The Emerald Order

Motive is never just “because money” or “because jealousy.” Before someone kills, something fractures inside: empathy erodes, thought twists, impulse falters.

This week’s Forensic Friday digs into the inner machinery of lethal violence, tracing how Bundy, Scott Peterson, and the Atlanta Child Murders expose both the power and the peril of motive analysis.

Read the full breakdown here.

Your Turn in the Interrogation Room

• How close can we ever get to the why behind a killing?

Some killers hunt for power. Others for pleasure. Sheila LaBarre hunted for control. And she made her victims believe they deserved every second of it.

Operating out of a New Hampshire farmhouse that looked like the setting of a folk song, LaBarre lured vulnerable young men into her life: men with low self-esteem, mental health struggles, or intellectual disabilities. She promised love, sex, shelter, even salvation. What they got instead was manipulation, psychological torture, and brutal violence.

LaBarre claimed she was on a divine mission to punish pedophiles, a twisted self-appointed vigilante with no proof her victims were guilty of anything at all. Her “motive”, if you can call it that, was a lethal mix of control, delusion, and sadism. Prosecutors argued it wasn’t about protecting anyone. It was about isolating, dominating, and ultimately destroying men she deemed weak enough to trap.

By the time authorities uncovered her crimes in…

Can a burn mark convict you? For decades, it did.

Before science caught up, fire investigators were trained to “read” a scene like a storybook: V-patterns, alligatoring, melted metal. But many of those so-called signs of arson? Just bad science, passed down like folklore and wielded in courtrooms like gospel. NFPA 921 has tried to clean up the mess, but old habits die hard and some convictions still burn from their aftermath.

What happens when the fire investigator’s gut becomes evidence? When flawed testimony helps lock someone away?

Let’s talk about it.

Have you ever seen a case where fire investigation went wrong? Or do you think instinct still has a place alongside science?

Dr. Harold Shipman wasn’t the type of killer you’d expect to rack up over 200 suspected victims. He didn’t stalk alleys or leave ransom notes — he made house calls.

As a trusted family GP in Hyde, England, Shipman used his medical license to quietly inject elderly patients with lethal doses of diamorphine. Most died in their homes, in what appeared to be peaceful passings. But beneath the surface was a long pattern of forged records, falsified wills, and an ego large enough to play god with the people who trusted him most.

Motive Monday asks the question: Why?

Was it about control? A need to feel powerful after witnessing his own mother die under morphine care? Was it financial — or simply the thrill of getting away with it, again and again? How do we even begin to measure motive in someone who never confessed? Drop your thoughts below.

🟩Do…

Some motives are messy, impulsive, and emotional. Others are cold, patient, and razor sharp.

Today’s case falls squarely in the second camp — a story where heartbreak simmered into poison, and love curdled into calculated murder. But let’s talk motive, not method.

How do we draw the line between a crime of passion and a premeditated act of vengeance?

Can long-held resentment ever be “understood” — or does time erase empathy?

Do you think Singh’s motive was rooted in obsession, ego, cultural expectations... or something else entirely?

Touch DNA sounds like science fiction—skin cells left behind with a single brush against a surface, enough to put someone at a crime scene. But here’s the rub: it doesn’t prove when you were there… or why.

One fingerprint? Context. One strand of hair? Possibility. One microscopic fleck of DNA? Could be the killer. Could be the cousin who borrowed your hoodie.

So, Emerald Order—how much weight should we give touch DNA in a courtroom? Is it the modern miracle of justice… or a high-tech red herring?

🕵️‍♀️ Sound off in the comments—truth is in the details.

Fear of punishment is one thing. But is it ever a reason for murder?

Joshua Phillips claimed he killed 8-year-old Maddie Clifton not out of rage, not out of cruelty—but out of fear. Not fear of her… but of what his father would do if he found out she was at the house.

Does that make it more disturbing? Or less?

This wasn’t a snap moment of violence that ended in a panicked 911 call—it was a cover-up that lasted days. So here’s where I pass the mic to you, Emerald Order:

🟩 Do you believe him?

If a plastic pouch and a color change can wreck your life, we’ve got a problem.

These roadside drug kits? They’re not science—they’re suspicion in a Ziploc. No confirmatory lab. No real oversight. Just faulty tests being treated like gospel in courtrooms across the country.

