10-19-2012, 12:39 PM
I was just thinking about why the perp dismembered Jessica's body. Murderers dismember their victims for a couple of reasons.
Sometimes dismemberment is done to make the body easier to dispose of (i.e., it's easier to dispose of a body in several trash bags than one large one). This doesn't seem to be the case here as her body parts were left in open space.
Other times, dismemberment is done to prevent or delay identification of the body. This is especially effective when the body is disposed of far away from where the person went missing. If LE finds a body with no hands or head and there's no dna match to any local missing people, identification is very difficult.
But in this case, a dismembered body of a young child was found close to where she disappeared. Even though it took several days for the DNA results to confirm that it was Jessica, I don't think LE had any doubt it was her.
Sometimes killers keep body parts for souvenirs, but they usually take one piece and don't hack up the rest of the body.
A killer might want to remove body parts that might contain evidence linking the crime back to him (hands because of evidence under fingernails, etc.)
Why did the killer leave Jessica's backpack and body parts where they could be found so readily? If he disposed of Jessica deep in the woods or in water, it might have been months, if ever, before she was found.
It seems to me that this guy wanted to have the backpack and Jessica found, and is really getting off on the news coverage of it.
Sometimes dismemberment is done to make the body easier to dispose of (i.e., it's easier to dispose of a body in several trash bags than one large one). This doesn't seem to be the case here as her body parts were left in open space.
Other times, dismemberment is done to prevent or delay identification of the body. This is especially effective when the body is disposed of far away from where the person went missing. If LE finds a body with no hands or head and there's no dna match to any local missing people, identification is very difficult.
But in this case, a dismembered body of a young child was found close to where she disappeared. Even though it took several days for the DNA results to confirm that it was Jessica, I don't think LE had any doubt it was her.
Sometimes killers keep body parts for souvenirs, but they usually take one piece and don't hack up the rest of the body.
A killer might want to remove body parts that might contain evidence linking the crime back to him (hands because of evidence under fingernails, etc.)
Why did the killer leave Jessica's backpack and body parts where they could be found so readily? If he disposed of Jessica deep in the woods or in water, it might have been months, if ever, before she was found.
It seems to me that this guy wanted to have the backpack and Jessica found, and is really getting off on the news coverage of it.