Serial Killers and Photography

Why do some serial killers take photos before and after they kill their victims? There are a few reasons I suppose; to taunt police or to just keep record of their work, or even for self-pleasure at a later time. What I find interesting is how they take the pictures after they are dead. The pictures while they are alive are usually not too disturbing. In fact the serial killers often used photography as a ruse to get their victims. I am pretty sure that there is no right way to take pictures of the dead but I think it would be interesting to compare how crime scene photographers take photos as opposed to the serial killers own photography. Are there differences? As the victim has a different value to both the crime scene people and the serial killer I imagine that there would be differences. I’m not really sure how I came up with this idea but I thought I would check it out.

I found a website (http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/blog/article/chilling-final-photos-of-murder-victims-taken-by-their-killers/index.html) that has photos that serial killers took of their victims before they were murdered. Here a couple of examples:

(Shari Miller, murdered by William Richard Bradford who posed as a photographer)

(Todd Stoops, who died from injuries inflicted by Bob Berdella)

Both of these images are quite different and probably had different meanings to the serial killers who took them. It would be interesting, in a rather disturbing way, to see the pictures that they took after their victims died to see if the pictures were similar to the ones taken beforehand. Did Bradford pose his victims in a similar fashion as if he were taking photos of a model? Or are they quite different so he could better see the differences his “handiwork” had made? I imagine that he would have taken the pictures in a more emotionally attached fashion than a crime scene photographer would, but how he would have done that I don’t actually know.

I am assuming that photos taken after the victims had died and also the crime scene photos are hidden away in files in police or FBI records somewhere and so are unavailable to the general public. This makes sense of course given the nature of the photos. Without those sources I am unable to look at any differences or similarities in the way the photos were taken. I imagine that serial killer profilers would look at the similarities and differences in the before and after photos that might help them with their profile. I used to want to be a profiler and I find it really interesting all the little things that they look at to help build their profile. I always thought you could tell a lot from a person from the photos they took.