1 00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:07,280 You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas. 2 00:00:07,799 --> 00:00:12,080 I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now 3 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:16,039 trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other 4 00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:20,280 victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway 5 00:00:20,359 --> 00:00:24,640 murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together 6 00:00:24,679 --> 00:00:28,519 with Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a 7 00:00:28,559 --> 00:00:32,479 researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social 8 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:37,799 media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner 9 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:45,280 in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly 10 00:00:45,359 --> 00:00:49,039 and I'm Bill Thomas. We're joined today by two of our favorite people, 11 00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:53,640 Jim fitz Fitzgerald and Ray Carr, here to talk to us about profilingist serial 12 00:00:53,759 --> 00:00:58,119 killer. Ray and fitz thank you for joining us today and great to be 13 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:00,520 back with you and Bill with the Mix News here. Bill, we know 14 00:01:00,799 --> 00:01:04,599 your situation, of course, but I guess there is some good news in 15 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:07,959 this investigation. And Ray and I will do our best to fill in out 16 00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:11,519 any blanks or any questions you have in your Oh. Thank you both, 17 00:01:11,599 --> 00:01:17,480 and absolutely we think this is fantastic news. We are thrilled for three of 18 00:01:17,519 --> 00:01:23,200 our families now. Robin Edwards's family David Noblink's family both received confirmation of who 19 00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:29,959 was involved in their murder. It's a rape murder actually, and a case 20 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:36,760 we were less familiar with. Teresa Howell her family also received news, and 21 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:38,840 Kristin and I were talking about this Onmind Over Murder. I've said, I 22 00:01:38,879 --> 00:01:42,959 don't think there's a place at the card store where you can go and say 23 00:01:44,239 --> 00:01:47,879 congratulations on finding out who killed you loved one. But at the same time, 24 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:51,680 as you both know, when you're looking for answers in this case for 25 00:01:51,719 --> 00:01:56,959 over thirty years getting those answers, there's some good in that. There really 26 00:01:57,079 --> 00:02:01,359 is. So we're thrilled in that regard. We're excited about helping the FBI 27 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:07,079 and the Virginia State Police move this case forward. Thank you both. One 28 00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:09,400 of the things that we wanted to have you both on today to talk about 29 00:02:09,599 --> 00:02:14,719 is some of the hallmarks of what happens when you're trying to profile a serial 30 00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:17,319 killer. For some of our listeners who may be a little less familiar with 31 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:22,919 profiling. We wanted to pose some questions to you, first overall about serial 32 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:27,319 killers, and then we have some questions from our listeners who wanted to ask 33 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:31,199 our experts some questions in particular. So I want to kick us off with 34 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:36,639 first of all, can you guys tell us about precursor crimes? Are there 35 00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:40,039 types of precursor crimes that are common to all or most serial killers or do 36 00:02:40,080 --> 00:02:45,759 they tend to differ from a fender to a fender. I'll start here. 37 00:02:45,879 --> 00:02:49,199 It does differ from a fender to offender. However, there are some sort 38 00:02:49,199 --> 00:02:53,960 of elemental or foundational crimes that many of them will commit. If they're sexual 39 00:02:54,039 --> 00:03:00,159 sadists, they may have committed started off with maybe youngsters stealing underwear off of 40 00:03:00,199 --> 00:03:06,719 clothes lines or out of doing a burglary and taking the material out of drawers 41 00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:09,360 or wherever they may be kept. They could also be leaving shall we say, 42 00:03:09,479 --> 00:03:15,319 DNA samples behind sometimes in terms of a precursor crime, so when they're 43 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:21,879 younger and they haven't quite escalated into actually forceful violent behavior. And of course 44 00:03:21,879 --> 00:03:25,360 we can go into the whole arson thing and and animal cruelty and urineesis that 45 00:03:25,439 --> 00:03:30,039 some of these suffer from early on. But in terms of the crimes themselves 46 00:03:30,039 --> 00:03:32,400 that lead up to these, it's usually these property crimes. But have a 47 00:03:32,960 --> 00:03:37,800 that's the mo We'll get into a building somehow, break a window, maybe 48 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:43,039 not that sophisticated than first, but the signature behind it is some sexual satisfaction. 49 00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:47,199 They're not there to break into the safe or steal expensive jewelry necessarily, 50 00:03:47,439 --> 00:03:52,759 these type of serial killers. They're there for some kind of need driven behavior, 51 00:03:53,159 --> 00:03:57,360 sexual fulfillment. And as they get older, as they get more freedom, 52 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:00,759 perhaps a little more money, a little more ability of transportation, they 53 00:04:00,759 --> 00:04:05,560 can expand their precursor crime zone. And if they get a little bit far 54 00:04:05,599 --> 00:04:11,280 out of their own neighborhood, they may feel safe enough in attacking someone in 55 00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:15,960 person, raping them, killing them, and that's where they really kick into 56 00:04:15,879 --> 00:04:20,000 that violent sort of behavior, which if they are successful a few times, 57 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:25,240 they then become labeled a serial killer. You know, Jim's right, but 58 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:30,959 you look at antisocial behavior, you look at psychopaths. So it's really important 59 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:33,279 when you look at children, you look at those children that are antisocial. 60 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:39,439 And Jim's right too about arson. Many serial killers start out as arsenists and 61 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:43,120 then not to jump on. But Jim's talking about some of the other things, 62 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:48,000 for family life, twitturing as some animals, abuses as a child subsist, 63 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:53,680 abuse, voyeurism, especially when there's a sexual tendency to it. And 64 00:04:53,759 --> 00:05:00,000 you find a lot of times that many of these individuals are intelligent as well. 65 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,160 To say, the dumb ones as reinos get caught early on and they 66 00:05:02,199 --> 00:05:06,759 don't become serial killers. If they do have a modicum of intelligence about them, 67 00:05:06,959 --> 00:05:13,600 savby and perhaps lucky too, they can then succeed in multiple killings and 68 00:05:13,639 --> 00:05:16,800 getting away with it. Yeah, there's something that's come up in this suspect. 69 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:23,279 He died in twenty seventeen. His name is Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. 70 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:28,759 Unfortunately for their family, is also a junior who was eight years old at 71 00:05:28,759 --> 00:05:31,360 the time of the Colonial Parkway murders. So we don't think he's involved, 72 00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:35,120 but he now has to go through life with the exact same name of a 73 00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:40,560 man that's now been identified as a serial killer. One of the things that 74 00:05:40,600 --> 00:05:44,879 I noticed was some of the investigators in speaking about this gentleman, He's not 75 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:49,240 somebody with a lot of higher education. He was a waterman in Virginia. 