Three general interlinked areas have been the focus of offender profiling research: individual differentiation (establishing differences between the behavioral actions of crime scene types), behavioral consistency (understanding behavioral patterns across a series of crimes), and offender profiling (linking sub-types of crime scene patterns to the most likely characteristics of an offender). Taken together, these three areas form the empirical basis necessary for use in criminal investigations. However, studies supporting inferences about offender characteristics have to date been the least developed in the field of offender profiling. For profiling to be fully useful to investigations, a clear understanding of three main elements is crucial to fully develop, notably (1) what individual crime scene characteristics are the most salient to use; (2) what elements of the full series behavioral developmental pattern are important to understand as an additional factor; and (3) what offender characteristics are the most empirically robust to focus on for investigative use. The current study examines 80 series of serial homicide, involving 302 crime scenes. Using the key elements of an offender’s crime scene behavioral patterns shown to help link and differentiate crime scenes and series, the current study linked these to sub-sets of different offender characteristics, identified as most useful for investigations. These included such characteristics such as age at the start of the series, criminal history specialization, general history of violence, mental health history, and relationship to the victims in the series. Results are discussed in the context of implications for research and practical applications in serial crime investigation and offender profiling.

三个普遍相互关联的领域一直是罪犯画像研究的重点：个体差异（建立犯罪现场类型的行为行为之间的差异）、行为一致性（理解一系列犯罪的行为模式）和罪犯画像（将犯罪现场类型的子类型联系起来）。犯罪现场模式到罪犯最可能的特征）。综合起来，这三个领域构成了刑事调查所必需的经验基础。然而，迄今为止，支持罪犯特征推断的研究在罪犯特征分析领域发展得最少。为了使分析对调查完全有用，对三个主要要素的清晰理解对于充分发展至关重要，特别是 (1) 哪些个人犯罪现场特征最容易使用；(2) 全系列行为发展模式的哪些元素作为附加因素是重要的；(3) 哪些罪犯特征在经验上最有说服力，可重点关注用于调查用途。目前的研究调查了 80 个系列的连环杀人案，涉及 302 个犯罪现场。使用显示的罪犯犯罪现场行为模式的关键要素来帮助联系和区分犯罪现场和系列，当前的研究将这些与不同罪犯特征的子集联系起来，这些特征被确定为对调查最有用。其中包括诸如系列开始时的年龄、犯罪史专业、暴力一般史、心理健康史以及与系列中受害者的关系等特征。