[11th_VA]

Like playing chess with a computer ?

[Sacajaweau]

Logic and instinct...not really anything new...the old pin on a map routine. But unlike ordinary criminals, these guys are "tactical"...Run the dogs through the U of MD campus.

Sac

[HiTech RedNeck]

I'd assume this program looks for commonalities among the areas where the crimes have been. Like if they all were heavy with Swedish businesses, the killer's home is assumed to probably not be in a Polish neighborhood. Also I'd bet the areas are now staked out with police noting license plates and looking up the home addresses to crunch into this program to get an idea of the general locale of those who frequent these areas.

However for these killings I wouldn't rule anything out, including the scenes of the crimes being deliberately selected at random on a map, and researched individually, to throw off traffic profiling like this.

[RLK]

Entirely too much information is being released regarding this situation and the tactics being employed, resulting in the idiot wo is doing it allowing to protect himself from getting caught.

[OfByForThePeople]

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

[Prodigal Son]

This killer(s) has some "gimmick". He has devised something or a way to shoot that makes detection extremely difficult. This method must give him an extraordinary amount of confidence as evidenced by the brazen way he has committed these crimes.

What could the gimmick be? You figure that out and you'll know what to look for. The original description was for a white panel truck and if that was so, it seems likely that he(they) could've devised some hidden shooting stand within the truck, but would he continue to use this MO? It seems unlikely, it would be too easy to spot such a truck once the public was on the lookout and getaway would be much more difficult with its lumbering size.

This leads me to believe that he(they) has developed several different methods or variations on the theme of his gimmick or hidden shooting blind- like the ingenious Unabomber. Another idea I had was perhaps a remote controlled camera mounted somehow on a tripod mounted 5.56 mm weapon- hooked up somehow so the shooter could control the weapon by remote control and sight using the video camera via a remote monitor. If such a device were hidden within an ordinary car it might be fairly easy for someone to appear to be innocuosly "sitting behind the wheel" while he was actually lining someone up in his sights.

That's kind of out there- but he's obviously figured out some tricky method to carry this out that gives him a great degree of confidence in not being caught. Ideas anyone?

[Aquinasfan]

Typically, if police believe a killer lives in a 10-square-mile area, Rossmo's tool can narrow that down to a few blocks.

I like it. Then bring in the National Guard, seal off the area and go house-to-house.

[DonQ]

For the moment it appears that the consistent characteristics of these shootings are that they all took place outdoors; the sniper(s) parked in a nearby public parking lot (no drive-by shooting), and the locations were all within a block of main thoroughfares that would lead the I-95 and the Beltway.

So it appears that the perp(s) have a reasonably good knowledge of local geography, including vehicle routes ... suggesting, among other things, that even if the white truck was stolen, the perp has his own vehicle and lots of experience driving it around the DC area, rather than mostly relying on public transit or an unchanging daily commute.

[Theophilus]

Sounds like hocus-pocus to me. They should try using acoustic sensors to quickly determine the shot locations and then zoom in with a recon satellite.

[ChasingFletch]

They'll find this guy as quickly as they found Chandra's killer! How about that silly fool profiler named Fox, on O'Reilly last night? What a dweeb! Dweeb, "he's probably in his 20's or 30's." O'Reilly, "Why"? Dweeb, "Well, he could be in his 50's". What a guy!