People are losing their freedom, their kids, and their reputations… because their sweetener packet set off a $2 chemistry party.

What do you think:

1. Should police still be allowed to use these tests at all? And if so, should any legal decision be made before a real lab confirms the result?
   

You’ve seen it in movies. You’ve seen it in true crime docs. That blinking box, those chest straps, the dramatic music cue when the line jumps. The polygraph test looks impressive — but don’t let the blinking lights fool you. It’s about as scientifically sound as a mood ring.

It doesn’t detect lies. It detects stress — and guess what? So does life.

If you’ve got trauma in your past, anxiety in your chest, or a healthy distrust of being interrogated by someone with a badge and a clipboard, you’re already fighting an uphill battle.

Let’s talk about it:

• Have you ever watched a doc where a polygraph test swayed public opinion — or worse, an actual case?

What drives someone to murder? For Donna Perry, prosecutors painted a picture of deep resentment, identity turmoil, and cold calculation.

Three women—Yolanda Sapp, Nickie Lowe, and Kathleen Brisbois—were found dead in 1990. The case sat unsolved for over two decades… until DNA from a gun seized in 2012 pointed to someone who no longer existed. Douglas Perry had become Donna Perry—and the defense claimed Donna wasn’t responsible for what Douglas had done.

But a jailhouse confession painted a darker motive: jealousy. Perry allegedly resented sex workers for their ability to have children, something she could not. The prosecution went further, accusing her of transitioning to throw off suspicion—a radical reinvention to outrun her crimes.

⚖️ The jury didn’t buy the split-self argument. Perry was convicted on all counts.

So let’s discuss:

Psychological profiling — once the crown jewel of FBI lore, now increasingly seen as... well, forensic fan fiction. It's dramatic, cinematic, and wildly inconsistent. From vague personality sketches to "he's probably white and lives with his mom," profiling has led investigations astray more often than it's cracked a case.

But let’s talk about it.

Have you ever watched a documentary where the profiler seemed to just describe a guy who likes cereal and alone time?

Do you think there's any merit left in behavioral analysis — or is it time we retire the term “criminal profile” altogether?

Drop your thoughts, argue your stance, and don’t worry — no one’s profiling you. Probably.

Some cases feel like twisted fiction. Robert Durst was twisted fiction—and then he picked up the phone and called the filmmaker.

The Jinx (2015) is one of the landmark docuseries that changed the game—both for true crime television and for Durst himself. What begins as a deep dive into the vanishing of Kathie Durst spirals into the kind of real-life noir that even Raymond Chandler might’ve called “a bit much.” A bathroom confession, a block-letter clue, and the kind of cold-blooded gaze that sticks in your memory longer than you'd like.

With Part Two (2024) released last year, we finally see the fallout: new jailhouse calls, courtroom betrayals, and the slow unraveling of the web Durst spent decades spinning. Wealth, privilege, manipulation—this is a case that haunts, and a docuseries that watches the watcher.

🗣 Have you seen The Jinx?

• Did it change your view of true crime documentaries?

He blamed a demon dog. He later recanted.

He claimed it was part of a cult. He later denied that, too.

So—what was the real motive behind David Berkowitz’s killing spree?

Was it untreated mental illness? A thirst for attention? A need to feel powerful after a life of rejection and isolation? Or do you believe there’s more to the cult theory than he let on?

📌 Do you think Berkowitz wanted to be caught—or was he just sloppy?

When DNA is too degraded, too diluted, or too crowded with genetic party crashers to yield a clean match, forensic labs sometimes turn to a method called probabilistic genotyping. Sounds impressive, right? It should. It uses complex software to simulate a bazillion genetic scenarios and spit out a probability like,

“There’s a 1 in 10 million chance this DNA came from anyone but the suspect.”

Here’s where things get murky: The software is often proprietary—meaning the source code is locked away like it’s guarding the secret recipe for crime-solving Coca-Cola.

Defense teams and judges frequently can’t examine how those numbers are calculated. Different software can yield different results on the same sample. And yes, human interpretation still plays a role in the input and analysis.

Translation? You might be convicted by a glorified black box with a statistics kink.

Is it a useful tool? Absolutely.

Ever get too cozy with a true crime show and then feel weird about it later? Same. This week’s Watchlist Wednesday pick is The Thing About Pam — a campy, darkly comedic six-episode miniseries starring Renée Zellweger as the notorious Pam Hupp. It’s based on a real murder, narrated by the one and only Keith Morrison, and somehow manages to be hilarious and horrifying.

