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For JUNE 2003 issue

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-117

MURDER BY A VEHICLE

‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal

This time we are going to talk about Vehicular Murders. Many of our readers may be unaware of this term. However vehicular homicide remains the real “heavyweight” of murders. Somehow, murder by stabbing, shooting or strangulation seems like small potatoes when compared to the horror of being chased down by a two-ton vehicle, headlights flashing and horn honking, traveling at least 75 mph. In a recent film Jism, the lover of the heroine tries to kill the hero in the end by a fast running vehicle. Incidentally he remains unsuccessful, and gets killed himself. Had he been able to kill successfully the hero, it would have been classified as a vehicular murder. In fact it was this incident, which spurred me on to write something about it in this issue.

Vehicular homicide is rare because of the size of the weapon involved, be it a car, van, truck or even motorcycle. It is likely to be seen by several people who can identify the vehicle, the physical description of the driver (usually a man who makes no attempt to disguise himself) or the license plate information. It is worth noting, however, that perpetrators of vehicular homicide (if they are smart criminals) try to use license plates that do not correspond to the actual vehicle in use.

Running down the Victim

The most common way for this type of murder to occur is for the victim to be run over or struck by the vehicle by surprise. This is usually done while the victim is entering or exiting her home or place of business, either in the early morning or the late evening. The reasons for this are obvious: The vehicle and the person driving it cannot be easily identified.

Hired Drivers

In many cases of this type, the murderer is hired. What usually happens is that a person looking for someone to commit this type of homicide seeks a criminal, but that criminal is almost always of a low-level stature. It may be a teenager who is hoping to step up in his criminal element by doing this type of murder. Or it may be done by some low-level soldier in organized crime who is hoping to move up in the hierarchy.

The person selected does not need any experience or finesse. All he needs to do is operate a vehicle and have some information on the victim. In some cases, the person or organization doing the hiring locates a vehicle for the perpetrator. It is the killer’s responsibility to dispose of the vehicle, which is usually done by leaving it in a poor section of town where it can be stripped quickly, thus avoiding good fingerprint or trace evidence detection.

This killer will not be highly compensated, certainly not as much as an experienced hit man. One has almost never heard of someone getting more than a fifty thousand Rupees for this type of murder. We once heard of a suspect who bragged that when he was in the lower tier of organized crime, he was involved in doing “rim jobs,” meaning that he killed or injured people who owed his organization money. He called them rim jobs because he said he knew he had connected when he felt the bones of the victim snap beneath the rims of his tires.

Motives

There can be many motives for vehicular homicide. The police have investigated cases involving contract killings where a person was killed for hire, elimination killings where a person (a wife, a husband, a lover, a business partner) had to be killed and revenge-type murders where a driver is cut off in traffic and reacts by stalking and later killing the other driver while she is leaving her vehicle or home.

Another motive for vehicular murder is jealousy, where the perpetrator (the lover or enraged spouse) wishes to eliminate the person who is creating the lovers’ triangle. Since this killer is often of the middle class, he doesn’t own weapons and has not often engaged in violent behavior. He doesn’t want a face to-face confrontation and feels incapable of stabbing someone to death. The car makes the murder seem less direct.

The police have also investigated cases where ex-convicts are released from jail only to hunt down the police officers who put them behind bars, killing them as they approach their vehicles while leaving or coming home. In one such case, the police officer was killed as he departed his personal vehicle and walked to the police precinct where he was due to report for the midnight to eight o’clock shift.

So, as you can see, vehicular homicide, although not used too often by seasoned murderers, appears to be deliberately planned. Of course, there are instances where vehicular homicide is committed by a person who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs. And although these are typically defined under state laws as vehicular homicide, they are not actually premeditated murders and are therefore not covered here in this piece. It is worth noting that vehicular homicides do not involve theft or robbery because, as noted earlier, the murderer does not stop her vehicle at all during the commission of the crime.

