Patterns of Disposal

The process of disposing of the victim's body varies from killer to killer. Some choose to leave the victim where they were killed, others use elaborate, ritualistic methods to dispose of the body. In this section of the study of serial killers we are taking a look at the mind of a serial killer. The following is an internal dialogue from a serial killer describing his thoughts when he confronted the body of his first murder victim:

I got a dead body on my hands. People saw me come in here. How am I going to pack this out? Am I gonna put it in a double bag or sheet and carry it out of here? I figured the smaller the better. I chopped [the body] up... stuffed some in the refrigerator... dumped guts in vacant lots... throwing pieces here and there, whatever came out of the bag first... I was scared.

Body State

Another way in which investigators can interpret the behavioral characteristics of a serial killer is by looking at the manner in which he leaves the victim's body. After killing, the murderer must dispose of the body, but he chooses whether or not the victim is easily visible, the clothing they are wearing, and the positions of the body. First of all the victim's body may be hidden to avoid detection, or it may be left in the open, because the circumstances do not allow the murderer to hide it, like in the case of a man who shot young women from a distance at relatively public locations; the victim's bodies were then left where they fell. The visibility of a victim illustrates the subtlety in which a killer can portray his style or make a statement. One killer left one of six of the female victim's bodies on the front porch step of his brothers home. On the other side of the spectrum, murderers may choose to bury the body or hide it in order to maintain control of the killings. As for the clothing, almost 50% of sexual homicide victims were found nude. If they were left partially clothed, the body would still be found in "sexual disarray", with the clothing used to bind him or her.

It is important to remember that every behavior of the serial killer is very intentional (being a characteristic of their particular style), or the act has an underlying meaning that they themselves may not even be aware of. Everything is done with a purpose. For instance, a victim's state of dress is occasionally rather bizarre when found. In one case, many of the victims buried underneath one murderer's house were found with articles of clothing stuffed into their mouths and in varying stages of undress. It was obvious that the women had not died of suffocation, so why were their mouths stuffed? One can only speculate. Lastly, bodies are usually found arranged in a certain way for specific reasons. This is one of the key ways investigators are able to link one killing to the next. In about 30% of sexual serial murders, the body is specifically positioned, for any number of reasons: murderer's need to obscure certain facts about the crime, or it may have special relevance only to the killer, based on his sexually violent fantasies:

The day after the murder, the two men and a girlfriend returned to the crime scene, where the body had been left, to move it to a location where it would be more easily found. They undressed the body, washed it with water from a nearby spring, and drove it to a nearby dumping area. There the girlfriend heard one of the men say, "We're going to make this look like a rape." After removing the body from the car, the men stabbed the body, attempting to decapitate it, and mutilated various body parts with a knife. One man then attempted to have intercourse with the corpse.