Sorry I haven’t written anything in a while but first my laptop went haywire (don’t buy HP notebooks) then with the combination of not much new info and just being out of the habit of writing I got into other things. I’m not going to write specifically about another murder because, hey it’s Christmas and I don’t want to bum anyone out. So instead I’ll just make a quick note in general about the organization of these crime scenes.
Most people who read about true crime know about the difference between an organized and a disorganized crime scene. For those of you who don’t know it basically boils down to the difference between an organized office and a disorganized office (OVER generalized, I know). When I first began researching these crimes I somehow came away with the notion that these crime scenes were pristine. While trying to reconstruct the crime I started to get bogged down in details I had to guess at; such as did the Unsub wash his hands before or after he closed the curtains? I read an account of the Villisca crime scene and looked at some photos of another and realized my assumptions were way off. As I wrote in my “profile” post the crime scenes showed a mixed typology and I still think they lean more toward organized than disorganized but why mixed and why do I (it is my opinion) believe they lean organized?
Glidden, Texas - March 1912
First of all, contrary to what I started out thinking, evidence of the unsub’s identity was left everywhere. With today’s technology this guy would have been arrested or at least identified a day after the bodies were discovered in Colorado Springs. Because the killer used a burglary kit and was able to move through a dark house so quietly, I’m pretty confident in saying he likely had a prior arrest for burglary (if not attempted assault) so his fingerprints would have been in the system. Using the Villisca crime scene as a guide there were probably bloody prints left throughout both the Burnham & Wayne cottages on doors and curtains. This was probably a characteristic of all the crime scenes but scene control was likely a problem as well (see photo above) so any prints left behind were wiped out or contaminated by morbid “tourists.” The mess of fingerprints is a characteristic of disorganized behavior but there was a ritual and a plan carried out which shows an organized mind. I also believe there was an “escape” plan carried out after the murders but I’ll get into that when I begin to discuss the Showman murders after the New Year. For now, have a merry Christmas, happy Hanukah, joyous Kwanza, wonderful Festivus or just a happy New Year.
