William Heirens: Interpreting the Signature of a Serial Killer

Modus operandi (MO) is defined as the way in which a particular criminal operates. The MO consists of everything necessary to carry out the crime. Included in this are: the type of crime, the victim type, the setting of the crime, method used to gain entry and method used to subdue the victim. The MO of a serial killer can and does change over time as the killer becomes progressively more violent. The signature of a crime is often mistaken for the MO, but is entirely different. The signature is the psychological calling card of the killer, his or her personal stamp. The MO is strictly limited to the aspects necessary to carry out the crime, anything beyond that is part of the signature. The signature, unlike the MO, is immutable and never varies. A killer can develop different techniques and methods of killing, but the motive behind the killing remains constant. Many officials throughout history have overlooked killers' signatures, as knowledge of signatures did not come about until the late 1900's. The signature is the common thread that connects the crimes of a specific killer, the similarities that are apparent in all of the cases. The signature remains constant even when the MO is deliberately altered to confuse authorities. William Heirens is a perfect example of a signature killer.

William George Heirens was born on November 15, 1928 to wealthy parents. William's mother, Margaret often told her son, "All sex is dirty. If you touch anyone, you get a disease." Due to this, William experienced severe sexual repression and found deviant ways to fulfill his sexual needs. He became a fetishist and achieved orgasm through breaking into women's homes and stealing their undergarments. Like many other serial killers, he was a pyromaniac.

William committed several criminal acts in his early years, resulting in two arrests. At the tender age of 13, he brought a loaded gun to school. Upon searching his house, police found several other firearms. While in police custody, he admitted to six incidents of arson and eleven burglaries. He was spared from severe consequences by his family background and his young age. He was sent to Gibault School for Boys in Indiana and was released one month short of a year later. Upon returning home to Chicago, he continued down his old path of delinquency. He was a night prowler and thief at the age of fourteen. In addition to stealing women's underwear, he often wore them while flipping through a scrapbook containing photographs of German Nazis. After committing another act of burglary, he was sent to St. Bede's Catholic School for 18 months.

At that time, WWII was at its pinnacle and young men were being drafted right after graduating high school. Needless to say, the student population of colleges and universities was extremely low. Universities began offering admission to younger students if they were able to pass an entrance examination. William was highly intelligent and was admitted in 1945. William lived the typical co-ed lifestyle filled with parties, girls and alcohol by day. By night, he lived a chilling second life of theft and murder.

On June 5, 1945, he was in the process of robbing the home of 43-year-old Josephine Ross when she awoke from her sleep and caught him. He cut her throat, stabbed her several times and attempted to clean the blood off of her and bandage her neck. He then spent two hours looking through her apartment while achieving multiple orgasms. He defecated and urinated at the scene before leaving.

On October 5, 1945, William broke into the home of a 27-year-old army nurse named Lieutenant Evelyn Peterson. When she caught him, he hit her and fled, leaving his fingerprints at the scene. Despite this, the police failed to match the prints with those taken during William's earlier arrests.

On December 10, 1945, he was searching through the purse of 33-year-old Frances Brown when she emerged from the bathroom and spotted him. He shot her two times and stabbed her with a kitchen knife. He tried in vain to wash away her blood and left her slumped over the tub in the bathroom, half-covered in a housecoat. Before leaving the scene, he scribbled a note in lipstick on the bedroom wall. It read, "For heaven's sake catch me before I kill again. I cannot control myself." He was instantly dubbed the "Lipstick Killer" by the media. Before leaving, he defecated and urinated at the scene.

On January 7, 1946, Heirens committed his final and most deplorable murder. He made his way into the bedroom of 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan and abducted her. He left behind a ransom note in which he demands $20,000 for Suzanne's return. Money or no money, William had no intentions of returning the little girl. He took her to a nearby basement and asphyxiated her. He dismembered her body and dropped the wrapped pieces of her body into a storm drain on his way home.

The murder of young Suzanne elicited the largest manhunt in the history of Chicago. On June 26, 1946, police received a call of a prowler sighting in a north side apartment. Police arrived at the scene and corned William. Heirens shot at the officers twice, but his gun misfired both times. On July 12, it was confirmed that the fingerprints lifted from the Peterson home perfectly matched William's.

Once in custody, he was injected with sodium pentothal ("truth serum") at which point he confessed that the murders were committed by his alter ego, George Murman. In August of 1946, William's attorneys negotiated a plea bargain, sparing him from receiving a sentence of capital punishment. He received three consecutive life sentences in exchange for full cooperation and a confession. On the day that he received his formal sentence, he made a failed attempt to hang himself with a bed sheet. A federal judge ruled to release William in 1983, stating that he was rehabilitated. This motion was overruled by on appeal by the state of Illinois. Heirens earned his Bachelor's degree in prison and has been rejected for parole over 30 times.

Although William changes his MO when he switched from killing grown women to killing a little girl, his signature remained the same. There are no strict rules when it comes to victim selection. The killer may have a specific preference, but will go for whoever is easiest and most convenient. Sexual serial killers are killers of opportunity. For instance, Ted Bundy. He almost exclusively targeted women in their late teens and early twenties. When he got desperate, he killed 12-year-old Kimberly Leach to satisfy his sexual frenzy. William did change his MO, but there were aspects of his crime that were constant throughout. Everything except what is necessary to commit the crime is a signature. It was not necessary to the commission of the murder for William to defecate/urinate at the victim's homes, yet he did at two of the three crime scenes. This was part of his signature, the desire to further demean the women and to taunt the officers in pursuit of him. At the 2^nd and 3^rd crime scenes, he left written messages. One was written in ink on a piece of paper and the other in lipstick on a wall. Despite these differences in circumstance, the killer felt the compulsion to leave a written message at both crime scenes. This was also part of his signature. The third and final aspect of Heirens' signature was his repeated attempts to wash the blood off of his victims. Those three elements remained constant throughout his murders and tied them all together. Distinguishing a signature is not always easy, but it is an effective tool in linking similar crimes to a perpetrator.