Former FBI profiler on South Kitsap murder, posting of photos online

SEATTLE -- “I think that the idea of an offender posting pictures online is a modern-day version of the old serial killer wanting to send messages to police, taunting the police. In other words, social media, the Internet, is a new format for them to use.”

That's from David Gomez, a former profiler for the FBI.

David Kalac is accused of killing his girlfriend, Amber Lynn Coplin, in their Port Orchard apartment. Before he made his getaway, investigators say, he posted pictures of her and the crime scene online.

Gomez says he can’t remember a case where a suspected killer has posted photos. But, he says that using the Internet reveals something very important about the mind of the killer.

“It’s about the arrogance on the part of the killer who thinks that he can taunt the police, and it’s also about anger toward the victim. In other words, he’s victimizing the victim one more time by posting pictures of the crime online,” Gomez explains.



It also exposes something else.

“It speaks to his lack of guilt. The psychopathic nature of posting pictures of someone that you just killed shows that you don’t really care. It doesn’t matter to you. You feel absolutely no remorse,” adds Gomez.

Then there’s the other side of this -- those who view and have an appetite for pictures like those posted online. Gomez warns it speaks to a certain type of psychopathology and is dangerous.

“For the small minority out there who are stimulated by these photographs, it provides a ready outlet for them. They can sit in the privacy of their home, get on the Internet and look at a variety of sites out there that will provide them with sexual gratification, personal gratification, it will feed on their own anger.

"And the problem is that if you are predisposed to wanting to act out your own violent fantasies, then this can serve as the trigger many times, the precipitating event that will cause you to act out your own fantasies on someone else,” Gomez explains.

But for now, police have their work cut out for them, uncovering the trail of violence this accused killer may have left behind.

Gomez says, “I think in this particular offender, the police really have a puzzle to solve and that is are there other victims out there that this person murdered that have not yet been discovered or the ability to link him to other types of crimes. Because the behavior that he exhibited in this crime is going to be manifest in other crimes across the state, maybe across the nation.”