The Evil That Men Do Part 29

Agencies nevertheless still submit such crimes for a.n.a.lysis.

A sheriff once contacted Hazelwood with a special request. "I would appreciate some priority service on a case we have here," said the lawman. "I'd like to send you the photographs."

A few days later, Roy received twenty-eight full-color eight-by-ten photos of the sheriff's battered car. Roy glanced through the photos, scene after scene of dents and smashed gla.s.s.

He reached for his phone and dialed up the sheriff.

"Sheriff," he said, "somebody's really p.i.s.sed at you."

End of profile.

The Vetter murder scene, to Ray's relief, told a detailed story. It remains vivid in Roy's recollection for two reasons.

As he and Jim Wright stepped past the yellow police tape into the sealed-off apartment, the agents saw an enormous bloodstain where Donna Vetter had lain in her living-room rug. It was a detailed crimson impression of the dead woman; not just a vaguely suggestive blotch, but plain as a full-size photographic negative, done in her blood.

"It was like the Shroud of Turin," Roy recalls. "I've never ever seen anything like it."

Moments later, Hazelwood was struck with a sudden presentiment.

"Jim, a black guy did this," Roy said to Wright.

"You can't say that," the other agent replied. "You just got here."

Roy had made what is known to mental health workers as a threshold diagnosis. He could not say why he thought the UNSUB was black. He didn't know, and that annoyed him. A strict empiricist, Hazelwood does not believe in intuition.

When he returned to Quantico he thought perhaps Judd Ray, a black agent who had been with the Atlanta police before joining the FBI, could shed some light on the matter.

He couldn't.

Hazelwood showed Ray the Vetter crime-scene photos.

"Give me the race," he asked.

"Black," Ray answered without hesitation.

"How do you know that?"

Judd Ray shrugged. "You can just tell," he said. Ray was no better able than Hazelwood to articulate his certainty.

Donna Lynn Vetter's killer did leave a rich array of behavioral evidence behind him. In fact, as the Vetter investigation unfolded, her murder emerged as a cla.s.sic instance of the applicability of behavioral a.n.a.lysis to criminal investigation. It also offered a broad range of features rarely seen all together in a single case, everything from clues that fell together under simple deductive reasoning to the development of an investigative strategy that dramatically narrowed and focused the hunt for Vetter's killer.

Today, when Hazelwood lectures on profiling to police and other professional audiences, he uses Donna Vetter's rape-murder as a case study and workshop problem for his students to a.n.a.lyze.

Readers who themselves are now familiar with some of profiling's rudiments are invited to draw their own step-by-step behavioral portrait of the UNSUB, as well.

Here are the facts.

Jerome and Virginia Vetter's daughter, Donna Lynn, twenty-four, was a 1982 high school honor graduate from New Braunfels, Texas, a small German American community and popular tourist destination a few miles northeast of San Antonio.

In February 1986, Donna moved to San Antonio, Texas's third-largest city, to be closer to her typist's job at the FBI office. Five nine and 165 pounds, Vetter was described by friends and family as a frugal, shy, naive, and deeply religious young woman with no s.e.xual history, and almost no social life at all.

Her two pa.s.sions were sewing and bubble gum.

She lived alone in a one-bedroom first-floor apartment fronting a heavily traveled walkway in an apartment complex located in a high-crime area of northeast San Antonio. The local population was 70 percent Hispanic, 20 percent black, and 10 percent white.

Vetter was anything but reckless in her views or habits. Yet perhaps because of her naivete, she was not as cautious about her personal safety as prudence dictated.

Steve Harris, a security guard at the complex, later said that Donna almost always came home from work alone in the evening, and often spent her nights sewing. Despite his frequent admonitions, she would open her windows and curtains, offering any pa.s.serby a clear view of her as she worked.

Donna told Harris she disliked air-conditioning.

One other piece of victimology that would figure in the profile was her father's advice that Donna would resist wildly if any man attempted to hurt her. He advised that Donna would "fight to the death to defend her virginity."

