In late 1993, four years after the Wetterling abduction, the Washington State Attorney General's Office undertook a 3 1/2 year research
project, partially funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, to study child abduction murder cases. The results were published in 1997:
• The
research showed that the vast majority (74 percent) of abducted children who are killed are dead within three hours of the abduction.
• Over half (53%) of child abduction murders are committed by a killer who is a stranger to the victim. (Id.)
• Sixty-seven percent of the child abduction murderers' prior crimes were similar in M.O. to the murder that was committed by the same killer. (Id.)
• After the victim has been killed, 52 percent of the bodies are concealed to prevent discovery. (Id.)
• 51% of child abduction body recovery sites are rural and the killer deliberately selected the body disposal site in 49% of cases. (Id.)
• In the majority (54%) of cases, the distance between the initial contact site and the murder site increases to distances greater than 1/4 mile. (Id.)
• The distance from the murder site to the body recovery site decreases to less than 200 feet in 72 percent of cases. (Id.)
• The name of the killer is known to the police within the first week in 74% of cases. (Id.)
• The media had no effect at all on investigative outcomes in 63% of the investigations. (Id.)
These results are based on 577 case investigations from 44 states with a total of 621 victims (some cases had multiple victims) and 419 killers. (Id.)
In 2006, the Washington State Attorney General's Office released a
follow-up study, including 175 additional solved cases.
Based on this research, in most cases these are the steps necessary to locate the victim:
1. Ignore news media because it has no effect; i.e., stop relying on old newspaper articles, or turning to media personalities to try to prick someone’s conscience or revive long-lost memories.
2. Pick a suspect.
3. Was the abduction similar in M.O. to prior known criminal acts committed by the suspect?
4. What was the suspect’s location during the three hours following the abduction?
5. Is that location rural and more than a quarter mile away from the initial contact site? (i.e., stop focusing on the site of the abduction, footprints, tire tracks, etc.)
6. Did investigators thoroughly search within 200 feet or less of that location to recover a concealed body? In 72 percent of cases, that is where the concealed remains of the victim are located.
7. Get off your @$$ and search there, using tools/technology appropriate to that specific location.
No body (dead or alive) = no criminal prosecution in MN.
Follow the seven steps above,
recover the remains.
Anything else is a waste of time.
Prov. 11:14