Is The Long Island Serial Killer a Cop?

Police investigating the murders of eight people whose remains have been found in thick brush along a beachfront road on Long Island say the killer appears to have insider knowledge of police investigative techniques.

A series of phone calls made to Melissa Barthlemy's teenage sister -- police believe from Melissa's killer -- were placed from New York City's most congested areas -- Madison Square Garden and Times Square -- where the caller, embedded in a crowd, was impossible for investigators who pinpointed his signal to pick out on surveillance videos pulled from nearby cameras.

Barthelemy's body was one of four found by police searchers in December along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in Babylon, L.I.  All were wrapped in burlap sacks.

After Barthelemy disappeared July, 2009, the phone calls began coming in weekly to her sister Amanda from Melissa's cell phone. The male caller spoke in a calm, bland tone, never raising his voice or laughing, according to Barthlemy's mother.

Each of the vulgar, mocking, insulting phone calls -- about half a dozen over a five-week period -- was kept to under 3 minutes, making it unlikely they could be traced.

Barthlemy's mother, on the advice of police, has kept the details of those phone calls to herself, which could assist the police in weeding out false confessions.

Facts like these, and the fact that the caller used disposable cellphones to call each of the four victims whose remains have been identified -- all young women in their 20s who sold sex on Craigslist -- suggest to police that the killer understands law enforcement investigative techniques, knows how law enforcement uses technology, and might even be a cop or former cop.

Commenters to a parallel New York Magazine article say the killer could have gained a sophisticated knowledge of LE techniques just from watching police procedurals on TV. 

The law enforcement theory is just one of many alternatives being examined by Suffolk County homicide detectives, though.

The killer, they say, is intelligent, operating in a thoughtful, deliberate manner, which seems to classify him as an organized serial killer.

Organized serial killers, as defined by the FBI, are typically white males, aged 25-45, with above-average intelligence and good personal and social skills.  They are able to maintain a normal family life, and are usually employed at jobs beneath their abilities. They clean up their crime scenes and hide their bodies, often dumping them in a secret location. They may have a working knowledge of forensics.

The clever, personable Ted Bundy is the classic example of this type of serial killer.

The four other bodies found since the initial discovery at Gilgo Beach in December had been there much longer than the December crop, and were not in burlap sacks. It is believed that this newly-discovered crop of bodies may represent an earlier period in the serial killer's evolution.

Whether the new finds relate in any way to the four Craigslist victims has yet to be revealed.

The article from the Austin Statesman, sourced from this New York Times article.