It was reported that Suspect #3 suggested to police that Sarah got into a van with two black males the week before her death. He also stated that she danced with a black male the evening of her murder. It was interesting that Suspect #3 found it necessary to implicate black males. Was it an attempt to focus the investigation away from Caucasians or to focus the investigation on soldiers, as most black men in the area were connected with the military at that time? Was it an inadequacy issue? Was it a method of inferring the victim was “loose” because she would hang with black men? Was it a way of saying she deserved to be killed? Or was he just being helpful?

Members of Sarah’s family told me that she had mentioned to them that she dated a bouncer from a nearby town, the location of another murder victim. I don’t know if this bouncer she reportedly dated was the same one who worked at the nightclub. As a bouncer at the nightclub, Suspect #3 would have excellent knowledge of the movements of the locals and the police in the early hours of the morning. He would have been well acquainted with the back lot of the nightclub. He would have lived in the vicinity and have had no reason to travel out of the area with the body of the victim. It would serve a purpose to leave the body behind the club where he could participate in the next day’s activities and have a legitimate reason to be there.

Bouncers at clubs get to know regular customers, are familiar faces to them, and are knowledgeable of their comings and goings and observant of their behavior. It was also possible a bouncer might keep coat hangers available to help customers who locked their keys in their cars. They also might be available to give a ride home to someone.

A bouncer can often leave his job and not be missed for a period of time. It is possible that the reason the police and army CID (Criminal Investigation Division) never identified him as a suspect was because they overfocused on the military connection and ignored possible civilian candidates.

I SAW AN overdose of theories and ideas concerning Sarah’s murder that served only to distract and confuse the investigative process. Many of these well-intentioned theories were a result of a lack of familiarity with sexual homicide. Even police investigators and FBI agents can lack understanding of this area of crime and psychopathology. Too many approaches and an unlimited number of suspects led to no progress at all.

One of the main purposes of bringing in a profiler on a case is to reduce the number of suspects and to prioritize investigative avenues. While anything is possible, everything is not probable. If we give equal weight to any and all theories, we accomplish next to nothing. If we wished to bring Sarah’s killer to justice, we needed to focus all our attention and resources on the top suspects.

LET’S REVIEW THE elements of this case that were important and what evidence was valuable in identifying the perpetrator:

There was only one perpetrator in the murder of Sarah Andrews.

From the forensic evidence presented, the attack was not economically motivated and not one of revenge. The offender appeared to be what is called a power-assertive rapist, one of the quick types. No one neat label can exactly explain the behaviors of these kinds of offenders, but the more dominant features fit the behaviors of the offender in this crime.

The power-assertive rapist has doubts about his masculinity and his sexual adequacy. He likes to exert his power in a situation where he can win and feel satisfied. He does not necessarily plan to kill his victim, but he wants what he wants and rising anger and frustration may cause him to escalate into more violent levels of control.

Because of the level of violence exhibited in this murder, some might feel this offender would be more appropriately labeled an anger-retaliatory rapist, one who kills to take out his anger against a particular person or class of persons. It is possible that the invitation to the vehicle was just a ruse to get Sarah into his hands. He would then surprise attack her and kill her. It is also possible that some elements of this type of offender are mixed in with power-assertive elements, and all we really can be sure of purely based on the evidence is that we have a quick, violent attack by a serial killer.

From the presentation of forensic evidence in this case, it would appear that the victim entered the offender’s vehicle willingly. There was no evidence of a weapon being employed in this attack. Control of the victim appeared to have been through the sheer physical advantage of the killer. Whether he planned all along to rape and kill Sarah or lost control when she refused him, we will never know. Even the killer might not really know that, as serial killers tend to twist the truth, even in their own minds, claiming, “The bitch made me do it,” when, in fact, he planned to do that “bitch” in all along.

All the elements of the murder indicated a violent sexual attack, including vaginal and anal rape, biting of sexual parts, and the removal of a sexual part.

It was not a drug hit, a revenge killing, or a robbery. Therefore, it did not matter who Sarah knew and associated with prior to the murder other than to indicate that she might have crossed the path of this killer and might have known him in some manner. The elements of this homicide indicated an experienced serial murderer, not a first-time accidental killing.

The evidence for this lies in the signature aspects of the crime rather than the MO. The fact that Sarah was lured, attacked, raped, and murdered by ligature does not prove an experienced killer. This MO merely shows that the perpetrator used those methods to assault and kill her. However, the fact that the perpetrator added a second coat hanger to the ligature configuration shows he had a more advanced knowledge of bondage methodology and, perhaps, prior experience with the use of ligatures.

The boldness of leaving the body in a public place ruled out the accidental killing by a well-known acquaintance or novice killer. Also, the fact that the victim was left faceup showed that the perpetrator had no guilt about this crime; in fact, he was damned proud of himself.

The ID left with the body was another bold move. The perpetrator had little fear that he would be identified as the killer. A rule of thumb among killers is to leave the body as far away as possible or as hidden as possible, allowing for the passage of time to obliterate evidence and the memories of any possible witnesses. Killers who leave a body where it will be easily found are extremely arrogant and confident that no one will connect them to the murder. If the perpetrator was well known to Sarah or served in the army with her, I doubt he would have left the body to be so quickly found.

If the perpetrator were in the military, it is also unlikely that he would have left a body with bite-mark evidence to be found; the marks would eventually have been matched up with army dental files.

The lack of any other major physical evidence such as body fluids or fingerprints is more support for the theory of a more experienced killer.

There is a relatively high chance that the killer was watching and possibly involving himself when the police were processing the crime scene. It is my belief that the perpetrator was a local resident, not in the military, and had connections to the crime scene area. He probably has lived in the area for quite a while and committed other murders or rapes and possibly other lesser crimes. He may or may not have a criminal record.

There was no evidence of two perpetrators involved in the crime. The particular kind of behaviors evidenced in this crime led me to believe this killer acted alone. The lesbian theory that was offered by some had absolutely no credibility.