Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (64 page)

So many victims later say, “But he was so nice.” Niceness is not the same as being nice. Niceness can be a deadly manipulative tool. A charming smile can mask the most evil intentions.

Thus, one’s first line of defense is not risking attracting or exposing oneself to a predator in the first place. The second line of defense is “brushing off” or ignoring unanticipated, suspicious, or unwanted attention. It might make you appear unfriendly, but it may also save your life. If something does not quite feel right, do not think about it: Politely, quickly, and calmly extract yourself from the situation. Be firm but polite if you can—you do not want to unnecessarily spark anger or a sense of discourteous rejection in a potential serial killer. But in the final analysis, if the stranger does not accept a firm and polite “no” for an answer, tell him loudly to leave you alone. If the man is decent in the first place, while your rudeness might offend him, it will not turn him into a violent offender. If on the other hand he meant you harm, he might understand that you will not be an easy target—he might move on. Do not be embarrassed about appearing capricious or unfriendly if pressed—better that, than police sampling seminal fluids from your cold rectum the next morning.

Desperate Measures

If, however, you are unfortunate enough to find yourself among the 75 percent of victims who simply had the bad luck of being targeted by a serial killer at random and were not able to evade or disengage from him, there are still things you can do. The point we are describing now is where the serial killer refuses to be brushed off by you, and moves beyond the stage of casual contact. By words, demeanor, showing a weapon, or actions, he confronts you and indicates that he is ready to use force if you do not comply with his demands—getting into his car, taking your clothes off, closing your eyes, being quiet, turning around, putting your hands behind your back, engaging in sex with him—whatever the demand might be. If you are unable to run away to safety, what can you do?

Of the serial killers studied by the FBI, 7.5 percent of their victims survived—not encouraging, but nonetheless a sliver of good news. The FBI then tried to pursue what it was in the victim’s behavior that resulted in their survival. The question is whether to resist the attacker. The FBI asked the serial killers, how did they perceive the behavior of their victims? In the
opinion of the serial killers,
28 percent of all of their victims acquiesced or offered no resistance, 31 percent attempted to negotiate verbally, 7 percent verbally refused to obey the killer, 10 percent screamed, 5 percent attempted to escape, and 19 percent tried to fight back.

The serial killers reported that in the face of resistance from their victims, 34 percent had no reaction, 15 percent threatened the victim verbally, 25 percent escalated the level of their aggression, and 25 percent became outright violent. Thus in more than two-thirds of the cases, the killer countered resistance from the victim, and in half of the cases they countered it with increased force. In summary, resistance sparks force or increased levels of force.
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It should be pointed out, however, that of the victims in the survey who, in their killers’ opinions acquiesced to demands,
all were murdered
without exception. Of the twenty-eight victims who offered physical resistance in the form of screaming, running, or fighting, three survived. Thus except for a slight marginal advantage in resistance, the bad news is that
both
resistance and acquiescence often equally result in death.

Of course, you do not know you are facing a serial killer who is intent on killing you (unless he tells you). Sometimes the serial killer himself is unsure whether his intention is to kill you. The primary threat is rape or physical confinement—one hopes that by evading that, one will consequently escape being murdered later.

The FBI study on sexual and serial homicides refers to a study of 108 convicted serial rapists and their 389 victims. The data collected from this study is very valuable, as serial homicide is mostly a sexual crime and often begins or ends with a rape. Rape had occurred in 98 percent of the serial homicides studied by the FBI: 56 percent before the victim’s death and 42 percent after death. The study identified four types of rapists; some experts are now urging that these types be applied to serial killer classification systems:

1. Power-reassurance (or compensatory rapist):
   This type of rapist often has a rape fantasy that his victim actually likes it and will fall in love with him as the result of the rape. He may attempt foreplay and to make a date with his victim afterward. Rape results from sexual arousal and loss of self-control. The rapist is called compensatory because of his terminal sense of inadequacy, which leads him to believe that no “normal” woman would want to have sex with him, unless he compensates it with rape. The rape is a highly sexual act and the offender often has a history of sexual behavior such as voyeurism, excessive masturbation, and exhibitionism. He will do what the victim
   allows
   him to do.
   
2. Power-assertive (or exploitative rapist):
   The sexual component is less important here, and the rape is more of an expression of aggression in which the rapist needs to build his own fragile ego and sense of inadequacy by humiliating his victims, dominating them, and having them submit to him.
   
3. Anger-retaliatory (or displaced rapist):
   The sexual attack is an expression of anger and rage. The victim often serves as a stand-in for the rapist’s real object of hate. The behavior can vary from simple rape to highly elaborate acts of murder and mutilation. Edmund Kemper might be described as a displaced rapist, because he killed eight victims before finally killing the person he actually wanted to—his mother. Most displaced personalities, however, do not get an opportunity to kill the subject of their deep hate, and thus continue killing “innocent” victims.
   
4. Anger-excitation (or sadistic rapist):
   The sexual act is an expression of aggression fused with sexual desire. In a cycle, sexual arousal gives rise to aggressive desire, which in turn further arouses the rapist. Sometimes the attack begins as a consensual seduction, but then escalates in intense and violent sexual aggression. The rapist often focuses his attack on parts of the victim’s body such as the breasts, anus, buttocks, mouth, and genitals. Paul Bernardo was an example of the sadistic personality.
   

The rape study determined that different types of rapists will respond in different ways to victim behavior—a particular mode of behavior will be more effective in escaping harm from one type of personality than with another and vice versa—with some rapists a behavior can escalate an attack. The following are some of the options that the FBI recommends.

