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The Abbotsford Killer: Crime Story Analysis Assignment

Rachel Fennema 0979854 SOC*2760 Homicide Robert Shearer Sunday, March 25, 2018

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Terry Driver, otherwise known as the Abbotsford killer, was charged with the first-degree murder of Tanya Smith and the attempted murder of Misty Cockerill in the small town of Abbotsford, British Columbia. Driver attacked Tanya and Misty as the girls were walking to a friend’s house on the night of October 13th, 1995. Misty Cockerill fought back against Driver and survived despite receiving life-threatening skull fractures. Tanya was sexually assaulted and beaten severely, she was found in the Vedder Canal where it is believed she was thrown after sustaining the injuries that resulted in her death. After the attack, Driver proceeded to torment the police with phone calls, identifying himself as the killer but never revealing his name. Recordings of the calls were sent out to the public in hopes of identifying the caller, and Driver’s mother identified his voice, but investigators still didn’t have enough physical evidence against him. His game of cat and mouse came to an end when he threw a wrench with a taped note into a stranger’s front window, the tape used to secure his letter left a fingerprint that, along with DNA left on Tanya’s body was enough to arrest him in October of 1996. Media representations of crimes subliminally impact how we view homicide and how often it occurs. The case of the ‘Abbotsford Killer’ is no exception to this, as the events dramatized in this media portrayal doesn’t seem to fall in line with key statistics relating to Canadian and global homicide. This analysis will examine how this particular case goes against these statistics in terms of victimoffender relationship, victim demographics, and offender characteristics in Canadian homicide trends, as well as globally. When compared to trends in homicide by province, British Columbia has a slightly higher homicide average than the national average. However, it is still not considered to have one of the highest homicide rates in the country like Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta (Boyce & Cotter, 2013). Driver committed his attack in the small town of Abbotsford– a community

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located just two hours outside of Victoria, British Columbia. Victoria itself has a relatively low homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000 residents and in 2012 there were only 4 reported homicide cases in the area (Boyce & Cotter, 2013). Although the national average has been decreasingly steadily since the 1980’s, these statistics still give insight into the type of crime statistics present during 1996 when Driver committed his attack. Furthermore, these statistics show how Driver’s murder conflicts with some of these statistics in terms of location and homicide rates across the province as well as Canada as a nation. Another factor to note is the method Driver used in his attack on Tanya and Misty. Across Canada as well as globally, the use of firearms and stabbing tend to be the most common methods of killing. In the case of the Abbotsford Killer, Tanya and Misty were beaten with a baseball bat – resulting in the severe injury that resulted in the death of Tanya Smith. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, homicides resulting from blunt force trauma account for only 13% of all homicides globally (UNODC, 2013). In Canada alone, fatal beatings have been decreasing for the past 40 years resulting in a rate of 0.32 victims per 100,000 people as of 2012 (Boyce & Cotter, 2013). Those statistics when compared to the rate of firearm-related homicides, 1.93 victims per 100,000 people, it is easy to see how Driver’s attacks do not fit in with Canadian homicide statistics (Boyce & Cotter, 2013). According to Beauregard and Martineau (2012), routine behaviours of the victims prior to homicide also follow key trends. Prior to the deadly attack on October 13th, 1995, Misty and Tanya were walking to a friend’s house when they were confronted by Driver. Only 8.6% of sexual homicide victims are attacked while travelling between two locations when compared to in most cases 20.3% of victims are attacked while at home (Beauregard & Martineau, 2012).

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This also supports the inaccuracies in this case in terms of how well it represents crime data trends across Canada. Driver also defies trends in Homicide data regarding offender and victim characteristics, as well as victim-offender relationship. In a study on Canadian Homicide in 2012, individuals typically accused of homicide are males aged 18-24, a statistic that has remained consistent over the past 30 years (Boyce & Cotter, 2013). Although Terry Driver does fall in line with the trend that most individuals accused of Homicide are male, he differs by age. Driver was 31 when he attacked Tanya and Misty in 1995. He was much older than the national trend, as nearly 54% of homicides are committed before the age of 30 (Fox & Levin, 2015). This shows that Driver doesn’t fit in with the crime statistics that we know to be true today. Driver’s victims, Tanya Smith and Misty Cockerill, also go against key statistics following trends that target female victims. In the Global Study of Homicide supplied by the UNODC, only 5% of all international homicide victims are female and, in the Americas, only 4% (UNODC, 2013). Although these statistics are more recent, they can be used to comment on how Driver’s case defies statistics that we know about Homicide in Canada and internationally now. In Canada alone, men account for 71% of homicide victims, compared to 29% for female victims (stats). Tanya and Misty also differ from homicide trends in terms of their age, being that they were both 16 at the time of the attack they differ from the national average age group of homicide victims. In Statistics Canada’s study of Homicide in 2012 they found that although crime has been decreasing over the past 30 years, on average victims of homicide are between the ages of 18 – 24, more than twice the number of victims aged 12-17 (Boyce & Cotter, 2013). Although these stats are more recent, the general trend in the data revolving around age of victim

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has stayed consistent and can be used to infer how crime data would have been like in 1995 at the time of the attack. Another area in which the Abbotsford killer varies from Canadian homicide trends is by victim offender relationship. According to Boyce and Cotter (2013) in almost 84% of all solved homicides, the victim knows their killer, either a family acquaintance or a family member. The attack committed by Driver differs from this trend in data, as Tanya and Misty had no relationship with Driver prior to the attack. Only 8% female homicide victims are killed by a complete stranger when compared to males who have a higher rate of 28% (Boyce & Cotter, 2013). The relationship between Driver and his victims differ quite significantly from the statistics we see in Canada and is an example of the inaccuracies shown in the media regarding homicide. Throughout this course, we’ve examined how the media impacts how we understand homicide, and how frequently it occurs. By heightening the interest of viewers by focusing on the gruesome and hard-hitting aspects of these crimes, the media paints homicide in a way that is inaccurate to trends that we see in violent crime cases. In the case of the Abbotsford Killer’s media representation, its inaccuracies in terms of representing homicide trends is a contributing factor as to why these skewed perceptions are so wide-spread. Driver’s case did not seem to fall in line with much of the information that we know about homicide in Canada or globally, in areas such as demographics, victim and offender characteristics, as well as victim and offender relationship. Based on the information drawn on in the analysis, it’s evident that the media portrayal of the ‘Abbotsford Killer’ is a somewhat inaccurate representation of homicide cases and may be more fiction than fact.

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Works Cited Beauregard, E. & Martineau, M. (2012). A descriptive study of sexual homicide in Canada: Implications for police investigation. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 57(12), 1454-1476. Boyce, J. & Cotter, A. (2013). Homicide in Canada, 2012. Juristat, 33(1), 1-37. Fox, J. & Levin, J. (2015). Extreme killing: Understanding serial and mass murder (3rd). Los Angeles, CA: Sage United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2013) Global Study on Homicide. Retrieved from: http://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.p df...