76 00:05:49,279 --> 00:05:55,240 He works on the water. He's an avid hunter, fisherman, outdoorsman, 77 00:05:55,360 --> 00:06:01,160 actually quite skilled, a championship marksman. He's one archery contests. He's really 78 00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:05,600 very at home in the woods and on the water, which is how he 79 00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:13,439 makes us living crabbing, fishing, and oystering. Some of the investigators said 80 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:16,560 a few things about him that I actually thought were disparaging. They were saying, 81 00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:20,639 he's a waterman, he's not very smart. And actually, the more 82 00:06:20,639 --> 00:06:26,519 we learn about Wilmer, we actually believe that Wilmer may have been getting away 83 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:30,319 with raping and murdering people for as long as forty years. So I don't 84 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:34,040 really think he can say the man's not smart. He's actually gotten away with 85 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:40,319 murder and rape for forty years. Is that fair? And Jim will probably 86 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:46,199 attest to this. Some of the dumbest academic people I know are the smartest 87 00:06:46,199 --> 00:06:51,120 criminals. So it's not as though where we say that they're intelligent doesn't necessarily 88 00:06:51,199 --> 00:06:59,160 mean we're speaking academically. We're speaking intelligent in the ways of life and how 89 00:06:59,199 --> 00:07:02,879 to get things done in an organized, systematic way. In order to cover 90 00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:08,879 their tracks as they move forward. There's no barometer for intelligence that way. 91 00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:12,439 We just say, like I had a guy that robbed banks for thirty years. 92 00:07:12,519 --> 00:07:15,439 Think about a guy Robin Banks for thirty years. Who would ever think 93 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:17,120 someone would get away with Robin Banks for thirty years, but he did. 94 00:07:17,839 --> 00:07:23,720 He was also very smart academically. He's more of the anomaly than he is 95 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:28,560 the usual individual. But this individual, and I know I read up a 96 00:07:28,560 --> 00:07:31,319 little bit about him that he was an avid fisherman. He was a hunter. 97 00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:35,920 He was very well versed in the areas where a lot of these crimes 98 00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:41,720 were committed, which is a benefit to him. He's in his comfort zone, 99 00:07:41,759 --> 00:07:45,560 as you might call it, where his area of familiarity. And you 100 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:48,720 know what, with these hunting and fishing skills, you could maybe classify him 101 00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:56,399 as an apex predatory obviously legally hunting animals and various above water and below water. 102 00:07:56,800 --> 00:07:59,839 He knew how to stalk his prey. And I remember from the early 103 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:03,639 there's days of being a plane closed police officer in watching guys getting ready to 104 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:07,480 commit crimes. I didn't catch a serial killer in the act. People rarely 105 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:13,480 do. But car thieves and purse snatchers, you see them very much take 106 00:08:13,519 --> 00:08:16,160 their time. The good ones, the ones that usually get away with it. 107 00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:18,800 And I used to watch them through binoculars at a mall and Bensalem Township, 108 00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:22,000 and their eyes are darting all around. They're looking left and right. 109 00:08:22,199 --> 00:08:26,040 They may go back to their car take off. They may if they're on 110 00:08:26,079 --> 00:08:28,120 foot, they'll walk around their side of the mall. They're very careful and 111 00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:31,919 very astute in knowing their environment. And to be a good hunter, and 112 00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:35,279 I would assume a good fisherman, you have to have those skills. You 113 00:08:35,279 --> 00:08:39,320 have to have patience. You have to be willing to sit by and sometimes 114 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:43,159 let a potential prey or an animal a deer go by, because you just 115 00:08:43,159 --> 00:08:46,600 don't have a clean shot where there could be something else interfering with it. 116 00:08:46,799 --> 00:08:52,720 The same with choosing a live human victim potential victim, and that sometimes they 117 00:08:52,759 --> 00:08:54,840 may have to be let go. Sometimes they may come very close to getting 118 00:08:54,960 --> 00:08:58,600 attacked and violated. Other times not. Yeah, and I've met I've done 119 00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:03,320 then directly. I'm familiar with research done on Smith Island, Maryland, as 120 00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:07,440 well as Opracoke Island, North Carolina. I met some fishermen. There's some 121 00:09:07,559 --> 00:09:13,279 very bright people there I've met some PhDs that aren't that great sometimes so into 122 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:18,240 intelligence, and intellect is measured on different levels and different planes, as Ray 123 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:22,200 said, and getting by on the streets like this guy apparently knew how to 124 00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:26,039 do for about forty years, can equate to a certain level of intelligence that 125 00:09:26,159 --> 00:09:31,559 works just for him. If you're not going to cite the classics or math 126 00:09:31,639 --> 00:09:35,639 formula, but he knows how to stalk a victim and eventually take care of 127 00:09:35,679 --> 00:09:39,240 business at the right time, in the right place. One of the things 128 00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:46,080 Kristin and I wanted to ask about is regarding Wilmer as a suspect the cases 129 00:09:46,159 --> 00:09:52,120 that he's been linked to directly via DNA. He's in his early thirties at 130 00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:58,000 the time those rape murders occur. Is there a common age at which offenders 131 00:09:58,519 --> 00:10:05,360 start when do they escalate, as you said, into this level of behavior. 132 00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:09,679 A lot of people look at these offenders. They don't wake up one 133 00:10:09,720 --> 00:10:13,919 morning and go, hey, today is Wednesday, January twenty fourth. I 134 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,240 think today I'm going to become a serial killer. You don't go to the 135 00:10:18,399 --> 00:10:24,159 school to learn how to become a serial killer, to be able to earmark 136 00:10:24,240 --> 00:10:30,639 a certain date that someone says, we know based on research that it happens 137 00:10:30,679 --> 00:10:33,759 around nineteen or twenty. There is no research and I'm aware of that tells 138 00:10:33,799 --> 00:10:39,600 you that because every individual is unique in and of their own, so there 139 00:10:39,679 --> 00:10:45,399 is an escalation in their behavior that you can see if you go back and 140 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:48,480 look at what they've done and how they progress through life. You should be 141 00:10:48,519 --> 00:10:52,799 able to pick up on signs. And some people will say that's just boys 142 00:10:52,840 --> 00:10:56,480 being boys, and other people say, hey, that's not right. Someone 143 00:10:56,519 --> 00:11:01,480 should correct that, and they don't, or for whatever reason, he's allowed 144 00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:05,360 or she's allowed to get away with this behavior, and then it just condones 145 00:11:05,399 --> 00:11:09,480 that, Hey, I'm out smarting these people, I'm bettering these people, 146 00:11:09,519 --> 00:11:13,000 and it bodes their confidence and allows them to move forward. I'll never forget 147 00:11:13,039 --> 00:11:18,240 working in the UNIBOM case. He was a serial killer, and we once 148 00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:20,399 we got inside his cabin and got all his private writings, his diary, 149 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:24,720 his or to biography, all these things he never expected anyone to read. 150 00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:28,559 These are separate, of course, from the manifesto and other letters. Kazinsky 151 00:11:28,600 --> 00:11:31,840 clearly delineated a date and a time while he was at the University of Michigan 152 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,039 working on his PhD. This would have been the mid nineteen sixties where he 153 00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:39,440 decided he wanted to become a woman. He decided that this was before it 154 00:11:39,519 --> 00:11:43,519 was trendy and everyone else was doing these things. And he went to see 155 00:11:43,519 --> 00:11:48,320 the school psychologist or a psychiatrists and he basically walked in the room and said, 156 00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:52,320 hey, I want to be a woman. And the person listened to 157 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:56,120 him and respectfully the way I'm reading Kazinsky's writings years later, and he said, 158 00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:58,279 all right, we can talk about this, but first of all, 159 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:01,840 we had to go through a few years of therapy. Then there's some medications 160 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:05,159 we can put you on, and maybe at the five to seven year point, 161 00:12:05,679 --> 00:12:09,440 if you really want to be a woman, we can consider some surgery. 