light, they prefer to sleep in, hit the snooze button ten times then run around like nuts getting ready.

Regardless of your routine the fact is most of us have routines. Whether they are simple or complex they are our patterns, our signatures if you will. Criminals are the same way. Understanding this very simple concept will go a long way to helping you understand how to look for and find a criminals "Signature" 

Lets run some examples:

The run of the mill burglar is a male between the ages of 15 and 40. If it is his first time commiting this crime you might find physical evidence at the scene that  will tell you that, but you have to know what to look for. The average burglary is also a crime of opportunity taking place between 8AM and 5 PM.

Statistics are your first opportunity to begin the identification. Knowing the basic demographic of the common burlgar as described above lets you know that if  you see a male in the category described wandering around a residential area during the times described you may have a burglar on your hands.
Observation of his/ her actions will be helpful to your case , but lets say you didn't see them. You get the call to respond to the Wilson home at 6:45 PM. They got home from work and found their house ransacked, jewlery taken and TV's missing.

Lets say a patrol officer does the minimum and takes a basic report then calls for you, the investigator.
Upon your arrival you get an overview of what happened then begin your scene examination.

It would be very helpful for you to know the type of criminal you are looking for.

The new or inexpereinced burglar will most likley have tried several ways to get into the house. They may have tried opening several windows, not knowing they were locked. You will find latent fingerprints or smears at these locations. You might find a broken window in the basement or elsewhere that finally allowed them access to the house.

Inside you see the ransacking of every room etc. These signs are the work of someone who was trying out their new occupation.

In police work there are terms used to help identify specific actions. Two of the best terms are :

Organized and Disorganized.   Orignally coined by FBI profilers for their work with serial killers, the terms are equally appropriate in any type of repeat crime, because as humans we are repetative.

The organized personaility has thought things out. They planned, they have some experience.  For the most part they have learned from their experiences and applied that learing to the task at hand, whether that task is homicide or burglary.

The disorganized personality is one that shoots from the hip so to speak. They really dont have a plan, they have an idea.   EX: "I want to steal from that house".  So they go over to it and try to break in and steal. The often leave lots of physical evidence, like fingerprints, foot prints, blood samples, wallets and other things that reveal thier lack of experience and planning.

One of the first FBI Profilers said the best chance they have to stop a serial killer is if they find thier first victim(s) realtively soon, before they have a chance to learn from thier mistakes. Same thing with any type  of crime. 

Get the concept?
And you thought those detecgtives were really unbelievably good didnt you?  The reality is a good detective also learns from their mistakes and gets more organized in how they investigate crime and criminal action. They also spend time learing these and other concepts of human nature. That  is our business after all isnt it??  Dealing with people.

OK so back to our new burglar. He picked a house in the middle of the block where neighbors can hear and see him. It was a crime of opportunity so he didnt have gloves and left latent fingerprints all over. He tried three windows before finding one he could get into and he spent alot of time going through a 12 year old kids bedroom finding nothing but action figures and video's.  Very disorganized.

So if you see these kinds of disorganized things at your burglary scene or the scene of an abduction and rape, or robbery, or whatever else you investigating then you know you most likley have a new or inexpereinced criminal.  Do a very good job of gathering forensics, canvass the neighbors.

On the other hand.........   

Lets deal with the organized guy and his signature.

This burglar picks houses he has learned give him the best hiding spots. Lone houses or houses on corner lots where prying eyes dont have a good view of his work.
He might pick a basement window everytime, and he might put a rock in the gate to keep it open for his retreat or escape. He might cut phone lines to defeat alarms. He will leave only smears because he brings and wears gloves. He  goes directly to the master bedroom and uses pillow cases from the bed to hold the jewelry that is most often in or on the womans dresser or in her underwear drawer. 

He goes out the same way he came in. He has leanred from experience.

So how then do we identify a signature?  Most criminals will do things the same way everytime if that way worked for them before. They might choose houses only on teh west side of teh street, or with a specific alarm company, they might cut only specific wires to the home indicating they know which ones are phone lines.
Some serial  burglars eat at their scenes, everytime. Some use the bathroom. I had a guy one time that defecated in the driveway everytime. Seems funny but it was his pattern, his signture. Some guys  steal booze everytime. No matter what they do, they will d it almsot everytime whether its how they git in, what tool they use, what  they steal or how they get away or act at the scene that will be their signature.

A good and funny example is the Home Alone movies: The two idiot burglars stopped up the sink and flooded the houses. They called themselves "The Wet Bandits".  This was humoruos but pointed out the lesson very clearly, they did the same thing in every job. The only difference was they wanted to leave their mark on each scene. For us, the investigators, we have to find the signatures the criminals leave behind that they dont want or expect us to find.

More on this type of training is available  http://www.jpangaro.com/  or buy my book   "The Art of Investigation"

email me at  jpangaro@yahoo.com