1116 MODUS OPERANDI
cal scale. Thus, the particle might be placed on a
polished salt plate and extracted with droplets of
ether delivered from a capillary pipette with the
diameter of a hair. If the droplets are drawn off to
the side with a tungsten needle, before they evapo-
rate, a crescent-shaped droplet of the plasticizer will
form there and the infrared spectrum can be quickly
collected. The extracted particle might now be
pressed to a thin film and its infrared spectrum
obtained. Inorganic spectral peaks in the particle
will be easier to interpret if it is transferred to a
polarizing microscope. Many inorganic fillers and
pigments, such as talc, calcite, quartz and titanium
dioxide, can be readily identified on the basis of their
optical properties. If necessary, to complete the inter-
pretation, the particle can be washed free of index of
refraction oil and mounted on a polished beryllium
plate for EDS spectroscopy to confirm the elemental
composition of the fillers. This hypothetical problem
illustrates the advantages of an analytical approach,
based on the utilization of both microchemistry and
modern instrumentation, for the analysis or identifi-
cation of microscopic items of evidence.
See also: Analytical Techniques: Spectroscopy: Basic
Principles. Serology: Blood Identification; Bloodstain
Pattern Analysis. Analytical Techniques: Spectroscopic
Techniques.
Further Reading
Alimarin I and Petrikova N (1964) Inorganic Ultramicro-
analysis. New York: Pergamon.
Microscopy see Analytical Techniques: Microscopy. Microchemistry.
Microtrace see Dust.
MODUS OPERANDI
B E Turvey, Knowledge Solutions LLC, Watsonville,
CA, USA
Copyright # 2000 Academic Press
doi:10.1006/rwfs.2000.0575
Amelink F (1962) Rapid Microchemical Identification
Methods in Pharmacy and Toxicology. Amsterdam:
Netherlands University Press.
Benedetti-Pichler AA (1964) Identification of Materials via
Physical Properties, Chemical Tests and Microscopy.
New York: Springer.
Chamot EM (1940) Handbook of Chemical Microscopy:
Vol. II: Chemical Methods and Inorganic Qualitative
Analysis. 2nd edn. New York: Wiley.
Cheronis ND and Entrikin JB Semicro Qualitative Organic
Analysis. The Systematic Identification of Organic
Compounds, 2nd edn. New York: Interscience.
Clarke EGC (1969, 1975) Isolation and Identification of
Drugs in Pharmaceuticals, Body Fluids and Post-
Mortem Material, vol. 1 (1969) and vol. 2 (1975).
London: Pharmaceutical Press.
Feigl F (1966) Spot Tests in Organic Analysis, 7th edn.
Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Feigl F (1972) Spot Tests in Inorganic Analysis, 6th edn.
Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Fulton CC (1969) Modern Microcrystal Tests for Drugs. The
Identification of Organic Compounds by Microcrystal-
loscopic Chemistry. New York: Wiley-Interscience.
Geilman W von (1954) Bilder zur Qualitativen Mikroana-
lyse Anorganischer Stoffe. Weinheim: Verlag Chemie.
Jungreis E (1997) Spot Test Analysis Clinical, Environ-
mental, Forensic and Geochemical Applications, 2nd
edn. New York: Wiley-Interscience.
Palenik SJ (1979) Microchemical reactions in particle
identification. In: McCrone WC, Delly JG and Palenik
SJ (eds) The Particle Atlas, 2nd edn, pp. 1174±1175.
Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Science.
Schneider FL (1964) Qualitative Organic Microanalysis.
Cognition and Recognition of Organic Compounds.
New York: Academic Press.
Introduction
Modus operandi (MO) is a Latin term that means `a
method of operating'. It is used by law enforcement
agencies to refer to a criminal's pattern of behavior,

or his or her way of committing crime. It is by under-
standing a criminal's MO behavior that most of those
in law enforcement investigate and link criminal
cases. This investigative approach has evolved from
the use of criminal informants and highly experienced
detectives, into the additional use of criminal data-
base systems. The use of MO and criminal databases
to link cases is but one of several important investi-
gative methods available to law enforcement, and is
separate from the concept of offender `signature'.
