Experts Profiling Serial Killer Whether He’S A Street Person Or Ordinary Joe, They Agree He Has Spokane-Tacoma Connection

He’s not invisible. Yet he goes unnoticed, slipping through the streets of Spokane and Tacoma, picking up women, ending their lives with a single gunshot.

The public knows nothing about this cross-state killer, other than his crimes: the murders of at least nine women, all either drug addicts or prostitutes, or both.

Who is he? A neighbor, a father, a businessman, a truck driver, a pimp?

Two experts who made their reputations cracking big murder cases in Baltimore and New York offer distinct profiles of the serial killer.

He’s a street person, said Vernon Geberth, a retired homicide commander for the New York Police Department. He’s an average workaday Joe - seemingly harmless but calculated and ritualistic in playing out homicidal fantasies, said former FBI profiler Patricia Kirby.

They agree, however, on one key point. This person has a reason - other than blood lust - for bouncing back and forth between Spokane and Tacoma.

“He’s got a connection in Tacoma that has nothing to do with the murders - family, children, maybe work,” said Kirby, a criminologist who became the Baltimore Police Department’s first female homicide detective.

“The urge to kill, and the situation that is the catalyst for that, is not something he can control,” she said.

“When something triggers it, he can’t wait until he gets back to Spokane to kill again.”

Detectives have connected the serial killer to the deaths of seven women in Spokane and one in Tacoma since last November. A second Tacoma woman - 35-year-old shooting victim Connie Lynn LaFontaine - may be added to the list.

Geberth, who has investigated thousands of homicides, believes the killer knows these women and runs in their circles, allowing him to move unnoticed between the two cities.

“When you have perps that travel, it’s not as big of a move when it’s part of their trade,” he said.

Had he killed the Tacoma women back to back, Kirby would think the killer was shifting attention to Western Washington.

But the bodies of LaFontaine and Melinda Mercer were discovered more than 10 months apart.

“I don’t believe he would drive all the way to Tacoma just to pick someone up or to kill someone,” Kirby said. “These are a particular type of victim. It’s easy to find those women in any town.”

Most of the serial killer victims were missing for months before their bodies were found in Spokane and Tacoma fields by unsuspecting neighbors.

A street person with a criminal record is the likely killer, said Geberth, who wrote “Practical Homicide Investigations,” a textbook that is widely used in training detectives.

“The ones who operate among prostitutes come from the area,” he said. “He’s part of the terrain. He’s part of the environment.”

Geberth believes the killer is intimately familiar with these women, either as a pimp, john or junkie.

Kirby’s profile is more chilling. She’s convinced the street-smart victims let down their guard because the killer looks so ordinary.

“He just does not look the type that would raise suspicions,” she said.

The killings follow a carefully planned script, from who he abducts and how long he keeps them alive to where and when he dumps the bodies, Kirby said.

“He’s obviously taking them off the streets,” she said. “Taking women who are prostitutes indicates some type of symbolism or some type of fulfillment of his fantasy.”

The way he dumps the bodies is another telling sign.

“The fact that he’s dumping in fields near neighborhoods speaks to who he wants to find it,” Kirby said. “He does want them found.”

Few serial killers shoot their victims. David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz, who killed six and injured several more in New York during the 1970s, is among the most noted.

Most serial killer victims are strangled, stabbed, mutilated or beaten to death, Geberth said.

The experts believe Spokane’s serial killer spends time with his victims before killing them, execution-style, in a secure place. He has little fear of being discovered.

“You’re not going to get control in these situations very quickly with someone hardened to the streets,” Kirby said. “He’s going to have a place to take them.”

His rage may come out in sexually assaulting, starving or disfiguring the victims. Investigators will not reveal anything about victims’ injuries other than the gunshots. The killer also may believe he’s on a mission to clean up the streets, Kirby said.

“If you had a perfectly clean body and no sexual assault, that would mean, no doubt, this guy is on a mission,” Kirby said. “Execution is part of their punishment.”

Criminal profiling is a science based on piecing known information together with patterns that have surfaced through the study of serial killers over time. But this killer may break the mold.

“There’s always the human factor to consider,” Kirby said. “This killer may be the one who does everything that no one would suspect.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: COMMON BONDS The killings attributed to Spokane’s serial killer have several things in common.

Cause of death: All the victims were women who died from a single gunshot to the head. Investigators are not revealing the type of gun used or if they are connecting the killings through ballistics.

Location of bodies: All the bodies were dumped in fields or vacant lots along roadways. The bodies were found by people walking through the area. Investigators believe the women were killed elsewhere and left at the dump sites. Most of the bodies were found partially clothed.

Street life: All lived hard lives on the street and were connected to drugs, prostitution or both. Many of their associates say the women were streetwise heroin or methamphetamine addicts.

Missing for months: Seven of the nine women officially linked to the serial killer were missing for several months before their bodies were discovered. That includes Melody Murfin, who has been missing since May and is classified as a serial killer victim although her body has not been found.

Tacoma connection: One victim found dead in Spokane last listed her address as a motel near Tacoma. The body of another victim was found in a south Tacoma field. She was from Tacoma and investigators believe she had no ties to Spokane. The most recent case now under investigation could be the second Tacoma-area killing attributed to the Spokane serial killer. In addition, a man recently called a person of interest in the investigation was last seen with a Seattle woman, whose body was found just north of the Pierce/Kitsap County line in 1995. Her death has not been linked to the serial killer