Kidnapping: An Investigator’s Guide

By Diana M. Concannon

Kidnapping: An Investigator's Guide to Profiling is based on a three-part analysis of 100 randomly selected kidnapping cases prosecuted in the United States that have survived Supreme Court appeal. The results of the analysis are incorporated into each chapter as part of the exploration of the inductive profile of each kidnapping subtype, thereby offering a statistically based tool that can inform investigative strategies and the allocation of limited resources. The analysis includes standardized input from four levels of professional law enforcement including a forensic psychologist, a crime analyst, a detective, and a city prosecutor.

In addition to chapters pertaining to the kidnapping subtypes – Domestic Kidnapping, Predatory Kidnapping-Adult Victim, Predatory Kidnapping-Child Victim, Profit Kidnapping, Revenge Kidnapping, Staged Kidnapping, and Political Kidnapping - an introductory chapter is dedicated to the evolution of U.S. kidnapping law and intervention strategies, including a review of relevant case law (Megan's Law, Amber Alert). Appendices include a concise summary of all the subtypes and Tabletop Drills that law enforcement can use to support potential kidnapping victims prepare and better respond to a kidnapping threat. The second edition also includes a discussion of the relationship between kidnapping and human trafficking, as well as a new Appendix focused upon effective interview strategies with the victim-witness.

• A statistically-based tool that can inform investigative strategies in kidnapping cases
• An essential resource for any professional who regularly deals with the subject of kidnapping
• Contains appendices that provide a concise summary of the statistical information presented in the text
• Analysis of 100 randomly selected kidnapping cases prosecuted in the United States that have survived Supreme Court appeal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Jul 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9780124080539

Book preview

assault.

Preface to the Second Edition

In summer, preceding the original writing of Kidnapping: An Investigator’s Guide to Profiling, child abductions were a tragic and regular feature on the evening news. June and July of 2002 were dominated by stories of the kidnappings of then 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart and 5-year-old Samantha Runnion, the miraculous escape of 7-year-old Erica Pratt, and the trial of David Westerfield, accused of kidnapping 7-year-old Danielle Van Dam.

In 2003, Ms. Smart was found alive, spotted 18 miles from her Utah home by a biker who had seen a composite sketch of her alleged kidnapper on John Walsh’s America’s Most Wanted. For 9 months, Ms. Smart was held captive by Brian Emmanuel Mitchell—a self-proclaimed prophet to the homeless who had been briefly employed as a manual laborer by the Smarts—and his wife, Wanda Barzee. It was later learned that Mitchell abducted Ms. Smart at knife point, and forced her to serve as his second wife.

From 2004 to 2009, Mitchell and Barzee were held on $10 million bond, each having been deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. Barzee was restored to competency in November 2009, and sentenced to 15 years in prison for her role in the kidnapping. Mitchell was deemed competent in November 2010. He was found guilty 1 month later, and is currently serving a life sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary, Tucson.

Elizabeth Smart’s ordeal became the subject of a book and made-for-television movie. It also catalyzed the founding of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, dedicated to prevent and stop predatory crimes.

In May 2005, Alejandro Avila was convicted of first-degree murder after he kidnapped, sexually abused, and strangled Samantha Runnion. Avila, whose ex-girlfriend resided in the apartment complex in which Samantha lived, and who had been accused and acquitted of molesting his ex’s daughter and niece, lured Samantha to his car by telling her that he had lost his dog. Her body was found the next day in Cleveland National Forest. Avila’s DNA was found under Samantha’s fingernail, and her DNA was found in his car. Avila was sentenced in July 2005 and is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison in California.

Samantha’s mother, Erin, founded The Joyful Child Foundation, which is dedicated to preventing crimes against children through programs that educate, empower and unite families and communities.

Seven-year-old Erica Pratt escaped captivity from the empty house where she was held by chewing her way through the tape that bound her hands and feet, kicking open a basement door, and making her way through a window.

It was later learned that her kidnappers, James Burns and Edward Johnson, abducted Erica for a $150,000 ransom, which they erroneously believed her family received as an insurance payment following the death of an uncle. Johnson pled guilty to the kidnapping. Burns was convicted following a jury trial.

Erica Pratt was named TIME Magazine’s Person of Week in July 2002.

One month later, David Westerfield was found guilty of the kidnapping and first-degree murder of Danielle Van Dam. Two small stains of Danielle’s blood were found on Westerfield’s clothing and in his motor home. After a trial during which the defense strategy appeared to center upon impugning the lifestyle of the victim’s parents, Westerfield was sentenced to death. He awaits execution at San Quentin State Prison in California.

