ABSTRACT
Case study Ted was the youngest in a family of five children. During the interview, he indicated that he had a good family life, with reasonably good parents. However, he described his parents as very affectionate but also overprotective. His father was in the military and was strict when it came to the children’s education. At 12 years old, Ted lost his father. Ted indicated that his father died of asphyxiation but his description of the event suggested suicide. The offender explained that he preferred to believe what his mother told him regarding the death. With respect to his mother, Ted described her as very controlling. He was living with her up until the point of his arrest for murder. While living with his mother, she would dictate who Ted could see. She forbade him to bring friends into the home. She would also monitor the mileage on his car to ensure that Ted was returning home immediately after work. Ted, who is a smoker, would sneak cigarettes in order to avoid a conflict with his mother. Ted did not have many significant interpersonal relationships. Developing and maintaining such relationships was hard for him due to his mother’s constant interference. In addition, he lacked self-esteem and he did not think that women would be interested in him. Needless to say, Ted had minimal sexual experience. Ted indicated that he did not feel that he was really missing out; that it was not very important to him. He was not a drug user and consumed alcohol only occasionally, sometimes after work. Employment was the only area of his life where he could get some satisfaction. He was dedicated to work, performing mainly manual labor. Ted explained that for him, work was a means of escaping his mother’s otherwise constant scrutiny. The day of the murder, Ted finished working early and decided have a drink at a bar. He played video poker for a while and drank three or four beers, which was corroborated by the other customers present at the bar. The offender was talking to the waitress, whom he found attractive, but the conversation mainly centered on the ordering of drinks. The waitress was permitted to close the establishment once the majority of customers had left. Just before 1 a.m. she asked the three remaining customers to finish their drinks and leave. Two of the customers left while Ted hung back to use the bathroom. When he returned, the waitress
was waiting to let him out, unlocking the door to let him leave. However, just before leaving the bar, Ted explained that he felt an urge to attack the victim, that he wanted to have sex with her. He started to choke her from behind. He felt the victim cease breathing and he started to undress her. However, when he started to remove her panties, he noticed that the victim was menstruating. He immediately discontinued the assault. Instead, the offender decided to take all the money from the cash register and stage a robbery gone wrong. He took the keys from the victim, locked the bar, and left, leaving the victim unconscious where she fell. The next day, the police came to arrest Ted at his home. The victim died at the hospital the next day. To illustrate a different approach to dealing with the victim’s body, consider the case of John. John killed a young boy that he knew, after attempting to sexually molest him. John was involved in the hockey league in his community. He did not have children but he liked to spend time with them. The day of the murder, John called the victim, a 10-year-old boy who was playing on his team. He told the boy that he had been recruited to participate in a tournament and that he needed to see him right away. The victim rode his bike to the offender’s residence. The offender let him inside and took him to his bedroom to discuss the tournament. The tournament was only a ruse to have the young boy come over so John could be alone with the victim. After a few minutes, John decided to touch the victim sexually. The little boy reacted violently and started to scream. John had not expected this reaction. John panicked and started to strangle the victim until he lost consciousness. John told us during the interview that he was not sure whether the victim was still alive. The one thing he was sure of was that he needed to get rid of the body as quickly as possible. John rolled the victim’s body in a big bed sheet. He put the body in the trunk of his truck along with the boy’s bike. He drove to a wooded area that he was familiar with and decided to bury the body of the young boy. Afterward, he drove farther away and dropped the bike in a ditch. He came back home but it did not take long before the police came to his place to question him about the little boy’s disappearance. After long hours of interrogation, John confessed and told the police where the body was located.
