Skip to main content

Scott William Cox


In November of 1990 and February of 1991, two prostitutes were murdered in the Portland area.  These two murders were solved due to the realization of a possible serial killer in an unrelated assault and different law enforcement agencies working together.  In May of 1991, another prostitute in Seattle was severely sexually and physically assaulted and thrown from the cab of an 18 wheeler truck.  The victim had to be hospitalized as a result of the attack.  Even though the victim did not want to prosecute the case, the detective in charge realized that this attack showed signs of a current or future serial killer.  Police were able to track down a man by the name Seth Scott Cutter through the employer, the trucking company.  Police felt that Cutter could be the person responsible and information about Cutter was disseminated to neighboring agencies.  An officer from a different police department recognized the suspect as a local man named Scott Cox.  When police interviewed Cox after finding out about the pseudonym, he confessed to the 2 murders, along with beatings of different prostitutes in Washington State and Oregon (Keppel & Birnes).
During the course of his work as a truck driver, Cox drove many routes through several different states, including Washington State, California and Oregon, as well as in Canada.  Over 4,000 pieces of information, including timelines, border crossings, state, national and business records were amalgamated into the HITS (Homicide Investigation Tracking System) database program.  The HITS database is a computer software system used to track violent crime data in the Pacific Northwest.  It was designed to help catch offenders by sharing all related information with law enforcement in local areas, particularly Washington State and Oregon.  Over 22 police, sheriff, crime lab, and attorney general’s offices from the 3 states and Canada in which Cox traveled frequently as a truck driver, worked together to piece together all the information needed to prosecute Cox and stop a serial killer in his tracks.  This case is an excellent example of: 1) a detective noticing and acting on the signs of a possible serial killer in the evidence found from a living victims, and 2) many different law enforcement agencies over several different jurisdictions, even across an international border working together to stop a serial killer before many more murders could happen (Keppel & Birnes). 




Works Cited
Keppel, Robert D., and William J. Birnes. The Psychology of Serial Killer Investigations The Grisly Business Unit. Academic Press, 2003.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wallowing in Complexity

Wallowing in complexity is a concept of giving a lot of deep thought to a complex question.  It involves coming up with a question first of all.  Also, the problem must be thought of from many different angles and different ways to address the problem than may initially come to mind.  Wallowing in complexity means that you can look at and analyze your questions from at least 2 different perspectives:  yours and the opposition, but possibly even more perspectives.  This concept involves understanding the history, context and important facts about your question.  Wallowing in complexity means opening your mind to many possible outcomes.  You may need to do research or conduct studies to attain more information about your complex question.  By doing these kinds of high level thinking and delving deeper, you could change your own mind or the question itself may be changed.  Wallowing in complexity is a great tool to basically have an internal di...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Discord

“The Discord” shows the battle between males and females for control and rights. They are shown fighting over a literal “pair of pants” in a tug of war between males and females. The males in “The Discord” are on the left, not fully dressed, neither of the two men are wearing pants and one even seems to be wearing a slip or skirt. The females on the right are fully dressed in dresses, and one of the women appears to be wearing a pair of pants under her dress. This painting is showing the power struggle between men and women in family and society in general. The painting shows how both sides feel about the issue.  The women want what they feel is basic rights. The men appear to think the women are asking for too much, since they are already fully dressed and they still want the pants. The man in the middle of the cartoon says he would “Rather die! than let my wife have my pants” and that a man should always be the “ruler.” (Heppenheimer). The woman in the middle says “Woman is born...
Post a Comment
Read more