“I don’t think killing them is his goal,” Rylla said. “I think he wants them, what exactly he wants from them I don’t know, but I think he only kills them because they fail him.”
“Except with Georgia,” her partner said.
“But Georgia was different. We believe she fought back in a way he wasn't expecting. Tracey found a wound on her wrist that was self inflicted,” she informed their boss. “Georgia had to have gotten hold of a blade, she wanted to get him in the room so she could attempt to escape. We believe that she managed to cut him and that’s why he washed her down when he didn't bother to do that with the others. Her attempt at escape obviously infuriated him and he lost it, he cut her over thirty times, that’s a lot of rage.”
“He meets the women on a dating website where people are specifically looking for the whole fairytale package, princesses, prince charmings, and happily ever afters. He manages to charm them, tells them what they want to hear, and convinces them to agree to meet him in person. Alone. There were signs that he had punished Georgia, we assume for not being what he wanted. I think what he’s looking for is the perfect woman,” Matthew said.
“Only no such thing exists,” she said.
“Right,” her partner agreed.
“So, he’s going to keep killing them. And his tolerance for failure is diminishing. He kept Tillie for less time than he kept Jeannie, and he only kept Georgia two days. Since he has abducted a new victim on the same day as he killed his previous victim, he obviously has several women lined up ready to go, he could be ready to take his next victim today.” Although she wanted to believe that they had some time, the killer’s MO said he was probably already contacting the next woman, if he hadn’t already, to meet tonight for a date.
“As of right now, we don’t have any forensics, but we can probably work out a profile that might help us narrow down which profiles on the website are worth flagging,” Matthew suggested.
“Can’t we just look for any profiles that use a name that means Prince Charming?”
“If we could, we would, but the only way to access every single user of the website is to get a warrant for their records,” Matthew replied.
“There are two ways to set up your account,” Rylla elaborated. “You can have it set to public where it shows your name, and whatever information about yourself you choose to share. What your job is, have you been married before, do you have kids, hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes, favorite foods, favorite sports, and anything else you want to tell prospective dating partners. Even if you choose to have your profile public that doesn’t mean you have to display your name, you can do full name, just first name, initials, just one initial, or a nickname of your choosing. Or you can have your profile set to private, so no one sees anything about you.”
“Why would you set it to private?” Heidi looked confused. “Isn't the whole point of the website to meet people? If it’s set to private, how would people even know you're there?”
“If you have your profile set to private other people can't see you but you can still see other people. So, you’re free to look through profiles and contact anyone that you're interested in, and it means you don’t attract the attention of anyone who you don’t choose to, which is perfect for our killer. Two public profiles can meet up, one public and one private profile can meet up, but two private profiles can't. Jeannie, Tillie, and Georgia all had public profiles, we’re assuming the killer had his set to private,” Rylla said.
“Although we are still monitoring any names we have found that mean either prince or charming and taking note of who the person interacts with,” Matthew added.
“Even if we could find the killer’s profile, some interactions only happen in private. Once you contact someone and they check you out and reply back you can keep your communications on the website or take things to whatever other media you choose. Emails, texts, social media, whatever they choose, so there’s no way for us to monitor conversations. With our victims, it looks like they took things to email first, presumably because the women felt safer with that option, then they moved to texting. Keeping things away from the website makes it even harder for us to find him.”
“And we can't track him through his account?” Heidi asked. “We would have a record of the account because we went through the women’s, so we would know who contacted them.”
“He deleted the account as soon as he made contact and they took things to email,” Matthew answered.
“And he’s obviously good with computers because we weren’t able to do anything about backtracking and finding anything out about his account,” Rylla said.
“So, computer savvy, that’s one thing we know about him for sure. Do we think anything in the stories he told the women was true?” Heidi asked.
“In all the stories he’s told he has parents who come from the United Kingdom, so that might possibly be true. Or it might not, and it might just have to do with the names he chose. Otherwise, everything else is different. He listed different schools he went to, different hobbies he’s interested in, different number of siblings, different places where he grew up, he seems to tailor each story for the woman he’s interacting with,” Matthew said. “We are going through everything he told Jeannie Jones extremely carefully. Given that she was his first victim, we thought he might have been more honest with her as he tweaked his strategies of luring the women.”
“Although just because he took Jeannie first doesn’t mean she was the first woman he spoke with, he obviously has multiple women he’s corresponding with at a time,” Rylla added.
“Which implies he expects the women to fail,” Matthew said thoughtfully. “He has a woman he’s abducted but at the same time he’s talking to other women who he might want to abduct in the future. It’s like although he’s searching for something at the same time he doesn’t seem to think it exists.”
“Whatishe searching for? The perfect woman? If he knows that doesn’t exist, then why is he bothering?” Heidi picked up a stress ball in the shape of a teddy bear and began to squeeze it between her fingers.
“He thinks he can train them. He chooses them for certain qualities then believes he can punish them into behaving in the way he wants, then when that fails, he kills them. Assuming he does have his profile set to private on the website, we won't be able to find him on there, we should focus on trying to figure out which women he might target,” she said.
“What similarities do they have?” Heidi asked.
“Similar ages,” Matthew said. “He’s not after anyone too young, or too old, Tillie was the youngest so far at twenty-nine, Jeannie was thirty-one, and Georgia the oldest at thirty-four, that probably puts his age at mid to late thirties.”
“Different features but all the women were Caucasian. Jeannie was a brunette with brown eyes, Tillie was a blue eyed blonde, and Georgia had black hair and brown eyes, so obviously hair and eye color aren’t important to him. They all had different jobs, Jeannie was a middle school science teacher, Tillie was a dentist, and Georgia worked in finance. Jeannie was a widow, Tillie had been engaged but the wedding fell through at the last minute, and Georgia had never been married or engaged,” Rylla summarized.
“That’s a lot of differences,” Heidi said.
“There are a lot of similarities too,” Rylla assured her. “All three women indicated they enjoyed cooking, all expressed an interest in art and literature. All wanted to find a husband who was loving, attentive, and supportive. All wanted kids and to give them a stable home, and their preference was to be able to stay at home with the children for the first years of their lives. All three of them enjoyed eating out at fancy restaurants, liked expensive clothes and shoes, liked traveling and staying in five-star hotels.”
“So that’s what he’s looking for,” Heidi said. “That’s his picture of an ideal wife. Cultured, will take care of him, will take care of their children, and who enjoys being spoiled.”