The 1970s was a time of evolution in the entertainment industry as well as mood rings and confusion caused by Richard Nixon’s resignation. Movies were booming, and pet rocks were smiling from ear to ear. In 1970, the Apollo 13 mission to the moon was successful and strides in NASA were being made. In 1974, “The Way We Were” by Barabara Streisand was the number-one song. Some of the most important developments of this time period were the police department, the criminal justice system, and the way higher-profile crimes were handled. This was also an age of revolution in the way crimes were investigated because murders were examined from a human perspective rather than a criminal one. Psycho-forensics was revolutionary in the determination that crime leaves a trail. What if these many psychopaths are leaving evidence based on personality? The ideas accumulated by the police force were forced to change by the eerie serial killer John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, and Ted Bundy. In due time, these understandings evolved the department by creating a system with new improvements to benefit Americans’ safety.
When the 1970s began, the police department was evolving and becoming more efficient. At the beginning of this decade, the United States was impacted by the Newhall Massacre, an incident that occurred in Los Angeles, California, resulting in the death of 5 people. Following this, police departments nationally made decisions to protect the officers in their positions, assuming a more defensive role. According to author Phippen, “That day in 1970 began with a road-rage incident. A red two-door Pontiac Grand Prix cut off a couple in a Volkswagen on their way home. The man driving the Volkswagen followed the Pontiac until it eased to the shoulder abruptly. As it did, the Volkswagen driver, Jack Tidwell, yelled at the man in the Pontiac, Bobby Davis.” This narrative is to describe the scene of the massacre where an officer was eventually killed at the hand of a soon-to-be convoluted confrontation. This event provided tragic reasoning for the government to emphasize protection in its programs. The police department was also working towards new methods to help prevent crime rather than solve it. They determined that the preservation of their task force was pivotal. Kaste writes, “The crime waves of the 1970s and '80s pushed police departments toward prevention strategies — broken-window patrols, more officer visibility in high-crime areas, stop-and-frisk — and solving crimes became secondary. In some instances, the clearance rates are one of those things that kind of snuck up on people.”
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These methods were used to protect the people of America rather than deal with the aftermath. Congress also focused on the containment of crime in the United States by passing laws to prevent crime. Fortunately, these clauses were specific to situations involving the most heinous of crimes. “Congress approved the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. This law contained a section known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act or RICO. RICO has become a very effective tool in convicting members of organized criminal enterprises.” (FBI) This act was put in place to convict all the criminals involved in crimes rather than just the main heads of operation. This act worked to incarcerate not only pivotal members of crime but those working under them. The police force had made some changes to the department at the beginning of the decade, but the serial killers that arose in the 1970s would change their perspective on how the department should be run.
One of the serial killers to affect the homicide department was John Wayne Gacy, Killer Clown. Gacy was born in 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, where he lived with his mother and father. Growing up, his father was a raging alcoholic and very extremely abusive. “The son of Danish and Polish parents, Gacy and his siblings grew up with an alcoholic father who would beat the children with a razor strap if they were perceived to have misbehaved. His father physically assaulted Gacy's mother as well.” (Editors) Coming from a damaged family, that carried onto his adult years when he began to build his own family. Biography.com editors write, “He was married and divorced twice and had two biological children (in addition to two stepdaughters).” (Editors) Although his home life was rugged, Gacy had a good reputation. He was, as Biography.com Editors wrote, “well-liked in his community”, and “became a self-made building contractor and Democratic precinct captain in the Chicago suburbs”. Although he may have seemed the relatively well-rounded man to an outsider, he was masking a murderous nature. As Editors wrote, John Wayne Gacy was a “serial killer and rapist who took the lives of at least 33 young males in Cook County, Illinois, burying most under his house.” For all 33 of his murders, He would dress up as a clown, and that is how the killer received his name as the Killer Clown. He was a member of the “Jolly Joker” clown club in Chicago and performed at events for money on occasion, so Gacy had easy access to clown attire. On some occurrences, Gacy “dressed as his alter egos 'Pogo the Clown' or 'Patches the Clown.'” (Editors) He even lured in older victims with the promise of construction work, but then kidnapped them, raped, and tortured them before strangling them with his own hands. Gacy was eventually caught by Chicago Police Department and was put on trial on February 6, 1980 (Editors). Gacy’s defense wanted to argue the Insanity Plea. “With Gacy having confessed to the crimes, the arguments were focused on whether he could be declared insane and thus remitted to a state mental facility.” (Editors) The judge did not rule in favor of Gacy and sentenced Gacy to death by lethal injection due to the grievousness of their crimes. Gacy’s life ended on May 10, 1994. The Killer Clown was one of the first of many serial killers in the 1970s to open the eyes of the police force, but there were many more to follow as is the case with David Berkowitz and Ted Bundy.