Steve Harris last saw Donna Vetter alive as he walked past her apartment at 9:20 the previous evening. Her curtains were open.

The security officer returned to Vetter's apartment at 11:20, responding to a report that a screen was missing from her front window.

It was. Donna's curtains were drawn, as well, and her front door was ajar.

Harris pushed the door open, and immediately saw the lifeless woman, supine on the living-room rug. Her clothing had been ripped from her body.

"Her eyes were swollen shut," Harris later testified in court. "There were bruise marks on her face. She seemed covered in blood."

Besides the facial battering, Vetter was subjected to a furious knife a.s.sault. She had sustained defensive knife wounds to both hands, four superficial stab wounds in her chest, defense wounds to her left thigh, and two deep stab wounds to her chest.

She had been mortally wounded, her lungs filling with blood, when her attacker finally stopped stabbing her and violently raped the dying woman.

A schematic drawing of the crime scene is shown on the following page.

The killer climbed through the window by the chair shown at bottom, leaving telltale fingerprints as he did so. He also knocked over a potted plant, and then set it straight.

The telephone, shown at right, was unplugged from the wall.

Vetter's body was discovered as shown. Her a.s.sailant had dragged her by her knees onto the living-room rug-where she had been raped-from the kitchen, where the floor was slick with her blood. It was evident the shoeless UNSUB had slipped and lost his footing in the blood as he tried to move her. He left footprints in the kitchen.

A fresh head of lettuce lay on the kitchen shelf. On the floor, investigators found a jar of salad dressing. On the kitchen wall were Vetter's carefully organized weeklong menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Lunch on Friday, had Donna Lynn Vetter lived to prepare it, was going to be a salad.

There was another small pool of her blood at the intersection of the apartment hallway and her living room.

A wad of chewing gum was found in the living room, as shown.

Her gla.s.ses were recovered from the floor near the dining-room table.

The bedroom was undisturbed, as was the storage area and the rest of the hallway. In the unflushed bathroom bowl, investigators discovered urine, but no tissue paper. The seat was down.

A butcher knife belonging to the victim was found beneath the cus.h.i.+on of the chair next to the front door.

Hazelwood and Wright's first step was to determine if this UNSUB was organized or disorganized. If the reader is a.n.a.lyzing, too, you may wish to cover the italicized text below as you consider which type of offender you believe attacked Donna Vetter, and why.

The bulk of the evidence suggests this was a spontaneous murder. The killer apparently had come completely unequipped for the crime, and committed the murder on an impulse. His means of entry was unsophisticated, and his failure to replace the window screen after gaining entrance reflected both his lack of planning and, probably, low-average level of intelligence.

He'd neglected even to wear shoes, meaning the killer quite literally had arrived on foot. He probably lived nearby, a conclusion b.u.t.tressed by the fact he did not pause to wash up after the a.s.sault, but simply left as he came.

He used a weapon of opportunity (the kitchen knife) and made only a cursory effort to conceal it under a chair cus.h.i.+on as he left.

The UNSUB had trouble gaining control of his victim. To judge from her multiple defensive wounds, Donna Vetter put up a determined fight, as her father indicated she would.

This intruder was disorganized.

The second question was motive. Did the killer enter Vetter's apartment that night intent only on robbery or burglary? Was his primary motive murder? Or had this UNSUB originally come to rape?

Again, you may wish to cover the italicized text below as you consider the evidence.

Theft was not on his mind. After killing Vetter and raping her, he left without taking anything from the apartment.

Had the UNSUB come with the intent to kill Vetter, rather than to rape her, he likely would have brought a weapon. Also, unplugging her telephone was inconsistent with a homicide motive. If he intended to kill her, whether the telephone worked or not would have been immaterial.

Finally, his behavior indicates he had no experience with killing.

