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Week 8 Case Study Born Thomas Lee Dillon on July 9, 1950, in…
Week 8 Case Study
Born Thomas Lee Dillon on July 9, 1950, in Canton, Ohio, Thomas’s father passed away
from Hodgkin’s disease when he was 15 months old. Reportedly, his mother was an
emotionally cold woman. Thomas was an intelligent student who had few close friends.
Some even described him as a loner. He learned to hunt and loved killing animals.
Though this is not an unusual pastime in many parts of the country, it less likely in a
suburban area. What is disturbing in retrospect is that he kept two calendars while
growing up: one that kept track of the number of animals he killed and the other the
number of girls he’d had sex with.
After high school he attended college at a local campus of Kent State University before
transferring to the Ohio State University where he graduated in 1972the second but
less infamous serial killer to attend the university. Ironically, Jeffrey Dahmer was the
other. After graduation he was hired at a water treatment plant and married a nurse. They
had a son. By the time he was in his 30s he was bragging that his “death calendar” had
reached 500 kills. He obtained training at a local police academy, graduating as an expert
marksman. Again, he was certainly not the only person to have done so. Perhaps one of
the early signs that something was amiss came in the mid-1980s when several of Dillon’s
neighbors reported to the local police that he was killing some of their dogs. Others took
notice of odd behaviors that seemed to go over-the-top. One man who hunted with Dillon
for several years reported the following experiences:
“Dillon was a bad hunter. He would shoot at farmers’ cats after getting permission
to hunt on their land. He just didn’t care. He once boasted of killing a deer caught
in high water while crossing a river. He brought the deer home without field
dressing it. He gutted the carcass in his yard and made a mess of it,” the hunter
said. “Dillon didn’t seem to understand the concept of friendship. He never
offered a favor or asked for one. It was always a trade,” he said. “I’ll take care of this,
if you do that … he never talked about women, he never mentioned his wife and
love in the same sentence,” he said. “He was always changing guns and carried
weapons even when he rode a bike.” The hunter estimated that Dillon fired
approximately 1,000 rounds a year in target practice. Dillon shot so often that he
had permanently damaged his hearing. “He seemed to get a physical thrill out of
killing,” the hunter said. “He once used a knife to finish off a wounded
groundhog. He was shaking. He was in a frenzy, wild-eyed.”
From April 1, 1989 until his arrest in 1992, Thomas Lee Dillon murdered five known
individuals in southeastern Ohio. He would drive around the rural countryside and shoot
at many thingsfarm animals, electric meters, even people. He killed two hunters, two
people fishing, and one person jogging. He was to tell a forensic psychologist later that he intentionally targeted random people in different jurisdiction so that authorities would
have a harder time catching him. He shot all five with a high-powered rifle from afar.
This made him feel powerful. Even the fact that he was a serial arsonist, suspected of
having set ablaze more than 100 barns across rural Ohio, spoke of his need to feel
powerful and in control. This information would not come to light until after he was
arrested and plead guilty.
A task force of federal, state, and local law enforcement was created and a profile
generated by FBI’s profilers. Only when a friend of Dillon’s read accounts of the five
victims, did law enforcement get a real break in the case. Dillon was followed by law
enforcement all over the state of Ohio. They knew they had their man, but didn’t have the
evidence to arrest him. However, with deer season about to start, authorities arrested
Dillon on a gun charge on November 27, 1992 in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, about 75
miles from his home in Canton. When he was arraigned in federal court in Akron,
authorities also named Dillon as their main suspect in the five killings. News like this
travels far and fast. A man who had bought a rare rifle from Dillon at a local gun show
turned the rifle over to the authorities. A positive match of a bullet that had killed one of
the victims sealed the case. Dillon confessed and is serving five sentences of 30 years-to-
life.
Serial snipers are difficult to apprehend. The little known case above previewed what the
country would be subjected to several years later when the “D.C. sniper” case broke. In
the beginning, no one suspected there to be two snipers. Even fewer suspected the pair to
be African American. However, the two individuals kept the nation in suspense for 3
weeks in October of 2002.
Question:
Analyze the importance of the validity of the information/research on which the criminal profile is based, the strengths and benefits of criminal profiling as a tool of investigative psychology, and the liabilities/limitations of it as a tool, that is:
Explain at least two issues related to the validity of information or research on which criminal profiling is based and the importance of that validity;
Explain at least two strengths and benefits of criminal profiling as a tool of investigative psychology; and
Explain at least two liabilities or limitations of criminal profiling as a tool of investigative psychology.
Summarize your analysis with a conclusion that you would draw about the use of criminal profiling as a tool of investigative psychology. In each instance, be specific and use examples to illustrate when possible.
References:
Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2022). Introduction to forensic psychology: Research and application (6th ed.). Sage.
Chapter 3, “Psychology and Investigations”
Chapter 4, “Consulting and Testifying” (pp. 147-150)
