Investigating the Green River Killer Case Term Paper

As the investigators are unable to solve the case, the tragedy begins to obtain the character of a series of murders. Rule (2004) notes that four weeks after Wendys body was found when what had appeared to be an isolated tragedy began to take on a horrific pattern (p. 16). The next victim is found another Thursday, on August 12, 1982. This time the investigators manage to identify the girls personality as Debra Lyn Bonner because her fingerprints were in police files. It means that some of the achievements of Forensic Technology were available in 1982. But still, the investigators efforts were vain and yielded no results. The body floating in the Green River means a variety of possible crime scenes. Though the moment of the girls disappearance is approximately evaluated and the persons who can know something about her plans are interrogated, it brings no results and the investigators do not come upon the track of the criminal. The fact that both of the murdered girls are prostitutes prevents society from sounding the alarm, as the other girls are not afraid of the killer, not matching his parameters for the choice of the victims. Surely, it is impossible to investigate and gather the samples when the actual scene of the crime is unknown. The bigger scene deprives the investigators of many of the important sources of physical evidence. It is hard to believe that the present-day investigators could not find any tracks of the criminal within the period of 19 years. In fact, before the introduction of the DNA analysis practice into the investigative process, there was no other way to solve the case. in the desert locations with no witnesses, the bodies floating in the river, lack of a smaller scene of the crime complicate the investigative process immensely. Profiling working with the corpses only yields few results. Swanson et al. (2009) noted that the main purpose of profiling is to identify and interpret certain items of evidence at the crime scene which would be indicative of the personality type of the individual or the individuals committing the crime (p. 76). On the other hand, it is almost impossible that the murderer leaves no materials for DNA analysis on the body of the victim. The girls are sure to maintain resistance and during the struggle, they are sure to hurt the killer and get some piece of his skin or hair carrying the DNA information. The murders choice of the prostitutes as his victims is not occasional as well; as the lifestyle of the girls means that there are not so many people who are going to look for them. Some of the bodies were not discovered before they transformed into the skeletons, four corpses were not identified at all. Rules book demonstrates the inconsistency of the polygraph testing method in some cases, while the mistakes made in the investigative processes may have tragic results. The investigation of these series of murders would be problematic for the present-day investigators as well, but having Forensic Technology at their disposal might be helpful. On the other hand, human resources remain a significant factor as well, as no technologies can be useful without the policemen skills and thorough knowledge of opportunities for their implementation.

Using the modern achievement of Forensic Technology and following the modern schemes and principles of the investigative process could prevent the 48 murders committed by Gary Leon Ridgway and describe in a true crime storyGreen River, Running Red: The Real Story of the , Americaby Ann Rule.