The Grudge
If the studies into serial rape and serial killings by the FBI Behavioural Sciences Unit (BSU) at Quantico offered the world anything, it was that identifying and understanding perpetrators, who they are and what drives them provides us with the tools urgently needed to catch them. It can also be employed to prevent more serious crimes by identifying the signs that anti-social and deviant youths display that could signal a rapist or killers in the making. In Ann Burgess' step ways to murder...
It all starts with a grudge...
Delving into the minds of rapists and serial offenders is not for the faint–hearted. In the beginning of former investigator and criminal profiler, Robert K. Ressler's well–known book, Whoever Fights Monsters, he includes the following quote:
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
The following article is based primarily on the works of Ann Burgess, Lynda Holmstrom and the recent interview Burgess had with former Australian detective, Gary Jubelin in his podcast: I Catch Killers
The name Ann Burgess is synonymous with the massive strides associated with understanding the criminal mind. As an integral member of the FBI Behavioural Science Unit (BSU) in the 1970s, Burgess was the quantifier, the collector of data and the one who gave structure in the systematic approach of gathering the invaluable data from the interviews which experts like John Douglas, Roy Hazelwood and Robert Ressler obtained from serial perpetrators to so they could later profile crimes and catch killers.
(Ann Burgess.Image Source: TODAY Illustration / Getty Images, 2024)
In the recent interview on Jubelin’s podcast ¨I Catch Killers¨ Ann shared that she started her career as a psychiatric nurse, but was passionate and driven by research and data collection which would later aid in the identification of patterns amongst criminals. This unquenchable drive led her to conduct research on Rape victims at the suggestion of a colleague, Lynda Holmstrom. Holmstrom suggested that this was going to be a pertinent area of study. This was in the 70s and at the time during which the second Women´s movement was starting to gain traction. With groups starting to sprout around the country, termed ¨Consciousness Raising Groups ¨, women gathered to share with eachother topics they had never spoken out loud before, including rape, gender-based violence and incest. It became obvious that this was something that needed to be spoken about, to be studied, analysed and to understand why it happened.
Both Lynda and Ann recognised that a study on rape was necessary, but it was difficult to find victims of rape who had long since been silenced and experienced an enormous amount of shame. Ann reported that following a long search, the only place where they knew they could potentially find victims was at hospitals, in the Emergency Rooms, where police would bring victims of sexual assault. This led them to starting a study, the first of its kind at Boston City Hospital – a large, urban hospital – which comprised of 146 victims that were studied over one year. Victims ranged in age between 3 and 73 years old. Small children and the elderly were amongst the few, with the majority being within an expected range of victims in their late teens to early 20s.
Unbeknownst to Ann and Lynda, the FBI were later expected to carry out training of agents in the crime and investigation of rapes. However, without any expertise on this type of crime at the time, the study that had been carried out at Boston City Hospital´s Emergency Rooms became of tremendous value and was published in The American Journal of Nursing. At the behest of both an investigator and nurse who worked with the now world–renowned investigator, Roy Hazelwood , he read the study and Burgess was exactly what the FBI needed. He was the investigator placed in charge of the training and so two worlds collided in the most impactful and salient way, later driving tremendous change in the way we view crime, investigate it and understand the motives behind it. Subsequently, Ann helped Hazelwood train officers on rape cases.
Titled ´Rape Trauma Syndrome´, the abstract of the study by Burgess and Holmstrom cites the following:
The authors interviewed and followed 146 patients admitted during a one-year period to the emergency ward of a city hospital with a presenting complaint of having been raped. Based upon an analysis of the 92 adult women rape victims in the sample, they document the existence of a rape trauma syndrome and delineate its symptomatology as well as that of two variations, compounded reaction and silent reaction. Specific therapeutic techniques are required for each of these three reactions. Crisis intervention counselling is effective with typical rape trauma syndrome; additional professional help is needed in the case of compounded reaction; and the silent rape reaction means that the clinician must be alert to indications of the possibility of rape having occurred even when the patient never mentions such an attack.
(Ann Burgess and Lynda Holmstrom. SagePub, https://sk.sagepub.com/video/rape-trauma-syndrome)
Following this training, attention was directed to trying to understand criminal personalities and subsequently another study ensued by well-known detectives Robert Ressler and John Douglas. Whilst the FBI dealt with crime and had access to criminals, what they lacked was structure, a methodology and a framework in which research data could be collected and thus be analysed. This is where Burgess was an integral part of the team. Investigative knowledge analysed employing scientific research methodologies would later provide the world with the in-depth knowledge we now have on criminal minds, and it birthed the terms profiler and the addictive, binge–watching Netflix series Mindhunter in which Ann is portrayed as the frustrated research scientist who butts heads with investigators because questionnaires and precise data collection was not something investigators were familiar with as investigators tended to think in abstract terms.
(Roy Hazelwood, Robert Ressler & John Douglas shown in image. x.com, 2019,
This is also when the premise that Rape was about power and control began to emerge: that rape was not driven by an urge to have sex. Ann states that rape certainly happens within a sexual context but has more to do with dominance, power and anger. Consequently, the wider public began to understand a lot more about the perpetration of sexual violence and law enforcement began to understand that a victim can tell you a lot about the perpetrator. Victimology and its salience to an investigation, described by Ann is pivotal and focuses on paying careful attention to what the victim tells you about what occurs in detail, from how they get targeted, what the perpetrators did and said and the minutiae of their behaviours during the crime because this is when you begin to see patterns and identify the mindset of serial perpetrators. The FBI at Quantico realised the pertinence of this information and began utilising it as the key starting point of an investigative unit because victims could tell you a lot more about the offender than an offender would ever previously disclosed.
