Sniper search: a communication strategy

FROM the first hours after media sound trucks, satellite dishes, and crews converged on police headquarters here in Rockville, Md., investigators have tried to control the signals going to the killer.

While police officials were measured and respectful in their references to the sniper, many of those designated as experts in the news media (some with inflated resumes) were not. Early commentary on this case includes speculation that the sniper is a loser, a coward, a lowlife, or not such a good shot after all.

"The ... speculation about him psychologically – much of which is quite negative – cannot be anything but anger producing, leading to an 'I'll show them' kind of feeling," says Mr. Post.

After the discovery of a note at the site of a shooting in Ashland, Va., Chief Charles Moose of the Montgomery County Police Department, who is leading this investigation, began appealing directly to the shooter. On Sunday, he read a carefully worded message on air calling on "the person who left us a message at the Ponderosa [Steakhouse] last night" to "call us at the number you provided." He called on the news media to carry this message "clearly" and "often."

Experts say it's a high-risk strategy, and still largely unexplored in law enforcement. Occasionally, serial killers have left messages for the police, ranging from encrypted letters and poems to lipstick scrawled on a mirror. Not many were caught as a result of these messages, but experts say that may be because they are not shared with the public early enough to be useful

The conventional police practice is to keep such communications secret, so they can sift through the many false messages that occur during serial murder cases. But release of such information can also tip off witnesses who may know the killer. The release of the Unabomber's 35,000-word manifesto led to the capture of Theodore Kaczynski, after his brother saw the document in the press and contacted police.

"This subset of killers who do communicate want to be caught, but you've got to keep the communication going," says Tomas Guillen of Seattle University, coauthor of "The Search for the Green River Killer."

"The way police have handled such communiqués in the past has been to hold them, until they become stale," he says. "Police should be more open about sharing such messages with the public."

But playing out this strategy in public could also undermine public confidence in the investigation, say others, commenting on the Washington case.

"[The killer] enjoys playing a cat and mouse game with the police, and his messages to the police are simply part of that game, which he appears to be winning," says Jack Levin, a crime expert at Northeastern University. "He's controlling the shots, literally."

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