Understanding Criminal Behavior
Law enforcement has long held to the belief that
understanding the methods criminals use to commit
crime is the best way of searching for, and ultimately
apprehending, them. This has traditionally required
that detectives be a living encyclopedia of criminal
cases and criminal behaviors, or that they learn to
utilize the knowledge and experience of known crim-
inals to inform their investigations. A strong belief in
this way of approaching the process of criminal
investigation was well demonstrated in France, in
1817, when a former convict named Eugene Vidocq,
who had been working as a police spy, was assigned
by the government to form a Brigade de SuÃreteÂ. He
organized and led this group of detectives, mostly
former criminals themselves, as it grew from a mere
four to 28 in number. Vidocq and his detectives were
paid according to the number of criminals that they
apprehended. Within their first year, the group had
made more than 750 arrests. This led some to believe
that Vidocq and his detectives were a perfect solution
to the local criminal problem; they understood how
criminals operated, had insights into their habits and
methods of operation, and were putting that knowl-
edge to work for the good of the state. However,
others suspected that Vidocq and his detectives com-
mitted many of the crimes themselves and then
framed known criminals or undesirables in order to
close out the cases. This suspicion was never proven,
however, and Vidocq enjoys a largely favorable his-
torical place as the first, and very successful, chief of
the French SuÃrete Nationale.
Whether or not Vidocq was a master detective or
merely continued his criminal career through the
SuÃreteÂ, a philosophy of criminal investigation em-
erged. To understand criminals, to develop compe-
tent investigative strategies, to link their crimes and to
successfully apprehend them, detectives needed to
understand the particular methods criminals used to
commit their crimes. This is an investigative philoso-
phy that survives on an international level, in one
form or another, to the present day.
MODUS OPERANDI 1117
Definitions
Modus operandi has been defined as the actions taken
by a criminal to perpetrate a crime successfully. A
criminal's MO is comprised of learned behaviors that
can evolve and develop, as they become more sophis-
ticated and more confident. It is through analyzing
MO behaviors that law enforcement agencies most
commonly investigate and link crimes to a specific
offender. A criminal's MO behavior is functional in
nature. It generally serves any of three purposes for
the offender:
. to protect identity
. to ensure success
. to facilitate escape
General types of MO behaviors include, but are not
limited to:
. offense location selection (i.e. in a public park, on a
school campus, or in a victim's residence, etc.);
. involvement of a victim during a crime;
. use of a weapon during a crime;
. use of restraints to control the victim during a
crime;
. offender precautionary acts (i.e. wearing a mask,
gloves, covering the victim's eyes during an attack,
wearing a condom during a rape, forcing the victim
to bathe after a sexual attack, etc.);
. offender transportation to and from the crime
scene (i.e. use of a bicycle, use of a motorized
vehicle, walking, etc.).
The criminal's MO, evidenced by MO behavior, is
not the same thing as a criminal's motive, which is
their reason for committing the crime. A criminal's
motives are evidenced by signature behaviors that
suggest overall signature aspects, or motivational
aspects to the crime. Signature behaviors are those
that satisfy the offender's emotional and psychologi-
cal needs. They are often specialized behaviors, typi-
cally not necessary for the completion of the crime,
and tend to show less evolution across offenses than
MO behavior.
Influences on Modus Operandi
A criminal's MO behavior is learned, and therefore
dynamic and malleable. This is because MO behavior
is affected by time, and can change as the criminal
discovers that some of the things done during a crime
are more effective than others. Criminals can subse-
quently recognize these effective actions, repeat them
in future offenses, and become more skillful, refining
their overall MO. However, behavior may also change
due to a criminal's deteriorating mental state, due to
1118 MODUS OPERANDI
the influence of controlled substances, and/or due to
increased confidence that law enforcement will not
successfully apprehend them. These things may cause
a criminal's MO to become less skillful, less competent
and more careless.
Common ways that criminals can learn how to
commit crime more skillfully are by gaining more
experience, building confidence through success and/
or having more contact with the criminal justice
system. Being arrested just once may teach an offen-
der an invaluable lesson about how to avoid detection
by law enforcement in the future. Further still, and
with some great irony, a prison term in the United
States is referred to by some, in both law enforcement
and the criminal population, as `going to college'.
This is because younger and less experienced offen-
ders have the opportunity in prison to network with
older and more experienced offenders who have
already accumulated a great deal of criminal knowl-
edge. Subsequently, a prison term of only a few years
has the potential to advance an offender's skill level
far beyond their original MO. Once released, such
offenders may take their `education' and embark on
criminal enterprises that before would have been
beyond their ability.
