Signature Crime
   HOME





Signature Crime
A signature crime is a crime which exhibits characteristics idiosyncratic to specific criminals, known as signature aspects, signature behaviours or signature characteristics. Where a ''modus operandi'' (MO) concerns the practical components of a crime which can also be unique to one suspect, signature aspects fulfill a psychological need and, unlike the MO, do not often change. Two examples cited in '' Crime Classification Manual'' by John Douglas are a bank robber from Michigan who required tellers to undress during the robbery so he could photograph them, and a rape case where the perpetrator forced the husband to return home and be humiliated by the event. These characteristics move beyond modus operandi, because they fulfill a psychological need rather than a need of practical execution of the crime. The 1898 Gatton murders also exhibited signature aspects. Following the murders, the bodies were re-arranged so their legs crossed over their bodies with the feet pointing west. T ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Cane and Conoghan (editors), ''The New Oxford Companion to Law'', Oxford University Press, 2008 (), p. 263Google Books). though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a Category of being, category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence (or criminal offence) is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state ("a public wrong"). Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law. The notion that acts such as murder, rape, and theft are to be prohibited exists worldwide. What precisely is a criminal offence is def ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Modus Operandi
A (often shortened to M.O. or MO) is an individual's habits of working, particularly in the context of business or criminal investigations, but also generally. It is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as . Term The term is often used in police work when discussing crime and addressing the methods employed by criminals. It is also used in criminal profiling, where it can help in finding clues to the offender's psychology. It largely consists of examining the actions used by the individuals to execute the crime, prevent its detection and facilitate escape.Douglas, J. E. and A. W. Burgess, A. G. Burgess, R. K. Ressler. ''Crime classification manual'' (John Wiley & Sons, 2006) , p. 19-21. A suspect's ''modus operandi'' can assist in their identification, apprehension, or repression, and can also be used to determine links between crimes. In business, ''modus operandi'' is used to describe a firm's preferred means of executing business and interacting with other firms. Pl ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Crime Classification Manual
''Crime Classification Manual: A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes'' (1992) is a text on the classification of violent crimes by John E. Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess, and Robert K. Ressler. Overview The publication is a result of a project by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. A second edition of the book was published in 2006, and added 155 pages of new information and research. See also * Offender profiling * Forensic psychology Forensic psychology is the application of scientific knowledge and methods (in relation to psychology) to assist in answering legal questions that may arise in criminal, civil, contractual, or other judicial proceedings. Forensic psychology includes ... * FBI method of profiling References External linksCrime Classification ManualPriv ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bank Robber
Bank robbery is the criminal act of stealing from a bank, specifically while bank employees and customers are subjected to force, violence, or a threat of violence. This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank-owned property, such as a train, armored car, or (historically) stagecoach. It is a federal crime in the United States. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, robbery is "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence or by putting the victim in fear." By contrast, burglary is "unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft." Overview Places Bank robberies occur in cities and towns. This concentration is often attributed to there being more branches in urban areas, but the number of bank robberies is higher than the number of branches. This has advantages both for bank robbers a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Michigan
Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, Indiana and Illinois to the southwest, Ohio to the southeast, and the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario to the east, northeast and north. With a population of 10.14 million and an area of , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 10th-largest state by population, the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 11th-largest by area, and the largest by total area east of the Mississippi River.''i.e.'', including water that is part of state territory. Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia is the largest state by land area alone east of the Mississippi and Michigan the second-largest. The state capital is Lansing, Michigan, Lansing, while its most populous city is Detroit. The Metro Detroit r ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability, or is below the legal age of consent ( statutory rape). The term ''rape'' is sometimes casually used interchangeably with the term ''sexual assault''. The rate of reporting, prosecuting and convicting for rape varies between jurisdictions. Internationally, the incidence of rapes recorded by the police during 2008 ranged, per 100,000 people, from 0.2 in Azerbaijan to 92.9 in Botswana with 6.3 in Lithuania as the median.
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Gatton Murders
The Gatton Murders, also known as the Gatton Tragedy, the Gatton Mystery, and the Murphy Murders, refer to an unsolved triple homicide that occurred from the town of Gatton, Queensland, Gatton, in the Colony of Queensland, present-day Australia. Michael Murphy, aged 29, and his younger sisters, Honora (Norah), aged 27, and Theresa (Ellen), aged 18, were murdered between 10 pm and 4 am on 26–27 December 1898 while returning home from a cancelled dance. All three siblings had been bludgeoned; in addition, Michael had been shot and Norah strangulation, strangled. Background The Murphy family owned a farm at Blackfellow's Creek, some from the town of Gatton, Queensland, Gatton and west of Brisbane, capital of what was then the Colony of Queensland. The listed Gatton's population as 449. In the late 19th century the town was a major stopover point on the road between Brisbane and the Darling Downs, and with two major bridges and a railway line the town was a rapidly expanding s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ted Bundy
Theodore Robert Bundy (; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989), known colloquially as Ted Bundy, was an American serial killer who kidnapping, abducted, raped and murdered dozens of young women and girls between 1974 and 1978. His ''modus operandi'' typically consisted of convincing his target that he was in need of assistance or duping them into believing he was an authority figure. He would then lure his victim to his vehicle, at which point he would bludgeon her unconscious, then restrain them with handcuffs before driving them to a remote location to be sexual assault, sexually assaulted and killed. Bundy killed his first known victim in February 1974 in Washington (state), Washington, and his later crimes stretched to Oregon, Colorado, and Utah. He frequently revisited the bodies of his victims, grooming and Necrophilia, performing sex acts on the corpses until Corpse decomposition, decomposition and destruction by Wildlife, wild animals made further interactions imp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Criminology
Criminology (from Latin , 'accusation', and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'', 'word, reason') is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, legal sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, scholars of law and jurisprudence, as well as the processes that define administration of justice and the criminal justice system. The interests of criminologists include the study of the nature of crime and criminals, origins of criminal law, etiology of crime, social reaction to crime, and the functioning of law enforcement agencies and the penal institutions. It can be broadly said that criminology directs its inquiries along three lines: first, it investigates the nature of criminal law and its ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Offender Profiling
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by Detective, investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. There are multiple approaches to offender profiling, including the FBI’s typological method, geographic profiling, and investigative psychology, each utilizing different techniques to analyze offender behavior. Profiling is primarily applied in cases involving violent crimes such as serial murder, sexual offenses, and arson, where behavioral patterns may provide investigative leads. Despite its use in law enforcement, offender profiling remains controversial, with critics arguing that it often lacks empirical validation, relies heavily on subjective interpretation, and may contribute to cognitive biases in criminal investigations. Advances in forensic psychology and data-driven methodologies continue to shape the field, integ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]