Software predicts stalkers' behavior

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – A hi-tech tool is helping the Albuquerque Police Department to predict violent crimes and identify the city’s most dangerous suspects before they strike, according to officers with the department’s stalking unit.

“Eventually we’re going to have a case where we are there as a person attempts to commit that homicide,” APD Sergeant Paul Szych said.

It’s a simple, but sophisticated computer program designed to profile domestic violence and stalking suspects.

“We have information from police reports and (from) interviewing people,” APD Victim Liaison Dom Ciccone said.

Within minutes the data is analyzed and the system produces a numbered threat level. A '10' means a suspect is almost destined to strike.

“We quickly have to get our minds around—where are we at in this? Are we in the last hour? Are we in the last two days of the victim being possibly murdered,” Szych said.

Stalking detectives are determined to use the system to prevent the kind of outcome that resulted from a stalking investigation that surfaced in Albuquerque in 2002.

The victim, Peggy Klinke, had reported multiple times to APD that a former boyfriend was stalking her.

Klinke, 32, eventually moved to California. But her ex-boyfriend, Patrick Kennedy, followed her. In January 2003, he broke into her home with a gun, killed her and then turned the gun on himself.

Klinke’s chilling 911 call is something Szych uses in police teaching seminars, to tell the story of a stalking investigation that could have been handled better.

“You look backwards in that investigation,” Szych said. “At that point you go okay what went wrong? That’s the previous approach. We’re saying well instead of working backwards let’s work forward.”

Once the computer system nails down a threat level, APD detectives develop a strategy to target the suspect with tact plans and surveillance.

Less than a month ago, officers arrested a man accused of stalking his ex-wife for several years.

Michael Verderame, 44, was taken into custody at his southeast Albuquerque home on a list of charges, including two counts of aggravated stalking.

According to police, Verderame had recently purchased a body bag and a gun holster on the online auction Web site eBay.

“This is for the stalker that is going to not stop until you stop them,” Szych said.

The new system was acquired by the department less than a year ago. It’s now fully operational.

“This is not bullet proof. It’s not perfect. But it’s the best we have,” Szych said. “I’m not going to say for sure we could have prevented the Peggy Klinke case. What I am going to say is the current system we have in place would give us the absolute best chance of predicting that and preventing it.”