Murder fascinates, but experts say it’s becoming rarer

For Pamela Waechter, it was just another day in the office. For Mary Cooper, it was just another walk in the woods. For both UW alumnae, it would be the last day of their lives.

On July 28, 2006, Waechter was working in the Belltown offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Suddenly a deranged man, later identified as 30-year-old Naveed Haq, burst into the offices with a gun. He demanded to see the manager.

“Is this a robbery?” the receptionist wondered as she called her supervisor. Answering the buzz was 58-year-old Waechter, a 1985 graduate of the UW nutritional science program, who was the director of the federation’s annual fund. According to police reports, as she came into the reception area, the shooter opened fire, hitting several office workers, while shouting that he was making “a statement” about U.S. support for Israel.

Waechter, wounded in the chest, turned away and ran up some stairs. Haq followed her into the stairwell, according to reports, and killed her.

Just 17 days earlier, school librarian Mary Cooper and her daughter, Susanna Cooper Stodden, decided to go on a hike in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Cooper and her 27-year-old daughter were avid hikers. A librarian at the AE2 elementary school in northeast Seattle, the 56-year-old Cooper had two UW degrees: a 1975 bachelor’s in education and a 2004 master’s in library and information science.

Susanna Stodden and Mary Cooper (left) were killed in July on the Pinnacle Lake Trail; Pamela Waechter was killed in July at the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.

After driving 20 miles on the rugged Mountain Loop Highway east of Granite Falls, they turned onto Pinnacle Lake Road, a twisting, pothole-laden track. It took their Dodge Caravan about an hour to drive six miles to the trailhead.

In the parking lot, two hikers chatted with the women.

“They seemed like exceptionally nice people and if we had had the same itinerary, we may have hiked with them,” one later reported on a local Internet hiking site.

What exactly happened to Cooper and Stodden is unclear. Police are withholding most details of the crime, but both were shot in the head about two miles from their van.

Later, the hikers who met the women that morning discovered the bodies. “We have never spent a more terrifying half-hour than our hike back to the trailhead. We had one ice ax between us which I held at the ready the entire time, not knowing if we would be attacked by a killer still lurking in the area,” one reported.

That two UW graduates—both women in their mid-50s working in the non-profit sector—were shot and killed in the same month was a double blow to the UW community. In fact, 2006 was a bloody year for the city of Seattle. In the spring, Kyle Aaron Huff killed six at a Capitol Hill “post-­rave” party and then shot himself. In December, an attempted murder in the U District just north of campus shocked the neighborhood, even though neither the shooter nor his victim was a UW student.

So it wasn’t a surprise when Seattle newspapers reported in January that homicides were “on the rise” as the number of murders in the city increased from 25 in 2005 to 30 last year.

Murder has never been so popular. CSI TV shows constantly win ratings battles. Local TV news departments invariably lead their broadcasts with the latest grisly homicide. Cable TV feasts on national murder stories such as the JonBenet Ramsey mystery. But despite the media blitz, two local experts have a surprising message: Americans are as safe today as they were in 1966.

Murder rates have been dropping since 1990, says UW Sociology Professor Joseph Weis. “There is a discrepancy between what people believe and what the data shows. The risk of violent death is much lower than in the past.”

UW alumnus Bob Keppel, ’92, a lead investigator of the Ted Bundy serial killings and a top consultant on the Green River killings, agrees. ”A rise in the murder rate? The 2006 statistics are virtually the same as the previous year for Seattle,” he says. If you take away the six deaths from one mass murder—the rave killings—then the homicide count would be lower, he added.

While many news reports focus on the raw number of murders, the real statistic to follow is the per capita rate. In 2005, the FBI reported that there were 5.6 murders nationally for every 100,000 people in the U.S. —the same rate reported in 1966. Per capita murders peaked in 1980 with 10.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, hovered at high rates until 1991 and have dropped since.

