Yes it would. There was no emprical basis for saying the shooter had to be a student.
“He’s either going to (1) kill two students and flee the crime scene or he’s going to (2) kill two students and return to the crime scene and kill more students or he’s going to (3) kill two students and kill more students at a different location.”
From the Virginia Tech Report:
The most likely situation was (1) and the low-probability situation was (3).
I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. That basically makes my point for me. Profiling is worthless bullshit that doesn’t solve crimes. Profiling had nothing to do with catching the VT shooter.
I’m not trying to make a point.
Ok then.
However, astorian is, and it’s a good point.
No. My reasoning for leaning in the direction I do is told in my previous post, which doesn’t need to be reworded by you to say something I didn’t say, or even imply.
Edited to add: If you wish to debate what I say, please do. If on the other hand you wish to debate what you say, well…enjoy yourself, I guess.
I have cited a study that says otherwise.
Fascinating, and the opposite claim that Diogenes makes above. Perhaps you two should talk.
Where? You mentioned a study, but didn’t link to it, didn’t say what it showed, what the methodology was or anything else. That’s not a cite.
Immaterial. You have not provided any evidence either. Bricker’s claim is exactly as supported as yours is.
Dio has every right to be certain. All people are looking for is the research and reasoning he’s used to become so certain.
OK… although I’d point out that you haven’t even done that… that is, you’ve presented no evidence at all.
In the study, Godwin and Canter compiled the case notes from 54 U.S. serial killers, each of whom had killed at least 10 times. Specifically, they graphed the spatial relationship between the offender’s residence and the locations at which the bodies were dumped, and then added the locations at which the victims were first abducted.
The following predictions emerged from their analysis:
[ul]
[li]The victims were encountered relatively close to the killers’ residences[/li][li]The bodies were dumped some distance away, in different, random directions[/li][li]The distance from the residence to the spot of first encounter increased over time - the first victim was closer to the killer’s home when abducted than the fifth victim was, and more so for the tenth, and so on[/li][li]The distance from the residence to the body’s dumping ground decreased over time - the first victim was dumped farther from the killer’s home than the fifth victim was, and more so for the tenth, and so on[/li][/ul]
They gleaned information from interviews with the offenders, and then validated that information against the police reports in each murder case. They applied regression analysis to the data collected and saw consistent behavior from case to case.
All the needed research is in the linked article. Profiling is cold reading. It also still remains a fact that no one has been able to cite an example of profiling solving a crime. Woo doesn’t work. I don’t need to do research in order to say that with confidence.
That’s too small a sample to yield statsitically significant results, and unless 100% of them followed this pattern, it has no predicative value for individualized cases. Were the numbers 100%? If not, then this study has no utility because it can’t predict that any individual suspect will necessarily follow this pattern It’s also not psychological profiling since it says nothing about the personality or identity of the specific killer, but just presents a generalization about serial killers as a whole.
So no, whatever gotchya ya case you’re waiting to spring on me will not be an example of criminal profiling solving a case. Profiling is bunk.
Sorry. I don’t know anything about profiling, but I know you are absolutely incorrect. It’s a fact, because I said so. I win!
It would be really easy to prove me wrong. I should be a sitting duck with this. All anybody needs to do is show one case of profiling soving a crime. What’s the holdup?
Which crimes did they solve using this research?
Personally – and I’ve said this several times now – I’m not trying to prove you wrong. Rather, I’m asking you to prove yourself to be correct. Declaring “Because I know this to be true” doesn’t cut it, especially when it comes to the extreme claim that profiling is NEVER, EVER helpful.
Since I can’t and don’t claim ANY type of expertise on this subject, let me ask- what does “profiling” mean to the actual, flesh and blood FBI agents who do it?
Most of us laymen know little about the practice, other than what we read in cheesey Thomas Harris novels or see on “Criminal Minds.” IF real FBI profilers were like Will Graham (getting into the minds of killers, learning to think like mass murderers), then “woo” would be exactly the right word. Heck, even in “Red Dragon,” Graham’s uncanny ability to think like a psychopath didn’t lead to the Tooth Fairy’s capture! Rather, Graham caught the Tooth Fairy by figuring out that the killer must have worked for the company that processed the victims’ home movies. THAT’S something any agent or cop could have figured out! It’s something Graham MIGHT have figured out sooner if he’d spent more time on the tangible evidence and less trying to get inside Francis Dolarhyde’s twisted fantasies.
But my guess is that REAL profilers aren’t anything like Will Graham. More likely, they study violent crimes in depth and look for patterns and commonalities among the people who commit them.
Does that kind of study yield results that are of genuine benefit in solving cases? I don’t know- but that is NOT “woo,” it’s a plausible approach, one worthy of further study. If the FBI determines, after exhaustive study, that one particular type of person (by age, ethnicity, race, personality type, whatever) is overwhelmingly responsible for a certain type of crime, that MAY be worth knowing. Or it may just give us an overly broad, overly general group of suspects, which does investigators no good at all.
Obviously, if experience shows that profiling is worthless, by all means dump it. But don’t dismiss it out of hand, just because the concept rubs you the wrong way.
In what way that would satisfy you could he prove himself correct?