‘This killer seems to enjoy it.’
‘I agree. Gratification, but not of the sexual kind. I’d say he loves watching people suffer.’
‘He?’ Garcia questioned.
‘Judging by the nature of the crimes, the logical conclusion is that the killer is male.’
‘How so?’
‘To start with, the overwhelming majority of serial killers are male,’ Hunter explained. ‘Female serial killers have a tendency to kill for monetary profit. While that can also be true their male counterparts, it’s very unlikely. Sexual reasons top the list for male serial killers. Case studies have also shown that female killers generally kill people close to them, such as husbands, family members, or people dependent on them. Males kill strangers more often. Female serial killers also tend to kill more quietly, with poison or other less violent methods, like suffocation. Male serial killers, on the other hand, show a greater tendency to include torture or mutilation as part of the process of killing. When women are implicated in sadistic homicides, they’ve usually acted in partnership with a man.’
‘Our killer works alone,’ Garcia concluded.
‘Nothing indicates otherwise.’
Both detectives fell silent for a while. Garcia turned around and faced the photographs once again. ‘So what do we have on all the old victims, what sort of connection?’ he asked, eager to get started.
‘None that we’ve found.’
‘What? I don’t believe that,’ Garcia said, shaking his head. ‘You’re not trying to tell me that you guys spent two years investigating this case and you haven’t come up with a connection between the victims?’
‘Well, believe it.’ Hunter got up and joined Garcia in front of the corkboard. ‘Look at them and tell me this – what would you say the age bracket of the victims was?’
Garcia’s eyes moved from picture to picture, pausing on each one for only a couple of seconds. ‘I’m not sure, early twenties to mid-sixties I guess.’
‘Kind of broad, don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And what would you say is the main type of victim, old, young, male, female, black, white, blond, brunette or what?’
Garcia’s eyes were still studying the pictures. ‘All of those judging by these.’
‘Again, kind of broad, isn’t it?’
Garcia shrugged.
‘Now, there’s something else you can’t get from these pictures, and that’s their social class. These people came from all different walks of life – poor, rich, middle class, religious and non-religious, employed and unemployed . . .’
‘Yes, what’s your point, Robert?’
‘My point is that the killer doesn’t go for a specific type of victim. With every new victim, we spent days, weeks, months trying to establish some sort of link between any of them. Work place, social clubs, nightclubs, bars, universities, lower and high school, place of birth, acquaintances, hobbies, family trees, you name it, we’ve tried it and we came up with a big fat zero. We’d find something that would link two of the victims together but not the others, nothing would stick. If we managed to start a chain with two victims, the link would be broken on the third and fourth one sending us back to square one. From what we know these people could’ve been chosen completely at random. The killer might as well have flipped through a phone book. In fact, if the killer hadn’t carved his symbol on the back of their necks these could’ve been seven different victims from seven different killers – eight with our new one. Nothing is the same, except the level of pain and torture he puts them through. This killer is a new breed of serial killer. He’s unique.’
‘What sort of links are you talking about when you say you managed to establish a link between two victims but not the rest?’
‘Two of the victims lived in South Central LA just a few blocks from each other, but the others were scattered all over town. Two other victims, number four and number six,’ Hunter pointed to the photographs on the board, ‘went to the same high school, but not at the same time. The links seemed more coincidental than a breakthrough. Nothing concrete.’
‘Did he follow a certain time interval between kills?’
‘Random again,’ Hunter said. ‘They go from a few days between the third and fourth victims to months, and on this last case, over a year.’
‘How about body locations?’ Garcia asked.
‘There’s a map over there; I’ll show you.’ Hunter unfolded a large map of Los Angeles with seven red dots the size of a dime scattered around it, a number next to each one.