162 00:12:09,639 --> 00:12:11,759 This is the mid nineteen sixties and he's in his mid twenties, he's 163 00:12:11,759 --> 00:12:16,279 well into adulthood. He got really upset at this doctor. He left that 164 00:12:16,399 --> 00:12:18,639 room, he came outside, and of course he wrote this. He said, 165 00:12:18,679 --> 00:12:22,440 you know what, hell it becoming a woman. Health's going through all 166 00:12:22,480 --> 00:12:24,879 this nonsense. I'm going to start killing people. I'm going to start killing 167 00:12:24,919 --> 00:12:30,879 people, just like this psychologist or psychiatrist, I forget which one. Now. 168 00:12:30,919 --> 00:12:35,399 It took him about twenty years to in fact do his first bombing nineteen 169 00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,759 seventy eight. But it's interesting we actually have written information from one serial killer, 170 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:45,000 and Kazinski is not representative of them all. But it's one time where 171 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:46,799 he put in writing. There's even a date attached to it. I forget 172 00:12:46,799 --> 00:12:50,159 the date, but it's mid sixties, said yeah, forget this becoming a 173 00:12:50,159 --> 00:12:54,200 woman. I'm going to kill someone people just like him. Ironically, he 174 00:12:54,240 --> 00:13:00,200 never did target psychologists or psychiatrist, was more other types of people. We 175 00:13:00,240 --> 00:13:05,639 know his representational targets. But there's a guy that identified some aspect of his 176 00:13:05,759 --> 00:13:09,799 life and said I'm going to start killing. He delayed it by twenty years, 177 00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:13,600 so he's an outlier in that regard. But I would concur much with 178 00:13:13,639 --> 00:13:16,480 what Ray was saying in that there are elements of a person's life the whorre 179 00:13:16,559 --> 00:13:22,320 Jupiter aligns with Mars and other things are going on the exact age. It's 180 00:13:22,399 --> 00:13:28,039 tough to pinpoint that. Probably in the late teens early twenties is when the 181 00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:33,399 ideation starts. But now when they carry through that ideation, be it homicidal, 182 00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:37,360 be it rapist, be it both, that could have an extended period 183 00:13:37,399 --> 00:13:41,799 to it. Where the man to gather more revenue and means of transportation. 184 00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:46,279 And they may and the tools and the weaponry, the rape and the homicide 185 00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:48,840 kits. But once they're ready to go, if they can get away with 186 00:13:48,879 --> 00:13:50,960 it the first time, they'll try it a second time and move on from 187 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:56,519 there. One of the things that the FBI and Virginia State Police were asking 188 00:13:56,559 --> 00:14:01,440 of the public at this press conference is to please provide any information that they 189 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:07,240 may be aware of with regard to Alan Wade Wilmer Senior, his hangouts, 190 00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:11,039 his friends, his places of business, and so on and so forth. 191 00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:13,799 I'm assuming some of that is because they're trying to get a timeline going on 192 00:14:13,799 --> 00:14:20,159 this guy. How far back is a profiler or an investigator going to go 193 00:14:20,399 --> 00:14:24,519 in trying to figure out how long this guy has been working? Are they 194 00:14:24,519 --> 00:14:28,279 going to go all the way back to childhood? Or like, how does 195 00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:31,279 that process work? Exactly? When you're trying to define a timeline for a 196 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:35,200 serial killer? How far do you go back? To me? I don't 197 00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:39,440 think there's again, there's nothing set in stone to say, hey, let's 198 00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:43,960 go back here. You go back as far as the information allows you to 199 00:14:43,039 --> 00:14:48,840 go back. But the thing that's important when you're looking at the individual is 200 00:14:50,039 --> 00:14:52,960 you look at the phases of a murder and you look at try and figure 201 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:58,720 out when the thought of identifying this individual, whether they were whether it was 202 00:14:58,759 --> 00:15:03,360 a a victim of opportunity, or whether they were selected. It depends because 203 00:15:03,679 --> 00:15:09,240 you're looking and we call it the anty cessim behavior, which is the conscious 204 00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:13,279 fantasy or planning of the actual killing or what the purpose of it is. 205 00:15:13,519 --> 00:15:18,480 And it's a fantasy act towards it as they're going through this fantasy of what 206 00:15:18,559 --> 00:15:22,200 it's like, and a lot of times the fantasy never lives up to the 207 00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:26,080 reality of what happens, and that's why there's a continued killing. But then 208 00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:28,759 from the anty session behavior, do you have the selection or the murder act 209 00:15:28,799 --> 00:15:33,440 itself where they selected the person, the method and manner in which you're going 210 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:37,559 to kill the person. And then once they do that, then there's disposal 211 00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:41,600 of the body. Do they transport it or do they leave it there, 212 00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:45,639 do they conceal it or do they openly display it. A lot of times 213 00:15:46,039 --> 00:15:50,759 we don't know anything about that. Law enforcement knows nothing about that. Only 214 00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:54,240 the offender knows those things. So going back into his behavior, We may 215 00:15:54,320 --> 00:15:58,720 find out about some of those things, but the things that we do have 216 00:15:58,799 --> 00:16:04,080 a access to is his post defense behavior. Once that fantasy becomes reality. 217 00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:10,360 How does he react? Does he maintain that fantasy through continued killings? Does 218 00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:14,519 he get involved in the investigation. Does he attend to wake or a funeral? 219 00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:18,960 Does he visit the grave site, visit the murder site, or other 220 00:16:18,039 --> 00:16:22,320 significant locations of where these things occurred. So I mean you go where the 221 00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:26,519 information takes you. If it takes you back into childhood, my bioll means 222 00:16:26,519 --> 00:16:30,360 you go there. Yeah. Essentially, what the investigators are doing their best 223 00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:34,080 to build now is a psychological autopsy. There's not much they can do with 224 00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:37,159 his body because he's buried and there wasn't much left when they found out. 225 00:16:37,159 --> 00:16:41,480 But kudos to whoever took the DNA sample from him. I guess they had 226 00:16:41,519 --> 00:16:45,440 to do that to get the to identify him, But he wasn't in any 227 00:16:45,519 --> 00:16:48,480 database as far as I know, and that was invaluable that the person knew 228 00:16:48,879 --> 00:16:52,200 enough to take that. So they're doing a psychological autopsy of this guy, 229 00:16:53,039 --> 00:16:56,519 just as if they were going to take him to trial, because they want 230 00:16:56,559 --> 00:17:00,720 to find out every single aspect of his life, and they will go back 231 00:17:00,759 --> 00:17:03,279 to childhood as much as they can link him to classmates in grade school, 232 00:17:03,519 --> 00:17:07,640 in high school, any woman he's dated, will be a wealth of information. 