Criminal Profiling Case Study

The community began to search for the boys with no help from local police until the following morning. The boy’s bodies were discovered the next day, tied, naked, and mutilated, in a muddy ravine. Steve Jones, a former juvenile officer with Crittenden county, located a shoe belonging to one of the boys. He called for detective Mike Allen, who found the bodies of the young boys submerged under water (Berg, director, 2012). The murders shocked the small town of West Memphis, and put major pressure on the police department to find the killers and bring them to justice. Arrests were made less than a month after the murders and no other suspects were sought. Three teenage boys, Michael Dwayne (Damien) Echols, age 18, Charles Jason Baldwin, age 16, and Jessie Loyd Misskelley Jr., age 17, were arrested and charged with three counts of murder. All three boys initially claimed their innocence until Misskelley was interrogated for 12 hours with no legal representation or either parent present, confessed to participating in the crime along with Echols and

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,

Wayne Williams, also known as Th Atlanta Child Killer still remain as the prime suspect of the killings of more than twenty blacks youths from 1979-1981 in Atlanta, Georgia, although he was only charged with killing two black adults. It all began when a woman came a cross two male corpses hidden under a bush on the side of the road. The first victim, 14 years old Edward Smith was reported missing a week before was found shot with a .22 caliber. The second victim was 13 year old Alfred Evans was reported missing three days before died by asphyxiation. These two gruesome discoveries was only the beginning. These killings went on for 22 months. Milton Harvey, age 14, was also found dead along with two more child victims: Yusef Bell had been strangled, and Angel Lenair was

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”).

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

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

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.

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.

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.

His family, just awhile after the incident, gave a statement stating how “frustrated” both them and the detectives were. Legally, the detectives can not hold them “accountable” (Doc C). This directly proves my point on why a bystander should have legal responsibility when witnessing first-hand death. The man could have survived if he had pulled out of the water and taken to the emergency room, he would have had a chance. This is a murderous story.

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.

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.

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.