It’s not a documentary, it’s a dramatized dive into sociopathy, manipulation, and Dateline’s most memeable villain.

Is it okay to laugh when the absurdity is real?

Or does the tone undercut the tragedy?

Tell me what you think:

Over the course of eleven years, cattle breeder and self-styled shaman Ahmad Suradji murdered 42 women and girls in Indonesia. The youngest was 11. His victims came to him seeking charms for love, beauty, or good fortune. What they got instead was ritual execution, strangled while buried waist-deep in a sugarcane field.

Suradji claimed his father’s ghost visited him in a dream with a command: kill 70 women, drink their saliva, and grow stronger with each death. Each body was buried facing his house to “channel” power back to him. Some of the women were brought by friends or family, unknowingly delivering loved ones to their deaths.

His motive wasn’t rage. It wasn’t revenge. It was supernatural ambition — a twisted pursuit of status and strength.

Do you believe Suradji was a con man who believed his own con? Or just a predator using ritual as a cover?

Let’s talk…

Let’s talk about the real threat to justice—and no, it’s not some criminal mastermind in the shadows. It’s junk science, wearing a tie and swearing an oath in front of twelve jurors who don’t know the difference between peer review and pure fiction.

Bite mark “analysis.” Microscopic hair comparison. Lead composition matching. These methods have been publicly shredded by scientists, but somehow they still get paraded into courtrooms like they’re gospel.

How did we let snake oil into the evidence locker?

⚖️ Which junk sciences do you think have done the most damage?

🧠 Do you think juries can really tell real science from the fake stuff?

Sound off, Order Members. The floor is open and the gavel’s been dropped.

Herbert Mullin believed he was saving California from a devastating earthquake. Between October 1972 and February 1973, he killed 13 people in a brutal spree fueled by untreated paranoid schizophrenia, apocalyptic delusions, and the eerie conviction that human sacrifices were needed to satisfy Mother Earth.

Mullin’s victims ranged from hitchhikers and a priest to a mother and her children. The variety in victims and methods made his crimes hard to track—especially since another killer, Edmund Kemper, was simultaneously active in the same region. Mullin confessed that he was following telepathic commands, often hearing the voice of his father instructing him to kill.

Though diagnosed as mentally ill and previously committed to psychiatric facilities, Mullin was ultimately found legally sane at trial. He died in prison in 2022, denied parole eight times.

🕵️‍♀️ What do you think—does Mullin’s delusional belief system change the way we interpret his crimes? Should his mental…

Is television's portrayal of forensic science setting unrealistic expectations for real-life investigations? Today’s Forensic Friday is all about The CSI Effect — the phenomenon where TV shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Bones make us believe that criminal investigations are solved in a tidy 45-minute episode. Spoiler: It’s not that easy.

While these shows have certainly done their part in raising public interest in forensics, they also tend to overemphasize the capabilities of forensic science, giving people the impression that a single piece of evidence can crack a case wide open.

In reality, forensic science is a slow, meticulous process, and not every clue is as clear-cut as we see on-screen.

So, let’s get into it. Does the CSI Effect make people expect more from real-life forensic experts? Are juries becoming more difficult to convince without flashy science? Let’s hear your thoughts.

Join the discussion below and share your take on how TV…

In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court gave judges the power (and responsibility) to screen expert witnesses for real science vs. courtroom snake oil.

Under the Daubert Standard, expert testimony must be:

• Testable 🧪

• Peer-reviewed 📖

• Error-rated 📉

• Generally accepted 🤝

In 1995, a daytime talk show stunt ended in bloodshed.

Scott Amedure appeared on The Jenny Jones Show to reveal a secret crush—Jonathan Schmitz, a man who identified as straight. Three days later, Schmitz found a sexually-charged note from Scott, bought a shotgun, and murdered him. He claimed humiliation drove him to kill, invoking the “gay panic” defense. He was convicted of second-degree murder. The Amedure family sued the show, but it wasn’t held liable.

So… where does the blame truly lie?

🧠 Was this the act of a man unraveling—or a tragedy engineered by ratings-hungry producers?

🎭 Should the show bear responsibility for creating a volatile setup?

⚖️ Or is the sole fault with Schmitz, who made the choice to kill?