Methods

Consider this scenario: A man has been contracted to kill a hypothetical victim Rita Bhatia as she exits her vehicle after parking it in front of her home at approximately 12:30 A.M. Rita has just come off the four to midnight shift at the local shop. She locks her doors and walks slowly across the street, fumbling for the keys to her front door.

Suddenly, a car turns the corner. With tires screeching, headlights glaring and acceleration up to speeds of 70 to 80 mph, it does not appear to be stopping. Rita turns and is immediately blinded by the glare of the headlights. The driver bears down on her, and she goes flying like a rag doll into the air, fifty to one hundred feet, as the vehicle roars away. The killer, confident no one has seen him, drives home and secures his vehicle in the garage. He knows he will be paid handsomely for a job well done.

But, did he really carry out the homicide in such a way that he won’t be caught? Did he drive at high speed without applying the brakes before hitting Rita Bhatia? If he had hit the brakes, the tires would have screeched and skidded, possibly causing neighbors to look out their windows and witness the actual impact. Did he drive with his bright lights on so as to distract the victim (or anyone else seeing his approach) and prevent her from getting a good look at his face as he struck her?

Did he make sure that, after striking her, he only slowed down a little so as to round a curve or get accessibility onto a major road, thereby not attracting any further attention? Did he make sure to stop calmly at stop signs or red lights, possibly merging into traffic or turning right on red to avoid waiting at a light? The contract murderer would be sure to employ all these tactics in a “successful” vehicular homicide.

Some vehicles are stolen “to order” for this particular type of murder, since it is easier for the murderer not to have the vehicle in his possession shortly after the murder. Following the homicide, the vehicle is driven to a clandestine location where it may be dismantled totally and slowly sold for scrap or crushed and discarded in landfills. Many of these murderers use older vehicles that are dispensable and not worth much money so they can be discarded after the murders.

The marks that may be left at the scene, such as skid marks, tire marks, dirt from impact, blood tissue and hair, chipped flakes of paint and broken equipment such as trim or headlights, are frequently clues for the detective to catch the murderer. Keep in mind, though, that this type of murderer never stops at the scene of the accident to collect this evidence. He continues on and takes a chance on the police not matching the actual vehicle to the murder scene.

In a particularly violent accident, bloodstains and tissue may also be found on the radiator, the door handles and other parts of the vehicle, such as the grill and headlights. When the accident takes place on a dirt road, particles of soil may adhere to the fenders and the tires. If the chemical composition of the soil is characteristic of a particular location, it may be possible for the detectives to associate the vehicle with the scene of the accident. A suspect vehicle will be placed on a service station jack so a highly trained detective can study the understructure for various clues, such as impressions in the grease or the fibers, blood and tissue of the victim. So if the killer wants to avoid suspicion, he usually travels hours away from the scene, sometimes into another state, to have any physical damage to the car repaired.

It is also common for these murderers to go through car washes ten to twelve times, usually in many different locations so as to not cause suspicion by visiting the same one a dozen times. However, a large majority of these murderers wash their cars at self-service car washes where they can use the high-pressure hoses at their discretion. The one drawback of self-service car washes is that the murderer can’t wash the underside of the car. That is why the trained detective always notifies car washes in the immediate area as well as the owners of self-service car washes about the suspect. The investigators may even put surveillance teams at these locations, since many self-service car washes do not have people on the premises to look for vehicles matching the description of the murder vehicle.

Investigation and Capture

The examination of the suspected vehicle is done by detectives immediately upon receiving information that a vehicle may be the one in question. Vehicular homicide experts say that proper examination and evaluation of physical evidence are the keys to solving these types of murder. First investigators look for dents and scratches, which can be tricky since it’s difficult to determine how recent the damage is and the exact cause of it. Clues of the victim’s impact with the vehicle lead to further investigation by the detectives. They also check for broken parts because pieces of glass may remain in the headlight or may fall into the grill. A broken emblem or side mirror also attracts the detectives’ attention.

