Police Tech Terms
A person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behaviour pattern.
What is a serial killer?
Sub-genre of crime fiction that revolves around the police force and their methods.
What is a police procedural?
I kill prostitutes. Then I cut their stomach open, mutilate them and remove their organs from the body cavity.
Who is Jack the Ripper?
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Who is Sherlock Holmes?
A false trail.
What is a red herring?
A person who murders four or more people with no "cooling-off period" between the murders.
What is a mass murderer?
Crime writers often use these two methods to achieve realism in their works.
What is "detailed descriptions" and "referring to places and institutions in the real world"?
I like to kidnap and kill young women. I strangle them or bludgeon them to death, and then I rape them. When the police arrested me in 1989, they found the decapitated heads of 12 of my victims in my apartment.
Who is The Campus Killer (Ted Bundy)?
This first-ever sleuth was created by Edgar Allan Poe: "There will always be motive for crime. If we ever get to a point where people attacking each other in the streets is commonplace, it is at that point society has failed."
Who is C. Auguste Dupin?
In this work, the killer's motive looks you straight in the eye.
What is "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe?
Evidence obtained by scientific methods such as ballistics, blood test, and DNA test and used in court.
What is forensic evidence?
The two typical settings of crime fiction
What are idyllic places and big cities?
I like to rape, asphyxiate and kill boys and young men. I murder them at my own ranch house and bury them in the crawl space underneath my home. In my spare time, I dress up as Pogo to entertain children.
Who is The Clown Killer (John Wayne Gacy)?
"I once was a military cop, with heavy emphasis on the past tense. I have been out nearly as long as I was in. But old habits die hard."
Who is Jack Reacher?
In this genre, you cannot get out, you cannot escape, the murderer may still be close, breathing down your neck...
What is a locked room mystery?
The technical term for the killing of one person by another.
What is a "homicide"?
The typical plot structure in crime fiction
What is crime, investigation, outcome? (= the 3 stages)
I murdered 25 children – of which one was my own - and burned them in my stove. On March 3, 1921, I was sentenced to death in one of the most talked-about trials in Danish history.
Who is The Angel Maker (Dagmar Overbye)?
"The Need was very strong now, very careful cold coiled creeping crackly cocked and ready, very strong, very much ready now"
Who is Dexter?
The two main themes in crime fiction.
What are "good overcomes evil" and "human nature"?
A minor crime (punishment is usually a fine or less than one year in jail).
What is a "misdemeanor"?
Name three things that characterize the loner detective:
e.g. s/he takes risks, has difficult relationships, a troubled past, refuses to play the society game, has an addiction
I love to kill women and use their dead body parts as materials for arts and crafts. I make furniture from their bones and sew clothing items from their skin. I also enjoy digging up dead bodies from their graves to stock up on my supplies.
Who is The Ghoul of Plainfield (Ed Gein)?
"I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming. Stop reproducing. Walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight."
Who is Russel 'Rusty' Cohle from True Detective?
The police use this Latin term to describe a serial killer's method. "M.O." is short for this term.
What is "modus operandi"?