Frank's made her own extensive notes. Heedless of her exhaustion, she uses these to flesh out the chart she started at the beginning of her investigation. She fills in the facts to create a physical profile of the perp. Going on the assumption that the man who raped Ladeenia is the same person who killed her makes the perp a male. And he's a fit male, able to carry the bodies to the dumpsite with ease, and to snap Trevor's neck like a twig.
Perpetrators tend to feel more comfortable offending within their own race, so she labels the perp black. For the time being this is supported by the fact that a white or Asian male in a mixed black and Hispanic neighborhood would have been conspicuous and likely noted.
Race and gender are easy, but before she can construct a psychological description of her perp, she has to classify the type of crime it was. Organized or disorganized. It has elements of both, but on the whole it fits the description of an organized offense.
Frank starts with what little she can tell from the abduction. Ladeenia's visit to Cassie's was spontaneous. If the perp had known about it he wouldn't have had much time to plan around it, meaning the abduction itself was relatively spontaneous. Spontaneity is characteristic of disorganized offenders, but the abduction itself seems very well organized, not obviously sloppy or chaotic. The perp was able to plan an abduction and carry it off without calling attention to himself. This tells her the offender's intelligence is at least average, if not higher.
Snatching two kids from the street in broad daylight is a ballsy move. There are a number of ways he could have done it. One would be to lure them into a vehicle and go off with them. Mrs. Pryce said there's no way Ladeenia would get into a car with a strange man. Absolutely no way. Frank knew kids were readily swayed, but for a couple reasons she agreed that the perp probably hadn't used a vehicle.
One, it's not likely that a guy this organized would impulsively snatch not one but two kids in the middle of the afternoon. The risks were huge. He'd have to physically secure them, transport them to a private location, carry the bodies back to the car when he was done, then dump them. All this without anyone's noticing. Risky as hell. It didn't fit with his organizational skills.
Second, if he was just cruising for a likely vie, he wouldn't be cruising in his own neighborhood. The level of planning indicates he'd be smart enough to troll someplace where he wouldn't be recognized. Yet the kids were taken and dumped within a one-mile radius. This would indicate the perp had a reason to be in the area. Because both sites were residential, it seemed likely he lived within the vicinity of either site. Maybe he lived outside the area and had been trolling, but then why bring them back here for the dump? It didn't make sense to return here.
"Unless it's that remorse thing," she murmurs to her knuckles.
Frank drums her pencil on the table. This is the part she can't reconcile. The way he arranged the bodies indicates some degree of concern for the children, maybe even regret, yet is completely inconsistent with the assault and abduction. He raped Ladeenia vaginally and anally but did nothing to depersonalize her. Her face wasn't touched. She didn't appear to have been covered. Typical of assaults by strangers. The vie is simply a convenient object. The perp evinced no compassion during either assault. He didn't notice or care that her thumb was burned. She might have gotten the bruise line on the back of her leg while he raped her vaginally, again showing no compassion, no concern.
None of the evidence suggests Trevor's eyes or head were covered. He probably saw the entire assault on Ladeenia. It would be too risky to leave him out of sight. Seeing his sister attacked would have been a huge trauma for the boy, and completely thoughtless, even sadistic, on the part of the offender. The assaults on Ladeenia are vicious, but not necessarily sadistic. A sadistic rapist has to hurt other people to get off. Without pain, there is no excitement for the sadist. He often enacts convoluted fantasies, and tortures his victims before and/or during the assault. Pain is critical to his arousal. Ladeenia's perp obviously hurt her, but he didn't inflict pain incidental to his primary objective of rape. There is no evidence of prolonged or exaggerated cruelty.
Experts recognize four general categories of rapist, the sadistic offender being one type. Frank dismisses this category as well as the power-reassurance rapist. Perps in this category are the "gentleman rapists" who show concern for their victims during the attack. A third typology, the power-assertive rapist, gets off by being in control. These are self-obsessed offenders who feel entitled to pleasure at the cost of another's pain, deserving to fuck whomever, whenever. Because they are into control they often bind their victims. They tend to pick random rather than known targets and are often violent. Ladeenia's perp didn't appear overly aggressive, but how tough would you have to be to intimidate a nine-year-old?
The fourth category, anger-retaliatory, doesn't fit with the evidence. Anger is the motivation for these rapists, and their victims are usually badly beaten. Other than the rape, there was no excessive trauma or humiliation to Ladeenia. The assault was bloodless literally and figuratively. Frank would expect to see a lot more damage if her perp was a raging, blitz-style personality.
She considers whether he is a genuine pedophile or merely opportunistic. From her experience, child molesters who prey on prepubescent kids usually aren't gender-specific. Molesters who prey on older kids are. Her perp didn't seem to have any sexual interest in Trevor, only Ladeenia. She thinks if he were a genuine pedophile, he'd have gotten off with both kids.
"Double your pleasure, double your fun," she thinks aloud.
Consulting a number of battered texts, she decides her perp falls into various categories, which is typical of most offenders. He exhibits traits of both an organized and disorganized offender, favoring the organizational side. His style appears to be primarily power-assertive though he has attacked outside his own age range and dumped the kids in a style grossly inconsistent with that category of offender.
The lack of witnesses, the apparent speed and skill of the abduction, as well as lack of planning, all suggest Ladeenia and Trevor just happened to have chanced upon a tragic confluence of time and space.
"Seconds and inches," she mumbles. Frank shuts the binder and tips her chair back. She rocks, eyes closed. Power-assertive rapists tend to act on a cycle, allowing time for the fantasy and planning of their next rape. This perp's action was spontaneous. He saw an opportunity and literally grabbed it. The spontaneity in an otherwise highly organized crime suggests a stressor. Something may have upset him prior to the abduction, and the assault was his way of releasing that stress.
Thumping her chair down, Frank draws up a list of typical stressors. When she starts canvassing she'll inquire about neighbors' fighting, getting arrested or losing jobs, whether anyone had a recent death or divorce in the family.
The positioning of the bodies distracts Frank like a chronic, low-level pain. Their careful, almost tender placement completely contradicts the violence of the assaults. Frank considers maybe the perp was drunk when he took the kids, and the situation escalated. Next thing he knows he's got two dead kids on his hands. He didn't mean for that to happen. Just wanted a little fun. After he sobers up he is filled with remorse. He wraps the kids in the blanket. Carries them to the site. He puts them down, maybe resting for a minute, and in that minute realizes what he's done. He's emotionally exhausted and physically spent. Regret seeps into him. It's dark, so he can't see the trash on the ground, but he opens the blanket and picks the kids up, placing them next to each other. It was cold that night so he covered them with the blanket.