233 00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:14,480 Buddies of his conceivably was before a lot of these crimes were before his 234 00:17:14,599 --> 00:17:18,200 murders were before the Internet. But I'm sure in the last twenty years of 235 00:17:18,240 --> 00:17:22,960 his life, once the Internet kicked in, I have a feeling if records 236 00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:26,519 can be kept that long from someone who died in twenty seventeen, I'm sure 237 00:17:26,519 --> 00:17:32,519 that'll be a treasure trove also of information about not only the crimes he committed, 238 00:17:33,079 --> 00:17:37,000 looking under the different websites devoted to these cases, but also an active 239 00:17:37,039 --> 00:17:41,559 fantasy life of reading about other homicides and reading about how to get away with 240 00:17:41,599 --> 00:17:48,000 these types of homicides, and all kinds of most likely violent pornography. Anything 241 00:17:48,039 --> 00:17:49,960 they can get on this guy, going as far back as they can from 242 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:56,880 a testimonial or evidentiary perspective, but certainly from a technological perspective too, with 243 00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:00,000 the Internet at least in the last ten to twenty years of his life will 244 00:18:00,039 --> 00:18:04,640 prove very valuable and perhaps linking him to the other crimes that we still want 245 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:08,960 to get solved. That's fantastic. A couple of other things we wanted to 246 00:18:10,039 --> 00:18:14,839 ask you, Jents. Law enforcement investigators have filled us into some extent, 247 00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:19,319 and they'd said that Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior Blitz attacked single women. They 248 00:18:19,319 --> 00:18:25,240 think he may have attacked single men. He raped and killed same sex couples 249 00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:30,240 and straight couples, hetero sexual couples. Do you regard him as a preferential 250 00:18:30,279 --> 00:18:37,160 offender or an opportunistic offender? Or are there killers that blend these two different 251 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:45,559 types of killers and their activities and interests vary. I'd go in my opinion, 252 00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:49,000 I think I'd go with the latter. There's a combination of both preferential 253 00:18:49,039 --> 00:18:55,480 and opportunistic. And the reason why I say that is because every offender that 254 00:18:55,720 --> 00:19:00,119 I've come in contact with throughout my career always has a preference or desire for 255 00:19:00,279 --> 00:19:06,640 certain image of what they're looking for. But a lot of times that doesn't 256 00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:10,200 plan out the way they'd like it to, so then it becomes something of 257 00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:14,519 an opportunity for them. They look for something that's just there or happens to 258 00:19:14,559 --> 00:19:21,359 be there. Again, it's difficult to speak to this individual's mindset without knowing 259 00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:26,000 more about him, But I just if I had to speculate in this, 260 00:19:26,559 --> 00:19:30,720 I would say there was a combination of both interesting. How about you, 261 00:19:32,319 --> 00:19:36,720 Yeah, a combination, but I would say leaning towards opportunistic. Again. 262 00:19:36,799 --> 00:19:41,319 He was a hunter who would like a twelve point buck as his trophy, 263 00:19:41,359 --> 00:19:44,359 but if he only sees a six point he'll take that too, as long 264 00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:47,720 as whether it's in season or not. He's probably one of these guys. 265 00:19:47,759 --> 00:19:52,079 He didn't violate any of the hunting laws or fishing laws. I know Kazinski 266 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:55,720 was that way too. He always got his hunting license and kept his driver's 267 00:19:55,799 --> 00:19:59,119 license going. But he's mailing bombs at people. I'll bet you'll find this 268 00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:03,519 guy again. As part of his intelligence, the innate part, even if 269 00:20:03,559 --> 00:20:07,240 not a formal degrees under his belt, he knew to keep all these eyes 270 00:20:07,319 --> 00:20:11,680 dotted and tease crossed in terms of his everyday life. I would see him 271 00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:17,720 more as opportunistic. He may have preferences and ideally they would if they fall 272 00:20:17,799 --> 00:20:21,680 his way, he would go after them. But it's a special kind of 273 00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:25,599 offender. And I know some questions that I looked at before, whether there's 274 00:20:25,599 --> 00:20:30,559 more than one person Serial offenders very rarely work with a partner, I would 275 00:20:30,559 --> 00:20:36,359 assume, unless evidence provides otherwise he worked on his own. And what is 276 00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:42,000 the rarest of Lee's loan offenders is those who go after couples, including a 277 00:20:42,039 --> 00:20:45,799 man and a woman, because you are really you're doubling your risk, if 278 00:20:45,799 --> 00:20:51,640 not even in different percentages, because the man is typically stronger, and he 279 00:20:51,759 --> 00:20:56,759 may have a more fight element to him than flight, and it's just you're 280 00:20:56,799 --> 00:21:00,000 just increasing your odds exponentially. When you take on a couple, you have 281 00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:04,240 to subdue him right away. And are you the type like Dennis Rader bt 282 00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,720 K that he ties the man up and forces the man to watch him violate 283 00:21:10,039 --> 00:21:12,400 the woman victim before of course he kills them both. So I don't know 284 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:18,240 exactly how that played out in these particular instances, and these two sets of 285 00:21:18,319 --> 00:21:22,079 murders we know of one couple and the single person Terry Howell. That adds 286 00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:27,759 a whole different dimension, And most likely a serial killer would not first venture 287 00:21:29,279 --> 00:21:33,000 after two people. They would try it one first. But this guy may 288 00:21:33,039 --> 00:21:37,319 have felt skilled enough after one or two successful killings, and it's very likely 289 00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:41,119 we don't know all his murders at this point in time, because I know 290 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:45,519 the investigators are still looking into it. But I wouldn't surprise me at all 291 00:21:45,599 --> 00:21:49,440 if he in fact has these other murders under his belt and not linked to 292 00:21:49,519 --> 00:21:52,960 him yet, but these are his I won't say practice runs because he may 293 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,200 have completed the act. But then he said, you know what, this 294 00:21:56,359 --> 00:22:00,960 is enough, I somehow want to get a guy in this. And this 295 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:04,359 is a whole there's a whole psychological element too, to a rapist, a 296 00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:11,279 murderer who gets not just the quote unquote pleasure of raping a woman. It's 297 00:22:11,319 --> 00:22:15,480 not about pleasure, it's not about sections about power and control, as we 298 00:22:15,519 --> 00:22:18,759 know, But then forcing a man to sit through it and watch his loved 299 00:22:18,799 --> 00:22:25,200 one being violated, that's a whole different set and a whole different dynamic involved 300 00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:29,799 in the psychological makeup of this person. And there may be factors in his 301 00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:33,119 life we learn from his childhood. Again, no excuses or defenses here, 302 00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:37,559 but there may be something he went through as a kid, or even in 303 00:22:37,559 --> 00:22:41,240 his teen years. Was he forced to watch something, or was he in 304 00:22:41,319 --> 00:22:45,880 somehow put in a situation like that, And now he basically reacts the same 305 