“I’ve written them all down but I can’t find . . . Is it all right if I . . . Oh, there it is, sorry.”
He looked around, the ice broken, and Pauline Berg thought he had happy eyes.
“First and foremost I want to state that Falkenborg cannot be characterised as a serial killer, based on the definition I am working from, as he does not fulfil the most essential criterion, which is having at least three documented murders on his conscience. I emphasise documented. I am not stating any opinion on the probability that the third woman, Annie Lindberg Hansson, was murdered by Andreas Falkenborg. That is outside my area of expertise. But the fact that our man does not qualify as a serial killer under this criterion should not keep us from comparing him with the general profile we normally see among this type of offender.”
He looked up and encountered nods of agreement. No one in his audience felt compelled to apply the designation “serial murderer” to their suspect.
“The first similarity with serial murder that jumps out is the very high level of orderliness displayed in connection with the two homicides. An order that has a ritual character. Serial murderers often kill their victims in the same way each time they strike. One example among many is John Wayne Gacy, who killed thirty-three boys in Chicago in the 1970s by garrotting them with a rope and a stick while he read aloud from the Bible. Both of Andreas Falkenborg’s known murders proceeded in the same way down to the slightest detail, and I am almost certain that what the women were subjected to before their deaths happened in the same sequence.
“Supported by Rikke Barbara Hvidt’s testimony, which I was able to read here this morning, this sequence consists of the fact that he isolates the women in a place where he won’t be disturbed, he takes off their outer clothes but not their panties, and makes sure that their breasts can be seen by removing their bras and tearing their underclothes in front. He cuts, or acts as if he is cutting, their nails, he attaches their hands to their thighs, he puts red lipstick on them, and finally he suffocates them by pulling a clear plastic bag over their heads and tightening it around their necks. In addition their grave has been dug in advance, which he does not try to conceal from them. Here it is obvious that Andreas Falkenborg fulfils the serial killer criterion of killing victims in the same way. Even if the statistical material in his case—fortunately, I would add—is slender, I am convinced that if he has killed other women, it has happened in exactly the same way.”
The profiler took a sip of water and continued speaking.
“It is also worth noting that he is white, male, that he tried to kill for the first time when he was in his twenties, and that he was not closely linked to his victims. It is also significant that both his victims were of his own race—all indicators for the classic serial killer. On the other hand, he does not commit his murders within a geographically limited area, which is otherwise the norm for serial killings. And he apparently does not kill to achieve excitement, sexual satisfaction, domination or a combination of the three. The fact is, I can’t really ascribe any of these motives to him, although I must clearly emphasise that this concerns an assessment that I am not certain holds up. I was actually doubtful whether I should even mention it, and when I do, it is overwhelmingly due to the new angles about Falkenborg’s behaviour that you collected in Hundested yesterday.”
Simonsen asked soberly, “What are you basing your assessment on?”
“Excitement is the easiest element to rule out. Serial murderers who get a kick out of killing seldom plan the scene of the crime and almost always commit their murders quickly and not far from potential witnesses. That is a significant part of the excitement for them. If we take a serial killer such as Peter Sutcliffe, the so-called Yorkshire Ripper—”
Simonsen looked at Pedersen, who shook his head in annoyance, and then politely interrupted the psychologist.
“We recognise that this is your area of expertise. You don’t need to give examples to back up your argument.”
Pedersen put in, “It gets a little too much like answer key logic.”
“Fine by me, I’ll drop the examples. Where was I? Yes, excitement is easy to rule out in this case. Falkenborg isolates his victims, seems afraid of possible witnesses although they are far away, and takes as few chances as possible. One small exception to this perhaps is the way he presumably tied Maryann Nygaard’s arms behind her back, gagged and concealed her in his helicopter, while everyone else was running around searching for her at the radar station. But that was done from necessity and was not particularly risky for him.”