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The forensic scientist has an array of instruments and procedures at their disposal to help them discover how a crime was xommitted and the ide tity of the perpetrator. Delving into the mental state of a criminal, however, is considerably more difficult and often impossible. Indeed, the mind of a vicious murderer is like " a riddle wrapped up in a conundrum i side an enigma," to borrow Winston Churchill's phrase.
But criminals, like ordinary people, are creatures of habit. Investigators use such behavior to narrow the field of suspects. Psychological profiling will build up a description of the most likely suspect until the guilty one is exposed. When he or she is apprehended, tests can be done to understand the suspects state of mind. This will have a great bearing on tje legal aspects of the case.
The instruments involved will not be familiar in the forensic lab. The polygraph, or the lie detector, is a traditional, yet often discredited, tool for reading inner thoughts. Technology has now devised more reliable methods, using the electroencephalohraph (ECG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), amd computed tomography (CT) to probe the criminal mind.
Britains serial killer Rosemary West faces a police camera in 1996 after being sentenced with her husband, Fred West, to life in prison.