Richard Walter
Encyclopedia
Richard Walter is an American
forensic psychologist
for the Michigan
prison system, a crime scene analyst and one of the creators of modern criminal profiling.
classifications for violent crime, and a co-founder of the Vidocq Society
, an exclusive organization of forensic professionals dedicated to solving cold cases. As a psychologist for Michigan's prison system, he has interviewed more than 22,000 convicted felons.
He worked with Robert D. Keppel
, then the chief investigator for the Attorney General's Office in the State of Washington, and together they wrote Profiling Killers: A Revised Classification Model for Understanding Sexual Murder. Keppel created the Homicide Information Tracking Unit (HITS) database, of which Walter was a prolific contributor. Walter was the first to develop a matrix
as a tool of investigation using pre-crime, crime and post-crime behaviours to help develop suspects.
Author Michael Capuzzo
has completed a book about the Vidocq Society and its three co-founders. The book is titled "The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases". Walter is also a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences
, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine/Clinical Forensic Medicine, A Fellow of the Australasian College of Biomedical Sciences and a 22-year veteran prison psychologist for the state of Michigan
.
Walter gives lectures to police organizations throughout the United States
, England
, Scotland
, Turkey
, Australia
and Hong Kong
. He has also been featured on programs for CBS
, A&E
, TLC
and Court TV
.
for mass murder
er John List
, who had been in hiding for 18 years. Using Walter's profile, forensic sculptor Frank Bender
was able to appropriately age the suspect in a bust displayed on America's Most Wanted
; List was captured the next day.
In Lubbock, Texas
in 1999, City Police solved the murder of Scott Dunn with Walter's aid. This is a rare case where a conviction was garnered in the absence of a body. The case is chronicled in the book Trail of Blood" by Wanda Evans and in the television series Medical Detectives
In 2005, the Hudson, Wisconsin
Police Department consulted with the Vidocq Society on the cold case double homicide of Dan O'Connell and James Ellison. With the help of Walter, the Hudson police solved the case. The murderer was a priest
who was trying to keep child molestation allegations from surfacing.
Years later, Walter himself became an unwitting victim of Drake's attempts to get a new trial. In 2003, Drake, after 27 years of appeals, was granted a new trial as the U. S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Walter had inflated his resume and committed perjury in the 1982 trial. The American Academy of Forensic Science (AAFS) investigated Walter, a longtime member, for wrongdoing. Walter, a longtime member of the American Academy of Forensic Science, wrote to the AAFS's Ethics Committee that he was "flabbergasted and stunned" because "the Niagara County Prosecutor's Office did not…advise me of the issue and/or make any effort to respond to Drake's contrived and malicious claims…the U.S. Court of Appeals…relied totally upon the false and misleading statements made in Drake's affidavit…without a challenge to the accuracy of authenticity."
The AAFS twice investigated Drake's allegations against Walter and found him innocent of any wrong-doing. The Vidocq Society, the international pro-bono crime-fighting organization that Walter helped establish, investigated the allegations and also cleared him of wrong-doing. In the course of writing his book on the Vidocq Society, The Murder Room (published August 10, 2010, Gotham Books/Penguin Books), New York Times-bestselling author Michael Capuzzo
investigated the allegations and found them groundless. Capuzzo interviewed Vidocq Society President William Fleisher, a federal agent with the FBI and U.S. Customs for more than 20 years."Richard got a bum deal," Fleisher said. "A convicted killer made defamatory stuff up about him and got a court to believe it because nobody bothered to check whether the killer was telling the truth, which is ridiculous. Richard became a victim without a remedy. Courts make mistakes, and this one did."
"Drake did what criminals do," Walter told Capuzzo in an interview for Capuzzo's book. "He lied and tried to take advantage of people and the system. Justice took a holiday in this case, and I ended up with an undeserved scar of war with crime. Occasionally bottom-dwellers in the forensic community will try to exploit Drake's lies on the internet. But I've simply gone on to do some good work while choosing to avoid lawyers and chalk it up to "life is not always fair."
In May 2010, Drake got his new trial in Niagara County. He was convicted again of the murders of Smith and Rosenthal. This time the judge gave him a longer sentence, two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, "which will keep him from parole eligibility for 10 extra years," The Buffalo News reported.
