by Scott Bonn
The homicide detective nodded in agreement with Bratton’s assessment of the situation and said, “Naturally, sir,” as he left the commissioner’s office.
Recognizing both the urgency and complexity of the serial killer investigation in New York, the FBI has sent a team of its best and brightest agents to assist the NYPD in its hunt for the guardian. Among them are two special agents who have considerable experience in tracking down serial killers and serial rapists.
The first is Supervisory Special Agent Julia Cassidy, who is heading up the team sent from Quantico, Virginia. Cassidy is a thirty-nine-year-old, highly decorated professional who holds a Master of Arts degree in Psychology from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Miami in Florida. Cassidy graduated at the top of her class at the FBI training academy in Quantico.
Julia Cassidy is an exemplary field agent, and she possesses a keen understanding of the pathological criminal mind. She is considered by many of her colleagues to be the finest criminal profiler in the Behavioral Analysis Unit at the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) in Quantico.
Supervisory Special Agent Cassidy was central to the investigation and arrest of the infamous, interstate serial killer, rapist, arsonist, burglar and bank robber Israel Keyes in 2012. Following his capture in Texas, Cassidy escorted him to Anchorage, Alaska, to face murder charges there. After Cassidy left Alaska and returned to Quantico, Keyes hanged himself in his jail cell while awaiting his murder trial. When she heard the news, Cassidy commented that the serial killer saved the state of Alaska a lot of money.
The other special agent with prior serial killer experience is Jason Baldwin, a twelve-year veteran of the FBI. He is a superior field agent who was instrumental in the investigation and arrest in 2012 of the serial killer known as the “Son of Sal” who murdered three shopkeepers in Brooklyn, New York.
Special agents Cassidy and Baldwin are good friends, in addition to being colleagues. They occasionally have a social drink together after work or have dinner, but they have never been romantically involved. They are both currently single. Although Cassidy is his superior officer and while he respects her greatly, Baldwin takes the liberty of joking with her sometimes in order to “lighten her up,” as he says. He calls her Jules.
Also on the FBI team from Quantico is another special agent, as well as three criminalists who have nearly fifty years of combined experience in crime scene analysis with the FBI. They will provide expert consultation to the crime scene investigators and forensic scientists at the NYPD in the guardian manhunt. They will also provide their NYPD colleagues direct access to the FBI forensic laboratories and technicians in Quantico, Virginia.
Julia Cassidy is the first member of the FBI team to emerge from the Gulfstream jet. Captain Pritchard extends his hand in greeting and smiles when he sees her.
Pritchard says, “Hello. I am Captain James Pritchard. Welcome to New York.”
Cassidy shakes Pritchard’s hand, smiles and replies, “Hello, captain. I am Supervisory Special Agent Julia Cassidy. We spoke earlier today.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Supervisory Special Agent Julia Cassidy is one of the best and brightest the FBI has to offer. She is meticulous, disciplined and downright obsessive in her demeanor and approach to work. She is very cerebral and excels in problem solving. Her IQ was tested at the FBI training academy, and she scored 135, which puts her in the superior range. Her approach to homicide investigation is more cerebral than physical, although she can handle herself very well in a scrap, too.
Because she is scientific in her approach to criminal investigation, many of her colleagues consider her to be somewhat of a geek or a nerd. Despite this perception, she is widely respected by her peers for her keen mind, leadership skills, determination and toughness.
Cassidy excels in deductive reasoning—that is, the ability to develop a theory about the unknown perpetrator of a murder, and then collect all of the evidence necessary to support her theory and solve the case. In other words, she first envisions what a murder puzzle will look like when it is completed, and then she collects the individual pieces and puts them all in place to complete the puzzle.
Cassidy is very driven and enjoys a mental challenge, but she always stays emotionally detached from her case assignments and their outcomes. Given her personality type, the hunt for the guardian manhunt represents an exciting test of her analytical skills and nothing more. The guardian is committing terrible crimes, but catching him is almost like a game of chess for Cassidy. She is excited about the intellectual challenge of discovering his identity and solving the case.
Consistent with her cool and scientific approach to detective work, Cassidy is calm and unflappable in the field. Her FBI colleagues have come to respect her for her composure in the face of adversity. This is due to the fact that she has been involved in deadly shootouts on several different occasions and has performed admirably under fire each time. Because of these incidents, her FBI colleagues generally believe that nothing on the street can faze Cassidy.
In one particular incident, a 22-caliber bullet struck her in the left side during a shootout with an escaped convict. Although the wound was quite serious, it did not deter Cassidy from doing her job that day. Despite considerable pain and the loss of blood, she was able to subdue and arrest the dangerous criminal who had just shot her.
As a result of that incident, which is now legendary within the FBI, and others like it, her colleagues have come to respect and admire her calm, focused demeanor in difficult or hazardous situations.
Agent Cassidy has other natural assets as well. In addition to her keen intellect and exceptional analytical abilities, she also has natural, unadorned beauty. She has high cheekbones and ivory white, flawless skin. Her chestnut brown eyes shine in the daylight like precious gemstones. She has long, silky, medium brown hair that she pulls back into a tight ponytail while working. She wears almost no makeup on the job except for some lip-gloss and eye shadow.