Another example of a malignant serial killer of the 1970s is David Berkowitz. Born as Richard David Falco, in Brooklyn, New York, Berkowitz was a “difficult and occasionally violent child.” (David) These occurrences began after his adoptive mother passed away in 1967 and grew to be a larger problem when his adoptive father remarried and moved to Florida without him four years later. Immediately after his father’s leaving, “Berkowitz joined the army, and he became an excellent marksman before he left the service in 1974.” (David) Five years after returning from the service, he attempted his first murder which would be the first of many. Jenkins wrote, “Claiming he was driven by demons, Berkowitz attempted to murder a woman in December 1975, but she survived several stab wounds.” Although his first attempt was unsuccessful, he tried again in July 1976, murdered his first woman, and “over the next year he attacked several couples, claiming five more victims.” (David). Berkowitz began calling himself “Son of Sam”, in reference to a demon who believed he lived inside his neighbor’s labrador retriever. Berkowitz “sent letters to New York newspapers, signing them “Son of Sam,” to scare people and draw attention to his work. By July 1977, Berkowitz had murdered six people and injured seven others, but on August 10, 1977, he was arrested, 11 days after his last murder. Jenkins wrote, “His capture was the result of careful police work, which involved sorting through a confusing maze of reports of suspicious persons.” The police department made Berkowitz their most likely suspect after matching the witnesses’ descriptions and receiving a parking ticket near the scene of one of the shootings. After being arrested, Berkowitz quickly confessed to many murders, as well as attempted murders, and on May 8, 1978, he pled guilty. In June of 1978, he was sentenced to 365 years in prison. He is still serving his time in the Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Ulster County, New York.
As notorious as the Son of Sam was, he was not the most frightening prolific serial killer to live and thrive in the 1970s. Ted Bundy-- a notorious serial killer who has made an impact so large that it has carried on into the modern era-- was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont. Jenkins writes, “Bundy had a difficult childhood; he had a strained relationship with his stepfather, and his shyness made him a frequent target of bullying.” Bundy had been born during a difficult time in his mother’s life; she was unmarried and young and that humiliated her deeply religious parents. Jenkins further writes, “Bundy was raised as the adopted son of his grandparents and was told that his mother was his sister.” As he grew older, he began to show his psychotic tendencies by peering into neighbors’ windows. Museum states, “In interviews, he recalled being antisocial and wandering the streets looking for discarded pornography or open windows through which he could spy on unsuspecting women; he also had an extensive juvenile record for theft that was dismissed when he turned 18.” Bundy went to college at the University of Washington where he got his degree in psychology in 1972; he had been accepted into law school, but he could never receive his degree. While attending college, he fell in love with a girl he had been seeing, but their relationship did not work out, and Bundy was devastated. This relationship created a pattern in Bundy’s murders: “attractive students, with long, dark hair.” (Ted) The debate on how many murders Ted Bundy committed is unanswered, although he confessed to 36 killings, many believe that the final tally was closer to 100 or more. Bundy moved on many occurrences during the time of his crimes, “first near his home in Washington, then moving east to Utah, Colorado, and finally in Florida.” (Museum) Bundy raped all of his victims and killed them in malignant ways. Museum further writes, “Bundy was able to rape and murder scores of women this way. He typically strangled or bludgeoned his victims as well as mutilated them after death. He then prolonged the events by returning to visit the corpses at their dump sites or even taking them home in order to gain further sexual gratification. In some cases, he even shockingly displayed their decapitated heads in his apartment and slept with their corpses until putrefaction made it unbearable.” In the photo of Ted Bundy’s supplies for his murders and the photo of the deceased Linda Ann Healy, one of the first victims killed by Bundy, he depicts how gruel and insensitive he is to murder. He has tools such as a wrench, a flashlight, rope, a