Disorganized vs Organized Killers

With the help of movies like Silence of the Lambs and shows like Criminal Minds, criminal profiling has taken the world by storm. By now the scene is a familiar one, an investigator pouring over the crime scene before declaring that the murder was unplanned, an act of passion in the heat of the moment. Most shows leave it at that, they don’t explain how they reach these conclusions. We may hear terms like organized or disorganized, but these are never truly explained. So, what make a criminal organized or disorganized, and what evidence do profilers use to figure this out?

Disorganized

The killers can also be known as maniacs. The distinction between organized and disorganized was first drawn by FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood. A disorganized killer is one who generally has lower intelligence, someone who doesn’t have either the skills or confidence to plan their crimes. Due to this, they rarely bring either the murder weapon or any additional tools with them to the scene of the crime. Commonly, they will use things from the victim’s house such as kitchen knives or phone cords instead. Even when they do bring the weapon with them, the crimes are often blitz attacks, showing extreme violence and overkill. In the case of Richard Chase, while he brought the gun with him, the scene was described as a bloodbath with no attempts to hide the carnage. That’s another distinction between disorganized and organized. A crime scene left by a disorganized killer is usually chaotic with no attempts made to clean or conceal it.

Organized

In contrast, when the victim of an organized killer is found it’s generally not the same location they were murdered in. The organized killer plans their crimes, bringing their tools with them and cleaning up after they’re done. Unlike the disorganized killer, organized killers have an easier time blending in with society. John Wayne Gacy was well-known and liked in his community and was married with children, all while murdering young boys and hiding them in his crawlspace. These killers are also more likely to insert themself into the investigation, both to keep an eye on things and relive the high the murders originally brought.

Like everything about human nature, crimes rarely match any category completely. While many crime scenes lean closer to either disorganized or organized, some fall in between. These mixed types may be organized enough to clean up after their kills but disorganized when it comes to picking their victims. Whatever category the killer falls into, these behaviors allow the investigators to narrow their search for specific types of people who are more likely to behave in that manner.