ABSTRACT

A focus of any police investigation is the crime scene and its evidentiary contents. What is often overlooked, however, is a geographic perspective on the actions preceding the offense: the spatial behavior that led to the crime scene. For any violent crime to occur there must have been an intersection in both time and place between the victim and offender. How did this happen? What were the antecedents? What do the spatial elements of the crime tell us about the offender and his or her actions? What are the hunting patterns of predatory offenders? These questions are particularly relevant in cases of serial murder, rape and arson.