Criminals can also seek out knowledge directly, just
like anyone else, without having to spend time with
other, more experienced, criminals. They can learn
from the things that they see or read, which include
items ranging from those in the media to educational
and technical materials. For example, a rapist may
commit five different attacks in a single region. The
attacks may go unconnected until DNA results come
back and demonstrate that the rapes were more than
likely committed by the same offender. If the media
publishes a headline that reads `Serial rapist linked to
five attacks by DNA!', the rapist may alter his MO
behavior to prevent law enforcement from linking
future cases. He may do so by making temporary
changes, such as using a condom during any future
rapes, or he may decide to make a more permanent
change and undergo a vasectomy. Either way, the
rapist may make a conscious attempt to prevent the
transfer of a particular type of evidence, based on
what he has learned from the media coverage of the
case or other similar cases.
However, MO behavior does not always evolve
to become more competent as offenders progress
through their criminal careers. Owing to a deterior-
ating mental state, the use of controlled substances, or
increased confidence that law enforcement will not
successfully apprehend them, offenders' MO beha-
viors can evolve over time to a less competent and less
skillful level than when they first began. For example,
the American serial murderer Theodore (Ted) Bundy,
who killed at least 30 victims across five states
between 1973 and 1978, began his criminal career
with a very competent, very well thought out MO. He
was polite and friendly, extremely mobile and often
approached his victims in some manner as to appear
helpless or weak, and essentially nonthreatening. He
sometimes accomplished this by presenting himself as
a motorist who needed assistance with a disabled
vehicle, and would often wear his arm in a sling. He
also tended to select teenage females as victims, stalk-
ing them and selecting a disposal site for their bodies
well in advance of committing an actual crime. But his
MO deteriorated remarkably over time. After being
incarcerated and then escaping on two separate occa-
sions in Colorado, he made his way to Florida. He
began to drink heavily, and he began to involve the
bodies of his victims in rituals (signature behavior),
including keeping the body for days at a time after
death. There was also evidence that Bundy sham-
pooed some of his victim's hair, and applied make-
up to their corpses, rather than disposing of them
immediately. In short, he began to leave more and
more evidence behind, engaged in fewer precaution-
ary acts, and became involved in more ritual behavior.
His victim selection also changed; he chose his last
victim, a 12-year-old female student from Florida,
totally by virtue of her availability. This was a marked
departure from his previous MO behavior of carefully
stalking victims in advance and selecting victims who
were in their late teens and early twenties.
Understanding how MO can change over time, and
the types of things that can influence those changes,
has become an important part of using MO as an
effective investigative tool.
Linkage Blindness
The MO behavior demonstrated by a criminal can
play an important role in law enforcement's linkage of
related crimes. However, because MO behaviors can
change over time, the tendency of law enforcement to
rely solely upon an offender's MO for investigative
strategy can lead to what has been termed `linkage
blindness'; the failure to recognize a pattern that links
one crime with another crime in a series of cases.
Specifically, there are three very important factors
that can act individually or in concert to cause linkage
blindness:
. the tendency for law enforcement to rely solely on
MO behaviors like victim type, weapon selection
and location type as a basis for case linkage;
. the possibility that one predatory offender is oper-
ating in or near the same general area as another,
confusing law enforcement efforts;

. interpersonal or interagency conflicts, which can
lead to communication breakdowns and a lack of
information sharing.
Crime Linkage Systems:
VICAP and VICLAS
If you take a picture of a person who has committed a
crime, then that person can be identified if he or she
commits another crime later on. This fact was not lost
on law enforcement as they began to incorporate
photography into the criminal investigative process
during the last half of the 1800s. As the sheer number
of photographs of criminals began to grow, the need
for a system of classification became apparent. The
first classification systems adopted by law enforce-
ment for their growing photographic databases were
oriented towards MO behaviors. Photographs were
sorted by virtue of the basic type of crime, and perhaps
methods, used to commit the crime. Pickpockets who
operated at racecourses went into one pile, while
burglars who first `cased' the homes they intended to
rob by posing as salesmen went into another.
By the early 1900s, the contents of photographic
databases had grown to substantial numbers and
methods of classification had become more sophisti-
cated and more competently crossreferenced. Crim-
inal photographs were no longer simply classified by
basic MO behaviors. Classification had evolved into
advanced databases of criminal activity that were
subclassified by factors such as method of entry into
the crime scene, materials brought to commit the
crime (i.e. flashlight, rope, lock picks, etc.), type of
weapon used and physical description.