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United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
forensic psychologist
Forensic psychology
Forensic psychology is the intersection between psychology and the criminal justice system. It involves understanding criminal law in the relevant jurisdictions in order to be able to interact appropriately with judges, attorneys and other legal professionals...
for the Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
prison system, a crime scene analyst and one of the creators of modern criminal profiling.
Career
Walter developed a number of psychologicalAbnormal psychology
Abnormal psychology is the branch of psychology that studies unusual patterns of behavior, emotion and thought, which may or may not be understood as precipitating a mental disorder...
classifications for violent crime, and a co-founder of the Vidocq Society
Vidocq society
The Vidocq Society is a members-only crime-solving club that meets on the third Thursday of every month in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The Vidocq Society is named for Eugène François Vidocq, the ground-breaking nineteenth century French detective who helped police by using the psychology of the...
, an exclusive organization of forensic professionals dedicated to solving cold cases. As a psychologist for Michigan's prison system, he has interviewed more than 22,000 convicted felons.
He worked with Robert D. Keppel
Robert D. Keppel
Robert David Keppel is a retired American law enforcement officer and detective best known for his work investigating serial killers Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway.-Early life:...
, then the chief investigator for the Attorney General's Office in the State of Washington, and together they wrote Profiling Killers: A Revised Classification Model for Understanding Sexual Murder. Keppel created the Homicide Information Tracking Unit (HITS) database, of which Walter was a prolific contributor. Walter was the first to develop a matrix
Matrix (mathematics)
In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers, symbols, or expressions. The individual items in a matrix are called its elements or entries. An example of a matrix with six elements isMatrices of the same size can be added or subtracted element by element...
as a tool of investigation using pre-crime, crime and post-crime behaviours to help develop suspects.
Author Michael Capuzzo
Michael Capuzzo
Michael Capuzzo is an American journalist and author best-known for his nonfiction book Close to Shore , a historical thriller about the first shark attacks in American history, in Edwardian-era New Jersey, that were an inspiration for the book and movie Jaws...
has completed a book about the Vidocq Society and its three co-founders. The book is titled "The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases". Walter is also a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences
American Academy of Forensic Sciences
The American Academy of Forensic Sciences is a professional society for people in all areas of forensics.For over sixty years, the AAFS has served a distinguished and diverse membership. Its nearly 6,000 members are divided into eleven sections spanning the forensic enterprise...
, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine/Clinical Forensic Medicine, A Fellow of the Australasian College of Biomedical Sciences and a 22-year veteran prison psychologist for the state of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
.
Walter gives lectures to police organizations throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. He has also been featured on programs for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, A&E
A&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
, TLC
TLC (TV channel)
TLC is an American cable TV specialty channel which initially focused on educational content. Since 1991 TLC has been owned by Discovery Communications, the same company that operates the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The Science Channel, as well as other learning-themed networks...
and Court TV
Court TV
truTV is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Time Warner. The network launched as Court TV in 1991, changing to truTV in 2008...
.
Notable cases
In 1989, Walter provided the psychological profileOffender profiling
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to profile unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling,...
for mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
er John List
John List
John Emil List was an American murderer. On November 9, 1971, he murdered his wife, mother, and three children in Westfield, New Jersey, and then disappeared. He had planned everything so meticulously that nearly a month passed before anyone noticed that anything was amiss...
, who had been in hiding for 18 years. Using Walter's profile, forensic sculptor Frank Bender
Frank Bender
Francis Augustus "Frank" Bender was a world-renowned autodidact forensic artist and fine artist. His job was to make facial reconstructions of the dead and of fugitives, many of whom had, or still have, been on the run for a long time...
was able to appropriately age the suspect in a bust displayed on America's Most Wanted
America's Most Wanted
America's Most Wanted is an American television program produced by 20th Television, and was the longest-running program of any kind in the history of the Fox Television Network until it was announced on May 16, 2011 that the series was canceled after twenty-three years, with the final episode...
; List was captured the next day.
In Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock is a city in and the county seat of Lubbock County, Texas, United States. The city is located in the northwestern part of the state, a region known historically as the Llano Estacado, and the home of Texas Tech University and Lubbock Christian University...
in 1999, City Police solved the murder of Scott Dunn with Walter's aid. This is a rare case where a conviction was garnered in the absence of a body. The case is chronicled in the book Trail of Blood" by Wanda Evans and in the television series Medical Detectives
In 2005, the Hudson, Wisconsin
Hudson, Wisconsin
Hudson is a city in St. Croix County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 18,937, making it the principal and largest city of the Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan area . The Hudson area however had a population of 39,713...
Police Department consulted with the Vidocq Society on the cold case double homicide of Dan O'Connell and James Ellison. With the help of Walter, the Hudson police solved the case. The murderer was a priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
who was trying to keep child molestation allegations from surfacing.
The Drake Case
In October 1982, Walter testified in Niagara County (NY) Supreme Court in the double murder trial of Robie J. Drake, who was convicted of killing fellow high school classmates Steven Rosenthal, 18, and Amy Smith, 16, in a "lover's lane" killing. Shortly before midnight on Dec. 5, 1981, Drake fired 19 rounds from a semiautomatic .22-caliber rifle into a 1969 Chevrolet Nova. He killed Smith with two shots in the back of the head, and shot Rosenthal fourteen times in the face and upper body. With Rosenthal still groaning, Drake admitted he stabbed him in the back with a 71/2-inch hunting knife, according to The Buffalo News. He removed Smith from the car, bit her breasts and tried to sexually assault her with a flashlight. Drake was caught by police at a landfill as he tried to stuff Smith's nude body into the trunk. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 20 years to life.Years later, Walter himself became an unwitting victim of Drake's attempts to get a new trial. In 2003, Drake, after 27 years of appeals, was granted a new trial as the U. S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Walter had inflated his resume and committed perjury in the 1982 trial. The American Academy of Forensic Science (AAFS) investigated Walter, a longtime member, for wrongdoing. Walter, a longtime member of the American Academy of Forensic Science, wrote to the AAFS's Ethics Committee that he was "flabbergasted and stunned" because "the Niagara County Prosecutor's Office did not…advise me of the issue and/or make any effort to respond to Drake's contrived and malicious claims…the U.S. Court of Appeals…relied totally upon the false and misleading statements made in Drake's affidavit…without a challenge to the accuracy of authenticity."
The AAFS twice investigated Drake's allegations against Walter and found him innocent of any wrong-doing. The Vidocq Society, the international pro-bono crime-fighting organization that Walter helped establish, investigated the allegations and also cleared him of wrong-doing. In the course of writing his book on the Vidocq Society, The Murder Room (published August 10, 2010, Gotham Books/Penguin Books), New York Times-bestselling author Michael Capuzzo
Michael Capuzzo
Michael Capuzzo is an American journalist and author best-known for his nonfiction book Close to Shore , a historical thriller about the first shark attacks in American history, in Edwardian-era New Jersey, that were an inspiration for the book and movie Jaws...
investigated the allegations and found them groundless. Capuzzo interviewed Vidocq Society President William Fleisher, a federal agent with the FBI and U.S. Customs for more than 20 years."Richard got a bum deal," Fleisher said. "A convicted killer made defamatory stuff up about him and got a court to believe it because nobody bothered to check whether the killer was telling the truth, which is ridiculous. Richard became a victim without a remedy. Courts make mistakes, and this one did."
"Drake did what criminals do," Walter told Capuzzo in an interview for Capuzzo's book. "He lied and tried to take advantage of people and the system. Justice took a holiday in this case, and I ended up with an undeserved scar of war with crime. Occasionally bottom-dwellers in the forensic community will try to exploit Drake's lies on the internet. But I've simply gone on to do some good work while choosing to avoid lawyers and chalk it up to "life is not always fair."
In May 2010, Drake got his new trial in Niagara County. He was convicted again of the murders of Smith and Rosenthal. This time the judge gave him a longer sentence, two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, "which will keep him from parole eligibility for 10 extra years," The Buffalo News reported.
External links
- "Famed Profiler Visits Mansfield"
- "Expert Discusses Serial Killers"
- "Man granted new trial in 1981 slaying of two North Tonawanda students: Appeals court calls testimony by expert in case ‘quackery’"
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