So, if he was a rapist who murdered, and not a murderer who raped, which of Roy's four major cla.s.sifications of stranger rapists did he fit?

Clearly he was not a power rea.s.surance rapist, nor an anger excitation rapist. Both are highly ritualistic offenders, an element entirely missing from this crime.

Ripping Donna Vetter's clothing from her body was typical of a power a.s.sertive rapist. However, his impulsivity and use of excessive force suggested an anger retaliatory rapist. Also, Donna Vetter's facial battering attested to the blitz approach, commonly seen among anger retaliatory rapists.

He was an anger retaliatory rapist.

Now here's a list of questions that readers at this stage may begin to consider. Hazelwood and Wright's responses immediately follow the list.

What is his approximate age?

Is he single or married?

Has he ever served in the military?

How bright is he?

What is his level of education?

Does he work? If so, at what?

Does he have a criminal history, and what would it include?

Does he have a sense of humor?

What is his self-image?

How does he typically dress?

Is he athletic?

What is his att.i.tude toward women?

Did he know Donna Vetter?

Does he own a car?

Is he a substance abuser?

Judging from his low level of sophistication, the type of rapist he apparently was, and his victim's age, Jim Wright believed the killer was twenty-two; Roy said twenty-six.

Both thought he was single, and probably lived with an older female relative.

Neither considered it likely the UNSUB had served in the military. He was too wild and violent, too quick to anger, too volatile to have survived boot camp. He would not do well around authority figures.

Both believed him of average intelligence at best. This was a high-risk crime for the perpetrator, and the means of entry reflected a lack of sophistication.

Both agents also thought it unlikely the UNSUB had made it through high school, and thought him a poor candidate to hold down any sort of job for long. Once again, he was too volatile, and would not take direction well.

He very likely had a criminal history, they agreed. He was apt to have an arrest record for rape, attempted rape, a.s.sault and battery, and also breaking and entering.

He would have no sense of humor, certainly not when a joke was made at his expense. This UNSUB had a macho self-image, an att.i.tude reflected in his clothing, his choice of alcoholic beverage, and his att.i.tude toward women, which would be derisive, hostile, and abusive. He probably used abusive language in their presence, as well.

He did not know Donna Vetter; otherwise he would not have entered her apartment through the window. But he was familiar enough with the apartment complex to be comfortable taking the risks that he did. He very likely had peeped Donna Vetter in the past, or otherwise had noticed her at home alone-her windows open.

He did not own a car. If he did, he'd drive farther away from home to commit his crimes.

And he did use alcohol and drugs, but did not abuse them. If he had an expensive drug habit, he probably would have stolen something of value to help support it.

Finally, it is possible to attempt a re-creation of the crime itself, a reconstruction that takes into account all the known facts and physical evidence, while also consistent with the profile.

Hazelwood and Wright believed that when the intruder came through the window, Donna Vetter was in the bathroom. She heard him, and, consistent with what her father told police, she rose and rushed immediately to confront him, not concerned in this emergency with either wiping herself or flus.h.i.+ng.

Victim and predator confronted one another where the hallway intersected the living room. There he struck her with several quick punches to the face. Her gum flew forward into the living room. Her gla.s.ses sailed next to the dining-room table.

As she collapsed to the floor, bleeding, the UNSUB returned to the window, pulled the drapes, and stopped to disconnect the telephone from the wall, leaving a partial palm print on the telephone table as he did. So far, he was being deliberate, if careless, preparing to commit his intended crime, s.e.xual a.s.sault.

Donna Vetter had a different script in mind.

In whatever few moments he spent in the living room, she jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Vetter knew her big knife lay on the counter, next to the lettuce and salad dressing for her Friday lunch.

She'd be ready for him.

The killer in all likelihood was not prepared to find his intended victim armed and ready to defend herself. Primarily motivated by anger toward women in the first place, he'd respond in rage to this challenge.

He took the knife from her and attacked. There was a ferocious, though probably brief, struggle.