Pierce Brooks was appointed as the first director, primarily because as a homicide detective in Los Angeles he had been the first to propose the idea.
Brooks was inspired by the Harvey Glatman case he had worked on, in which he realized serial homicides could be linked by their signature aspects.
ViCAP is particularly valuable in identifying and tracking serial killers, where separate victims might not otherwise be connected as part of the same pattern.
ViCAP operates under the knowledge that serial homicides are almost always sexually- and control-driven with a consistent evolving signature present in each murder.
[citation needed] In the summer of 2008, the ViCAP program made its database available to all law enforcement agencies through a secure internet link.