Cassidy is tall at five-foot-nine, and her body is slim but athletic. Although she is cerebral by nature, she also works out several times per week at the FBI training center to stay fit and strong. She is quite skilled in kickboxing and judo, both of which she enjoys immensely. She believes that practicing martial arts helps to keep her mind sharp and alert.
Cassidy was married for five years to an advertising executive in Bethesda, Maryland, prior to a divorce nearly two years ago. The couple had no children together. She and her ex-husband each traveled so much for work that they were rarely at home at the same time. Her ex-husband shared her obsession with work that, in combination with her own obsession, took a tremendous toll on their marriage. Ultimately, like so many other twenty-first-century married couples focused on their careers, Cassidy and her former husband simply grew apart.
Agent Cassidy currently has virtually no personal life of which to speak. Ever since her divorce, she immerses herself in work and rarely dates, not even casually. Her friends and colleagues try to set her up on blind dates, and men definitely find her attractive and show interest, but she generally declines such invitations.
She became a supervisory special agent about six months after her divorce, and that promotion has only increased her workload and the number of nights she spends away from home. Quite simply, she is completely devoted to her FBI career and commits all of her waking time and energy to it.
Cassidy knows that her superiors handpicked her to head up the team of agents who will assist the NYPD in its manhunt for the guardian serial killer. Therefore, as she arrives in New York, her adrenaline is pumping, and she is determined to apprehend the perpetrator.
Chapter Twenty Four
It is 8:20pm when the team of FBI agents and NYPD Captain Pritchard arrive at their destination at One Police Plaza in lower Manhattan. Pritchard and two of his lieutenant detectives escort the FBI team into the elevator and up to the police commissioner’s of
fice where Bill Bratton is waiting for them.
As the group enters his office, Commissioner Bratton extends a polite greeting to them.
“Welcome to New York. I hope your trip from Washington was pleasant. Please come in,” he says cheerfully.
As soon as everyone has assembled inside the commissioner’s office, they all exchange introductions with one another. The group of ten people in Bratton’s office consists of the six-person FBI team, Commissioner Bratton, Captain Pritchard, and Pritchard’s two most trusted lieutenants on the serial killer task force—Frank Baker and Eduardo Diaz.
The FBI team from Quantico includes special agents Jason Baldwin and Ron Carter and three criminalists—Steve Redding, Janet Chin, and Liv Olson—as well as their supervisor, Julia Cassidy.
Bill Bratton’s personal assistant, Robin Fletcher, who will be taking notes on the group’s discussion throughout dinner, promptly joins them in the commissioner’s office. Hot and cold food is arranged buffet style on the conference table in Bratton’s office, and Fletcher invites the group to begin serving themselves. One by one, they fill their plates with the catered food and then sit down at the conference table to eat.
As soon as everyone is in place and eating, Bill Bratton opens up the meeting by thanking the FBI team for coming to New York. He announces that a special report has been prepared for them that summarizes everything known thus far about the guardian serial killer and his victims.
The police commissioner says, “I would like to ask each one of you to read your copy of the report later this evening so that you can hit the ground running along with Captain Pritchard’s team in the morning. This is James Pritchard’s investigation, and he heads up the task force, so I am going to turn this discussion over to him. Go ahead, Captain Pritchard.”
The homicide captain is very excited to get the team of FBI special agents involved in his manhunt. He has not had a drink in nearly two days, and he feels a bit edgy. Although he is operating on very little sleep, he vibrates in his chair from adrenaline and nervous energy. Too agitated to remain sitting, he stands up to address the group.
Pritchard says, “It is great to have you here, as the commissioner said. I do not want to get into too many specific details of the case until after you have had a chance to read the report, but I can tell you that we are dealing with a very intelligent and meticulous predator. He has already killed three times that we know of, and he is damn good at it. In my opinion, he will never stop killing on his own because he enjoys it far too much. Therefore, it is up to us to stop him, and we must do it quickly before he strikes again.”
Special Agent Cassidy leans back in her chair and gestures toward Pritchard in a manner indicating that she wishes to speak.
Pritchard pauses and says, “Yes, Agent Cassidy. Do you have a question or comment?”
The keen, analytical mind of Cassidy is already at work on the case.
She replies, “Yes, I do. From what you have just said, Captain, and what I already know about the case from news reports, it seems clear to me that we are dealing with a highly organized serial killer. Do you agree?”
Pritchard understands the technical and scientific nature of Cassidy’s question.
He replies, “Yes, from what we know about the guardian thus far, he certainly does seem to fall into the so-called organized category of serial killers.”
Pritchard is well aware that the FBI classifies serial predators as either organized or disorganized based on the type of crime scene they leave behind. This distinction is important because the type of crime scene a serial killer leaves offers insights into his physical and psychological characteristics, including his motivations and desires.
