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Expert: D.C. Sniper May be Commuting from Virginia

Aired October 08, 2002 - 14:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, police and federal investigators are following a number of leads, like Jeanne said, in their hunt for this Maryland sniper and among the tools in their arsenal: a geographical profile of the gunmen. How did they come up with it? How can it help?
Dr. Maurice Godwin is a criminal investigative psychologist. He joins us now from Raleigh, North Carolina to explain a little bit more about this.

Good to see you, sir.

DR. MAURICE GODWIN, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGIST: Thank you very much for having me on the show.

PHILLIPS: Well, take me inside a geographic profile room. How do you gather your information? How do you start to put together this profile?

GODWIN: Well, first of all, the geographic profile, the archaic version of it, was really the pin maps that you've seen on police shows up on the wall and stuff recording the location of crimes.

And over the years what they have done is they have taken that and several individuals in the U.S., and also overseas in Britain, have taken that and developed that into a computerized system and they've added one other element to that.

Using the crime scene locations, that could be body dumps -- in case of like a serial murder it could be body dumps. It could be where the victims went missing from, the abduction sites. Also, any evidence that's left along, say, the highway, a purse found in a ditch. The geographical coordinates, latitude and longitude, of those coordinates can be put into the computerized system and used as a distance to gauge a mathematical algorithm to predict the most likely home base area that the offender will live.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

GODWIN: And that's essentially what it does. Now, the thing -- the problem is that in serial cases such as murder and rapes, a lot of these times, the area that it predicts in could be several square miles wide. So --

PHILLIPS: So, when you -- Dr. Godwin, when you look at these coordinates, when you analyze the certain areas, is it possible to find out or could this information lead you to where this killer lives?

GODWIN: Most certainly. Most certainly. In a geographic profile that I did here in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1997, I predicted within one block of where the killer lived at.

In several other cases -- for example, in one case they predicted within a mile radius, square mile radius. They also had one description of a car which was a white car, a particular type of car, a corvette. They can search within that specific area of owners with a white corvette and that helps them narrow down, you know, possible suspects.

So, in that instance, geographical profiling can help. But it has been -- and you have to have a series of crimes in order to make it work. In other words, just one or two crimes, usually it's no good.

PHILLIPS: All right, well, looking at this case now, obviously there's more than one or two crimes. I mean, you've got eight incidents here, all within pretty much the same area.

What have you noticed about this intelligence? What are you -- what seems interesting to you? Do you think this shooter lives somewhere in this area?

GODWIN: Well, I'm sure the other geographical profiler in this case system has probably put it -- put the home base area in and around the cluster in Maryland of where the other -- of where the five shootings occurred in the area, because I know the system.

I also have a system too named -- called predator. And I've done a limited geographical analysis of this. If you actually look at the crimes from No. 7 all the way up to the five and the one on the 8th you'll see the form of a wedge. It's a wedge shape, sort of like a windshield wiper wedge or a ice cream cone with the point being at number 7. Looking at this crime, it's no more than 40 degrees angle. So that means the crimes, all these crimes, encompasses a narrow angle.

PHILLIPS: And what does that mean? What could that mean?

GODWIN: Well, what they're doing is they're using the artery route that they're using is Interstate 95.

If you look at coming up from Fredericksburg, up 95 around the circle, the crimes are occurring in that circle. To me, that tells me that at least one of the killers, if there's more than one, they're driving in, or he is driving in from probably Northern Virginia into the crime scene area and then driving back out using 95 as the escape route.

PHILLIPS: Interesting. So you could take this information and say to police, You need to look at 95 and have police on both ends all across that area and be patrolling that area, because more than likely your geographical profile tells you this is where the killer's coming in and out of on a regular basis. GODWIN: Well, that's right. Crime No. 7 is down in Fredericksburg, some 20 something miles away. And if you draw a circle -- not a circle but lines, you will see that it forms a distinct wedge shape. And my research on 54 American serial killers found a distinctive wedge shape less than 40 degrees between the crimes. And the point -- the narrow point usually, but not always, usually is -- points toward the general home base area of the offender.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Maurice Godwin, criminal investigative psychologist. Fascinating stuff. Thank you, sir, for your insight.