screwdriver, handcuffs, gloves, and a mask, but with these small tools, he completed devastating crimes. On the second side of the photo is the body of one of his victims decapitated, and the head was later found in Bundy’s apartment in Seattle. Bundy was first arrested in Utah after being pulled over by police for speeding; after the officer saw Bundy’s supplies in the backseat, the officer arrested him for the possession of these items, and they suspected him of murder cases that had been opened in the area with no lead. He was arrested for the kidnapping of one of the victims who, as Biography.com Writers wrote, “escaped his clutches”, and was sentenced to 1-15 years in jail. Bundy is infamous for his many escapes from police custody. “Bundy escaped from prison twice in 1977. The first time, he was indicted on murder charges for the death of a young Colorado woman and decided to act as his own lawyer in the case. During a trip to the courthouse library, he jumped out a window and made his first escape. He was captured eight days later.” (Writers) Bundy acted as his own lawyer because he believed that he had been to law school, passed the bar, and became a defense attorney, but this was not the case. Bundy had never made it to law school but believed that he had because of his sociopathic tendencies. After being recaptured, Bundy found another way to escape. Writers from Biography.com write, “In December, Bundy escaped from custody again. He climbed out of a hole he made in the ceiling of his cell, having dropped more than 30 pounds to fit through the small opening. Authorities did not discover that Bundy was missing for 15 hours, giving the serial killer a big head start on the police.” After his second escape, Bundy made his runaway to Florida and continued to prey on young women at Florida State University. On the night of January 14, 1978, Bundy broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. He attacked four of the young female residents, killing two of them.” A month later, he kidnapped, raped, and murdered a 12-year-old girl named Kimberly Leach, which is said to be believed that she was his last murder before being recaptured in February of 1978. Biography.com Writers further states, “The most damning evidence connecting Bundy to the two Chi Omega murders at FSU were bite marks on one of the bodies, which were a definitive match to Bundy.” Bundy left bite marks on a victim and bit the nipple of one of his victims, which ultimately led police to him because his dental records were recorded. This evidence incriminated Bundy, and he faced trial in July 1979 where he was sentenced to death on three separate murder charges. He was executed in 1989. John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, and Ted Bundy revolutionized the police force and gave the police department focuses to improve in years to come.
In 1979, the police force and homicide department were making new strides toward a more efficient investigation process. Capitol states, “In 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law No. 96152, establishing a chief of police for the United States Capitol Police.” Carter led the United States Capitol Police to find ways to solve murder cases such as the ones stated, while also keeping his officers safe. Another development added after the many killings committed by John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, and Ted Bundy, was the introduction of fingerprinting. FBI writes, “The FBI Laboratory Division pioneered the use of laser technology to detect latent 'crime scene fingerprints. This date marks the first successful use of lasers to detect latent prints on case evidence.” This development has benefited the homicide department for many years now, but this discovery and the research that followed were first conducted in 1979 to help identify the suspects and sentence the real culprits.
Many things attributed to the 1970s being a time of transition and sensationalism in America. Movies, music, art, and pop culture were all in flux and-- in some ways-- innovation morphed into much-needed radicalization. One of the most important developments was the investigation and criminalization of heinous crimes, such as serial murder. By attempting to not only humanize the crimes but also the criminals, the FBI, CIA, and local police forces were able to expand their analyses and create an entirely new way to approach investigations. Ultimately, these new analyses evolved criminal investigation and built the modern-day building blocks for finding and establishing an entirely new approach to looking at atrocious crimes.
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