Organized Offender Characteristics

Some crime scenes and some murders, display organized as well as disorganized characteristics and are called mixed. Ed Kemper was a highly organized killer, but his mutilation of the bodies after death was more typical of a disorganized one.

Organized killers are cognizant of what they are doing. They are not mentally deranged, in the sense that the layman thinks of craziness, rather organized killers are usually considered to be mentally competent, to know and comprehend their actions

The major attribute of the organized offered is planning of the crime. Organized crimes are premeditated, not spur of the moment. The planning derives from the offender's fantazies. Most victims of organized offenders are targeted strangers, that is, the offender stalks out or patrols an area, hunting someone who fits a certain type of victim that he has in mind.

The organized offender often uses a ruse of con to gain control over his victim. This is a man who has good verbal skills and a high degree of intelligence, enough to lure the victim into a vulnerable area. Control is of essence for the organized killer. With the organized killer, the victims are personalized; the offender has enough verbal and other interchange with the victim to recognize them as individuals prior to killing them.

The major attribute of the organized killer is planning, which in this sense of the word means that the killer's logic is displayed in every aspect of the crime that is capable of being planned.

Organized killers learn as they go from crime to crime; they get better at what they do and this shows in their degree of organization

The organized offender's car will be in proper condition

The organized offender brings his own weapon to the crime and takes it away once he is finished

An organized offender will transport the bodies from the place that the victims were killed and then hide them (the bodies)

An organized offender may sometimes stage a crime scene or death scene in order to confuse the authorities such staging takes a fair amount of planning, and bespeaks a mind that is working along logical and rational lines. No disorganized offender is capable of staging a crime scene, although the very chaos of some crime scenes later attributed to disorganized offenders may at first give rise to various contradictory theories of what has happened at the site.

The organized offender often takes personal items belonging to his victims as trophies.

During rapes, the organized offender demands that the victim display submissive behavior and act fearful and or passive. If a victim fights back the organized offender's aggressive behavior usually become heightened, sometimes so much that a man who had originally planned only to rape a victim escalates his violence into murder when the victim resists.

The organized offender takes steps to hide the bodies of his victims, or otherwise attempts to conceal their identity, and they keeps track of the investigation.

Organized killer's childhood was characterized by a father who had steady and stable work but where discipline was inconsistent, leaving the offender with a feeling that he was entitled to everything.

Organized killers tend to be reasonable attractive outgoing and gregarious

The organized offender, rather than internalize hurt, anger and fear, externalized them. This is the boy who acts out in school who does aggressive and sometimes senseless acts.

The organized offender is outgoing and likes crowds.

Instead of feeling inferior to people organized killers feel superior to nearly everyone often believing themselves to be the smartest, most successful people to have come down the pike, even when they are only moderately so and not particularly distinguished except by the monstrousness of their crimes. After the crime, they often follow the progress of the investigation in the news media

Most if not all the organized killers have tremendous anger toward women. Often expressing the belief that a certain female is not woman enough to turn him on.



Disorganized Offender Characteristics

The disorganized killer doesn?t chose victims logically, and so often takes a victim at high risk to himself, one not selected because he or she can be easily controlled, sometimes this lack of choice produces a victim who will fight back hard enough so that later their body reveals defensive wounds. The disorganized killer has no idea or interest in the personalities of his victims. He does not want to know who they are, and many times takes steps to obliterate their personalities by quickly knocking them unconscious or covering their faces or otherwise disfiguring them.

The disorganized offender's actions are usually devoid of normal logic, until he is caught and tells us his version of the crime, chances are that no one can follow the twisted reasoning he uses to pick his victims or to commit his crimes.

If the disorganized offender owns a car, it will appear unkempt and in poor condition, as will his dwelling.

The disorganized killer may pick up a steak knife in the victim's home plunge it into her chest, and leave it sticking there. If police find a body rather readily, that is a clue that the crime has been done by a disorganized offender.

A disorganized crime scene displays the confusion of the killer's mind and has spontaneous and symbolic qualities that are commsurate with his delusions. If the victim is found, as is often the case, he or she will likely have horrendous wounds. Sometimes the depersonalization of the victim by the attacker manifests itself in an attempt to obliterate the victim's face, or in mutilation after death. Often the death scene and the crime scene are the same for the disorganized offender; he does not possess the mental clarity of mind to move the body or conceal it.

The disorganized murder doesn?t take trophies, rather in his confused mental state, he may remove a body part, lock of hair, an article of clothing, and take it with him as a souvenir whose value can not be discerned.



All these crimes are sexual in nature, even when there is no completed sexual act with the victim. The truly organized killer generally completes a sexual act with a living victim, talking full advantage of the situation to rape and torture before murdering someone.



The disorganized killer often does not complete the sex act, if he does, he completes it only with a dead or entirely inanamate victim. The disorganized offender seeks to increase his erotic interest through keeping the victim alive and performing perverted and destructive acts on the victim. Power over the victims life is what this type of offender seeks.

The disorganized offender grows up in a household where the father's work is often unstable, where childhood discipline is harsh and where the family is subject to serious strain brought on by alcohol, mental illness and the like.

The disorganized offender grows up to internalized hurt, anger and fear, while normal people also internalize these emotions to some degree-that's necessary in order to live together in society-the disorganized offender goes far beyond the norm in his internalization. He is unable to let off steam, and lacks the verbal and physical skills for expressing these emotions in proper areas. He cant be easily counseled because he can't tell the counselor very much about the emotional turmoil inside him. Part of the reason for unexpressed anger with in the disorganized offender is that they are not normally handsome people.

Disorganized offenders tend to withdraw from society almost completely. To become loners.

Disorganized killers are incapable of relating to other people at all.

The disorganized offender will most likely not be living with a member of the opposite sexand probably not even a roommate. If they live with anyone else, chances are it will be a parent and probably a single parent at that.

disorganized offenders are underachievers. In general, they are less intelligent than organized offenders, but most are not seriously deficient. If they work it will be at a menial job, and they are habitually disruptive because of their inability to get alone with other people>

The disorganized offender is a boy that is quiet in school.

With disorganized killers, this important factor, the precrime situational stress, is often absent; their crimes are triggered by their mental illness, not by events in the outside world that impact on them.

The disorganized offender takes little or no interest in the crime after it has been committed.

Source Information:
Whoever Fights Monsters. Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman. 1992 St. Martin Press