GODWIN: Thank you for having me.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 8, 2002 - 14:31   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, police and federal investigators are following a number of leads, like Jeanne said, in their hunt for this Maryland sniper and among the tools in their arsenal: a geographical profile of the gunmen. How did they come up with it? How can it help?
Dr. Maurice Godwin is a criminal investigative psychologist. He joins us now from Raleigh, North Carolina to explain a little bit more about this.

Good to see you, sir.

DR. MAURICE GODWIN, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGIST: Thank you very much for having me on the show.

PHILLIPS: Well, take me inside a geographic profile room. How do you gather your information? How do you start to put together this profile?

GODWIN: Well, first of all, the geographic profile, the archaic version of it, was really the pin maps that you've seen on police shows up on the wall and stuff recording the location of crimes.

And over the years what they have done is they have taken that and several individuals in the U.S., and also overseas in Britain, have taken that and developed that into a computerized system and they've added one other element to that.

Using the crime scene locations, that could be body dumps -- in case of like a serial murder it could be body dumps. It could be where the victims went missing from, the abduction sites. Also, any evidence that's left along, say, the highway, a purse found in a ditch. The geographical coordinates, latitude and longitude, of those coordinates can be put into the computerized system and used as a distance to gauge a mathematical algorithm to predict the most likely home base area that the offender will live.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

GODWIN: And that's essentially what it does. Now, the thing -- the problem is that in serial cases such as murder and rapes, a lot of these times, the area that it predicts in could be several square miles wide. So --

PHILLIPS: So, when you -- Dr. Godwin, when you look at these coordinates, when you analyze the certain areas, is it possible to find out or could this information lead you to where this killer lives?

GODWIN: Most certainly. Most certainly. In a geographic profile that I did here in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1997, I predicted within one block of where the killer lived at.

In several other cases -- for example, in one case they predicted within a mile radius, square mile radius. They also had one description of a car which was a white car, a particular type of car, a corvette. They can search within that specific area of owners with a white corvette and that helps them narrow down, you know, possible suspects.

So, in that instance, geographical profiling can help. But it has been -- and you have to have a series of crimes in order to make it work. In other words, just one or two crimes, usually it's no good.

PHILLIPS: All right, well, looking at this case now, obviously there's more than one or two crimes. I mean, you've got eight incidents here, all within pretty much the same area.

What have you noticed about this intelligence? What are you -- what seems interesting to you? Do you think this shooter lives somewhere in this area?

GODWIN: Well, I'm sure the other geographical profiler in this case system has probably put it -- put the home base area in and around the cluster in Maryland of where the other -- of where the five shootings occurred in the area, because I know the system.

I also have a system too named -- called predator. And I've done a limited geographical analysis of this. If you actually look at the crimes from No. 7 all the way up to the five and the one on the 8th you'll see the form of a wedge. It's a wedge shape, sort of like a windshield wiper wedge or a ice cream cone with the point being at number 7. Looking at this crime, it's no more than 40 degrees angle. So that means the crimes, all these crimes, encompasses a narrow angle.

PHILLIPS: And what does that mean? What could that mean?

GODWIN: Well, what they're doing is they're using the artery route that they're using is Interstate 95.

If you look at coming up from Fredericksburg, up 95 around the circle, the crimes are occurring in that circle. To me, that tells me that at least one of the killers, if there's more than one, they're driving in, or he is driving in from probably Northern Virginia into the crime scene area and then driving back out using 95 as the escape route.

PHILLIPS: Interesting. So you could take this information and say to police, You need to look at 95 and have police on both ends all across that area and be patrolling that area, because more than likely your geographical profile tells you this is where the killer's coming in and out of on a regular basis. GODWIN: Well, that's right. Crime No. 7 is down in Fredericksburg, some 20 something miles away. And if you draw a circle -- not a circle but lines, you will see that it forms a distinct wedge shape. And my research on 54 American serial killers found a distinctive wedge shape less than 40 degrees between the crimes. And the point -- the narrow point usually, but not always, usually is -- points toward the general home base area of the offender.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Maurice Godwin, criminal investigative psychologist. Fascinating stuff. Thank you, sir, for your insight.

GODWIN: Thank you for having me.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com