Pritchard knows that organized killers are well prepared, and they normally abduct their victims at one location and take them to another location to kill them. An organized killer will then take the corpse to another location to dispose of it. Organized killers are very careful and they leave little evidence at their crime scenes. They go to great lengths to hide their victims’ bodies and often dismember them in order to make their disposal easier.
Disorganized killers, on the other hand, are reckless and impulsive in their murders. They select their victims spontaneously. They will often “blitz” their victims—that is, use sudden and overwhelming force to kill them at the scene of the attack. They will normally leave the victim’s body where the initial attack takes place, and they will not attempt to conceal it.
Disorganized killers will often leave the murder weapon behind, and they may select it spontaneously at the scene of the crime. They may bludgeon the victim with a rock or log found at the crime scene, for example. Jack the Ripper is a classic case of the disorganized serial killer.
In 2010, James Pritchard attended a conference about serial killers that was organized and conducted by several senior FBI profilers in Quantico. It was at this conference where he learned that the breakthrough idea of classifying serial killers according to an organized/disorganized dichotomy was the brainchild of legendary FBI profiler, Roy Hazelwood, who is now deceased.
Since its inception, the organized/disorganized classification of offenders has become the centerpiece of the FBI profiling approach.
Hazelwood’s groundbreaking concept resulted from in-depth research into serial predators conducted by the FBI in the 1970s and 1980s. In order to determine whether a crime scene is organized or disorganized, profilers use a list of factors such as whether the victim’s body was positioned or posed by the killer, whether sexual acts were performed before or after death, and whether cannibalism or mutilation was practiced on the body. Ever since the 1980s, the FBI has used these factors effectively to predict whether an unknown serial offender is an organized or disorganized killer.
For the benefit of Commissioner Bratton and the two NYPD lieutenants in attendance who may not be as familiar as James Pritchard is with the characteristics of organized serial killers, Julia Cassidy provides a detailed overview of this type of predator. While the group continues to eat, Cassidy explains to them that murders committed by organized serial killers are premeditated and carefully planned.
She further explains that investigators will generally find little material evidence at an organized crime scene. Organized criminals, according to the classification scheme, are antisocial—often psychopathic—but still know right from wrong. They are neither clinically nor legally insane, and they show no remorse.
Cassidy explains that based on historical patterns, organized killers are likely to be above average-average intelligence, attractive, married or living with a domestic partner, employed, educated, skilled, orderly, cunning and controlled. They will have some degree of social grace, may even be charming, and often talk or seduce their victims into being subdued and taken captive by them. The legendary Ted Bundy was a master of this ploy.
Cassidy explains, “With organized offenders, there are typically three separate crime scenes: where the victim was approached by the killer, where the victim was killed, and where the victim’s body was disposed of. Organized killers are very difficult to apprehend because they go to inordinate lengths to cover their tracks and often are forensically savvy, meaning they are familiar with police investigation methods.”
Captain Pritchard interjects, “They are also likely to follow news reports of their crimes very closely, and may even correspond with the news media or law enforcement authorities. They sometimes like to play a game of ‘catch me if you can.’ Dennis Rader, or BTK, as he was known, sent taunting letters to the police like our guy does, and BTK was a highly organized serial killer.”
Cassidy says, “Yes, Captain. You and I are in complete agreement. We are dealing with a very sophisticated predator in the case of the guardian. He sounds like a classic example of a meticulous, stone cold, organized serial killer.”
Commissioner Bratton breaks his silence and says, “Thank you, Special Agent Cassidy. That was very helpful, indeed. Your description of the organized seria
l killer certainly seems to fit our unknown subject to perfection. Now, let me ask a question of the group. Our killer apparently broke the necks of all three of his victims with his bare hands. What can we make of this pattern?”
Captain Pritchard intervenes and says, “Good question, Commissioner. Let me try to answer that. Every serial killer has a modus operandi or M.O.—that is, his method of operation. For example, the M.O. of Jack the Ripper was that he attacked prostitutes on the street with a knife. A serial killer will often leave trace evidence of his M.O. at the crime scene, as the guardian has done on three separate occasions. The three autopsy reports and the physical evidence tell us that the guardian’s M.O. is manual strangulation—that is, strangulation by hand.”
Cassidy says, “Correct again, Captain. I agree completely.”
She proceeds to explain to the commissioner that the M.O. is what a serial offender must do in order to commit the crime. She says that a serial killer must have a means to control his victims at the crime scene, such as tying them up, and must have a means to kill them, such as strangulation or stabbing.
Cassidy says, “It is also important to understand that the M.O. is a learned behavior which is subject to change. Although the guardian has strangled his first three victims, it should not be assumed that he will always do so in the future.”
She further explains that a serial killer may alter or refine his M.O. to accommodate new circumstances or to incorporate new skills and information. For example, instead of using rope to tie up a victim, a serial killer may learn that it is easier and more effective to bring handcuffs to the crime scene in order to secure his victim.
“Thank you for the clarification, Agent Cassidy, but what exactly does the fact that the guardian is a strangler tell us about him?” asks Commissioner Bratton.
Cassidy takes a long deep breath and slowly exhales. She looks squarely at Bratton.