00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:51,279 way when these situations present himself. So there's a lot more we have to 306 00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:55,400 learn about this guy. But among serial killers, he's more on the rare 307 00:22:55,519 --> 00:23:00,640 variety who wants to do these type of double murders where one person is tied 308 00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,759 up and put in some position of weakness and then the other rape and the 309 00:23:04,799 --> 00:23:08,359 action goes on. And it's a whole different breed of serial killer. And 310 00:23:08,559 --> 00:23:11,720 this guy got away with it for the number of years that he did, 311 00:23:11,079 --> 00:23:15,160 which he was probably lucky, but he had some street smarts and predatory smarts 312 00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,079 too. Well. Just let me add one more thing to what Jim said, 313 00:23:18,079 --> 00:23:23,599 because makes a great point. And the point is this individual's success in 314 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:27,240 being able to get away with these crimes I think was based a lot on 315 00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:33,799 his ability to compartmentalize the behavior and kind of put that behavior in silos and 316 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:38,319 almost like a doctor checklmister iber. He was able to just show it, 317 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,480 turn it on, and turn it off. And he was very good at 318 00:23:41,519 --> 00:23:45,720 that. And I think that's the psychological makeup. When Jim talks about that, 319 00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,599 you'd love to be able to study someone like that and look at him. 320 00:23:49,039 --> 00:23:52,039 We'll never get the opportunity to do that unless we do it through others 321 00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,440 by talking to family members and people of that nature. But his ability to 322 00:23:56,559 --> 00:24:00,200 compartmentalize that behavior and turn it on want to turn it off, I think 323 00:24:00,599 --> 00:24:04,759 is what helped in his success over forty years. And let me just add 324 00:24:04,759 --> 00:24:08,160 to that, that's what I've used the term earlier need driven behavior. There 325 00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:11,880 are some offenders that just can't stop. They have to rape every three or 326 00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:15,839 four days, maybe three or four weeks. They usually get caught earlier on. 327 00:24:17,519 --> 00:24:21,319 But there are people that can control themselves, and it's while it's still 328 00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:26,440 need driven behavior, their psychological makeup is not. They don't need this release, 329 00:24:26,839 --> 00:24:30,839 this power burst every few days. They can control and confine their activities. 330 00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,720 And the ones who can't control and confine their activities get caught early on, 331 00:24:36,079 --> 00:24:38,440 even if they have a few quote unquote successes under their belt. But 332 00:24:38,519 --> 00:24:42,200 this guy knew picked his victims carefully. And I tell you, for every 333 00:24:42,279 --> 00:24:45,920 victim we have of this guy, I wouldn't even know the numbers, yet, 334 00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:49,640 there were probably a dozen that he came close to confronting somehow with that 335 00:24:51,079 --> 00:24:53,359 something's not right. I hear a police siren in the background. Now it's 336 00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,440 a little too bright here where they're pulling over. Now that guy's a little 337 00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,559 too big. I'm not going to mess with this couple. He took off 338 00:25:00,559 --> 00:25:03,599 and found someone else that night, a week or a month later. Yeah, 339 00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:07,720 there's a lot of different temporal and spatial factors that go into the selection 340 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,359 process with these guys, and you can almost project for every victim a serial 341 00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:17,400 killer has, there may be dozens more that came really close but somehow didn't 342 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:21,640 make the cut and they're alive to speak of it. You're listening to mind 343 00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:34,279 Over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're 344 00:25:34,319 --> 00:25:41,240 back here at Mindover Murder. That's coming out in this investigation now, as 345 00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:44,359 you can imagine, people are coming out of the woodwork to us, and 346 00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:48,880 of course we're urging people to please talk to the FBI and the Virginia State 347 00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:52,960 Police, and we're supporting their efforts. But people are coming forward to us 348 00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:57,119 and reporting things that they reported to the FBI, the Virginia State Police, 349 00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:03,400 or the National Park Service back in the eighties, which is a number of 350 00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:10,599 people have reported now that typically couples would be parking and this man driving this 351 00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:15,960 very distinctive truck attacked them in sort of a blitz attack. He would show 352 00:26:17,079 --> 00:26:19,960 up very suddenly, typically at the window of their car. These couples are 353 00:26:21,039 --> 00:26:23,440 usually making out and not paying a lot of attention to what's going on. 354 00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:29,440 A lot of these incidents occurred on the Colonial Parkway, which seems to be 355 00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:32,880 part of his comfort zone. So he would come up, bang on the 356 00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:37,720 window very aggressively. He's not dressed as a cop. He's typically dressed in 357 00:26:37,799 --> 00:26:41,119 like a mechanics uniform. He's not driving a cop car, no blue lights, 358 00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:45,480 nothing like that. He just uses his high beams to flash people, 359 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:52,599 and then it'll come up and aggressively demand driver's licenses, insisting they're trespassing or 360 00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:57,079 they're doing something illegal. A number of these people had already been warned because 361 00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:03,079 the other Colonial Parkway murders were way by this point, and local folks were 362 00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:08,359 advised not to allow themselves to be pulled over on the Colonial Parkway. And 363 00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:12,119 so some of these people are telling me stories in the last two weeks about 364 00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,799 slipping a driver's license through a little one inch gap at the top of the 365 00:27:15,839 --> 00:27:19,240 window. And one woman who was telling me the story the other day, 366 00:27:19,599 --> 00:27:26,160 she's a retired architect. Her mail companion gave him the driver's licenses. He 367 00:27:26,319 --> 00:27:30,920 really wanted them to roll the window down, and they refused. He didn't 368 00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,519 produce a gun, although he has used guns in other situations. We know 369 00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,960 he shot Robin Edwards and David Nobling to death with a small caliber handgun. 370 00:27:40,799 --> 00:27:44,960 This guy goes back to his truck, which they could see, which matches 371 00:27:45,039 --> 00:27:49,440 the truck described in the new materials that have come out about Wilmer, and 372 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:55,000 they quickly discussed this amongst themselves. Both of them agreed this guy's not a 373 00:27:55,039 --> 00:28:00,160 cop. He flashed some sort of id not even a badge, and look 374 00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,480 more like an idea or a security pass that you would use to go in 375 00:28:03,519 --> 00:28:07,799 and out of somewhere. And they agree they've got to get the hell out 376 00:28:07,799 --> 00:28:11,440 of there. What they wanted to do is get their driver's licenses and get 377 00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:15,200 gone. The female half of the couple is saying she's able to really study 378 00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:21,319 this guy, and she realizes he's very short, which matches Wilmer's description. 