“I believe you.”
“Take the Smiley Face Killer. . Anton Ronning. We had no evidence other than some circumstantial evidence that Ronning was the killer. Of course this is before DNA analysis. Anyway. . it took one man. . Inspector Lars Eliassen. . nine days of interrogation to break the Smiley Face Killer.”
“Nine days?”
“Inspector Eliassen was able to do that because he knew how to get inside the criminal mind thanks to his superb interview and interrogation skills. That and he was a darn good profiler.”
“Chief Inspector. . do you believe in profilers?”
“Yes and no. Sometimes they’re helpful in an investigation if the police are stumped or have little or no creative thinking. Otherwise profilers are best used to help detectives prepare for interrogations that break down the suspect.”
“I’ve not heard that before. . the Academy instructors promised we’d be taught the best and most modern techniques.”
“I guess I’m old-fashioned after all. . I mean. . if the police are not good profilers then they’re incompetent idiots no?. . If you have a violent rape. . do you stop and question the twenty-year old man who’s a violent ex-con?. . Or the ninety-year old woman who’s barely walking with a cane?”
“I see what you mean.”
“Suspect profiling and interrogation techniques are what Inspector Eliassen taught me. . He always said that every good police officer must be a good profiler and excellent at interrogation. . two sides of the same coin so to speak.”
“Who’s this Eliassen?”
“A small town police officer. He spent years and years on the trail of Anton Ronning. . who by the way had twice been caught early in his career of crime and named as a prime suspect but released by the incompetent local police in Oslo and Trondheim.”
“Where’s this Inspector Eliassen now?”
“He died a few years ago. I miss him. . he taught me a lot. Anyway he was a genius at interrogating.”
“How did he catch Ronning?”
“For quite some time Eliassen had Anton Ronning on his short list of suspects for sex crimes in Eliassen’s district. Then he got a lucky break. Ronning crashed into a light pole when he hurriedly left the scene of one of his molestation victims. Eliassen seized the opportunity and locked Anton Ronning up on a minor traffic charge for destruction of public property. . Eliassen then just kept interrogating Anton Ronning until he caught him in all these lies and inconsistencies.”
“That’s impressive!”
“Inspector Eliassen was known for solving impossible-to-solve cases just by interrogating and breaking the suspect down without torture or physical pressure. This Eliassen. . he was a master at interrogation. . out of one hundred interrogations he had only three suspects who refused to confess.”
“That’s pretty good. Too bad the Academy doesn’t teach his techniques.”
“Last time I looked at their curriculum I saw that the Academy. . and the force. . are playing around with this silly stuff about community policing. . detectives eating ethnic food at Asian restaurants or listening to rap hip hop music with African teenagers. Seems that policing in Norway is now all about touchy-feely political correctness and feel-good public relations.”
“Perhaps Chief Inspector. But maybe it’s because effective policing is now based on all the advances in DNA and forensic crime investigation. . Don’t forget those advances Chief Inspector.”
“Forensics are important and sometimes the only thing to go on. . but nothing beats good profiling and interrogation techniques. Too bad the Academy believes all that junk about hiring psychologists and psychiatrists as profilers when the cop on the beat or the detective on the case should be the profiler. Of course I can see the love affair with profilers. . they are very useful in making excellent American movies and television series.”
Wangelin chortled. “So what happened with Eliassen and the serial killer?”
“Anton Ronning would not break down and confess. . despite a lot of psychological pressure put on him during the nine days. But Eliassen broke him by the end of day nine. He does this by questioning and talking to Ronning every day at the little local jailhouse. . until Ronning breaks down. Eliassen makes the pedophile killer realize that by confessing he has a chance to avoid the death penalty overseas in death penalty countries where he raped and killed children. The killer also sees that he can stay in Norway and probably not get extradited if he’s deemed insane. That way he can spend the rest of his life explaining his story to psychiatrists who might eventually cure and release him to enjoy his life and wife and adult children and grandchildren.”
“Chief Inspector. It’s always a shock to me how even the most hardened criminals at one point or another in their life of crime always expect or demand or beg for mercy.”
“Nine-nine percent always ask for the mercy and compassion they refused their victims. One my colleagues in America. . Alec Mikesell the Chief Homicide Detective in Salt Lake City Utah. . once shared with me this bit of wisdom:
“‘Justice must always be satisfied and yet mercy is needed to balance the scales because sometimes justice blindly delivered is an injustice by itself.’
“That’s pretty good. . So what exactly made the Smiley Face Killer confess?”
“Eliassen knows that his suspect is a physical coward and terrified of winding up in any prison here or overseas with inmates who might not be as tolerant as many judges are about child molesters or child rapists or child killers. Ronning fears the rape and the torture and the death that he so freely imparted.”
“Typical.”
“Anton Ronning finally confesses when Inspector Eliassen offers him a chance to explain himself and therefore perhaps avoid prison here and the death penalty overseas if Ronning can show that he’s sick enough and in need of psychiatric treatment.
“Eliassen tells Ronning that a full confession with all the grisly details of all his crimes will help prove Ronning’s insanity. Ronning sees that he might even get out of the all-too-lenient sentence of a maximum twenty-one years in prison that he’d receive here in Norway for all the molestations and rapes and killings.”
“Ja. I can see his motivation in confessing.”
“Of course the ultimate motivation is that the Smiley Face Killer knows for sure that he will get the traditional Russian method of execution with a Makarov pistol shot behind the right ear if he’s ever extradited to any of the Russian Republics where he committed dozens of crimes. Anton Ronning confesses that he is the serial killer but still does not offer details.
“The weekend comes and when it’s time on Monday to provide the details Ronning instead gets a lawyer and tries to limit his confession to molesting children while he worked as a tax collector for a few years as a young man. Of course that’s long before he started killing.”
“Again. . that’s typical. . offering a partial confession to throw off the investigator.”
“Well a partial confession won’t do for Eliassen. . so he shows Ronning how he’s caught Ronning in all these lies during the interrogation. Eliassen tells Ronning that he now knows the exact details of Ronning’s work-and-travel schedules and how these match up perfectly with all of the times and places of the horrible crimes. Eliassen shows Ronning how all of these facts and circumstances will be enough to convict him in any country with the death penalty.
“Eliassen reminds Ronning about the knives and ropes that Eliassen found in Ronning’s briefcase. . and he also reminds Ronning about the numerous eyewitnesses who saw Ronning at the crime scenes trolling for victims.
“For example, one woman in the United States. . in Miami Florida even took a picture of Ronning at the beach where he was trolling for children. . of course two boys were later found dead near his hotel. Ronning’s stupid lawyer says they’ll go to trial and the idiot leaves the room. Eliassen decides to again toss Ronning a lifesaver by making the offhand comment, ‘It’s too bad you want to do it this way when you could’ve gotten off with insanity.’”