After returning to the Federal Building from the scene, Red was already waiting at the door of the conference room. As soon as he saw Danny, he couldn't wait to put forward his request.
"I need the arrest records for gun violence and illegal gun possession in all boroughs of New York City for the past six months, except for the areas where shootings have already occurred."
Danny followed him into the conference room and looked at the map of New York City boroughs that had been scribbled over beyond recognition with a puzzled look on his face. "I don't understand what you mean."
"Based on what you found at the scene, I don't think the suspect would commit crimes near the area where he lives."
Seeing Red's confident tone, Danny was even more puzzled. "How can you be so sure?"
"This is a kind of reverse profiling of the geographical environment." Emily helped to explain.
"Although we don't have many clues right now, one thing is certain: the killer has a certain degree of planning. He committed his crimes at the same time of day. He'd observed them beforehand and was familiar with the locations of the cameras."
"So?" Although Danny had partnered with Jack on numerous cases, this was his first real experience with the BAU's seemingly unconventional, purely empirical approach, which completely defied reasoning.
Fortunately, Red, having dealt with Muggles beforehand, offered an explanation. "A demand-driven serial killer like Son of Sam typically targets areas where they're comfortable.
So, when we connect his crime locations with lines, we've essentially mapped out his general range. This is what's known as geographic profiling.
A more planned serial killer with other motives will intentionally or unintentionally ensure their attacks are outside their comfort zone."
"To keep them away from their neighborhood, right?" Danny suddenly realized, and he also grasped the meaning of the circles Red had drawn on the map.
"True, but that also means he could target other areas of the city," Emily muttered to herself.
"Let's just hope he's confined his crimes to Manhattan Island. If it's all New York City, it'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Rossi sighed.
At noon the next day, Hotchner gathered everyone in the conference room. "We've verified the backgrounds of all five victims: a man in his 60s, an ordinary office worker, a housewife, an insurance salesman, and a backpacker visiting New York. There's no overlap or commonality." "
So, besides the murderer's premeditated choice of location, was his choice of victims completely random? Or were these victims simply targeted because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?" Jiejie asked.
Reid nodded. "That's the case, so far. Of course, we can't rule out the possibility of a premeditated attack, similar to the 'DC Sniper,' who resorted to a killing spree to conceal his motive." The
"DC Sniper" Reid mentioned was a notorious figure in the United States. From February to October 2002, a series of sniper attacks targeting innocent bystanders occurred in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland.
Twenty-seven people were killed, 17 of them fatally, and 10 others were seriously injured, including a 47-year-old FBI intelligence analyst.
The FBI dubbed this serial killing the "Beltway Sniper," while the media dubbed the perpetrator the "DC Sniper.
" The DC Sniper's victims encompassed gender, age, religion, and skin color, and his attacks occurred at any time of day, further unsettling Americans, who had just experienced the aftermath of 9/11.
This serial killer case differed from others in that it involved two perpetrators: 41-year-old John Muhammad and his pedophile assistant, 17-year-old Lee Malvo.
Both were African American, and Rossi's notes detailed their family backgrounds. John Muhammad's original surname was Williams, but after 9/11, he changed it to Muhammad out of admiration for someone.
Rossi's notes therefore divided his crimes into two phases. The initial timeline, from February to September, was characterized by a more ambiguous motive or purpose.
During this period, 14 victims were killed, with 7 killed and 7 injured. Some were driven by vendettas, others by robbery, and others simply to practice their marksmanship and daring. Muhammad instructed his assistant, Lee Malvo, to carry out the attacks.
After accumulating sufficient funds through robberies and other means, Muhammad purchased a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle with a holographic sight and bipod, and a 1990 blue Chevrolet Caprice.
Thus began the next phase of the attacks: the true terror of the attacks.
The two modified the car, hand-cutting a firing slit in the rear bumper. Through this slit, one person drove while the other lay in the folded back seat, mounted an XM-15 rifle on the spare tire in the trunk, and fired at targets three or four hundred meters away.
(See the picture, which appears to have been drawn by an FBI expert after the incident.)
Due to the concealed nature of their methods and the extremely long range of their sniping—a normal person wouldn't even notice a car parked three or four hundred meters away—the two men, despite their brazen actions, still eluded the police and the FBI.
It's hard to imagine how many more victims would have fallen victim to if Mohammed hadn't later become so brazen that he called the police, claiming they'd missed a bar robbery.
The FBI quickly re-investigated the crime scene at the bar, first confirming the case's consistency through ballistics comparison and then finding Mohammed's fingerprints in a magazine. This led to his identification and the issuance of a wanted warrant.
From October 2nd to 24th, 2002, when they were arrested, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo sniped and killed another 10 people and seriously injured another 3. Two of the three seriously injured were shot in the torso, where the large cavity effect of the military rifle resulted in the removal of a significant portion of their internal organs.
Rossi's notes contain detailed interviews with the two men, particularly John Muhammad's statements before his execution by lethal injection.
Among them, it is mentioned that in the early stages, Muhammad's true target was his ex-wife, hoping to make her death resemble those of random killings and thereby gain custody of his three children.
Ironically, however, Muhammad's ex-wife was never shot. His first target was his best friend, who had been encouraging his ex-wife's divorce.
In a strange twist of fate, Nikia, the niece of Mildred, Muhammad's best friend, became the scapegoat in this deliberately targeted attack.
"Son of Sam" and "DC Sniper"—everyone in the room either held their chins or tilted their heads, each one looking over their shoulder.
This kind of random serial murder case is the police's worst nightmare, and it's also the one in which the BAU team has the least impact. The few early clues and the difficulty in determining the motive create immense uncertainty in psychological profiling.
And when the clues are finally plentiful, and the profiling and behavioral predictions are incredibly accurate, the reality is a staggering number of cases and the bodies of the victims.
(End of Chapter)