By Michelle Green, Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Police have unveiled plans to interview convicted serial killers in an attempt to understand their motivations and speed up arrest times.
The research, sparked by the 2002 sniper attacks in Washington that left 10 people dead, will also study so-called “honour” killings, ritual murders and stranger attacks -- where the killer is not known to the victim, the Metropolitan police force said.
Officers want to know how the killers initially avoided capture, so that they can speed up future detection and “effectively prevent a murder from taking place,” a spokesman for the London force, which is coordinating the study, said in a statement.
“Following the case of the sniper who terrorised parts of the U.S, consideration was given to the possibility of such a case occurring in the UK,” he said.
“The possibility of early identification...will allow for early response and the possible prevention of murders.”
Where possible, the detectives who were in charge of the original cases will carry out the interviews.
Former police chief Keith Hellawell, who has interviewed “Yorkshire Ripper” Peter Sutcliffe, said information about how such killers worked would be of value but cautioned against believing everything they said.
“They tell you what they want you to know and to some of them, particularly I found with Sutcliffe, it was a game,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Sutcliffe was jailed for life in 1981 for murdering 13 women and trying to kill seven more. The truck driver from Yorkshire claimed he heard voices from God telling him to murder prostitutes.
Hellawell also questioned whether the initiative would lead to earlier arrests, saying catching serial killers was like “looking for a needle in a haystack”.
Convicted serial killers who could be interviewed by police include Rosemary West and Dennis Nilsen.
West, a housewife, was found guilty in 1995 of killing 10 women and girls, whose bodies were found dismembered and buried at what quickly became known as the “House of Horrors”.
Nilsen was jailed for life in 1983 for six murders after a plumber found human flesh blocking the drains. The homosexual civil servant confessed to killing 15 down-and-out young men at his London home over five years.
Other types of murder to be analysed for the research include homophobic slayings, contract killings, the murder of sex workers and killings of elderly people.