Post by bltc2001 on May 12, 2018 3:12:11 GMT
I think if you look at the most skilful criminals in history they tend to be active in either Politics or Business.
The person alleged to have committed these crimes was fairly good at what he did, was physically capable, and had the benefit of no small amount of luck during the times he committed these attacks.
I work as a Prison Officer (down in Australia) and have had quite a few Sexual Offenders under my watch over the years. One distinct character trait I've seen in that group of people is that they are extremely opportunistic, and when they decide upon a course of action they can be very deliberate and determined.
When you are observing such Prisoners on CCTV it is often the case you are watching them watching other Officers. They tend to be adept at recognising and exploiting weakness and they try to be manipulative. (It's fairly difficult for a person to actually succeed at manipulating you when you are fully aware of the acts they've committed but they always try it on).
Mr DeAngelo had some distinct advantages over other home intruder/rapists. His employment as a Police Officer certainly gave him the know how to evade capture and gave him the ability to know when and where the best times and places to attack would be ahead of time, (merely knowing the roster or other Officers on Duty, or hearing over the Radio that the other Patrol in town has made an arrest and will be off the air for an extended period of time whilst they process the arrest)
Balanced against that is that with the frequency of his (known) attacks. Starting with the Burglaries he appears to have been driven to commit these offences, when whatever pressures building up inside him reached breaking point, he had to commit an offence. That very frequency of the offences should have aided Police in his earlier capture, certainly whilst he was known as the East Area Rapist.
The attackers habit of making misleading comments to the victims about owning a Van, or intimating that there was a second person present could be viewed as the acts of someone who is something of a "criminal genius", as was his practice of using backyards to escape on foot, or a bicycle to an area that would be outside any potential police perimeter before getting to his car.
Yet once again, in that he was aided by a lot of luck and insider knowledge. He left signs in peoples yards that he had been prowling around their and their neighbours properties before the attacks. On occasions where Police did engage in stakeouts on properties where he had known to be prowling around it would seem obvious (now) that DeAngelo would have most probably been aware of where those stakeouts were, or was able to spot signs of a covert police presence from a distance.
I recently had a prisoner who had committed up to 40 (known) sexual offences who had committed every offence using exactly the same tactics. He was a foreign national who targeted other foreign nationals at backpacker hostels. At times when he was discovered inside backpacker hostels he was able to pass without suspicion due to the fact he was a young Italian man. He looked like he belonged inside a Backpackers Hostel, he'd leave his shoes in a common area and walk the halls barefoot to aid the illusion that he belonged there. He targeted women who had been drinking (he chose hostels close to the inner city where it was more likely that young people would be partying) and would assault and film them in their sleep.
It was only when the last victim woke and discovered him there (and he was subsequently arrested) that the extent of his crimes became known (because he had filmed his assaults).
He was successful in what he had done because he developed a plan, stuck to it resolutely through each attack and chose victims that had let their guard down in an environment that allowed easy access for a predator.
To look at the guy you would be extremely unimpressed, he was a skinny little guy with big buck teeth and in choosing a description, the word slimey comes first to mind. Yet even that aided him. He had a level of animal cunning about him that just wasn't apparent when you looked at him.
The Offender in the East Area Rapes, Visiler Ransacker and Original Nightstalker Crimes stuck pretty much to the same game plan throughout his crimes because it generally worked well. The same tactics would no longer work. People have far better physical security on their properties now. People routinely have CCTV and intrusion detection systems that would have made it impossible for the Offender to have conducted the extensive prowling and surveillance of his victims and potential victims.
Perhaps he did change his habits after the 86 rape and murder due to the changing technologies and practices of police (by the late 80's DNA testing was well known as a police tool) and continued to commit offences. If he chooses to confess it will certainly be fascinating to know just how he evaded capture whilst committing the offences, and if (and why) he stopped committing attacks after 1986.