Escape

Escape remains the best and safest of all measures, but we are presuming in this chapter that it is now too late for this option. Nevertheless, if escape does look possible further down the line, you should take into consideration several things. First, to where are you escaping? If you are in a remote area and there is no place or people to run to, escape could be futile. Second, are you unencumbered? If your legs are tied or tangled in clothing, you will not get very far. What is the age and athletic shape of your attacker, in comparison to yourself—can you outrun your assailant?

What type of weapon are you being threatened with? You can outrun a knife or a club, but the situation is different with firearms. There are several things to take into consideration if you are threatened by a firearm. Unlike what we see on television shows, in reality a target becomes rapidly and progressively difficult to hit with a handgun after a distance of about fifteen to twenty feet, especially if the target is moving quickly and weaving. In
Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit,
Tom Clancy writes about the newly issued state-of-the-art Beretta M9/M92F handgun: “Even with trained shooters like policemen, pistol shooting is, in a word, hideous. Forget what you see on television or in the movies. Accurate pistol fire from beyond about five yards is almost unheard of. For example, in the last twenty years there are painfully few recorded instances of New York City policemen hitting anything beyond twenty-five feet/eight meters with a pistol.”

If the assailant has a revolver, a type of handgun that has a revolving drum in the center, the chances are that he will be able to fire only six shots before having to reload—something that often takes at least five seconds at minimum to do. Although it is a little much to ask, perhaps, having the presence of mind to count shots while escaping can help give you that extra burst of straight running power once six shots have been fired. The risk, however, is that some .38-caliber revolvers have only five shots, while some .22-caliber revolvers have eight and nine shots. Furthermore, a device called a speedloader can shorten the reload time. It is, however, a favorably calculated risk that a revolver will be a six-shot weapon. Also, the shorter the barrel, the shorter the weapon’s effective range.

The difficulty of hitting distant targets applies to automatic (semiautomatic) handguns as well—it is not as easy as shown on TV. Automatics are squarelike weapons with no revolving drum in the center. As these weapons come in great varieties of capacities from seven to seventeen shots, counting shots will be of little help, unless you are intimately familiar with the specifications of the particular weapon you are threatened with, and even so, the rapid rate of fire that a pistol can unleash may make counting accurately impossible. (Nor can you be sure that the weapon was loaded to maximum capacity in the first place.)

Outrunning an assailant armed with a rifle is virtually impossible, unless the assailant is truly a bad shot—something that the victim is unlikely to know until it is too late. On the other hand, an attacker is often as nervous as you are, and possibly under the influence of drugs or alcohol. This could significantly reduce his shooting skills.

To attempt to outrun an assailant armed with a firearm is a very dangerous and highly risky proposition, but not entirely impossible. It is a calculated risk that one may need to attempt under certain circumstances, bearing in mind the various factors described previously.

Finally, one word of caution about escape: In the case of sadistic personalities, running may actually arouse the assailant and lead to an escalation of violence. However, the chances of surviving an attack by a sadistic personality are minimal anyway, so escape is always an option that you should constantly be alert to.

In any case, you should always be ready for escape, while pursuing any one of the following strategies when escape is not immediately an option:

VERBAL CONFRONTATIONAL RESISTANCE

Verbal resistance should be the
first
action that you take when confronted by an assailant where there are no immediate means to escape. Immediately, yell and shout at the assailant: “Leave me alone! Go away! Help! Police!”

Do not scream.
Screaming from the throat can be mistaken for play and also projects fear to the assailant. Instead shout and yell from your diaphragm, which can also prepare you for taking a blow without having the wind knocked out of you and projects a forceful stance to the assailant.

You want to convey to the attacker a clear and succinct message that you are not going to be an easy target. The serial killer sometimes begins his approach without having yet decided whether to use physical force. The decision to use force will be inevitable at some point in his attack, but by forcing the assailant to consider the decision earlier than he is ready to commit to it, you may defuse the attack. Sometimes an attack is preceded by a cat-and-mouse-like dynamic between the assailant and victim—the assailant may need reassurance that he will overcome and capture his victim or that his victim will behave in a submissive and fearful manner. Bold, verbal indications that the capture may not be easy may shake the confidence of some assailants.

PHYSICAL CONFRONTATIONAL RESISTANCE

Physical resistance encompasses both moderate responses, such as struggling, punching, kicking, and pushing away, and violent responses, such as blows to the face, eyes, groin, and throat, intended to seriously injure or kill the assailant. The use of such defenses depends on the size and strength of the victim, the presence of weapons, location, and so on. Such measures should be undertaken quickly, powerfully, and decisively and should be immediately followed by escape. Do not hold back. Do not hesitate. Surprise is a key element. Do not wait around and see what effect, if any, your attack had on the assailant. Run. Run. Run. You are not trying to win.
Escape is your objective.

The downside, however, is that the victim should anticipate that physical resistance will be met with increased force by the assailant. Studies are conflicted on the precise effect of resistance on the injury of victims. One study found that of seriously injured rape victims, only 41 percent were injured after they resisted. The other 59 percent received their injuries
without
resisting.
²³⁸
Other studies show that certain types of rapists (power-reassurance, anger-retaliatory, anger-excitation) tended to injure victims who resisted more severely, while victim injury was unaffected by resistance to power-assertive rapists.
²³⁹

Another study noted that serial offenders tended to be of two types:
increasers,
those who had a tendency to increase their level of violence as their career progressed, and
non-increasers,
those who did not. The two types showed different response patterns. Response patterns also varied whether rapists were in the early, middle, or late stages of their careers and by their types. This study found that victim resistance was related not to the amount of force used, but to the amount of time the offender spent with the victim. Assaults on resisting victims lasted two to three times longer than on passive victims. This was not only because of the time necessary to overcome resistance, but also because of the additional pleasure derived by certain types of offenders from the victim’s resistance.
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