Stupidity, ego, may explain why suspects stayed in region

John Tuggle walked into a convenience store on Wednesday, past his own wanted poster hanging on the door, to ask a clerk behind the counter about packaged hotdogs.

After Tuggle – accused of stabbing his daughter – left, the clerk called the police, who apprehended him a few blocks away. The scenario is reminiscent of the Denny’s customers and employees who spotted Shasta Groene with Joseph Duncan III earlier this month, ending a weeks-long search for the missing child and the man who kidnapped her and killed members of her family.

Disparate and sometimes contradictory theories abound as to why suspected perpetrators might return to areas near where their crimes occurred, as authorities allege Tuggle and Duncan have done.

“Does it speak to someone’s intelligence – or lack of it,” wondered Lt. Kim Edmondson of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department. “Or does it speak to their ego or seeing what they could get away with?”

Edmondson, whose department has been working on the Duncan case, said it’s not uncommon for arsonists to be among the crowds watching the fires they set, or for murderers to attend the funerals of people they kill.

But the answer might be simpler than some ego or intelligence. “People just return to the area that they’re familiar with,” said Shoshone County Sheriff Chuck Reynalds, whose office has been searching for Tuggle for a week.

But Reynalds said he has “no earthly idea” why Tuggle came back to a place where people know of him and want him caught.

A criminologist who has worked in prisons said some criminals want to get caught.

“It’s not any fun if they got away with it,” said James Houston, professor of criminal justice at Grant Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich., repeating the sentiment inmates have expressed to him, only half-jokingly.

“It may have been they enjoy the thrill of the possibility of getting caught or recognized by someone,” Houston said, “and the subsequent attention they receive after getting caught.”

For some, Houston said, prison is a psychologically safe place, where they don’t need to worry about finding jobs or supporting themselves.

Jacqueline Helfgott, an associate professor of criminal justice at Seattle University, speculated that the explanation may lie in a cognitive thinking error called “superoptimism,” which is generally exhibited by psychopaths.

“They really don’t believe they’ll get caught,” Helfgott said. “They have a grandiose sense of themselves that they’ll be able to get away with it.”