NEW YORK, April 22 (UPI) -- The killer who dumped women's bodies on a Long Island beach east of New York City appears to be organized and methodical, profilers tell The New York Times.
The newspaper interviewed several criminologists, including a former FBI profiler. Based on the information now public about the case, they said the killer is probably a white male with an age somewhere between mid 20s and mid 40s, intelligent, with some education and a job, who may live or have lived in the area near his burial ground.
"This is someone who can walk into a room and seem like your average Joe," said Scott Bonn, a sociologist at Drew University in Madison, N.J., who has researched serial killers. "He has to be persuasive enough and rational enough that he is able to convince these women to meet him on these terms. He has demonstrated social skills. He may even be charming."
So far, police have found 10 bodies on a stretch of beach off Ocean Parkway in Suffolk County but have identified only four. They all disappeared in the summer between 2007 and 2010 after advertising sexual services on Craigslist.
Jim Clemente, who retired in 2009 as a supervisor in the FBI's behavioral analysis unit, said the killer did not just stumble on his dumping ground. "He must have some familiarity with it," he said.
Behavioral analysis or profiling is not yet the exact science depicted on TV shows such as "Criminal Minds." Thus the profile may not help police pick the killer out of the thousands of men who live in or visit that part of Long Island.