379 00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:25,279 He's only five to five, he's very muscular, he's one hundred and sixty 380 00:28:25,279 --> 00:28:30,880 five pounds, and she noticed he had extremely large hands, almost outsized for 381 00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,279 the size of his body, which he was banging on the window and she 382 00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,480 was on the other side of the car and she could see all this. 383 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,039 She noticed how callous they were. And this is a guy who works on 384 00:28:40,079 --> 00:28:45,200 the water, so this would match his description pretty well. They were able 385 00:28:45,279 --> 00:28:48,599 to get their driver's licenses back. They kind of gave him some pushback, 386 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,160 you're not a cop, We're not doing anything wrong, that kind of thing. 387 00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:56,000 He eventually gave them their driver's licenses back. And just like you said, 388 00:28:56,079 --> 00:29:00,599 Jim, it appears that there are a number of incidents like this on 389 00:29:00,759 --> 00:29:07,799 the Colonial Parkway and people did manage to get away without being raped or murdered, 390 00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,920 but it sounds like they might have had a close call. What's your 391 00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:15,519 take on that. But for the grace of God, who knows what factors 392 00:29:15,599 --> 00:29:22,160 kicked into the external environment, his internal environment, and he just decided now 393 00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,960 wasn't the right time or the right place. Maybe he felt this couple in 394 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:30,319 this one case anyway, would give him too much of a fight and he 395 00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:34,160 wasn't in the mood. There may be some other couples that are more amenable 396 00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:38,960 and conciliatory, and sure, okay, officer, And if they just somehow 397 00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:44,480 think he's a person of authorities, yeah, that's those would be very interesting 398 00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,880 reading any interview they did back in the day. And I think Bill, 399 00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:49,720 you said, you just talk to this woman in the last few weeks. 400 00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:55,079 Yeah, and they had talked to the authorities back in the late eighties when 401 00:29:55,119 --> 00:30:00,680 this happened. But obviously we're urging all these people to contact authorities again because 402 00:30:00,759 --> 00:30:04,640 they need this information. Yeah, and hopefully they will come forward and perhaps 403 00:30:04,839 --> 00:30:10,079 and it'll give us some pinpoints on a map where they can put this guy 404 00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:15,359 in certain locations at certain times. It's obviously before cell phones, so there's 405 00:30:15,359 --> 00:30:18,960 no towers that can be pinged off of in that regard, but even some 406 00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:22,839 of these anecdotal instances can really help build a solid map of where this guy 407 00:30:23,039 --> 00:30:26,799 was at certain times in certain places. And Yeah, if that's not Wilmer 408 00:30:27,119 --> 00:30:32,480 what you just described from what that woman described back in the eighties, I'd 409 00:30:32,519 --> 00:30:37,640 be really surprised. It sounds like his mo to a t. Can you 410 00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:42,480 talk about the kind of stressors that might prompt an offender into committing a crime 411 00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,680 and is there always a stressor that kicks off an event or a spree or 412 00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:52,839 is it sometimes just I feel like waking up today and raising some hell I 413 00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,680 think there's really three areas that you would consider here. Number one is the 414 00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:02,720 pre offense behavior, and a lot of that is usually an incident in the 415 00:31:02,759 --> 00:31:06,599 life of the offender prior to the offense, and that could be anything from 416 00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:10,440 a relationship problem to a loss of a job, monetary problems, he has 417 00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:12,599 a fight, he could even have a run in with law enforcement. The 418 00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:18,079 other is the behavior that goes on during the crime that you can see it 419 00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:22,000 actually in the crime scene. When you look at that, you sit there 420 00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:27,319 and you say, wow, that could be anything from the way the body 421 00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:32,079 is positioned as a sort of struggle. And then the last thing is the 422 00:31:32,119 --> 00:31:37,640 post defense behavior. The post defense behavior are actions of the offender that are 423 00:31:37,799 --> 00:31:41,880 usually pretty quickly after the incident happens, or it can be days weeks following 424 00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,200 the crime, and the behavior is going to be noticed by others. But 425 00:31:45,279 --> 00:31:51,319 the problem is nobody ever says anything. You really have to look when you're 426 00:31:51,319 --> 00:31:53,839 trying to do an assessment of someone like that, is those are the three 427 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,519 areas that we would always look at when you look at some of the crime 428 00:31:57,599 --> 00:32:02,519 when somebody behave if you're doing the crime, did they display an interest in 429 00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:08,799 ownership? Did they protect some property of their own. Is there any signs 430 00:32:08,839 --> 00:32:13,640 of staging that may have taken place at the crime. All these different things 431 00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,640 come into this, and then you look at what did the offender do to 432 00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:21,680 place himself in harm's way, So you look at his risk level. Like 433 00:32:21,799 --> 00:32:24,160 Jim said earlier when we were talking about that before, Look, it's at 434 00:32:24,279 --> 00:32:29,119 night, lack of guardianship, so there's not a whole lot of people that 435 00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:34,400 are able to observe he's really a low risk offender. And the reason maybe 436 00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,519 why, besides the grace of God, is they didn't comply by opening the 437 00:32:37,559 --> 00:32:40,519 door or rolling the window all the way down. Had they done that, 438 00:32:42,039 --> 00:32:45,640 it probably would have trained changed the whole scenario of what took place. That's 439 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:51,200 interesting. It just struck me here. I was a uniform police officer for 440 00:32:51,279 --> 00:32:54,000 a number of years. During my eleven years in Ben Salem Township, Bugs 441 00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:59,839 County, just suburban Philadelphia, and there were not only lovers lanes in our 442 00:33:00,039 --> 00:33:01,640 area, but every once in a while, late at night, we'd see 443 00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:06,599 a car park somewhere, sometimes where stolen cars were dropped off or they're being 444 00:33:06,599 --> 00:33:09,200 stripped, and we'd walk up and sometimes the windows are fogged up. So 445 00:33:09,319 --> 00:33:14,240 I was that person with a real badge and a real gun and with the 446 00:33:14,279 --> 00:33:17,359 authority to walk up to a car and say, what's going on? Is 447 00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:21,880 it a dead body, is it just a stolen car? Is it something 448 00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:25,240 else? And some of the times it would be two kids or sometimes older 449 00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:30,640 people in various acts of will say intimacy. I never got a kick out 450 00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:34,119 of that. I just I did need to see the ID. I didn't 451 00:33:34,119 --> 00:33:37,799 need to make sure someone belonged to that car or vice versa. And people 452 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:42,920 were at least