Seattle’s 2006 per capita rate is even lower—5.3 per 100,000 residents—although homicides beyond the city limits are not included, Weis explains.

The sociology professor is the UW’s murder authority. He teaches one of the most popular courses at the UW-Soc 275, “Murder.” Over the last 15 years, it has grown from a seminar serving about 15 seniors to a wildly popular class filling the main floor of the UW’s largest lecture hall.

Joining Weis periodically at the podium is Keppel, a former Ph.D. student who is now a criminal justice professor at Seattle University. Crime author Ann Rule, ’53, calls Keppel “one of perhaps a half dozen of the most gifted and intelligent investigators I have met in the 26 years I have been writing about true crime.”

It’s an emotionally hot topic, but a Weis and Keppel are cool characters. The trim, graying Weis, a 33-year veteran of the UW, is one of the few academics in the nation specializing in murder. Keppel—whose delivery comes in a classic “just the facts ma’am” monotone—was a detective for King County and an investigator for the Washington State Attorney General’s Office while getting his Ph.D. from the UW. He is the co-author of The Riverman, which describes how Bundy “advised” Keppel on how to catch the Green River Killer. It was later made into a TV movie.

Murder is their business, yet both hesitate to give a definitive answer on why the homicide rate has dropped. Other violent crimes—assault, rape, robbery—have also dropped since 1990, despite the coming of age of the “baby boom echo,” a demographic bulge that is now reaching the “prime crime” ages of 14 to 24.

One cause, Weis speculates, might be the decline of the 1980s culture of “crack, gangs and guns.” In addition, the sociology professor says that emergency medical care has improved dramatically. “The difference between murder and assault is often just a millimeter in the path of a bullet,” he says.

Keppel agrees. “Harborview does a great job. I’ve seen people with five or six bullet holes in them who still live and should have been dead,” he says.

Both add that a healthy economy has an impact on the murder rate. In addition, Keppel feels prevention programs in domestic violence and drug abuse are helping.

But Americans can’t be complacent. Both murder authorities predict that the killing rate will go up over the next 10 years due to demographic trends.

Whether killings rise or fall, there are plenty of myths about murder that the two experts take pleasure in snuffing out.

Forget the idea that a stranger is out to kill you. “That is clearly not the case. Studies show that about 85 percent of all murders are committed by people who know each other,” Weis says.

Yet another misconception, he says, is that the murderer is a monster—a Hannibal Lecter. Most murderers, he says, are like “normal” people. “Murder is a crime of passion. It is often the only violent act committed in their life and maybe their last one.”

“It’s an impulsive act,” adds Keppel. “Many of the people have never been in trouble before. In most cases, your murder offenders are pretty clean criminally.”

What happens, Weis says, is that a catalyst is often involved that pushes an offender over the top. What might just be a fight between friends turns into deadly confrontation if alcohol or drugs are involved. “Just the availability of a weapon is a catalyst,” he adds, as is the presence of an audience. “If your buddies or your girlfriend are around, you are more likely to save face.”

Perhaps the biggest myth is that the Pacific Northwest is the serial killer capital of the nation, if not the put the world. The Ted Bundy murders put the topic of serial killers on the media map, and then the Green River reign of terror added to the frenzy, especially when Gary Ridgway confessed to 48 homicides.

“It’s just not true,” Weis declares. First, most serial murders don’t rise to the attention of the media. There simply aren’t enough victims. Secondly there have been about 40 serial killers in Washington state since the mid-20th century, which matches other states’ per capita rates. “We are not overrepresented or underrepresented,” Weis says.

While serial killer investigations and profiling are Keppel’s specialties, his Ph.D. thesis examined how murders were solved. He charted the relationship that time and distance play in murder investigations.

First he tracked four points in the course of a murder investigation: the site of the initial contact between the victim and the suspect; the site where the victim was last seen; the murder site; and the body recovery site. Then he tracked the four factors to see how close they were in both time and distance. The closer they were, the more likely the murder was solved, says Keppel.

