John Verdon - Let the Devil Sleep

Nothing jumped out. There were no conspicuous connections among the victims, nor any conspicuous similarities beyond a certain level of financial ability, a shared preference for the Mercedes brand, and a primary or secondary residence within a certain fifty-mile-by-two-hundred-mile rectangle. Beyond their occupational facts, next of kin, and movements the night of each shooting, not much background information had been gathered on the victims themselves-understandably, in a case in which the obvious victim-selection criterion turned out to be their vehicle. If the Mercedes badge was the shooter’s target, it mattered little who wore it or where they’d gone to high school.

But what did I expect to find? And what is it about the Good Shepherd murders that’s making me so damn itchy?

Not only was he itchy, he was thirsty. Gurney remembered seeing some kind of store a block or two back on the main drag. He locked the car and headed for it on foot. It turned out to be a shabby grocery store with high prices, no customers, dusty shelves, and an unpleasant odor. The drinks cooler smelled of sour milk, although there was no milk in it. Gurney bought a bottle of water, paid the bored counter girl, and got out of there as quickly as possible.

Back in the car, as he was opening the water, his phone rang. It was another text from Hardwick: CHECK YOUR E-MAIL. TGS PROFILE. NOTE REFERENCE TO THE BEAUTIFUL BECCA.

He retrieved the e-mail, opened the attachment, and read slowly.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation

Critical Incidents Response Group

National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime

Behavioral Analysis Unit-2

ACCESS: RESTRICTED, NCAVC, CODE B-7

Criminal Investigative Analysis Service Category: Offender Profile

Date: April 25, 2000

Subject: Unknown

Alias: “The Good Shepherd”

Conclusions based on inductive and deductive profiling methodologies, employing factual, physical, historical, linguistic, and psychological analyses of unsub’s “Memorandum of Intent”; forensic study of crime-scene evidence, photographic documentation, timing, and organization; and victim-selection criteria.

SUMMARY OPINION REGARDING UNKNOWN SUBJECT

Unsub is a white male, mid-twenties to late thirties, college graduate with possible postgraduate education, exceptional intelligence. Excellent cognitive functioning.

Unsub is polite, introverted, formal in his manner and social interactions. He is controlling in relationships, with a low capacity for intimacy. He is a compulsive perfectionist with no close friends.

He is well coordinated, with good reflexes. He may exercise regularly in a private setting. He would be seen as self-contained and methodical. He is skilled in the use of a handgun and may be a gun collector or target shooter.

His vocabulary is subtle and precise. Syntax and punctuation are flawless, with no ethnic or regional traits. This may be the result of a cosmopolitan education or broad cultural exposure, or the result of an effort to obliterate the evidence and memories of his upbringing.

Noteworthy are the employment of biblical cadences and avenging imagery in his condemnation of greed, his choice of “The Good Shepherd” as his form of identification, and the placement of the Noah’s Ark animals at attack locations. The religious context-in which white (light) represents good and black (darkness) represents evil-may explain the targeting of black vehicles, underscoring the equivalence of wealth with evil.

His preparation and execution are highly organized. The attack locales indicate careful reconnaissance-all situated on roads commonly used as connecting arteries between main highways and upscale communities (i.e., promising areas for him to find his target victims). The roads are all unlit, thinly populated, with no tollgate or other surveillance-camera positions.

All attacks were carried out on leftward curves. All of the victim vehicles, subsequent to the shootings, exited the pavement on the right side. The evident reason being driver incapacitation resulting in the relaxation of purposeful leftward pressure on the steering wheel, resulting in the car’s tendency to drift from the direction of the turn back to a straighter line of movement. The further consequence would be for the disabled (unsteered) vehicle to move away from the shooter’s vehicle (which would be in the lane to the left of the target at the moment of the shot), thus minimizing the chance of a collision. The level of foresight and timing in this process would place our unsub among the most organized of killers.

MOTIVATION LEVEL-1: Unsub’s stated rationale for attacks is the injustice inherent in the unequal distribution of wealth. He claims that the cause of this inequity is the vice of greed and that greed can be eliminated only by eliminating the greedy. He conflates greed with the ownership of a super-luxury vehicle and has chosen Mercedes as the archetype of that vehicle, making it the identifying characteristic of his target victims.

MOTIVATION LEVEL-2: The Good Shepherd case appears to be one in which a classic psychoanalytic formulation may apply: an underlying oedipal rage against a powerful and abusive father. Throughout his Memorandum of Intent, the unsub repeatedly conflates greed, wealth, and power. Also supporting the psychoanalytic interpretation, the unsub’s choice of weapon (one of the world’s largest handguns) has unavoidable phallic implications and is an obvious marker for this type of pathology.

NOTE: An objection might be raised to the father-hatred motivation, based on the inclusion of a woman among the victims. However, Sharon Stone was exceptionally tall for a woman, had her hair styled in a unisex crew cut, and was wearing a black leather jacket. Viewed at night through her vehicle’s side window with only faint dashboard illumination outlining her face, she may have presented a visual impression that appeared more male than female. It may also be that the unsub’s single criterion was the luxury vehicle itself, making the gender of the driver irrelevant.

The document concluded with a list of related journal articles in fields such as forensic linguistics, psychometrics, and psychopathology. That was followed by a list of professional books by heavily credentialed Ph.D. authors: The Sublimation of Rage, Sexual Repression and Violence, Family Structure and Societal Attitudes, Pathologies Fostered by Abuse, Societal Crusades as Expressions of Early Trauma , and, last on the list… Mission-Driven Serial Murder by Rebecca Holdenfield, Ph.D.

After staring for a long moment at that final familiar name, Gurney scrolled back to the beginning of the document and read the whole thing through one more time-doing his best to keep an open mind. It was difficult. The less-than-scientific conclusions wrapped in scientific language, and the overall academic smugness of the writing, triggered the same argumentative feelings in him that were triggered by every profile he read.

In his over two decades of homicide experience, he’d discovered that profiles were occasionally dead-on, occasionally dead wrong, but mostly a mixed bag. You never knew until the game was over whether you had a good one, and, of course, if the game never ended, you ended up never knowing.

But it wasn’t just the fallibility of profiles that bothered him. It was the failure of many of their creators and users to recognize that fallibility.

He wondered why he’d been so eager to read this one, why it couldn’t wait till later, seeing that he had so little faith in the art. Was it just the combative mood he was in? The desire to pick holes in something, to argue about something?

He shook his head, disgusted with himself. How many pointless questions could he come up with? How many angels could dance on the head of a pin?