over eighteen, they weren't drunk all these other factors. Sometimes 453 00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:46,000 I just left them there if no one was actually complaining, and other times 454 00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:50,400 I did make them leave because it was private property. Then I have authority 455 00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,599 to be there. So I've been that person who has checked out lovers in 456 00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:58,400 cars, and I had legal authority to do it, and I didn't even 457 00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:00,279 know they were lovers when I walk up with the car with this guy, 458 00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:04,640 he was there for that one reason. He could care less whose property it 459 00:34:04,759 --> 00:34:07,199 was. He could care less if the car was stolen or not, or 460 00:34:07,239 --> 00:34:10,079 the age of one of the things. I know in one of the killings, 461 00:34:10,119 --> 00:34:15,760 the young girl was only fourteen and the guy was twenty Who knows what 462 00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,880 they were doing. Could be some statutory issues. Back then the eighties, 463 00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:22,639 people didn't care about stuff quite as much as that if things weren't actually being 464 00:34:22,679 --> 00:34:25,760 physically forced. But this was some kind of a turn on to this guy, 465 00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:29,519 and he didn't want to leave this one go by. I wouldn't be 466 00:34:29,559 --> 00:34:32,760 surprised if somewhere down the line he was in a car with some woman and 467 00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:37,000 some police came up to him, maybe some non police came up to him, 468 00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:39,760 and whatever happened, he obviously survived, and he said, hey, 469 00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:45,280 this isn't a bad modus operandi to try myself when the time comes years later. 470 00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,599 It seems like that's exactly what happened, and it worked for him because 471 00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:52,239 he was never caught in the act, or even caught after the fact alive. 472 00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:59,159 That is, of course, So we're curious how helpful would geographic profiling 473 00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:04,719 be in the case of an offender like Wilmer who moves around primarily using the 474 00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:09,960 waterways. Is that something that would be more helpful or less helpful in terms 475 00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:15,440 of tracking his movement. When you talk about geographic profiling, it's usually a 476 00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:21,719 technique that uses locations that are connected to the series of the crime sites, 477 00:35:22,079 --> 00:35:25,880 or where the person's first approached to determine maybe the offender lives in that area. 478 00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,880 I think it's we can comfortably say that the individual that committed these offenses 479 00:35:31,159 --> 00:35:36,480 had a great familiarity with the area in which he was doing it. When 480 00:35:36,519 --> 00:35:40,239 you look at geographic profiling, it's more like a probability map of where he 481 00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:45,639 may live, where he may want to do things. But you're looking at 482 00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:50,559 locations of where they were approached, locations of the crime scenes, body disposal. 483 00:35:50,679 --> 00:35:53,440 You look at all three of those, and sometimes that can help and 484 00:35:53,519 --> 00:35:59,440 pinpointing some things. But that's just a piece of the information when you get 485 00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:02,480 in a geographic profiling. There's many other things besides that. Yeah. I 486 00:36:02,519 --> 00:36:07,440 know the person who first developed geographic profiling. His name's Kim rossmo. He 487 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:12,800 was a law enforcement officer. He actually wrote a dissertation on geographic profiling and 488 00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,599 it's been used in many investigations. I think you need at least three points. 489 00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:20,840 The more the better, And from my understanding of it, the waterways 490 00:36:21,199 --> 00:36:27,039 would present no issue in terms of still from the triangular triangulation or beyond that 491 00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,639 where someone may live, but Here's where it also gets tricky, and Ray 492 00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:35,360 alluded to this, is that what it may point out is the person's area 493 00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:39,519 of familiarity, not necessarily his resonance. And there's an old expression, and 494 00:36:39,559 --> 00:36:44,400 I'll be a little polite for your audience, you don't poop where you eat. 495 00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:49,559 I think I know what you're saying. This guy in San Francisco, 496 00:36:49,559 --> 00:36:53,079 I think they do that now. But that's a whole other story. But 497 00:36:53,119 --> 00:36:57,760 anyway, anyway, but he knows, this guy, especially because he's been 498 00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,599 successful. I'm talking about Womber here. He knew not to violate exactly where 499 00:37:01,639 --> 00:37:05,400 he lived. But he may have worked in a certain area, he may 500 00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,679 have grown up in a certain area, he may have spent some time there 501 00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:12,000 for whatever reason, and that became his conference zone. I know we have 502 00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:16,519 the twenty two miles of the Colonial Parkway between Jamestown and Yorktown, so certainly 503 00:37:16,559 --> 00:37:21,880 geographic profiling wouldn't have hurt in that case. I don't think the waterways would 504 00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:25,199 make that much of a difference. It would still pinpoint a central location where 505 00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:31,320 I think investigators could at least process that information and an attempt to somehow say 506 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:37,559 this person has some connection to this particular area doesn't necessarily mean their residents presently. 507 00:37:37,599 --> 00:37:39,960 It could have been one in the distant past, but it's still a 508 00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:44,559 viable tool, and I don't think Waterways would have any negative aspect to that. 509 00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:50,239 They've described him in the recent materials that have come out, they've described 510 00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:54,920 Alan Wade Wilmer Senior as trantient, sometimes even living aboard his work boat, 511 00:37:55,679 --> 00:38:00,719 the Denny Wade. There are things that I think can be very helpful in 512 00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:05,320 terms of looking for more information because he drove this very distinctive truck, and 513 00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:08,199 he sailed a very distinctive boat with a large graphic on the side that said 514 00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:13,639 Denny Wade, and then of course he himself is physically distinctive. So they're 515 00:38:13,679 --> 00:38:20,119 looking for information like people that used to dock at the places he kept his 516 00:38:20,119 --> 00:38:22,559 boat, where he would often stay aboard for weeks or months at a time, 517 00:38:23,199 --> 00:38:28,320 and even though he had a family a couple of hours away, apparently 518 00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:32,639 he would be down on the water for big chunks of time working as a 519 00:38:32,679 --> 00:38:38,679 waterman, fishing, grabbing and oystering. They're trying to pin that down more 520 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:43,719 in terms of home ports and places where he would sell his catch, and 521 00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,360 that sort of thing which it sounds like that could be beneficial. You're talking 522 00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:52,280 about the spatial mobility of Cereal fenders, and we usually find in most of 523 00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:57,760 the