Daniel Robles
Professor – Margaryan
Class – Criminology 102-110W
May 3, 2024
Have you heard about the serial killer Joseph Roy Metheny? If someone were to tell you about this guy you’d probably regret asking or maybe be interested in what kind of person, he was. You might be interested in criminological theories but what is that? Well, a theory means commonly asked ideas about certain events or behaviors so virtually every policy or action taken regarding a crime is a theory for example why do people hide the bodies of their victims? Well, the theory is they don’t want to be caught by law enforcement. Our society has come a long way in creating theories connecting them to criminal activities and solving most problems to decrease the crime rate. With that said Joe Metheny has done horrible things and there’s a particular criminology theory that works with him, please be aware that the routine activity theory doesn’t solve this case fully, a single theory can’t help us understand the behavior or events Joe did but it doesn’t mean it’s not reliable to be aware of.
Written by Katie Serna, publishing a summary about Joe and his crime on June 15, 2021 and updated on November 7, 2023, he had a rough childhood with neglected parents who father is an alcoholic and mother was a drug addict and a sex worker. When Joe was 19 he left his family to join the Army on 1973, his mother responses “He just kept drifting further and further away. I think the worst thing that ever happened to him was drugs, It’s a sad, sad story” (pg. 2, Serna, 2021)
On 1994, after getting out of the Army, he worked as a truck driver and made himself a living, got himself a girlfriend and a son. One day, when arriving home after a long day of work Joe’s girlfriend left out of the house with her kid to live with a different man. With rage, Joe got back into his vehicle and searched for his family. Day after day every half-build house and checking under the bridge where Joe’s girlfriend would usually be doing drugs, no sight of his family but two homeless men.
After being released from prison he goes on a path with revenge and killing. He murders victims who are titled sex workers and homeless it wasn’t easy after every kill. It was too much trouble and risky to throw away the body in places that could easily be found so he came up with a sickening and disturbing idea. Making human meat into burgers. He did this by grabbing beef and pork mixed with his victim’s fresh and forming it into patties, eating is one revolting action but selling burgers to people with the special meat is just losing touch with reality. Joe owned a truck and sold patties to everyone who wanted a bite and surprisingly nobody could tell they were eating human flesh. Joe said, “The human body tastes exactly like pork”. (pg. 6, Serna 2021 Every time he gets low on meat, he goes hunting victims to make his business go. You could say this revenge he had evolved into pleasure.
Now that you have a better understanding of how Joe was a serial killer, it’s time to pick a theory to explain his criminal behavior. “Routine activities theory states that crime occurs when a motivated offender encounters a suitable target in the absence of a capable guardian.” (pg. 1, Perera 2024) rather than focusing on the offenders, this theory focuses on the victims.
As Perera explains this theory can only exist if three factors come together, a motivated offender, suitable targets, and a lack of guardians. “Motivated offenders are individuals with both the capacity and the willingness to commit wrongdoing” (pg. 2, Perera 2024).
Lastly, the element of the absence of a capable guardian/s includes people or objects nowhere to be around the victim and the offender. People like police officers or ordinary citizens, Perera describes as guardians to restrict the chances of a crime to occur objects like cars, alarms, fences, and walls can also work, but if both of those factors are missing offender will likely commit a crime and harm a victim. (pg. 3, 2024)
As you can see the routine activity theory helps to find the main points of creating a crime before it happens and how can we restrict it. For example, a kid playing in the playground. Children are seen as defense victims when they’re alone so to the kid to not be a victim, the parents who represent guardians and a loud neighbor can increase the safety of that child. That’s how we can risk crime prevention by understanding the problems and the solutions.
Now that we have learned Joe’s case and talked about routine activity theory, it’s about time to connect them. Well, first we need to know Joe’s purpose for being a serial killer in the first place. When returning home from work he found out that his wife and son were gone. Joe believed his wife took his son and ran off with another man and in rage, he got back to his truck and went searching for them. That’s where you can see the first element of a motivational offender. The idea of another man sweeping his lady made him jealous, and angry, and for his family to even leave without any indication of where they were going like they don’t want him to know is just unforgivable.
Next is suitable targets, his kills were more specific kinds of people, to give context his wife was drug-addicted in their marriage but when she lived life with this new guy she became a prostitute to earn money and keep her drug habits. To put simply the identity of his ex-wife as a drug user and sex worker, he began killing people with those kinds of labels and it wasn’t so hard to find them.
Lastly, the element of lack of guardians nobody cares about the safety of the homeless or sex workers, in our society we mostly ignore them when walking by in the streets because we don’t have time for their problems. People were just like that in 1995 which gave Joe plenty of opportunities to kill. Since homeless people and sex workers have higher chances of being harmed and zero defense it’s no wonder someone as big as Joe can kill about 13 people. I would also like to point out another kind of target like unsuspected consumers. Most people don’t care about what’s inside the food they’ll buy from strangers and Joe takes advantage of their ignorance and sells human meat burgers to people, even though people say the burgers taste funny, it’s not enough for them to believe they’re eating humans.
To prevent criminal behavior like Joe’s, we must change the elements, changing at least one will do just fine. The easiest element to change is the lack of guardians because unlike elements one and two, it’s hard to seek out offenders with the intent to commit a crime and it’s not like you can change anything about suitable targets when it comes to race, gender, religion, etc. To keep homeless people and sex workers safe we must install more cameras in every spot of the city making it impossible for an offender to get a chance to kill them. Having more police patrol the night will also work and adding more night lights around the city too.
Lastly is keeping away from suspicious foods, not saying everywhere you go to eat there’s a place that secretly cooks humans but if there’s a business with food tasting strange It’s best to report it to the health department and they will take care of that. I would also recommend studying the places to go to eat like checking their history. It’s impossible to stop crimes, harder to stop offenders but we could change the battlefield in our favor.
In conclusion, understanding different criminology theories and applying them to cases like Joe Metheny helps the forensic science field to understand criminal minds and behavior of course one theory doesn’t fill the whole picture in a case, it is often multiple theories that match the description of the crime and the criminal. Joe Metheny could fit multiple theories but instead, we talked about routine activity theory, it’s because I chose it, I thought it fit well with him and it’s okay if there’s a better theory out there that works well with this case. We go with our gut, there are no wrong answers.
Reference:
Serena, K. (2021,June 15). “Joe Metheny, The Killer Who Made His Victims Into Burgers – And Sold Them To Unsuspecting Customers”: https://allthatsinteresting.com/joe-metheny
Perera, A. (2024, February 13). “Routine Activities Theory: Definition & Examples.”: https://www.simplypsychology.org/routine-activities-theory.html
