Free The Devil's Garden by Debi Marshall Page B

the profile of the type of person the police are seeking. He asks Perth residents to help, by watching closely anyone who had a strange response to the media reports that Jane's body had been found. These signs could include 'absence from work, an inability to remain at work for the entire day, a sudden deterioration in work performance, an inability to concentrate, experiencing headaches, sudden changes in plans...' Ferguson also outlines other profiling clues picked up by Minisini. The killer would drive a late-model car that he keeps spotlessly clean, hold down a job and be of unremarkable appearance. Police release no further details, the lack of information inviting sharp criticism and no little incredulity. Minisini stands his ground. They did find enough evidence to deduce strong and incisive conclusions, he says. But he can't say any more than that.
    Advertisements based on the profiling are shown on prime-time television, using the familiar faces of actor John Wood, from Blue Heelers , and singer Kate Ceberano. 'Like Sarah's family and friends you're agonising over the events of that weekend, because you think someone close to you may be involved in her disappearance, 'Ceberano says. 'You're worried because you've noticed a change in their routine or behaviour. Whatever it was, ease your mind.' The ads work, seducing people into coming forward with information.
    Criminologist Paul Wilson, from Bond University, watches the unfolding profiles on television with more than a passing interest. 'This is all very general and quite superficial,' he says. 'Just because, for example, someone is showing signs of anxiety at work or decides to go off and wash their car, doesn't make that person a serial killer. The accuracy rate for the FBI profiling is less than 90 per cent and the whole technique is not scientifically based.' Minisini is used to the flak. If police don't perceive that profilers are doing a good job, he says, they are the first ones to say so.
    Not so Dave Caporn. 'They left here winning the respect of the force,' he beamed. 'They did excellent work.'
    Although the work of profilers in Australia has received a welter of publicity – it was profiling that targeted where Frank Denyer, who committed Victoria's Frankston murders, lived – it has never directly solved a case. So while profilers command huge sums for their services and boast they have worked on high-profile cases, they can never point to a result. 'Dave Caporn said that Claude Minisini did excellent work,' a former police officer says. 'Well, no doubt he did. But all we – the public – know is that he told us that the killer likes driving, keeps his car clean and is of neat appearance. Now that's all very fascinating, but does it take Einstein to work that out? Everything else he deduced is kept under wraps, in order, they say, to be able to tell the difference between a true and a false confession. But with the greatest respect to all concerned, without public scrutiny and without an arrest, it's a bit like farting in the wind.'
    Minisini's generalisations about the killer's profile also exacerbate the rumblings of discontent heard after it was announced that FBIS had scored the lucrative one-year contract with the WA Police Service. Digging for background, and confirmed by documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, The West Australian journalist Luke Morfesse found that despite written advice to the deputy commissioner from the acting assistant commissioner that the $40,000 cost of their services could not be justified, it was awarded to FBIS regardless. 'The deal,' Morfesse wrote, 'included an option to pay FBIS... $350 an hour for each extra hour after the first 100 hours.'
    The West Australian newspaper was originally denied access to any documents pertaining to FBIS. Requesting a review by the office of the information commissioner, they were only then disclosed. 'The whole thing was like a scene out of Yes, Minister ,'