Dirk Gibson is writing a novel about the victims of the West Mesa killings. Gibson is an associate professor in the Communication and Journalism Department, and he has written two books about serial murderers.
Daily Lobo: What were your two previous books about?
Dirk Gibson: I've written two books about serial murders, which explain the phenomenon. One (is) from the point of view of communication being their motive, and another examines four stakeholders that have a big role to play in the phenomenon: the police, the killers, the public and the media - and because all of those four groups have a stake and interact, the problem continues the way it is.
DL: Can tell me more about how the books explain that?
DG: What the first book does - the first book was called Clues from Killers - what that book did is explain that the motive behind a lot of serial murderers is to communicate. In my study of 1,000, almost two-thirds communicated as well as killed, and we are talking like writing letters to the police talking about crimes and calling up the victim's family and saying the horrible things they did to them and stuff like that. The second book is kind of relevant to today with the murders out on the West Mesa. The second book just says because the killers enjoy what they are doing, law enforcement, their job is to stop the killer. The media, their job is to represent the public and gather information. The public is interested in all of this in a couple different ways, you know. The public needs to be safe, but the public's interest isn't so much the safety. They are just interested in the horrible stories. All four groups have ulterior motives and good motives, and the way those four groups play out determines whether or not a killer gets caught. Surprisingly, public relations plays an important role in these cases. In a case where there isn't a connection between a victim and killer, oftentimes tips from the public are what solves these cases.
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DL: Do you think there is a miscommunication between these groups with either what they think they should be doing or maybe the expectations that we have of them?
DG: Exactly. Those four groups don't always get along. For example, the police might keep a certain clue secret, because they don't want the public to know. The media wants to get every bit of information they can, not just to protect the public, but because the more juicy stuff in their stories, there your story is. There are some cross purposes between these groups and they get mad at each other. The public pays because the killer doesn't get caught.
DL: How did you get involved in this work? What piqued your interest in this research?
DG: My original area of research is consumer-product recalls, and I have been studying those since the mid '80s, but it's hard to get book publishers interested in product safety. Even though that work could save lives and prevent injuries, folks just didn't care. If you tell a publisher you have a book on serial murders, they'll have lunch with you.. A couple of years ago, I finished a sabbatical, and this was when the D.C. snipers were busy killing in Washington, and as I read the reports about what they did, it struck me that there was so much communication. Leaving tarot cards, calling the police, leaving notes tacked onto trees - all that is just communication.
DL: What's the next step for your work?
DG: I was called last week by a group representing the victims in this West Mesa case. They called me and asked me if I would be willing to help write a book for them.. What I'm going to do now - and I consider this pretty important - I'm going to write a new kind of serial murder book. Up until now almost all the books emphasized the killer, because that's the bad guy, the spooky guy and the murders, because that's where all the blood and guts is, and they never mentioned the victims or talk about the victims and they very seldom discuss the victims' family, the people left behind. That's how I got involved in this West Mesa case. "America's Most Wanted" ran a segment on it Saturday night, and I was invited to go watch the segment with all the victims' families, and I will tell you, when you sit in a room with 120 people who have all lost somebody to a serial murderer, it's different. It's not like a research project anymore; it becomes human. My purpose right now is to write a book that pays dues and honors the people that were killed in these crimes and their families.. The thing that strikes me here is the idea of choice. All the other stakeholders had a choice. The cops chose to be cops and work homicide. The reporters chose to be media and are supposed to cover the story. The public chooses to care about the stuff or not, and the killer chooses to be the killer. But the victims didn't have any choice, and neither did the people left behind by the killer.
