Are there female Spree killers?

In Canada they call Sabrina Kauldhar a serial killer, but if she is convicted she could be more accurately described as a gunman. The murders appear to be a chain of incidents triggered by a precipitating factor that continued to affect the perpetrator throughout the killing spree. At least three died in at least two locations. Although the FBI no longer uses “spree” as a category of multicidal crime, it is still useful for studying motivation in criminology, especially for such a rare case.

Kauldhar, 30, is accused of committing three murders in three different cities in Ontario, Canada, between October 1 and October 3 this year. She knew one victim and randomly stabbed the other two in different locations. The first victim was Kauldhar’s roommate in Toronto. A day later, Kauldhar stabbed a man to death in a park in Niagara Falls. She then took public transport to Hamilton, where she approached a 77-year-old man in a car park and stabbed him. None of the men had provoked her. Nobody knew her. These were random attacks. A mental health evaluation has been ordered to determine whether Kauldhar is fit to stand trial.

My colleague, former FBI profiler Mark Safarik, and I have studied the motivations of gunmen, and from that work we can predict what likely motivated Kauldhar. News reports show she was convicted of several violent crimes in 2018, including burglary, assault with a weapon and assault on an officer, according to court records.

But her landlord, with whom she had been dating for two years, described her as a calm, responsible person who always paid the rent on time. She had invited an elderly woman, Trinh Thi Vu, to stay with her to help with the costs. The landlord had heard complaints about cleanliness and noise from both, but he had not observed any aggression or hostility. When a delivery for Kauldhar arrived on October 1, the landlord entered the apartment and discovered Vu bleeding on the floor. Police determined she had been killed.

Kauldhar is a white loner who used a knife for three days. We don’t yet know why, but we can surmise a likely motivation. In 2019, Safarik and I created a database of 358 cases of amok murder involving 418 people from 43 countries. We divided these offenders into five primary categories (rage-revenge, mission, desperation, insanity, and robbery-thrill) and four secondary categories that may overlap with the primary ones (movement in tight places, mixed multicides, intentional spree, and unique) . Circumstances). Several categories gave rise to subcategories. Some incidents involved a lone attacker, others involved teams.

Among the Spree incidents we find only a few women who act independently. You’re more likely to find her in teams like Caril Ann Fugate with Charles Starkweather, but never as a mastermind or ringleader. There was no all-women team. Some female participants could be viewed as willing accomplices, except on exciting outings. Overall, about 5 percent of the gunmen are female, with only five (now six) acting alone. They appear in all but this despair Category.

The weapon of choice for 75 percent of gunmen is a firearm, usually a handgun. In second place were those who used a firearm and other weapons, such as a knife, at 12 percent. The “blades” included knives, machetes and axes (8.3 percent). Only about 2 percent knocked down their victims (usually with hammers) and 1 percent strangled or suffocated them. The final 2 percent involved various methods such as bombs, a mace, or pesticides.

Most trips in our study (40 percent) lasted one to three days, followed by 18 percent that lasted less than two hours. Kauldhars would then be typical.

Outbursts of anger were the most common, followed by robbery. Significant loss appears to be a primary motivator at nearly 30 percent (relationship, money, employment), followed by mission-related or hate-related motives (15 percent) and mental illness (12 percent). Previous crimes were influential in robberies. About 1.4 percent were looking for fame. Based on the behavior described in Kauldhar’s case, it seems likely that a problem with her roommate triggered the deadly violence and then she simply continued, either angry or in a mental health crisis (or both).

Thirty percent of the gunmen in the anger-revenge category first killed someone they knew and then attacked strangers. We named this subcategory targeted And random-opportunistic (as opposed to straight targeted or simply random-opportunistic). Kauldhar’s behavior seems to fit. A similar example is Jennifer San Marco, who went on a rampage in California in 2006. First she killed a neighbor. She then went to a former workplace to shoot seven others. Although she was mentally ill (paranoid schizophrenia), she also harbored a long-standing grudge.

We will wait and see what the Kauldhar trial will reveal, but anger or illness probably played an important role. Since she is a rare gunman (if she is convicted as such), she should be investigated.