Cracking the Case

Criminal Investigation in Practice- Cracking the Case

In the case of Aileen Wuornos the investigating team that worked together on the criminal investigation liaised successfully with one another in order to identify and subsequently apprehend the offender.  The various members of the investigation team can be seen by clicking on the various tabs of the Blog, such as the ‘The Police’ or ‘Scene of Crimes Officer (SOCO’s), and they each provide a detailed description of the role and responsibility the individual from each specific sections of the team had.

In order for the offender to be identified a thorough criminal investigation needs to be carried out that starts when the First Attending Officer (FAO) reports to the Police department that a crime has taken place and then a series of investigative procedures are carried out methodically with the aim of the offender being charged with the offence and the case ultimately being presented to the Court.  In the case of Aileen Wuornos the evidence used in court in order to prove her guilt, from forensic evidence to witness statements, was key as it placed the offender at the numerous scenes of the crimes. 

During the Court case the vast quantity of evidence that was presented to the Judge and jury proved that the offender, Aileen Wuornos, was guilty of committing all seven murders.  The forensic evidence recovered from the vehicle belonging to Peter Siems, in the form of fingerprints, were analysed by the forensic scientists working on the criminal investigation in order to assist in apprehending the offender.  The fingerprints were a match for Aileen Wuornos and therefore overall the forensic evidence contributes to the validity of the conclusions that were drawn from the criminal investigation.  The witness statement that was gathered by the Police from the witness named Rhonda, in relation to the crashed vehicle that was later found to belong to Peter Siems, resulted in strong evidence being presented to the Court to confirm that Aileen Wuornos was the woman seen at the scene.   

In the case of Aileen Wuornos it was not until the death of the final victim, Walter Gino Antonio, that the links were being identified and the actual law enforcement officers were liaising with one another and drawing conclusions.  In order for the conclusion to be made that Aileen Wuornos was in fact the individual responsible for the brutal slayings of seven men the evidence relating to each of the separate seven crime scenes needed to be collected, analysed, interpreted and presented in order for the correct conclusions to be drawn.  The first victim of Aileen Wuornos, Richard Mallory, was shot multiple times with a .22-calibre pistol which is essential to highlight as all of the seven victims were shot with this form of murder weapon.   Although the murders were taking place in a close vicinity to one another the link was not made until the death of Aileen Wuornos’s final victim which suggests that although the conclusion was drawn that the murders were linked and committed by the same individual it took a long period of time for this fact to be identified.  As a result of the analysis of the first crime scene it was noted that several items belonging to Richard Mallory had been stolen, these items were found to have been pawned by Aileen Wuornos.  In America when an item is pawned a thumbprint is required, which Wournos left, therefore if the police had carried out an investigation looking at items that had been pawned, such as the red toolbox, at around the time of the murder the police may have prevented the deaths of a further six men.  Richard Mallory, following an autopsy, was found to have been shot multiple times, this is consistent with all seven victims of Aileen Wuornos, however the links were not identified by the police until late on in the criminal investigation.  All seven murder victims were also; middle aged men, travelling alone, had suddenly vanished, killed with the same murder weapon and their bodies were located in a secluded area.  It is important to note that Peter Siems body has to this day remained undiscovered and therefore we can only presume that he was killed in the same manner as the other six victims of Aileen Wuornos. 

The evidence trail that led the police to the conclusion that Aileen Wuornos was in fact the perpetrator of all seven murders is solid and founded upon the following facts;

·        All seven victims were killed using the same murder weapon- a .22-calibre pistol.

·        All of the bodies were located in a secluded area.

·        The link between the victims was clear- they were all male, middle aged, travelling alone and the reason behind each of the seven killings seemed to be for the purpose of theft.

·        Wuornos pawned items belonging to Richard Mallory.

·        Wuornos was identified as the person seen fleeing the scene after the car belonging to Peter Siems crashed.

·        Tyria Moore also agreed to testify against Aileen Wuornos in Court. 

Although the police, following the death of Wuornos’s final victim, had come to the conclusion that the perpetrator was responsible for all seven crimes they needed to collate their findings in order for the apprehension of the offender to take place.  The police will have become aware of the fact that the pattern of killing linked from victim to victim and subsequently the forensic evidence will need to have been linked.  The thumbprint that Wuornos left at the pawn shop when disposing of Richard Mallory’s possessions could have been linked to the bloody fingerprints and stains located within the vehicle that was found to have belonged to Peter Siems, however the police did not carry out a fingerprint check which will ultimately have been used by the defence in the Court case.  In the vehicle belonging to Richard Mallory there were two plastic tumbler glasses located, however the analysis of said glasses is not disclosed in any available documentation.  Therefore if the glasses were analysed for fingerprints successfully this may have led to the apprehension of Wuornos sooner. 

In the case of Wuornos’s sixth victim, Charles ‘Dick’ Humphreys, the can that was located within the vehicle at the scene of the crime was also not analysed for fingerprints which may have hampered the progress of the criminal investigation and prevented that link being made between the murders.

A key piece of evidence that links Wuornos to the crimes is the eyewitness testimony of Rhonda in relation to the fleeing women of the crashed vehicle, later found to belong to Peter Siems, as this eyewitness testimony when presented to the Court will have provided strong evidence that Wuornos was involved in the disappearance of Peter Siems.  As Rhonda stated that the woman driving the vehicle was blonde this may have been linked to the blonde hair that was located in the vehicle of David Spears. 

Following the death of Walter Gino Antonio the links were made by the various law-enforcement officers to the fact that the type of victim chosen was similar and the various eyewitness statements and sketches obtained pointed to one woman that matched Aileen Wuornos.  Therefore the police, even though it took a long period of time, came to the correct conclusion that the perpetrator of each of the seven murders was in fact Aileen Wuornos.