In both the Bundy and Green River cases, these points were far apart in both time and location—sometimes bodies were not discovered for years, making both serial killers difficult to track.

Looking at the alumni murder victims from last July, Keppel’s system seems to hold. All four factors involving Pamela Waechter’s murder were at the same location and almost the same time.

The trailhead at the Pinnacle Lake Trail.

The murders of Mary Cooper and Susanna Stodden are much more problematic. Without a suspect, police can’t be sure where the initial contact took place. The site where the victims were last seen alive—the trailhead—is about two miles from the murder site. The time of the deaths is a range rather than a specific moment, at least according to press reports.

“You have to assume that the police have more information that is unique in this case,” says Keppel. “There have been no leaks. There is a real closed aspect to the investigation, and that’s the way it should be.”

Keppel is often asked to advise local detectives on murder cases. Although he has not been asked about the Pinnacle Lake murders, he declined to speculate in public about the killings.

Weis was teaching a summer school course in murder when the case exploded. He often uses current investigations class, and this was no exception. “We found that this case is extremely difficult to solve. The usual suspects have all been eliminated,” he explains. In addition, police have a confusing crime scene. Weis says there appeared to be many footprints on the trails with a lot of debris. The scale of an outdoor crime scene is much greater than an indoor site, Weis adds.

Then there was the nagging problem of motive. Some students in the class suggested a drug-related crime. “You could have someone high on meth, totally unstable, just wanting to shoot somebody,” Weis suggests.

The class came to the conclusion that it was a random act. “We felt that those women were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Weis will be back in the classroom spring quarter, and Keppel will be there for some sessions to help. Keppel also considering teaching a UW summer-quarter course is on serial murders.

Chances are good that they will have fresh material for their case studies. But looking at the long-term trends, Weis is actually optimistic. “The 19th century was much more violent than the 20th century when it comes to crime,” he notes. “I expect the 21st century to be even better.”

Cold blood, hot topic

“Students would kill to get into this course.”

“The homework for this course is murder.”

“You’re gonna die if you don’t come to Friday’s lecture.”

Sociology Professor Joseph Weis has heard all of these jokes and more. It’s natural that his students and colleagues would want to lighten up what is, after all, a dark subject—murder.

Weis teaches one of the only college courses in the nation to focus exclusively on homicide, Sociology 275. More than 525 undergraduates pack the main floor of the largest lecture hall on campus every spring—and there is usually a waiting list.

While criminal justice programs often offer classes on violence, it is rare to limit the subject to murder, Weis explains. Academics avoid specializing in murder because the data is limited. Law enforcement keeps unsolved cases open, which means information on victims, motives, suspects and convictions is missing from central databases.

“You also have to realize that it is an infrequent crime,” Weis says. “There are less than 200 murders in the state of Washington in a year.” Trying to do a statistical analysis of such a small sample can lead to faulty results, he explains.

When Weis first offered a murder course, he gave it as a senior seminar open to Just 15 sociology majors. He turned away so many students that the next year he convinced the department to make it a regular class. He expected perhaps 100 students but found that 300 tried to get in. At one point, there were thousands of students on the waiting list.

So 10 years ago Weis moved it to Kane 130, the largest lecture hall on campus, where it has remained one of the most popular courses offered by the sociology department. Besides the killer subject matter, students are drawn to the guest speakers. Former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert spoke about the Green River Killer to the class and Bob Keppel has been there every year talking about profiling and Ted Bundy.

Lately, the popularity of CSI and other TV crime shows has increased student interest, if that is possible. “The field is changing,” Weis says. “Police are focusing more on the technical aspects. Obviously, the Ridgway case added to that.” (Ridgway, the Green River Killer, was finally caught due to advancements in DNA analysis technology.)

That the room is packed is no surprise. It is a class to die for.