Kate Lines - Crime Seen: From Patrol Cop to Profiler, My Stories from Behind the Yellow Tape

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

Copyright 2015 Decentia Consulting Inc.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Lines, Kate, 1956, author
Crime seen : from patrol cop to profiler, my stories from behind the yellow tape / Kate Lines.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-307-36313-8
eBook ISBN 978-0-307-36315-2

1. Lines, Kate, 1956. 2. Criminal profilersOntarioBiography.
3. PolicewomenOntarioBiography. 4. Criminal behavior, Prediction ofOntario. 5. MurderOntario. 6. Ontario Provincial PoliceBiography.
I. Title.

HV7911.L56A3 2015 363.2092 C2014-906387-3

Photo credits: , courtesy Sgt Joanne Stoeckl, Rideau Hall Her Majesty The Queen in Right of Canada represented by the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General (2003).

Cover images: (bokeh background) Artish, (fingerprint) Andy Brown, both Dreamstime.com; (yellow tape) Henry Steadman, Getty Images

v3.1

To those who
stood in front of me, beside me and behind me.
I am forever grateful.

A LOT OF WHAT I KNOW about how criminals think and behave I learned underground. During a pivotal and life-changing ten months of my career in the early 90s, my daily routine was to take leave of daylight, fresh air and windows and descend two storeys to the sub-basement of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. It was there that an ace team of Behavioral Sciences Unit agents taught criminal personality profiling to police officers from around the world.

Going to work underground conjures up notions of secrets and clandestine operations and, in some ways, that wasnt too far from the truth. I was surprised to learn that not so long before my time there, the workings of the unit were kept under wraps from legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who regarded the emerging field as highly suspect. It was not until his death, in 1972, that the unit was able to reveal what it was up to.

I didnt share Hoovers disregard for the potential of the soft sciences in helping solve crimes. I had been with the Ontario Provincial Police for thirteen years and already had some pretty varied experiences under my belt. Since working my first sexual assault case Id known I wanted to focus my career on investigating violent crime. If I could tough it out with the FBI, I would go home with skills and knowledge that were cutting edge, and that would help me make a difference in how we tackled the toughest of crimes. With a payoff like that, I could live without daylight for a while. It was the perfect place for me to be.

Each morning my six classmates and I would gather around the large table in our boardroom office to meet with our instructors. In an era when the pressures of police work were rarely talked about, we were first armed with stress management techniquessuch as eating well, getting lots of rest, staying fit, keeping in touch with family and friends, and pursuing activities away from the academyto help ensure our bodies and minds were healthy and ready for what we would be taught. What followed was a crash course in all manner of violent crimes, working on cases that involved bizarre and gruesome behaviours beyond what I could ever have imagined. Some days were like having a front-row seat to the gamut of human misery.

And what we covered wasnt based on dated textbook theorypart of our day-to-day was working on real-time cases that needed every bit of ingenuity and experience we could muster. Our boardroom was often taken over by BSU agents meeting with detectives to discuss their unsolved cases. There were never any easy ones. They wouldnt have come knocking on the FBIs door if they were.

The first few hours of the meetings were usually spent getting all of the details of the caselistening to the officers tell the story of the crime; what evidence had been collected; the results of forensic tests; what witnesses saw or heard; and, of course, what the victim had to say. In most cases though, the victim wasnt alive to tell their side of the story. This is when crime-scene reconstruction kicked in and our search for behavioural clues started. What could the scene tell us about what went on between the victim and their killer? Why this victim? What was the motive?

Sometimes guests were invited to sit in on these consultations, experts such as forensic psychiatrists, coroners, pathologists and even an entomologist who was also an FBI agent. Everyone around the table had different backgrounds that contributed to the discussion, while the BSU agents had the benefit of their research on all types of violent crimes and had interviewed rapists, killers and other violent offenders. Adding that to the foundation of all of the investigative information and personal experiences shared, a profile of the likely characteristics of the unknown offender would emerge along with suggested strategies to move their investigation forward.

I was still getting my footing in the program when a Canadian case came in: a four-year-old little boy named Michael Dunahee, who had been missing for three weeks. The crucial first forty-eight hours had come and gone in this case and my Canadian brothers, experienced as they were, had become tired, frustrated and were desperate for help. They wanted to know what type of person would take a child like this and if there was something more they could possibly do to bring the little boy home. We may have been deep underground, but where we were was definitely the real world, where trying to understand the criminal mind could be a matter of life or death.

You can be anything you want to be. Dont let anybody tell you any different. Now go and clean up your room.

Jean Cavanagh, my mom

I ALWAYS LOOKED FORWARD TO SUNDAY mornings when Dad and Mom loaded the three of us kids into Dads 57 Pontiac. It was peacock blue, just like my favourite colour in the twelve-pack of Laurentien pencil crayons. Dad drove us five kilometres to attend eight oclock mass at St. Martin of Tours Roman Catholic Church. The church was near the top of the hill in the hamlet of Ennismore, Ontario. We sat in the same wooden church pew every week, ten rows up on the left, and right across from the stained glass window of St. Peter. My older sister, Barb, and I were never allowed to sit beside one another. We got into less trouble that way. My brother, Gerry, was an altar boy, so got to do all the fun stuff: carrying candles, fetching water and wine, holding towels, ringing bells and burning incense.