Now interrogative questions were concerned with: Why was he/she targeted or selected? What type of person victimised her? And with this type of information, like a trail of breadcrumbs, the investigative search centred around this information because it is in identifying patterns which sharpen investigative techniques and is not solely for crimes of rape, but encompasses all crime, especially serial killers.
A case in which Ann describes the importance of knowing the signature of a serial rapist in which – regardless of where it would take place (the MO: Modus Operandi), his signature would always remain the same. It was always exhibitionist in nature. All victims were immobilised, all rapes took place in risky areas, and he would always need witnesses. That is, he would have the partner or children watch the assault. These types of behaviours can often be traced back to the
offender´s past and sure enough in this case, the offender had witnessed a sexual assault occur with his father victimising his sister when he was still a small child. Thus, ultimately these behaviours assist in linking crimes and associating them with a single perpetrator because when it is known what motivates them to carry out their crimes in a particular manner, they are easier to find. Investigators, based on this pattern of behaviours, believed that the type of car the offender would likely drive would be flashy as he would like the attention and it was this small piece of information based on the personality type drawn up-that the offender would have a flashy vehicle- that when a red, flashy type car was spotted at two of crime scenes, it instantly drew the attention of officers. This car was later identified as belonging to the person they were looking for.
Jubelin asked Burgess to define criminal profiling as there is an array of perceptions in society, mostly influenced by the media and popular TV shows, but she described it as:
When we talk about criminal profiling, we´re talking about the work that is done by investigators, not through psychologists. It is through the investigative work of suspects who have committed a crime and then deciphering this behaviour. What our work was in profiling was to get a large amount of data to either support or not support what we had been learning and that is what they needed me for. To provide a methodology for the data that investigators had because they were not researchers, they were charged with investigating crimes. To answer your question, you need to know what type individual –based on his crime – does which is going to match his or her background and that is why there are so many differing definitions of profiling.
Thoughts drive behaviours
That is how we all operate – that is our thinking is motivates our behaviours – and understanding the thoughts of an offender is so paramount to getting to know how they think and consequently can aid investigative efforts in their apprehension. It is with this knowledge that Burgess is trying to catch offenders before they act on their thoughts with the use of AI, we can scan social media posts and any written material in which we can be proactive in preventing offences before they occur.
Burgess refers to 23 manifestos that were written by offenders before they had committed any crime and noticed that there is a very specific pattern which can be identified. It is a quick way to get inside the way they think because it's their thinking that gets them on the pathway to murder. What is termed Stepways to murder, which highlights 6 steps which all murderers go through, is a way in which we can get to these people while they still only have a grudge or are still embroiled in their research and thus it can also open the goal pf preventative policing. It has been identified that serial or mass murderers all go through quite predictable stages.
Stepways to Murder
It all starts with a GRUDGE. This is something which makes the future offender highly upset and manifests in an overwhelming sense of anger. This untreated and deeply–rooted angst then develops into the next step, which is what is called an:
Ideology, and this happens when the individual begins to align themselves with a specific group – which may or may not happen – and then they:
Research. This is when they begin to look around for similar types of people, with the same thought–driven behaviours and outlook and this is broken down into:
Grouping and associating themselves with groups called incels, like Nationalists or Extremists, and then begins the:
Plan where they now feel they have sufficient information to plan a killing. These include setting a date, writing a manifesto, although this may change for several reasons, however the ¨plan¨ remains the same.
Lastly, there is the Execution of the Plan and this is when they put into action what they have planned to do, and this is when a murder will take place.
An example, which Ann feels illustrates these steps clearly is the case of Elliot Rodgers in which Rodgers murdered six people, injuring fourteen others (utilising both knives and a semi-automatic pistol). He started by killing his two flatmates and their friend in the residence they shared, by ambushing each one and stabbing them multiple times. He then went on to shoot and kill two women outside a sorority house, a man in a delicatessen when he drove by and fired the fatal shot. Why this case is of significance is because Rodgers had e-mailed a 137-page long manifesto: My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger. to his family, acquaintances and past therapists and uploaded a YouTube video in which he announced his desire to punish women. He was a misogynist and later became an incel icon in manosphere communities and even inspired one act of misogynist terror in 2018, referred to as the 2018 Toronto Attack. When looking into the lengthy history of Elliot Rodgers, from his early life to when he was apprehended for his crimes, these steps to murder to which Burgess describes is clear. Refer to the following link for more interesting background and in-depth information on the case here.
(Image Source: Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Rodger)
Understanding serial offenders and the importance of Victimology, conducting interviews with rapists in South Africa is an important tool which is lacking in law enforcement. Not enough data is being recorded with reference to the overall victimology and police lack the ability and training to conduct proper interviews with perpetrators.
Keep following our blogs as we attempt to rally together to drive change in the current nationwide protocols in incidences of sexual violence in our country. If you notice any of the six steps in the pathways in which Burgess mentioned in this article, contact us. Rape Crisis Helderberg isn’t only invested in being reactive in assaults of sexual violence but have a deep curiosity in what has worked in the research of Burgess and Holmstrom when it comes to rapists, victimology and the importance of what drives the highest number of rapes in the world in South Africa.
Watch the full interview here or head to our homepage.
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