Criminologist reveals sick reason why killers may leave trail of digital evidence behind - even if they know it could put them behind bars

Daily Mail​

11-05-2025

A criminologist has revealed why killers leave a digital trail of evidence behind - even if they know police can use it to put them behind bars.
Many have been caught due evidence left in emails, texts, social media, search histories, or GPS/location data.
And Professor David Wilson, who lectures at Birmingham City University and often appears on ITV 's This Morning, revealed why murderers can get careless when it comes to their digital footprint; explaining this can stem from a 'need' to be seen by an 'audience'
The expert also shared that while more prevalent in the era of gadgets and computers, the urge to leave a trail behind is decades-old.
Speaking to LADbible, the pro suggested that it's a way the killer can 'self-express' - by documenting their crime.
'We live in a snapshot culture, where documenting your life online becomes this endless way of expressing who you are,' he explained.
'Even if who you are involves you being a murderer, you still have this need to say who you are and you want that audience to acknowledge you.'
David said added that this phenomenon is not new - murderers fed police information about crimes long before technology had evolved to what it is now.
Jack the Ripper, who terrorised London in 1888, famously wrote letters to taunt police and the media.
Elsewhere, the BTK Killer Dennis Rader, who claimed at least 10 lives between 1974 and 1991, sent a floppy disk to police, thinking it couldn't be traced but it led to his capture, ending a 30-year manhunt.
Meanwhile in 2022, despite being a criminology student and knowing police would go through his digital archive, Bryan Kohberger left behind phone data, internet searches, and Reddit posts that related to his criminal behavior.
His phone's GPS data put him near the crime scene of four murdered students, while digital forensics and surveillance video helped build the case against him.
Chris Watts, who murdered his pregnant wife Shanann by strangulation, and their two children Bella and Celeste by suffocation, also made the same error.
Police found phone and GPS data which showed his movements and lies and surveillance footage which contradicted his story.
David also explained that it's not always deliberate; killers might not consider the consequences of their actions, and could just be careless with their digital footprint.
He claimed in some murders, offenders in the heat of the moment can become sloppy and often Google information like 'how to get rid of a body'.
He added: 'They're doing online searching because they want some specific information that's both going to help him in the commission of the offence and also once they have committed the offence.'
In 2005, 'Google killer' Anurag Johri was given a life sentence for the murder of his estranged wife Deepti after police found he had made an internet search for how to murder someone without getting caught.
David claimed most killers are not rationally thinking through what they've done and tend to have a 'living in the moment' aspect to their personalities.
It comes after David revealed the main reason people kill in the UK - and which groups are most likely to be targeted by serial killers.
Speaking on LADbible's Honesty Box YouTube series, David said: 'Seven out of 10 murder victims in the United Kingdom are men. Nine out of 10 perpetrators of murder are men.
The criminologist explained that the most common way murder occurs in Britain is as a result of young men fighting.
According to the Office for National Statistics there were 414 male murder victims in 2024, while there were 156 female victims.
The criminologist explained: 'The most common murder that will take place in Britain is a young man falling out with a young man on a Friday or Saturday night when that young man feels he isn't being given the respect he deserves.
'When he feels that and he's in the company of his friends, or indeed the friends of the person he feels has disrespected him, and he's been drinking too much or using other kinds of substances, he wants to lash out.
'He wants to regain a sense of who he is in that five minutes of madness, he might not set out to kill but he certainly is setting out to physically harm the person he believes has disrespected him. That is a typical murder in this country.'
The professor went on to say that it is 'appalling' that two women every week are murdered in this country by partner and/or ex-partners - and said 'misogyny' was to blame for the statistic.
He said: 'This is a male phenomenon and this is about men owning that phenomenon, and it's about men in my generation talking to younger men about how to perform masculinity.'
Wilson went on to argue that the lack of conversation around the issue of misogyny is opening up space for people like Andrew and Tristan Tate (who are currently under investigation for rape and trafficking allegations in Romania) to hold influence over young men.
'All that does is store up further problems for us in the future,' Wilson said.
According to ONS there were 108 domestic homicides in the UK in 2024, and of these, 83 were women and 25 were men, 66 of these victims were killed by a partner or ex-partner.
Elsewhere David explained that serial killers usually target specific groups of people, women, girls, sex workers and gay men.
He claimed if police would focus on protecting those groups then a lot more lives could be saved.
He explained: 'Serial killers in our culture have only targeted five groups of people. Four of those groups serial killers will target in the UK are dominated by women and girls.
'There's one group of men that by and large gets targeted by serial killers, that's gay men.
'The two groups of women and girls that are most regularly targeted by serial killers are women over the age of 60 and sex workers.
'If you really wanted to reduce the incidence of serial murder in our culture you would challenge homophobia.
'Have a grown up debate about how you police those young women and some young men who sell sexual service, and above all we would start trying to give a voice to older people in our culture as opposed to seeing them as a burden on the state.'
David also explained that women are more interested in true crime because of 'evolutionary psychology.'
'I would have four out of five of my students would be women as opposed to men, it seems to me through evolutionary psychology that of course women are gonna be more interested in true crime because so often, it's women that have to manage the violence of men,' he added.