As the headlines associated with these cases faded, new kidnappings claimed prominence.

In February 2005, 9-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford was abducted from her childhood home. She was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered by 46-year-old John Couey. Couey, a convicted sex offender, was sentenced to death.

In 2008, Austrian Josef Fritzl confessed to imprisoning his daughter in a windowless cell for 24 years, fathering seven children with her. Fritzl told investigators that he tossed the body of one of the children into an incinerator when the baby died shortly after birth. Fritzl, at age 74, was tried and sentenced to life in prison.

In 2009, Jaycee Lee Dugard—kidnapped at age 11 in 1991—was found in a concealed area behind the home of convicted sex offender Phillip Craig Garrido and his wife, Nancy. Jaycee, who bore two children during her captivity, was reunited with her family. The Garridos pled guilty to kidnapping and sexual assault. Nancy Garrido was sentenced to 36 years to life. Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years.

The prevalence of child abduction in the United States has remained relatively constant over the past decade. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports that approximately 2000 children are reported missing each day. Consistent with past years, the majority of child kidnapping victims are abducted by family members. An estimated 58,000—7 percent—are nonfamily abductions. Of these, 115 are victims of what the Department of Justice labels stereotypical kidnappings, i.e., stranger or acquaintance abductions where the child is held overnight, transported more than 50 miles, and murdered, held permanently, or held for ransom.

Kidnapping statistics for U.S. adults continue to remain elusive as the crime of kidnapping is not separately analyzed by the Uniform Crime Report. According to the National Crime Information Center’s (NCIC) Missing Person File,¹ more than 65,000 individuals were categorized as EMO—defined as a person over the age of 21, not meeting the criteria for entry in any other category, who is missing and for whom there is a reasonable concern for his/her safety—in 2010. Given that law enforcement completion of the Missing Person Circumstances field is optional, it is probable that this number is understated.

Just as the number of kidnappings has remained consistent since Kidnapping’s original publication, so too have the general categories associated with this crime. The original subtypes identified by the researchers—Domestic Kidnapping, Predatory Kidnapping—Adult Victim, Predatory Kidnapping—Child Victim, Profit Kidnapping, Revenge Kidnapping, Stage Kidnapping, and Political Kidnapping—remain unchanged, as do the characteristics associated with these subcategories. Consequently, the chapters related to subtypes remain largely unaltered in this second edition.

There are two notable exceptions. First, a section on Human Trafficking has been added to Chapter 6. In the 2 years following the passage of the amended Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act in 2008, federally funded task forces opened 2515 cases of suspected incidents of human trafficking, leading to 144 arrests. The addition to Profit Kidnapping discusses the similarities and subtle, important differences between kidnapping and human trafficking, as well as the ramifications for the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of human trafficking cases that involve kidnapping. Additional information regarding the distinctions between kidnapping and human trafficking laws, and important milestones pertaining to the latter, have also been included in Chapter 2.

As human trafficking legislation has opened new avenues for prosecution beyond the confines of kidnapping law, so too has kidnapping law offered potential new avenues for the prosecution of cases in which domestic violence victims use lethal force to escape batterers. Chapter 3 includes a new section that explores the courts’ treatment of those who kill to escape a kidnapping and those who kill to escape a violent relationship.

Scientific advances also continue to influence both the investigation and the prosecution of kidnappings. Genetic fingerprinting, also known as DNA profiling or DNA fingerprinting, is arguably the most significant investigative and prosecutorial tool to be employed in the twenty-first century. Since its first forensic application by Sir Alec Jeffreys in 1986 in the Enderby murder case—where it was, ironically, used to exonerate an innocent man who falsely confessed to the rape and murder of two young girls—DNA has become a standard and often conclusive tool for bringing criminals to justice.

As with many forensic scientific advances, the use of DNA evidence has opened new discussions regarding the right of the state v. the right of the individual. In the United States, the appropriate balance is being explored before the Supreme Court which, in 2013, agreed to hear the case of Maryland v. King in which DNA collected at the time of arrest for one crime led to an arrest and conviction for an unrelated offense. Chapter 10 explores the manner in which courts are adjudicating the dynamic tension between scientific advances such as DNA, thermal imaging, and global-positioning system and civil liberties.

