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SERIAL KILLERS
have a history of leaving “calling cards,” signatures that mark their
deeds and announce to the world that they have struck again. They do so to
taunt police and the public, to create fear that they will kill again and
to feed their own ego, experts say.
Killer
calling cards, particularly when they include attempts at communicating
with police or the public, can offer key insights into the mind of the
killer, and the more often they are left, the more opportunity the killer
has to slip up. Fingerprints may be left behind, or handwriting could
eventually be used as evidence if the killer is caught.
“Why was it put there?” wondered Bob Keppel, an expert on
serial killers who once worked for the Washington state attorney general’s
office and wrote the book “Signature Killers.” “If it is truly put there
by the killer, then it can lead to a lot of psychological insights. It
might have been put there to send a message to police, but it might just
as easily been put there to confuse police and throw them on a wild goose
chase. Or it may have been put there by someone who had nothing to do with
the crime, which could also throw police on the wrong trail.”.gif)
 Latest developments in the
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Oct. 10 — Former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt,
discusses the significance of the tarot card and other clues in
tracking the killer. |
During the two-decades-long hunt for the Green River Killer, who was
blamed for the disappearance of 49 women in Washington state between 1982
and 1984, thousands of people wrote letters to police, Keppel said. Some
were from people claiming credit for the crimes; others were from deranged
people who were asking police if they were the killers. Police wasted
countless hours tracking down useless leads, and they charged someone in
the killings only 20 years later based on DNA evidence.
The Zodiac Killer murdered five people in San Francisco
between December 1968 and October 1969. Letters sent to newspapers in San
Francisco claiming to be from the killer were signed with the symbol of
the zodiac — a cross superimposed on a circle. In some of the letters
there were coded messages about the killings. But despite these clues, the
killer was never caught. |
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Another
of the most notorious serial killers who communicated with police was
David Berkowitz, who killed six people in New York in 1976-77. Among his
writings were a letter to newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin and a note
addressed to police detectives that said: “I am a monster. I am the ‘Son
of Sam.’”
“He said this was a stimulating
thing for him to see the letters in the paper,” said Robert K. Ressler, a
former FBI profiler who interviewed Berkowitz after his arrest. “Even
though he’s the only one who knows, notoriety becomes very satisfying to
an inadequate loser. It’s a way of imposing power and control over
society.” |
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Communicating
with police can backfire, though, as Terry Driver discovered. Driver, a
man from Abbotsford, British Columbia, who was convicted of murdering one
girl in 1995 and was believed to have killed at least three others, called
and taunted police five times before he was caught and even tossed a
letter detailing his crimes, wrapped around a wrench, through a window.
Driver was arrested after his mother called police saying she recognized
her son’s voice on a tape of his calls to police that was released to the
media.
READING THE
CARDS
Investigators are studying
the tarot card and its message for clues that might lead them to the
Washington-area killer.
Police sources told
The Washington Post the card was found 150 yards from the school in a
wooded area on matted grass, suggesting the gunman had lain in wait. The
Post reported that the tarot card also contained a handwritten request
from the sniper that it not be revealed to the media. Some detectives had
hoped that if they honored the request, the sniper might communicate with
investigators again, the newspaper reported.
“This was a personal message to us, and the intention of the
[shooter] was to develop a relationship with us,” said one detective, who
spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity. The detective said some
investigators believed that the sniper “was attempting to build a rapport
with us.” |
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Establishing continued communication
could be key to finding the killer. Often, when serial killers communicate
with investigators, they slip up, like in Driver’s case.
Thus, police are eager to continue communicating, as that
dialogue could be more important to the case than the tarot card
itself.
Tarot experts, in fact, question the
significance of the card.
Tarot cards, used
mainly for fortunetelling, are believed to have been introduced into
Western Europe by Gypsies in the 15th century. The meanings assigned to
the cards vary from book to book and user to user. Many tarot enthusiasts
say the Death card usually does not connote physical death but instead
portrays a symbolic change or transformation.
“Because that person appears to share the popular misconception that
the card is associated with physical death, that person likely knows very
little about the tarot, and is most likely not a tarot reader,” the
American Tarot Association said in a statement. |
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It’s not that unusual to find tarot cards at homicides across the
country, according to Sgt. Cynthia Bergen of the Bexar County Sheriff’s
Department in San Antonio, Texas. They are most commonly found in
drug-related homicides involving people from the Caribbean and South
America, where people are more likely to follow the occult and use tarot
cards, she said.
She, too, thinks the person
who left the card was not a serious tarot card reader, pointing out that
people who follow the occult believe in multiple deities and thus would be
unlikely to make a monotheistic statement like “I am God.”
“It’s possible that this is a bluff, that they just
had a deck and knew what that card was,” Bergen said. “It might have been
done to throw people off the track. But then again, its symbolism could be
very important, particularly if the police start to find a series of
cards. Some of these people who follow the occult are very serious about
this.”
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