Somer Thompson's murder: A real-life 'Numb3rs' case?

November 4, 5:00 AMTrue Crime ExaminerIvy Bigbee

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Could Dr. Kim Rossmo's ground-breaking geographic profiles (above) be instrumental in locating Somer Thompson's killer? The pilot episode of hit TV show,"Numb3rs" was based on Rossmo's accomplishments. A former Canadian constable who gumshoed around Vancouver's high-crime, "downtown eastside" by night, while acquring a forensics-related mathematics Ph.D by day, Rossmo has consulted in high-profile cases, including the Zodiac and DC Sniper serial murders. Beyond the sordid province of serial killers, as an author, Rossmo and his books are crossing the divide of academic and trade publications. Blazing new trails in behavioral patterns, the numbers mastermind maps out prey-hunting-grounds of great white sharks, reconnoiters bat flight, and sits in on the occasional chair-burglar case. 

Could the identity of Somer Thompson's killer be lurking among numbers? In the 7-year-old Florida girl's brutal slaying, tragically, life might reflect "art," should the multi-agency search for her killer unfold like a TV episode of  "Numb3rs."

If criminal profilers can relate the murder of the slain first-grader--who vanished in Orange Park, Florida while walking home from school on Oct 19--to cold case, child homicides, perhaps the "devil's" in the details-aspects of Somer's profoundly-mourned death can be expressed in terms of dispassionate equations--figuratively speaking--where in solving for the unknown, her killer, "x," can be found.

Used as a tool for investigators in working certain murders--the October, 2002 DC Sniper case being a prime example--crime mapping, or geographic profiling as reflected in the graphics above,might assist Clay County police in the case of the widely-followed, North Florida first-grader's October '09  killing.  

Referring to earlier unsolved cases in Northeast Florida, "America's Most Wanted" host, John Walsh theorized on "Good Morning America," that Somer's murder is the work of a pedophile serial killer emerging from a dormant period, possibly having killed 4 Jacksonville area children.

 The 20-year-old cases remain open.

Back then, when DNA analysis was still cutting its teeth, geographic profiling had not come of age. Now, the field is rapidily expanding, aided and abetted by information collected from convicted criminals, then stored in data bases, including the FBI's network of accessible stats.

Should profilers suspect Somer's murder has similarities--"signatures" or modus operandi --to other area homicides, forensic data banks could be mined to produce a veritable map of the most likely suspects. 

If looks could kill, the colorful arrays seen above would be fatal. Instead, maps like these illustrations are the "brainchildren" of mathematician, Dr. Kim Rossmo (photograph, below right), creator of a program generating maps used in pursuit of justice for victims, to save property, money, and lives. 

Far pavilions: Kim Rossmo's "built" world

In 1995, according to Vancouver Sun, "Rossmo had become Canada's first police officer to graduate with a Ph.D."  With heavy work and academic loads, by night, Constable Rossmo gumshoed around Vancouver, investigating murders; Rossmo as mathematician dug up numbers by day. During his Simon Fraser University years, the newpaper reports, "he developed geographic profiling, a computerized crime tool aimed at detecting serial rape, arson and murder."

Asked by True Crime Examiner how he came to apply mathematics to forensics, Rossmo answers, "I was originally a mathematics major but wanted a job that was more exciting. This led," he continues, "to my interest in criminology and then policing."  

Policing has taken Rossmo far afield. His geographic profiles have been applied across species and settings, where this number-fisher sorts prey search patterns of great white sharks, follows flight paths of bats, examining "green" numbers beyond those cast from off-color,human remains.

Making his living in law enforcement for 21 years, Rossmo upscaled to a digits and decimal-appointed locus in analyzing crime--work which has put him on the maps of law enforcement, academia and the media. The author of two critically-acclaimed books, Rossmo's super-overachiever biography begs the question: when does he sleep?

Composed and unassuming, Clark Kent-like Rossmo spends many waking hours heading the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation at Texas State University; he is also chairman of the board and chief scientist for ECRI, a geographic profiling company.             

Armed with equations and dazzling displays, Rossmo has been changing the world, you could say, one standard deviation at a time, foiling arsonists, rapists and serial killers, that in the interest of justice, prison inmates' permanent numbers might repeat over long stretches of time. With a CV exceeding 6 pages, and a habit of international travel he frequently revisits, more than once, paradigm-packing Rossmo has arrived at the center of controversy.

Following disagreements with Vancouver police, who let him go due to "budget" constraints, in 1995, Rossmo received Simon Fraser University's Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy,  "awarded annually to a recipient whose work presents new ways of looking at the world, ways that are daring and creative."  

Picture his mind's eye gazing out jet-plane windows, vaulting over far-flung borders, or focused deep inside the heady atmosphere of his Texas State, San Marcos domain.

Geographic profiling: what might it do to solve a case like Somer Thompson's murder? 

Often, child murderers have offended before, and as profilers have learned, these criminals are creatures of habit. Rarely do they go beyond their so-called "comfort zones," the operative word here being "zone."  In other words, much is known, data-wise, about the previously-convicted; numbers do not work for them. Law enforcement, especially profilers, draw heavily on the seeming bits and pieces of their lives.  

In a compelling Sept. 4, 2008 blogtalkradio interview with Deborah Osborne, Dr. Rossmo introduces the audience to the methods behind his novel constructs, explaining, "the geography of crime takes a look at the where."  In viewing the above maps, the archaic, 50s, "gangbuster" term, "dragnet"  assumes a fascinating and new cyber-identity. Here, even criminals look pretty in pink.

