Serial Killer in Ipswich, England

CFLarsen said:
"I'm bad, I'm bad..."



The police (at least in 'Murricah) also use the polygraph.

(But your royals, Chuck in particular, use and advocate homeopathy)
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Hardly any polygraphs in the UK. We are smart! Oh wait, you pulled the Royal Family trump card out :(

OK, we're stupid.
 
tkingdoll said:
The police don't.
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Look into the recent thread about arson investigators useing bad science. It was giving them the convictions they wanted, even if there was no real evidence of arson, so what is the problem there?

How much shorter is the average invistigation with a profiler compared to one with out one? How about some dirrect measure of effectiveness like that.
 
I think that predictions such as these, regardless of the type of person that makes them are at best a rough pointer, and are at worst misleading, unless there is a chain of logic pointing back to the data collected from the scene.

Statements such as "The murderer is from the area" could lead the police to focus on the wrong group of people without anything to show that was absolutely the case.

I live in Ipswich, and in my opinion, any turn off the A12/14 Ipswich bypass away from the town would lead you to countryside without much knowlege of the local area. In fact, I think even a local would be beaten to good sites by someone who had access to google earth.

Statements that I would percieve as being useful would be based on the cold facts. For example, if you can work out where the murder must have been, and where they weren't, if you can tie down the times, you can work out the maximum and minimum speeds a vehicle might have travelled to be in those locations. That might limit the number of vehicles used, or even demonstrate that a vehicle wasn't required.

The only time that perhaps they may have a use is to lead police in areas they may not have considered, although I don't think anything from the list presented at the beginning of the post would do that.
 
Larry Lovage said:
I caught a few minutes of it, and this guy was moving his head in a really strange way while he was talking, and I figured out that he simply did not look anybody in the eye whom he was talking to. I was like, "Psychologist, heal thyself!"
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Could this be a case of 'it takes one to know one', i.e. that somebody with a particular kind of character flaw, who may be a little weird, but not weird enough to become one of them himself, is better at empathizing (but not sympathizing) with these guys and thus profiling them?
Invariably they will say that a serial killer is a white male. You don't even need statistical studies to make that guess. And if it's wrong, it's just the exception that proves the rule.
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Isn't it strange that invariably they appear to actully be white males? Killing as such does not appear to have racial aspects (look at the Hutus versus Tsutsis), but the kind of sexual obsession that leads to serial killing appears to be predominantly a Caucasian thing.
Genes, society/culture or upbringing?

After Randi's recent Time to grow up article reporting from two African countries, I would like to know: What is wrong with white (male) people?
 
gtc said:
This article lists the predictions ...
...
It will be interesting to see how many of his predictions are bourne out by the evidence (sooner rather than later I hope).

By the way I think I have the list right, it can be hard to gauge the author's confidence in his predictions just from a newspaper article. I apologise if there is an existing thread, I couldn't find one through the search function.
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Lothian said:
I suspect the hit rate will be high as the predictions are very similar to those made by cold reading psychics. They are vague and offer many alternative ‘outs’ which can show the prediction to be correct, even when it appears it was wrong. ...
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ohp said:
I think that predictions such as these, ...
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These are not predictions. These are observations made by someone skilled in handling information about serial killers.

From the article:
"There are a couple of reasons why I believe this."
"The likely outcome is ..."
"A lot that can be read into ..."
"It is possible ..."
"That is why, I would suggest, ..."
"Joseph Diaz is associate professor of criminology at Fayetteville State University, North Carolina. An expert on serial killers, he has interviewed many notorious murderers."

Not predictions - determinations based on the information to hand. Nothing mystical or psychic here.
 
chillzero said:
These are not predictions. These are observations made by someone skilled in handling information about serial killers.
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It's the observations that are missing. Where's the chain of logic? Where is the observable fact about this case that led to the deduction that it was a man? I suspect there wasn't one, only that most serial killers are men.

chillzero said:
Not predictions - determinations based on the information to hand. Nothing mystical or psychic here.
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A prediction is not a mystical thing. It is the basis on which the prediction was made that can be mystical.

Anyway, I don't want to start discussing semantics. I suspect this person has a depth of scientifically derived knowledge, and that he would have a clearer impression of the killer than you or I. I don't think that the predictions/forecasts/prognoses he has made have been based on mystical or unscientific methods.

However, I suspect that the predictions have been either made on the basis of other cases, or on the scant information recieved from the press. They may very well prove to be true, but they do seem rather vague. If this man was working with suffolk police, working directly with the evidence to hand, then perhaps his list would be lmore specific, and more useful in tracking down the killer.
 
brodski said:
Which UK forces use psychics?
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Sorry I was not referring to the UK, I was primarily referring to the US - "police" in general.

I'm not aware of any UK force using "official" psychics, although I believe some offers have been - and are - followed up.

EDIT: Allow me to clarify that last part, it doesn't read like I intended. I mean that I believe that UK police will, on occasion, investigate information from "psychics", although not involve them in the investigation.
 
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baron said:
Incorrect. Many forces do, and sometimes use alleged psychics with disturbing regularity.
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Cripes. That's disturbing. What's the most recent incidence of The Uk police employing psychics that you are aware?
 
baron said:
Sorry I was not referring to the UK, I was primarily referring to the US - "police" in general.

I'm not aware of any UK force using "official" psychics, although I believe some offers have been - and are - followed up.

EDIT: Allow me to clarify that last part, it doesn't read like I intended. I mean that I believe that UK police will, on occasion, investigate information from "psychics", although not involve them in the investigation.
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Aaah.

Ultimately I wouldn't put it past an individual officer using dowsing, or using a psychic, but I don't think it would creep up the command chain far.
 
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ohp said:
Cripes. That's disturbing. What's the most recent incidence of The Uk police employing psychics that you are aware?
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Please see my answer above. I should not have confused the matter by talking about non-UK police forces.
 
The police will follow up information from anyone regardless.A "psychic" will not be given any more attention than me ringing in.
 
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