[Icelander]

The PCs are investigating the background of a serial killer. It is, therefore, relevant to them (and anyone interested in their adventure) to know who the suspect is and what the serial killer is supposed to have done.

Main Suspect (in NYPD custody)

Victor Jude Dufresne (23), dubbed the 'Werewolf of the Village' by sensationalist press, was born on the 22nd December, 1965, in Allagash, Maine. He was a quiet, introverted kid, very smart, religious and bookish. All sources agree that as a child, Victor was likable, if a bit quiet, handsome, kind, courteous and respectful. Despite spending most of his time with his nose buried in a book, Victor never lacked for friends and when he was older, girls with a crush on him. Investigators have only turned up reports of one early girlfriend in Aroostook County (and that one may have been merely a crush and not a relationship) and one short relationship in Chicago, but it is still early days of the investigation into Victor's background.

Unlike his father, Abel Dufresne, who is a decorated Marine veteran, the local lawman and used to be the most avid hunter in the county, Victor was not all that fond of sport, the outdoors or hunting. As a result, he did not share many activities with his father and from all accounts, they appear to have been rather distant. His mother died when he was five. Victor spent a lot of his childhood with his paternal grandmother, Celeste Dufresne, until she died when he was twelve. After that, he was probably closest to his two maternal uncles, Clayborn and Harvey Allen. All through childhood, Victor's most intimate friend near his own age was probably Clayborn's son, his cousin Courtney.

Victor was also very attached to Father Jerome Prudhomme, the priest of St. Charles Catholic Church in neighbouring St. Francis, and briefly considered becoming a priest, even attending a seminary for some months. Father Prudhomme is respected in the area, but not liked, as he is strongly against hunting for sport and condemns it frequently from the pulpit as a 'violent and vicious vanity'. Victor's father and uncles attend the smaller St. Paul's Mission Church in Allagash itself, with Father Andrew Hughes, a more easy-going and comfortable clergyman than his superior, as evidenced by Father Hughes' hobbies of deer hunting, fishing and convival dining with his parishioners.

After deciding that he did not have a religious vocation, Victor Dufresne was accepted into the University of Chicago as an anthropology major. He dropped out after a year and as far as his family knew, he went to New York City in order to pursue a career as an artist. After three years in New York, Dufresne was arrested for murder in Central Park and quickly became the lead suspect in the 'Werewolf of the Village' case, especially after his teeth conclusively matched bite marks on the last victim and appeared to match several others.

Notes on possible victims

The following (in the next post) is a list of deceased people that the law enforcement task force investigating the crimes of Victor Jude Dufresne suspects might be his victims. The possible victims number nineteen, with two of them positively identified as victims, five almost certainly and the rest with varying levels of credibility. The possible victims are 13 women, 6 men.

Victims are ordered by the date they were found. The first line lists the date the body was found, followed by the location. The time of death listed in the next line is usually an estimated range, sometimes quite a wide range. If the PCs have a more precise estimate from an investigator they have reason to trust, that will be listed in parenthesis.

A + symbol signifies that Dufresne is known to have killed the victim, in one case because he was apprehended in the act and in another because the wounds on the body have been matched to the knives found in his possession when he was arrested and his bite marks were reliably matched to those found on the body as well.

The * symbol refers to victims where there is substantial evidence that they were killed by Dufresne, either in the form of bite marks that are tentative matches with his dental records or wounds that closely fit the weapons he possessed and his apparent MO. One * marked victim, Michelle J. Anderson of Chicago, may rate a +, as blood found under her fingernails matches Dufresne fairly rare O- blood type, witnesses report a man fitting his description as her last boyfriend and several have now conclusively identified pictures of Dufresne as the man the victim referred to as 'Vic'. DNA matching of the blood would be able to confirm it, but the technology is in its infancy and when the PCs left for Maine, no reliable data had yet come back from the lab on DNA.

Victims of unproven status

The other victims on the list are ones were the investigating officers consider that they have a reason to believe that Dufresne was responsible, but evidence that would stand up in court remains to be recovered. In some of those cases, investigators in the task force may differ strongly on the probability that Dufresne was responsible.

For example, the lead homicide detective from the NYPD strongly believes that all the male victims on the list are wrongly attributed to Dufresne, as none of them are supported with conclusive forensic evidence and such a departure from his other victims would clash with the psychological profile of the suspect the NYPD was working with.

The psychological profile developed by the FBI's Behavioral Science Investigative Support Unit before the arrest of Dufresne is more equivocal on the subject, but in attributing sexual motives to the killings, seems to make male victims less likely. Dr. Samuel Chen, a civilian psychology professor at NYU on contract to the FBI as a behavioural analyst (and with the PCs in Maine to gather information on Dufresne’s early years for a book), concurs that it is unlikely that Dufresne killed both young, attractive women and middle-aged men of dubious health, but that the two young men might have been killed for similar sexual reasons as the women.

On the other hand, investigators from Chicago believed from the beginning that the murders were 'thrill kills' carried out on impulse, with target selection opportunistic more than anything. Homeless men, prostitutes and drug addicts were all part of the murderer's target group, individuals likely to be met with in vulnerable positions and less likely to trigger a law enforcement response if they disappeared.