ABSTRACT
Before there was the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) in the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC), and homicide investigative analysts who worked up cases of serial killers for local police, there was the celebrated Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) homicide detective Pierce Brooks, a pioneer investigator in the eld of signature killers and one of the rst people to talk about catching repetitive killers by examining their behavior at crime scenes. In a most eloquent and brilliant speech on tracking violent serial criminals to the Second Annual International Conference of the Police Management Association in London, England (1985), Brooks explained to a gathering of police executives how serial killers kill and apply their modus operandi (M.O.) and ritualistic behaviors:
Detective Brooks, veteran investigator in the “Onion Field” murder, developed techniques of investigation from understanding M.O. and ritualistic behaviors of killers that would lead to today’s knowledge of how serial killers kill. In 1958 when most police investigators didn’t even know what a
serial killer was, and, if they did, they wouldn’t have necessarily known what to do about it, Pierce Brooks was applying his skills to gruesome homicide cases such as “the Lonely Hearts Murders,” the crimes of Harvey Glatman, who challenged the investigative skills of police in southern California. It was through the understanding of M.O. and ritualistic behaviors that Pierce Brooks linked three separate murder cases.