The powerful and compelling evidence offered by scientific advances notwithstanding, victim–witness testimony remains an important facet in any kidnapping investigation. Despite this, investigators and mental health professionals are provided with limited support and training to conduct these important, and often extremely complicated, interviews. During lectures based on the premises of the original edition, it was clear that concepts such as developing rapport, victim resiliency, and addressing trauma responses were well known. However, the best approaches to applying these concepts practically and effectively were often elusive. Appendix E has been added to bridge this gap.

It is hoped that changes offered in the current edition augment the original research, supporting those who engage in the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of this devastating crime.

Diana Concannon

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¹Federal Bureau of Investigation, NCIC Missing Person and Unidentified Person Statistics for 2010.

Preface to the First Edition

On the evening of July 24, 2002, I watched the televised funeral of Samantha Runnion, a 5-year-old girl who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and left for dead on a California hiking trail. I listened as CNN’s Aaron Brown spoke with restrained passion of the summer of child abduction, the feared legacy of 2002’s sunny season.

In Colorado, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart remained missing. Seven-year-old Erica Pratt miraculously escaped from the Philadelphia home in which she had been held. The trial of those who murdered 7-year-old Danielle van Dam was concluding in a San Diego courtroom.

Nightly, the pain and terror of these children’s families aired over television and radio stations. Parents sacrificed their right to privacy for the need to keep their story before the public and the one or two citizens who might provide information related to their child’s whereabouts. Or the whereabouts of their child’s body.

Their suffering was beyond what any parent should have to bear.

I had witnessed this hellacious form of parental anguish firsthand: When I was 5, my youngest brother disappeared in a mall teeming with families capitalizing on Washington’s Birthday bargains and clamoring for free cherry trees. My parents braved the consumer rush by anchoring their four children in hand-holding formation between them. My mother paused outside Woolworth’s, releasing my sister’s hand, unintentionally signaling that my sister could do so with me, and me with my brothers. My mother assumed that my father still held us. My father had assumed the same about her.

Within a matter of minutes, my 16-month-old brother was swept away, and my mother was screaming. She planted her remaining children before a display case, yelling at me, her eldest, to make sure everyone stayed put before grabbing at every passerby. She frantically called my brother’s name while my father sought a security guard.

At the suggestion of a level-headed older woman, my mother sought an employee who could call my brother’s name over a public address system.

I watched my mother’s frantic departure and tracked her return with my father. I heard my brother’s name and our location announced over the P.A. I watched my mother’s cries turn into sobs.

A security guard joined us a few moments later with a little boy who was not my brother.

My parents continued their frantic search. When they returned to the display case, my mother looked just beyond me and started screaming anew. Something in her tone had changed, and I followed her movements as she bent down and scooped my theretofore missing brother into her arms.

He had found us before we had seen him.

More than three decades later, I asked my mother about the incident, wondering if she had thought that anyone had actually taken my brother. We lived, after all, in a good neighborhood, during a simpler time.

Of course, I did, she responded. People have been taking kids forever.

So, too, have kidnappers had a long history of taking adults.

Over time kidnapping has mutated, spawning new and horrendous variations that complicate the prevention endeavors and investigative responses of law enforcement and security professionals.

A new typology that identifies the defining characteristics of kidnapping subtypes could assist in these efforts.

Diana Concannon

1

Introduction

Chapter Contents

A Previous Typology of Kidnapping

Psychology and Criminal Analysis

Methodology

Conclusion

Bibliography

A Previous Typology of Kidnapping

In 1978, sociologist Ernest Kahlar Alix evaluated kidnapping from a sociohistorical method, defined as a study of past events from a sociological perspective. His analysis, which was primarily based on an evaluation of New York Times reports of kidnappings during the prior century, yielded 15 different proposed kidnapping subtypes. More than half of Alix’s subtypes involved a financial element, such as ransom, extortion, or prostitution. As a result of the analysis, Alix focused his attention on ransom kidnapping, which he identified as the most visible among the types of unlawful takings.

Psychology and Criminal Analysis

In the intervening decades since Alix’s typology, the motivations and modus operandi of kidnappers have broadened, and a wider range of kidnapping types has gained significant visibility. Simultaneously, cooperative advances in psychology and law offer a new approach to analyzing kidnapping, including its categorization, prevention, and investigation.

The intersection of law and psychology, termed forensic psychology, has grown in application in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Forensic psychology encompasses both the practice of psychology within settings, such as prisons and parole offices, as well as research endeavors that focus on human behavior as it relates to legal processes. The latter includes such activities as providing support to traumatized victims and assisting attorneys in jury