A forensic analysis of the headlights or taillights can reveal if the lights were on or off at the point of impact. Filament structure and examination can determine whether or not the murder was committed with the vehicle’s headlights on or off.

This is important in showing intent, and intent to kill is very important in the trial of a suspected murderer. If the lights were off, the suspect was probably attempting to run down the victim.

The trained gumshoes also look for fibers, since contact with the victim’s clothing may leave fibers or even cloth on the vehicle. And if the vehicle struck the victim with sufficient force, an outline of the clothing pattern may be seen on the paint of the murderer’s vehicle.

Other valuable evidence includes glass fragments from the headlights or sidelights and pieces from the vehicle’s grill or hood ornament, which is usually found on a luxury vehicle. Additionally, metal fragments and paint flakes that may have fallen from the vehicle, tire impressions and other pieces of trim that may have been knocked off or may have fallen off (radio antenna, fender, trim, hubcaps) are useful in aiding the detectives in the capture of the murderer.

Trace evidence; the whereabouts, friendships, enemies and work habits of the victim; and forensic evidence at the scene lead the police to determine the victim’s patterns. But as is true with other killings, the most important piece of evidence at the scene of a vehicular homicide is the body. So detectives focus on the victim and, in particular, the victim’s clothing, which should be removed and studied for the following: grease from the understructure of the vehicle, tire marks, which may be irregular because of the yielding action of the clothing, and paint (the buttons and sometimes the cloth may retain paint from the car). Sometimes the victim’s chest or back bears a distinct tire mark, a hood mark, an ornamental mark or an impression from the grill or bumper of the murderer’s vehicle.

As mentioned earlier in this piece, this type of murderer often borrows a vehicle from a friend or relative or rents one and reports it stolen shortly after the accident. It is also common for a vehicle to be stolen simply for the use of murdering someone. The vehicle, however, is usually stolen immediately prior to the intended use so as not to attract attention to it prior to the killing. Many a vehicular homicide suspect has been caught with a stolen vehicle days before the actual homicide, only to be arrested for grand larceny and not for the actual intended murder. Of course, through confessions and informants, we have learned that murder was the intended use of the vehicle, but the actual suspect can only be charged with receiving stolen property or grand larceny.

Captions to figures:

001.jpg. When struck by a car from behind the point of impact is to the legs either above the knee or below the knee and injury is caused by the protruding parts of the vehicle. Other injuries occur to the front of the head and outstretched arms as the body pitches forward on to the ground.

002.jpg. When struck from the side there may be single points of impact on one leg and injuries to the upper part, namely the head, shoulder and arm of the opposite side of the body.

003.jpg. The back of the legs of a pedestrian who was struck from behind by a motor car. The mark on the lower right leg was caused by the bumper bar and the lacerations behind the right knee were caused by the headlight part of the vehicle. A sharper projecting part of the vehicle, possibly a pointed structure on a headlamp, produced the puncture wound in the back of the left knee. The position of these wounds on the body corresponded to projections on the vehicle in that the parts of the vehicle and the wounds were the same distance from the ground.

004.jpg. Abrasions on the back of the hand of a pedestrian who was struck from behind by a car; as he fell forward the back of his hand grazed along the road surface. His other outstretched arm broke as he instinctively tried to protect himself from striking the ground.

005.jpg. This man was struck from the right side by a car, and the abrasion on the left shoulder is due to impact with the ground. There was also a deep laceration on the left side of the scalp with fracturing of the skull, and the peculiar angle of the neck is due to the fact that the upper cervical spine had fractured as well.

006.jpg. If the body is struck from behind and the legs pushed forwards then the body may rise into the air and the skull strike the windscreen. It may pass through the windscreen into the car or may bounce off the windscreen and slide backwards over the roof of the car to land behind the vehicle. Severe head and neck injuries may result from this kind of collision.

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Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D.

Professor of Forensic Medicine

Maulana Azad Medical College

New Delhi‑110002