Cereal cases, usually when you have a series, and this is not 524 00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:02,199 always the case, but there is a greater regularity than there is not that 525 00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:07,000 Usually the first crime is an area like we call his comfort zone, where 526 00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:12,199 he feels most comfortable, because the whole thing about committing this, his mo 527 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,400 is to make sure that he's successful in committing the crime. You know, 528 00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:20,719 they may start out and they may do it where they live in the same 529 00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:22,800 area, and they may do that, and they may kill in that same 530 00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:28,760 area and even disposed the bodies in that same area or nearby, and as 531 00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:34,719 they gained confidence in what they do, then they become geographically transit. Then 532 00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:38,599 they'll start traveling continually. Ed Kemper was that way. His first killings were 533 00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:43,679 very close to home, and then they went further and further away. Believe 534 00:39:43,679 --> 00:39:46,159 it or not, the guy that robbed banks for thirty years. The first 535 00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:51,480 bankye robbed, the first two banks he robbed, was a place right outside 536 00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,519 of a military base where he was living. And then when he went on 537 00:39:54,599 --> 00:40:00,400 to rob banks, he went further and further away so as to he was 538 00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:04,199 caught, nobody would know at his hometown that it was him that committed something 539 00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:08,039 like this. So yeah, they do. And sometimes they'll even dispose of 540 00:40:08,119 --> 00:40:13,679 bodies. They may kill in an area and then take the body and dispose 541 00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,320 of it far away to give them a period of time. It gives them 542 00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:22,280 a chance to distance themselves from the crime itself. And they do that too, 543 00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:25,360 because if that happens, that confuses law enforcement. How the hell did 544 00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:30,920 this person get one hundred miles up the road or how did they get twelve 545 00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:34,559 miles up the road? Were they traveling up here? So that always throws 546 00:40:34,599 --> 00:40:37,079 a little bit of a wrench into it for law enforcement because they just don't 547 00:40:37,079 --> 00:40:42,719 know. Because all we really know is law enforcement initially, is where we 548 00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:45,880 find the body. We don't know where it began. We don't know where 549 00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,840 it happened. We just know where it ended up. And Bill, if 550 00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,800 I can go back to the original part of your question, as I mentioned 551 00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:57,679 earlier, I've met some watermen over the years. They are a very close 552 00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,760 knit group. They are a fraternity. They know each other really well. 553 00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:05,519 They have their own language, their own jargon. As you can imagine, 554 00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:08,719 they only work certain times of the year. But that's been interesting to look 555 00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:14,079 at some of the dates of these murders. In what time of season was 556 00:41:14,079 --> 00:41:17,920 it for crabbing, for oystering? Regulated? Ye, and this guy probably 557 00:41:20,199 --> 00:41:23,119 these guys they really played by rules, you know, in that regard to 558 00:41:23,159 --> 00:41:28,079 their profession. They may violate a bunch of others in terms of killing people, 559 00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:30,440 but I wouldn't be surprised if he was very much in tune, because 560 00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:35,039 he'd be then pissing off his fellow watermen by you know, fishing out of 561 00:41:35,079 --> 00:41:38,039 season, woristering out of season, whatever it may be. And the watermen 562 00:41:38,119 --> 00:41:42,599 also have a philosophy. And I think there's just a Supreme Court decision of 563 00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,599 just a few days ago in which a lot of overregulation now that the country, 564 00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:50,719 different agencies are putting on them and it's us against them. So I 565 00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:52,760 have a feeling if they want to learn, if the investigators will learn more 566 00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:58,960 about this guy, interview some of his fellow watermen, people that docked around 567 00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,119 him, whatever marina he may have put himself up, and what kind of 568 00:42:02,159 --> 00:42:06,480 activity is going on and off the boat he was living in. They could 569 00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,079 be a very valuable source of information if it comes down to it, and 570 00:42:09,079 --> 00:42:13,880 they're not going to protect this guy. This isn't like he's he caught too 571 00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:15,360 many fish. They don't want to drop the dime. Want to know this 572 00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:20,760 guy has crossed the rubicon to use another water reference here in terms of violating 573 00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,280 the laws, and he's really They'll talk. If they can give anything to 574 00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:29,199 do investigators, they will to give you an idea how obsessed I've gotten at 575 00:42:29,199 --> 00:42:34,679 different times in the Colonial Parkway murders case. Some years ago, I actually 576 00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:40,440 researched the phases of the moon of the four known Colonial Parkway murders double homicides, 577 00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:45,719 and interestingly, I'm not saying it was exact, but it seemed that 578 00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:51,360 the Colonial Parkway murders all seem to happen at the darkest phases of the moon, 579 00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:54,320 when it was either fully dark or in a new moon phase where it's 580 00:42:54,519 --> 00:43:00,559 just starting to the crescents just starting to grow. I mentioned this someone who 581 00:43:00,599 --> 00:43:02,280 knows a lot more about being on the water than I do, and they 582 00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:08,679 actually said, you know something, that low light situation on the water actually 583 00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:15,840 is something that they think the investigators should be looking at. Very interesting absolutely. 584 00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:19,280 We're gonna take a break here with Fits and Ray and we'll be back 585 00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:23,480 with more listener questions from the profilers on our next episode of mind Over Murder. 586 00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:37,800 Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Mind 587 00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:43,880 Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive 588 00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:49,239 producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. 589 00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:53,280 Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud. Mind Over Murder is distributed in 590 00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:59,360 partnership with Coral Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, 591 00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:02,840 or Instagram. You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway Murders on 592 00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:07,559 Facebook, and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas 593 00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:13,039 five six. Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.