In the half-hour radio interview, Rossmo pulls up a California serial chair burglary case as a study in geographical profiling. According to Rossmo, someone had been stealing chairs amounting to significant property loss. Through various cell phone data banks, a license plate number was generated, and surveillance was put in place to see if the burglar could be identified. Long geographic profiling story short: with police on the look-out for the specific vehicle tag, lawmen caught the thief, who was driving a rental car on the first night's surveillance.

Reducing property loss and man-hours of investigation is what Rossmo's geographic profiling can offer--it can conserve resources, and in locating serial murderers, crime mapping--plotting man against his "built environment"--is figuratively and literally life-saving. 

Check out the 2-D geoprofile (above, right), derived from a 3-D jeopardy surface.You are viewing an actual geographic profile in a 1990 serial arson case, Saanich, British Columbia. The "hot spots" ---where the most likely offenders/perps/bad guys operate--are coded dark orange, and where they are least likely to be found are coded dark gray.

Since everything boils down to numbers, there are programs in mathematics that crunch numbers---really crunch numbers until they cry "uncle," then give up their secrets: geographic profile-wise, the most likely places where a killer will be found. 

Although the mathematician-- whose favorite number is 5--may seem more laconic and precise, Kim Rossmo and his real "Numb3rs" can generate near-infinite amounts of forensic information. Along with his "side-kick," a program called Rigel, the recognized innovator of the geography of crime is able to apply certain forensic data in such a way, states ECRI's site, to "determine the most probable area of an offender's search base."

No doubt you have encountered--at least on TV crime shows which have featured Rossmo, whose  work was the basis for the pilot episode of "Numb3rs"-- the way-cool, case-cracker show where mathematics heros zero in on engaging dramas playing out in less than an hour.

Assume--as John Walsh believes--that her case may linked to others. In Somer Thompson's murder, with the aid of a program called Rigel--an algorithm or mathematical formula for doing a specific task-- numbers would be assigned to offenders' various behaviors/signatures, then applied to geography of the environment where they may be operating. Imagine a 3-D map of an environment or location, overlayed with "mesh joined by points.  Five will get you 10:  whether in shark or human hunting grounds, the likely/unlikely predator, or "unsub," sports colors on Rossmo's geographic profiles. 

What's with the name "Rigel"? When asked what the letters might signify, Rossmo explains, "Rigel is not an acronym. Its origin is from the star, which is in the constellation Orion, the hunter." 

Hiding in plain sight, Somer Thompson's killer may be walking among ordinary people. This "unknown suspect," or, in forensics-speak, the "unsub," is evil masked as neighbor, "friend," or co-worker. He is a secret, he is a known--driving around town, getting the mail and wolfing down fast food meals, eating away at the sense of safety and well-being people work to secure.

The killer is good at hiding his intentions and activities. The difference between the murderer and us may be an invisible one, because there is no picture for evil.  No hairstyle, garment, or walk can identify him on the outside, with the exception of some odd scratches, and unusual behavior around the time of Somer's murder--anywhere from October 19-21, when her body was recovered from a Georgia landfill, 55 miles from Orange Park, Florida.

With merely a remote control's signal away, the curious aspect of this case--since television is a freeway around the global village--is that many following the Somer Thompson case feel they are present in this North Florida 'burb, many no doubt emotionally are "BOLO-ing" for this monster. Somer's mother, Diena, and others, are "coming to get" the person who trashed her remains, brushed off his body, his psyche, then ran.

On Somer's behalf, we virtually attended rallies, vigils; we are there every time a victim of some particularly heinous crime, especially any crime against the young occurs. Our gazes fix on the children in our lives. Though we wish otherwise, crimes are not solved in an hour--yet the "CSI effect" brings impatience for Somer's killer to be snatched from the sidewalks quickly as someone took her away.

So what, then is the geography of crime?  Dr. Rossmo speaks in general terms, because his work has broad applications.  

Driven by the cosmos, and sometimes spiraling into their personal abyss, offenders have patterns, too.  Rigel's mathematical "MO" can help find serial killers, arsonists and child-murderers; Dr. Rossmo explains that "the geography of crime is interested in where crime happens and why this crime happens at such locations."

Dr. Rossmo goes further: "There are different focuses. You can have a macro or micro focus, meaning, how do crimes vary in terms of geographic locations, or, are crimes higher in California or Massachusetts?"

"Or," he adds, "on a micro-level perspective--if you take a look at a specific city--are there more crimes in this or that neighborhood, and if so, why?

"Those are some of the questions, Rossmo adds, that people who study the geography of crime are interested in: the geography of crime takes a look at  the where.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

"What's more intriguing, notes Rossmo, "concerns influences of the 'built' environment in criminals in how they do their crimes, he continues, "and what are the influences a street "networks" on other types of physical structures: schools, shopping centers, recreational outlets, bars--in terms of how, when and where [crime] happens."

From such novel concepts, Kim Rossmo derives mathematical formulas elegant as curling ocean waves. No chalk-talking, absent-minded professor, Rossmo will continue to apply his knowledge to keeping criminal numbers down.

While numbers--especially the numbers in Kim Rossmo's work--seem off-putting to most, it is ironic that a seemingly-solitary occupation serves many.

Given the resources of law enforcement agencies, whose strength, one could say, is in numbers, it is possible Somer Thompson's killer could be cornered with geographic profiling, using Rigel to hunt him down.

On a scale of 1 to 10, why is 5 Dr. Kim Rossmo's favorite number?  Given that "Numb3rs" never lie, Rossmo answers, "No reason--it's just my favorite number. Has been since I was a young child, first learning arithmetic." 

No problem.

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