Criminal Profiling Case Study

Steven Crook’s, the husband of the victim returned home that same day in the afternoon. Mr. Crook contacted the police after not being able to find his wife and noticing that his home had been ransacked. A fisherman discovered Mrs. Crook’s body in the river that same afternoon.

A man named Gerald Williams was arrested a week after the crime for an unrelated burglary, however Williams told police that he had information about the murder of Carter. Telling officers that he heard screaming from the park and saw a man swinging his arm over a body and stated that he saw a man with a crutch but later retracted this

21). Initially the district attorney was hesitant to prosecute Williams, feeling the evidence that the FBI had collected was too weak to obtain a conviction, but after Williams failed three polygraph tests administered by the FBI and multiple eyewitnesses emerged that confirmed that Williams was seen with several of the victims prior to their disappearance, the district attorney decided to indict Williams on the murders of Jimmy Payne and Nathan Cater. (trutv 25) The prosecution’s main evidence were fibers and dog hairs collected from the bodies of the victims that matched samples taken from Williams’s home. Ultimately, Williams was found guilty for the murders of the two men (Bardsley & Bell, n.d., p. 32), and was also linked to ten other “pattern killings” that were part of the spree (Bardsley & Bell, n.d., p. 28). Although he still claims that he is innocent of the murders, the Atlanta Child Murders came to an end after he was stopped on that bridge.

On the 2nd of March 1998, a 10 year-old boy, LMW, was charged with the manslaughter of Corey Davis, a 6 year-old boy. Corey Davis was drowned in the Georges River when the defendant, LMW, dropped him in with what was thought to be the complete knowledge that the victim was unable to swim.

Facts: After Williams was arrested for the disappearance of a 10 year old girl police told his counsel that they would be transporting him from Davenport, Iowa where he was arraigned to Des Moines, Iowa where he was to be held with out questioning him about the case. Eventually after talking with the transporting officer he made incriminating statements and gave information on the area that the body of the child could be found. A large team of volunteers that was actually searching around the area where the body was found was then called off

John Williams was recently incarcerated for the violent murder of three young women. Prior to his arrest, police were on edge because the small town in Arkansas had never experienced anything like that before. Each girl was taken within a week from each other, all while they were out after dark taking a short cut home. Sadly they were all found buried deep in the woods after weeks of searching. The town went into shock; citizens were exhibiting both fear and rage for the loss of the precious girls from their community.

On May 16th, 2010 Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a seven-year old Black girl from the east side of Detroit, Michigan was fast asleep at her grandmother’s home when Detroit Police Department’s Special Response Team mistakenly entered the residence during a midnight raid. Officer Joseph Weekley discharged a bullet that entered Stanley Jones’ head leaving her body lifeless. Initially, Weekley was charged in connection with Stanley Jones’ death but prosecutors cleared him in 2015, ensuring he would face no repercussions for his negligence that resulted in the premature death of Aiyana Stanley Jones.

White was found by Michael White’s search team on the side of the road less than 10 minutes from the family’s house and he was charged for second degree murder the next day (Harding & Shaw, 2005, Timeline of Events,

The Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, sometimes called the Atlanta Child Murders (although several of the purported victims were adults), were a series of murders committed in the American city of Atlanta, Georgia, from the middle of 1979 until May 1981. Over the two-year period, at least 28 African-American children, adolescents and adults were killed. Wayne Williams, an Atlanta native who was 23 years old at the time of the last murder, was arrested for and convicted of two of the adult murders, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Police subsequently have attributed a number of the child murders to Williams and closed the cases, although he has not been tried or convicted in any of those cases.

“The first major lead in the case came a day after the shooting. One of the suspects called a notorious drug dealer to often him a chance to buy some stolen watches. The drug dealer had an authorized wiretap on his phone and, as a result, the police got a search warrant and went to the house where the called originated. When they found one of the stolen watches under a seat cushion, they suspected they had their man” (p.330) In the day preceding to the incident, a member of the crew confessed that the other Wes Moore and his brother had been in the crime scene, which had led to the brother being charged a felony murder and the other Wes Moore to be charged of first-degree felony murder.

On January 31, 2013, while walking to the courthouse in Kaufman County, Texas, Mark Hasse was shot and killed. Two months later, on the Saturday before Easter 2013, Mike and Cynthia McLelland were murdered in their home. Medical examiners testified that Mike and Cynthia were each shot numerous times (“Eric Williams Murder Trial Begins in Rockwall”). Prosecutors said the couple died in a “torrent of lead” (“Eric Williams Found Guilty in Kaufman Co. Murder Trial”).

Between the years of 1989-1990, bodies of numerous men were discovered murdered along the highways of central Florida. The bodies that had been found included Richard Mallory, Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, David Spears, Walter Gino Antonio, Peter Siems, and Charles Carskaddon.

Agents identified 18 individuals as potential suspects to the murders; Cecil Price, Sam H. Bowers, Horace Doyle Barnette, Jimmy Arledge, Billy Wayne Posey, Jimmy Snowden, Alton W. Roberts, Lawrence A. Rainey, Bernard L. Akin, Travis M. Barnette, James T. Harris, Frank J. Herndon, Olen L. Burrage, Herman Tucker, Richard A. Willis, Edgar Ray Killen, Ethel Glen Barnett, and Jerry McGrew Sharpe. All of these individuals were in positions of power, were involved with the K.K.K. or other white supremacist groups, or held white supremacists beliefs but were not involved with large groups. Laurence Rainey, the sheriff of Neshoba county and his deputy, Cecil Price, were largely put under the most pressure by investigators as they believed that they were directly involved in the deaths of the civil rights workers. In December of 1964, authorities had enough evidence to arrest the suspected individuals. Agents went through Neshoba and Lauderdale counties and arrested the 18 individuals for conspiracy to deprive the three men of their civil rights under color of state law.

In early July of 1977, Bill Bosko came home to find his wife raped, brutally stabbed and strangled to death with no evidence of a break-in. Detective Robert Glenn Ford immediately took interest in Danial Williams who was

Peterson let investigators check out his workplace where he stored his boat. Eventually the investigators found enough evidence and made a conclusion which stated that Peterson killed his wife and took her on the boat with him. Investigators believed that Peterson tied his wife to bricks so she would stay at the bottom of the water. A search team was organized and it grew and grew as more people came to help. Later on two dead bodies were found floating near where Peterson said he was fishing.