UWO class hunts serial killers
By Jared Lindzon
jlindzo@uwo.ca
A professor whose students identified an alleged killer last year is hoping to see the same success this year.
Michael Arntfield, a member of the London Police Service’s detective vice squad and a PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario, is combining his passions by having his students try to shed new light on unsolved serial killer cases.
“I always had an interest in criminal investigations and recruiting outside talent for criminal investigations, as I’ve always done for my cases,” said Arntfield, who has been with the LPS for 10 years.
The assignment is known as the Cold Case File, and is a requirement for the 40 students enrolled in Arntfield’s second-year class The Serial Killer in the Media & Popular Culture. Each student is placed in a group with four classmates and assigned roles based on their knowledge and experience. Each group is then assigned an unsolved serial killer case to investigate.
 |
| Courtesy of Michael Arntfield |
| Michael Arntfield gets some early morning target practice at a police firing range near London before making his way to class. |
“They take ownership of these cases,” said Arntfield, who will be defending his PhD thesis in May. “These students aren’t bogged down by bureaucratic or procedural limitations. The ultimate unbiased and intrinsically motivated investigator is an undergraduate student who has an intellectual curiosity and a natural interest in this stuff.”
The students are able to investigate their assigned cases from a fresh perspective, with tools and resources that might not have been available to the original investigators, explained Arntfield.
Last year, when Arntfield launched the project, a group of students investigated the case of the Grim Sleeper — a Los Angeles based serial killer who was connected to two strings of killings separated by 20 years.
“In that case, using only new media, the students were able to identify a number of evidence-connecting facts not widely reported on,” said Arntfield. They were able to get MP3s of original 911 calls and registration information for vehicles associated to a now abandoned church. “The information was cross-listed to known persons of interest and they basically bet the farm on a guy named Lonnie Franklin Jr.”
Over the summer Arntfield sent a copy of the group’s report to the Los Angeles Police Department’s 800 task force, which was in charge of the Grim Sleeper case.
“Within about five or six weeks the LAPD had announced that Lonnie Franklin Jr. was arrested and in custody and charged with all the murders,” said Arntfield. “Whether or not their receiving of my report prompted them to come forward with this information I don’t know, but the interesting thing is that using only civilian technologies and new media my students ultimately arrived at the same conclusion that concrete DNA evidence proved in L.A.”
With the success of last year’s class behind him Arntfield has already been impressed by findings made by his latest batch of students. One group is investigating the Capital City Killer, who operated in Madison, Wis., between 1968 and 1984, targeting staff and students at the University of Wisconsin.
“Students on the case, and this is the stuff movies are made of, were able to track down, through original archives, the roommate of the first victim, and through Facebook (they) found her,” said Arntfield.
“The contact I made is Linda Schulko,” said Julian Clair, one of the group members assigned to the case, in an email. “She was a close friend of the first victim, Christine Rothschild, and has been a huge asset to this project. She has kept Ms. Rothschild's case open for 40 years and has done a lot of serious research on the case. She also gave us a prime suspect for Rothschild's murder.”
The suspect Schulko mentioned to Clair had apparently been working on campus when Rothschild was killed, and then left the state, only to return at times that correlated with future murders.
 |
| Photo by Jared Lindzon |
| Group mates (left to right) Kelley Bowman, Nima Naik, Vanessa Powell, Kate MacRae and Ege Zorlu present their findings to the class. |
“She has his cellphone number, and the students are going to be cold calling him and interrogating him,” said Arntfield. The conversation is going to be recorded, and with the help of a certified statement analyst Arntfield will examine the transcript. “Just based on his responses, that alone may warrant a reopening of the case.”
Arntfield says he is always impressed by how enthusiastic his students get over the prospect of bringing a serial killer to justice.
“It’s one of the most original projects that you’ll probably ever do here,” said 4th year Media, Information and Technoculture student Vanessa Powell. Powell says she enrolled in the class specifically for the opportunity to catch a killer.
“It’s also kind of a nice break from essay writing and test writing, and a chance to do something more real world related,” said the Burlington, Ont., native. “I love coming to this class. It’s so interesting, and it’s the only class where I don’t look at the time. Seriously."