Today, those at the forefront of developing law
enforcement investigative techniques understand that
there are a number of important, but often ignored,
ways to link cases, apart from direct physical evidence
and witness or victim statements. These include:
. Modus operandi: similarities between actions taken
by an offender that are necessary for the successful
completion of the crime.
. Signature: similarities between actions taken by an
offender that are unnecessary for the successful
completion of the crime; actions that suggest a
psychological or emotional need.
. Victimology: similarities or connections between
victims.
. Wound pattern analysis: a review of the autopsy
or hospital protocols for a victim in an effort to
find similarities between the nature and extent of
injuries sustained during an attack.
. Geographic region or location: offenses that have
occurred in the same area, or the same type of area.
MODUS OPERANDI 1119
There is a large amount of published information
regarding the limitations of using MO behavior as a
sole basis for linking solved and unsolved criminal
cases, and the importance of understanding the con-
cept of offender signature. However, even the most
modern law enforcement case linkage initiatives tend
to focus on understanding MO behavior alone.
Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP)
The core of these ideas was brought into modern
offender databasing by the late Pierce Brooks, an
American law enforcement officer. Brooks joined
the Los Angeles Police Department in 1948 and
served in the vice, narcotics and homicide divisions.
In 1958, Brooks was assigned two homicides that,
although clearly unrelated, appeared to be the work
of individuals who had killed before. He looked for
resources to assist him in linking either of his homi-
cides to any other cases in other parts of the country.
There was nothing like that available on a national
level. So Brooks used the only national information
system available to him ± he went to the local library
for hours at a time and sifted through newspapers
from around the country in the hopes of finding
stories that related cases with similar MO behavior.
Brooks quickly came to realize that what was
needed was a national database and information cen-
ter that collected information on the MO of those
killers that crossed jurisdictional boundaries. As early
as 1958, he also knew that a computerized database of
such information was the most effective way to make
it nationally accessible. His technique of searching
through library newspaper archives for related cases,
born out of extreme necessity, was the basis for what
was to become the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP).
In 1983, Brooks testified before Congress about the
possibility that unsolved murders around the country
might be attributed to anonymous serial murderers.
He explained that the only way to investigate the
crimes and link the cases to apprehend these indivi-
duals was to put all of the information about each
case into a computer database system that everyone in
law enforcement could have access to. In 1984, with
Brooks' help, the FBI's National Center for the Ana-
lysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) was officially estab-
lished. VICAP went online in 1985, with Brooks as
the first program manager. Supervisory Special Agent
Robert K. Ressler followed Brooks as the first agent
program manager after Brooks terminated his FBI
consultation.
VICAP remains a nationwide data information
center, specifically designed for collecting, sorting
and analyzing solved and unsolved homicides, as
1120 MODUS OPERANDI
well as missing persons cases where there is a strong
possibility of foul play. According to the FBI,
VICAP's mission remains to facilitate cooperation,
communication and coordination between law enfor-
cement agencies and provide support in their efforts
to investigate, identify, track, apprehend and prose-
cute violent serial offenders.
Law enforcement agencies can submit their un-
solved and solved cases for comparison to those in
the VICAP system via a handwritten 15-page report
form. The VICAP Crime Analysis Report details
administrative, victim and offender information,
including MO, as well as information about location,
forensic examinations and potentially related cases.
The purpose of submitting the information is so that
VICAP analysts can detect signature aspects and
similar patterns of MO, and determine whether or
not any cases in the current database may be linked.
VICAP suffers greatly from underutilization by law
enforcement. The primary complaint tends to be that
the form is too long and too inconvenient to fill out in
every case. End users of VICAP further complain that
the database is too small, and that it should contain
information regarding other types of interpersonal
crime as well, such as rapes and sexual assaults. To
augment the limited number of cases in the database,
VICAP analysts have taken a page from the book of
Pierce Brooks, and have populated it with informa-
tion on solved and unsolved cases obtained from
newspaper articles. Another weakness of VICAP,
and similar statewide databases, is that analysts still
predominately use MO behaviors to make initial case
linkages. This essentially ignores the many other ways
of avoiding linkage blindness that have proven more
robust, such as offender signature.
Although VICAP has not been significantly chan-
ged or modified since its inception in 1985, VICAP
2000 has been implemented, which expands the data
base somewhat.
Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (VICLAS)
Following research into the FBI's VICAP system, the
Canadian law enforcement community developed
what was referred to as the Major Case File (MCF).
It was Canada's first attempt to link homicide cases
on a national level. Much like the VICAP report,
investigators filled out their forms and submitted
them to regional MCF analysts, who would manually
input the data into the system. The MCF database
was searchable by key words and phrases, and detec-
tives would attempt to link offenses largely by MO
behaviors. Despite the approximately 800 cases in the
MCF database, no linkages had been made with the
system as late as 1990.
In 1991, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police inspec-
tor, Ron McCay, who had recently received training
through the FBI's criminal profiling fellowship pro-
gram in Quantico, Virginia, helped to develop a new
linkage system for Canada. It was to become the
Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (VICLAS).
Its development was the result of analyzing not only
the FBI's VICAP database but other statewide linkage
systems in the United States as well.
A far more ambitious and robust tool than the FBI's
VICAP, VICLAS attempts to input information from
the following sources:
. all solved or unsolved homicides and attempted
homicides;
. solved and unsolved sexual assaults;
. missing persons, where there is a strong possibility
of foul play and the victim is still missing;
. unidentified bodies, where the manner of death is
known or suspected to be homicide;
. all nonparental abductions and attempted abduc-
tions.
An emphasis was also placed on the training and
qualification of VICLAS analysts as an integral part
of the system. Submissions still occur via a question-
naire that is filled out by an investigator and is sent to
one of ten VICLAS centers servicing the various
Canadian regions. However, there are numerous
quality assurance reviews in place, and the VICLAS
analysts may return forms to detectives if something
is questioned. VICLAS analysts are trained to conduct
structured queries of the system based on their own
expertise, and arrive at potential linkages based on
their own analysis of victimology, offender behavior,
MO and forensic information. They are also trained
to understand the concept of offender signature.
Regardless of the results of their analysis, investiga-
tors in the field are charged with ultimately confirm-
ing or rejecting the links, based on the substance of
their own investigation.
The Canadian VICLAS initiative has become a
popular model for law enforcement agencies involved
in violent crime case linkage. Similar systems to
VICLAS, though not directly connected, have been
adopted in other countries, including Australia, Aus-
tria, Belgium, Holland and the United Kingdom. This
speaks to the trend in the international law enforce-
ment community to admit both that they have serial
crime, and that an understanding of the relationship
between MO and other elements that comprise crim-
inal patterns is necessary to successfully link and
investigate them.
See also: Crime-scene Investigation and Examination:
Scene Analysis and Reconstruction. Offender Signature.
 MODUS OPERANDI 1121

Further Reading Burgess A, Burgess A, Douglas J and Ressler R (1997) Crime

Barbaree H, Laws D and Marshall W (1990) Handbook of
Sexual Assault: Issues, Theories, and Treatment of the
Offender. New York: Plenum Press.
Bross H (1924) Criminal Investigation. (English Transla-
tion). London: Sweet and Maxwell.
Burgess A and Hazelwood R (eds) (1995) Practical Aspects
of Rape Investigation: A Multidisciplinary Approach.
New York: CRC Press.
Burgess A, Groth A and Holmstrom L (1978) Sexual
Assault of Children and Adolescents. New York:
Lexington.
Burgess A, Douglas J and Ressler R (1988) Sexual
Homicide: Patterns and Motives. New York: Lexing-
ton.
Classification Manual. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Canter D and Alison L (1997) Criminal Detection and the
Psychology of Crime. London: Ashgate.
Egger S (1997) The Killers Among Us. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Geberth V (1996) Practical Homicide Investigation, 3rd
edn. New York: CRC Press.
Groth AN (1979) Men Who Rape: The Psychology of the
Offender. New York: Plenum Press.
Holmes R and Holmes S (1996) Profiling Violent Crimes: An
Investigative Tool, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
O'Hara H (1970) Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation.
Springfield: Charles C. Thomas.
Turvey B (1999) Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to
Behavioral Evidence Analysis. London: Academic Press.

Motor Vehicles see Accident Investigation: Airbag Related Injuries and Deaths; Driver Versus Passenger in
Motor Vehicle Collisions; Motor Vehicle.

Murder see Crime-scene Investigation and Examination: Collection and Chain of Evidence; Contamination;
Criminal Analysis; Fingerprints; Packaging; Preservation; Recording; Recovery of Human Remains; Scene Analysis
and Reconstruction; Suspicious Deaths.