Features Of A Crime - The Quincy Train Station Abduction

Between 1985 and 1986, a number of rapes, attributed to the same offender(s), were committed initially around railway stations in North London (UK), and later further afield. The early crimes appeared to be committed by two offenders working together (a fairly rare occurrence for a sexual assailant to have a consistent accomplice) at the weekend, with there being reports of other rapes occurring with a single assailant during the week; these weekday assaults were characterized by more violence and a greater degree of planning. The press dubbed the pair the “Railway Rapists” because they chose railway/transit stations as the sites/locations where they searched for women to victimize.

On Saturday 12th November a 64-year-old woman was abducted from Wollaston MBTA Station in Quincy, MA (a southern suburb of Boston) and taken to the kidnapper’s (Christian Lynch, aged 26) apartment where she was raped and sexually assaulted for around eleven to twelve hours, before being dropped off/deposited at the Westgate Shopping Mall parking lot in Brockton; some 16 miles from the abduction site. In this article I want to look at safety in and around transit sites, and look at some of the shared characteristics between the sexual assaults and murders committed by the railway rapists/railway murderers John Duffy and Patrick Mulcahy (they went on to murder three of the women they initially targeted for rape), and the abduction and subsequent sexual assault(s) that took place at the Wollaston MBTA station in Quincy.

Every crime has to take place in time and space i.e., there are temporal and spatial aspects to offenses, and the “where” and “when” of a crime is important for predicting future events. In court, Duffy stated that through observation and surveillance, he and Mulcahy had worked out that there were certain times of day when young women would exit railway stations alone. The pair had spent a long time driving around to different railway stations in order to work out when these times were. They would then set up at a station around these times and wait for young women who they could target and victimize. The woman who was abducted at the Wollaston Station, was kidnapped early Saturday morning, as she went to work. However, she wasn’t the first person that Lynch targeted. Ten to twenty minutes earlier, he had attempted to abduct a woman who had successfully fought him off (this was caught on surveillance footage). Different stations will be busy at different times, because they fulfill different functions e.g., stations towards the end of lines such as Wollaston, are likely to serve commuters going into and out of the city etc. This means there are going to be different times when they are crowded. There will be “traditional” morning and “evening” commuting times during weekdays, which will cause trains and stations to be busy. There might be certain evening/night times on Fridays and Saturdays, which see trains and stations relatively busy during the evening and night, as people return from going out to drink and eat in the city etc. Early Saturday morning, at such a station, is likely to be a quieter time, due to the fact that people are less likely to be engaging in leisure activities at this time, and it is not a traditional work day. It may be that Lynch has had in the past a “legitimate” reason to be at Wollaston Station, during this part of the day, and recognized that the station tended to be mainly occupied by women, who were going into work on the weekend. Lynch lived in Quincy, so the station may have occupied both his “Awareness” and “Activity” spaces.

The first rape committed by Duffy and Mulcahy, occurred near Hampstead Railway Station in London, only several miles from Duffy’s house. When looking at serial offenders, they usually commit their initial offenses in areas that they are very familiar with e.g., locations near where they live etc., however they soon begin to move further afield as they start to risk apprehension, either due to being recognized, and/or because of an increased security presence in that location. This means that offenders begin to commit their offenses in their “Activity Spaces” i.e., locations where they actively live, work and engage in leisure pursuits. Often, they will use a “base” that they set out from and return to. In the case of both the Railway Rapists and Lynch, this was their home. However, with other offenders, their bases have included pubs/bars which they frequented regularly, and/or places of work etc. It may be that a serial offender uses their time at work in an “activity space”, to return there later to commit an offense e.g., Peter Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper), used to use his time at work as a lorry driver to scout out potential locations that contained suitable targets, to then return there after work and commit his abductions and assaults. Committing an offense in an “Activity Space”, increases the chances of being recognized by someone an offender victimized e.g., if Sutcliffe had to return to a location where he’d abducted someone as part of his work, a witness to part of the event (who also works, lives, or engages in leisure activities in that space) may have recognized him etc. This is why such offenders will often start to commit their offenses in their “Awareness Spaces”. These are locations which they “know” about and are familiar with but don’t usually visit, such as a part of town where they used to live. Duffy had worked as a carpenter for British Rail, so he had a familiarity with the rail network and the layout of train stations e.g., railway stations that were located in sparsely populated areas, had wooded footpaths that ran alongside the tracks, which often ran over bridges etc., thus providing secluded places in which a sexual assault could be committed without being disturbed. It wasn’t necessary for Duffy and Mulcahy to necessarily visit these locations first, in order to understand their layouts, because they all followed a similar pattern.

Although Lynch, had committed a previous sex crime, exposing himself at Squaw Rock in Quincy, a few weeks earlier, it may be that a spree of assaults has been averted due to his apprehension. Although there was a degree of planning to his assault (he had chosen a time and location where/when he would be able to find a suitable target, and had brought handcuffs and duct tape with him), the fact that he was unaware of the presence of CCTV (security cameras), and did nothing to try to disguise or hide who he was shows a lack of sophistication in the execution of his crime. Both Duffy and Mulcahy planned how they would commit their offenses beforehand and made every attempt to ensure that they couldn’t be recognized etc. One significant take-away from this assault, is that it is always worth fighting back, when a predatory individual tries to move you from one location to another, as in many cases where there is a sexual motive involved resistance is often enough to discourage an assailant from continuing their attack.