Clues from Killers: Serial Murder and Crime Scene Messages [Hardcover]

Dirk C. Gibson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0275983609 | ISBN-13: 978-0275983604

Serial killers come from different backgrounds, attain different levels of education, and hold various types of jobs. However, many serial killers do have at least one thing in common: the desire to communicate regarding their crimes. Killers from Jack the Ripper to the Son of Sam often provide clues to their identities, their motives—even their future targets—through crime scene notes, letters to the media, calls to police, messages scrawled on victims, and, increasingly, email and other technology. Here, Gibson takes a look at ten notorious serial killers, their crimes, their victims, and their communications to uncover the hidden clues into the minds of these unusual and dangerous people.

What compels a serial killer to leave a crime scene message or to call the police to discuss their crimes? What are the purposes of the messages themselves? What do they say about the individuals? How can investigators use such communications to track down these elusive killers? How do killers use these communications to attract new victims? Through a careful examination of messages from such killers as the D.C. Snipers, the BTK Killer, the Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia Avenger and others, Gibson reveals aspects of their communications that give us a window into the psyches of these criminals.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book provides audiences with an extensive amount of information.... Gibson's book allows all readers to understand and appreciate the complexity of this topic. It is an excellent introduction to the subject."-Deborah L. Laufersweiler-Dwyer, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice University of Arkansas, Little Rock

Book Description

Serial killers communicate in a number of ways with the public, and here Gibson profiles ten notorious serial murderers and their crime scene messages, telephone calls to police, media contacts, and other communications methods to discover what that can tell us about the killers themselves.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Praeger (October 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275983609
• ISBN-13: 978-0275983604
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,069,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New perspectives on murder as communication, January 13, 2005

By 

William E. Newnam (Atlanta GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clues from Killers: Serial Murder and Crime Scene Messages (Hardcover)

I found this book to bring a unique perspective to the most common fundamental feature of serial killings: that for the killers, the murders are more than violent actions, they are a means of communicating. This book provides ten case studies in serial killings and focuses on the communicative action of killers. Written in an easy flowing, journalistic style, the author explores the various ways in which serial murders attempted to communicate with police, investigators, and the public at-large.
One theme recurs: the killers not only sought to communicate about the crimes they were committing, but the crimes themselves were a form of communication from apparently socially isolated individuals who had a difficult time expressing the frustrations in their lives that led to their abhorent pathology. The author takes the reader through ten different murders over 100 years apart stressing similarities and identifying differences in the ways serial killers communicated. Deploying a communicative perspective on such actions is a unique way to help understand and, as the author notes, at times to help identify and apprehend the perpretrator.

It is a strong approach to understanding and interpreting the means of communication of serial killers. What it reveals about the killers and their motivations is unique and should help those in police investigation and forensic sciences understand and identify serial killers in the future. Much more work can be done in this area but this book illustrates the value of bringing the communication discipline to bear in understanding such heinous acts as described in this book.

Bill Newnam
Atlanta, GA

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Innovative Analysis of a Timely Topic, March 5, 2005

By 

Swifty (Culver City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clues from Killers: Serial Murder and Crime Scene Messages (Hardcover)

CLUES FROM KILLERS is a topical book which defies expectations. It uses techniques of rhetorical criticism in an integrative way to shed light on the diverse communications serial killers have left behind at crime scenes. Author Dirk Gibson acknowledges his indebtedness to recent developments in historiography, and the influence of the Annalistes is felt in the writing of each chapter and in the overall method of the book. Journalistic acumen is paired with solid historical research to create vivid pictures not just of these infamous killers, but of their hapless victims in diverse places, times and social circumstances. This did much to sustain my interest in the human drama attendant upon some of the most loathsome crimes imaginable. Mr. Gibson takes the reader on a dark ride of crimes and communications perpetrated by 10 different serial killers, from New York's Son of Sam to LA's Black Dahlia Avenger, with lethal stops at the hands of Jack the Ripper, the Unabomber, the Zodiac Killer, and the recently arrested Scout Leader, Dog Catcher and Church attendee from Kansas who is best be known by his communicated moniker as the BTK Killer.

Given this grim subject matter, Mr. Gibson's approach is dispassionate and informative. He brings the tools of rhetorical analysis to bear on the culprits' communications, and produces insights which will be helpful to laypersons as well as to professionals in law enforcement and communications studies. In describing the initial letter from the BTK killer, written after the first killing in 1974, Mr. Gibson notes that : "The writer meant to terrify by predicting more murders. Yet other sections seemed intellectual and intended to inform." Terse non-judgmental analysis like this sketches the personality profile of the apprehended subject, a bipolar individual with developed rational powers who liked to let other people know when they'd committed infractions of regulations, coexisting with a sadistic killer beyond the pale of human conduct. With similar analysis Dirk Gibson builds a case that serial killers are driven to communicate verbally, sometimes in ways taunting the police by extolling the killers' own supposed prowess in escaping detection, sometimes as informational recountings of the crimes, and then again as psychotic threats by monsters intent on subsequent murder. The book broadens the topology of communication studies; it is also to be hoped that the research done here might help law enforcement in future efforts to catch such repeat killlers early.

CLUES FROM KILLERS is thoroughly grounded in the facts of the killings, the killers and their means of communicating. The book integrated police reports, journalistic accounts and a broad range of secondary sources in a clear style refreshingly free of academic jargon. Reading the book made me curious to know more about these crimes. The only recommendation I would make to the author for the book's second edition might be a timeline for each killer, giving the names, dates and places of each murder with a parallel track of where when and how the killers communicated. This would do much to simplify the basic chronology of these cases for the uninformed reader. The illustrations included in the book include photocopies of some of the Ripper letters, as well as copies of messages from the uncaught Zodiac Killer and a photo of Chicago killer William Heirens' lipstick on the wall scrawl left at the crime scene: "For heaven's sake catch me before I kill more I cannot control myself." Such copies of actual messages do much to supplement Dirk Gibson's skillful communication analysis, and I hope that in future editions (or future books related to this subject) more copies of such documents might be included.

Finally, criticism of this book by an earlier reader is loaded and unfair. It is possible that Mr. Gibson didn't name the proper Mayor of Kansas City when murderer John Robinson attempted to get himself voted "Man of the Year" in Kansas City in 1997. If so, it's a slip-up which should be corrected. But this type of criticism (finding a tangential error of fact and using it to call into question the content and method of the whole book) is a time-honored debaters' trick and may well be more indicative of professional jealousy than sober judgment on that reviwer's part. It should in no way dissuade sensible readers from buying this good book about evil men and their manner of communication.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clues From Killers, March 4, 2005

By 

Sandy Osterhaus (Iowa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Clues from Killers: Serial Murder and Crime Scene Messages (Hardcover)

I couldnt put this book down once we received it in the mail. Its a great book for anyone who wants to study the mind of killers. Thanks for bringing such a great book to us serious readers out here!!
sandy- from Iowa