Ryanne Colbert AJ 111 Book Report Fall 2004 The Artists Art Holds the Key Mind Hunter

is a semi-autobiography of John Douglas, as well as a tribute to the Behavioral Science Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a chronicle of the creation of the Investigative Support Unit. The book opens with a description of criminal profiling and the effects the job can have on an agent. Then John goes into a detailed history of himself and the elements of his past that contributed to his lifes work, the establishment and development of the science behind criminal profiling and its prospective division of the FBI, the Investigative Support Unit. Such experiences include his employment as a bouncer at a local bar, his assignments during the Vietnam War which allowed him to attend night school, and his SACs (special agent in charge) recommendation that sent him to the FBI National Academy at Quantico. Douglas details the progressive formation of the unit from its foundations in the Behavioral Science Unit to its involvement as part of National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime division at Quantico. After finishing his account of how criminal profiling came to be, Douglas starts to discuss the research he has conducted within the subject by visiting convicted criminals in prison and learning from them how to essentially be them, or at least think like them, which is the basis of the technique of criminal profiling. At this point he begins to recount certain cases and how his profiles aided in the identification and apprehension of violent offenders, impressing upon his readers the usefulness and success of this discipline, and the vital assistance it has provided law enforcement officers in many serious and seemingly hopeless cases. The remainder of the book further exhibits this point through specific cases

of various kinds and the incredible accuracy of the profiles compiled in every case. He outlines the courses of investigation of several highly publicized cases in which criminal profiling was a key element in uncovering the identity of the offender. He even demonstrates how profiling can be utilized beyond this point to draw out and aid in the successful arrest of a suspect as well as the subsequent interrogation. Johns profiles have proven to be an invaluable tool to law enforcement officers in eliciting confessions in many of the cases he has worked on. All in all, this books mission is to spread the word about criminal profiling and the immense assistance it provides in directing criminal investigations to the guilty offenders that belong to them. The field of criminal profiling, in which the personality of an offender is inferred from clues within his behavior while committing a violent crime, can be contributed to John Douglas and his extensive study into the matter. Along with the discipline he also developed techniques essential to the composition of an accurate profile. One such tool involves the identification of a serial offenders signature, which is a unique feature or mark left on a certain offenders crimes which serve to indicate them as his and introduce his personality into his act. Another technique is to look at the manner in which the body was disposed of. For example, bodies which were offended face down represent the offenders need to depersonalize his victims; and bodies left in conspicuous places and dressed protectively point to an offender who knew and had emotional ties to his victim. Another technique highlighting the crime scene directs attention to the uncovering and analysis of any evidence of staging, which is an effort to misdirect the investigation away from the facts of the offense. An example of staging in this book describes a case in which a mother kills her toddler and attempts to make the crime look like a kidnapping.

However, elements of staging often give away more clues to the offender, and through indications at the crime scene where the body eventually showed up, tightly wrapped in a blanket, the mother was soon discovered as the offender. A technique that has proven effective in drawing out an offender includes the use of media and a killers need to revisit his victims in order to relive his crimes. Such proactive techniques include, for instance, publicizing a memorial-type event at a victims grave where a group of people are likely to gather is a common setup to extract an offender who figures he wont be noticed among the crowd, when really there is heavy surveillance of the event arranged just for him. One case that I found exceptionally interesting was that of Shari Faye Smith. This young girl was abducted while getting the mail and subsequently killed by an offender who could not let go, as evidenced by his continued phone calls to the victims family after he had murdered her. Several elements of the execution of this crime provided clues to the offenders physical and psychological profile. The fact that the abduction was committed in broad daylight, first of all, suggested an older, sophisticated and confident offender. The carefully scripted narrative of the phone calls shows that the killer was extremely rigid, meticulous and obsessively neat; however his slip-up in his report of the specific times that incidents occurred alerted those working on the case that Shari was dead and had been so for some amount of time. The stalling attempts made by the offenders persistent phone calls in which he claimed that Shari was still alive in order to further the decomposition of evidence he hadnt already removed exposed him as a highly organized and intelligent killer and provided further support to the belief that he was an older individual. The cruelty of the prolonged distress he was putting Sharis family through with the continual calls as well as his sending a letter from Shari to them with promises that photos would

follow indicated that hed had a previous and unsuccessful marriage, and now resided either alone or with his parents, and that he was manipulative and power hungry. This last trait ensures that he would follow the coverage of his crime in the media, enjoying his fame. It was also suspected, due to his level of organization, that he had committed prior crimes and possibly had a record, and if he had already committed any murders they would consist of very young female victims. He was determined to not be the type to kill prostitutes like many other serial killers because they would intimidate him, hence the age of his chosen prey portrayed that deep down this offender was very insecure and regularly struggled with feelings of inadequacy. The seclusion of the dump site and specific instructions leading to it indicated that the killer was a local resident who knew he could visit the body numerous times without being seen before it was ever discovered without his aid. Furthermore, the determination that the offender used a voice distortion device demonstrated that he worked with or had some background in electronics. Despite the detailed profile agents were able to put together describing the offender responsible for this crime, the identity of the killer was not ascertained for some time. During this period he committed another murder of a young girl, and with no further evidence coming to light, John suggested turning to proactive methods in attempt to draw him out. John had a newspaper cover a memorial service for Shari, after which he left a possession of hers, a stuffed koala bear, at the gravesite as bait for the killer, but the close proximity of the gravesite to the street prevented the anticipated visit. The offender did start making phone calls to the Smiths again though, which resulted in his surrender of the location of the other victims body. But new evidence was uncovered by the laboratory studying Sharis letter, an impression on the paper of a phone number. Through

scrutinizing analysis of this latest find, it was determined that the number was called from a house belonging to a couple who differed greatly from the profile; but once they were asked to consider if they could think of anyone who did fit its description, both people immediately arrived at the same answer: Larry Bell. The man they depicted matched the profile perfectly. He had been house-sitting for them and they had written the number in question, which was that of their son, on a pad in case of an emergency. Bell was arrested and through use of the information in his profile, John was able to determine what interrogative technique would best work to get this offender to confess. What impacted me about this case was that the cooperative efforts of the various sources of law enforcement involved in it combined with the vast knowledge regarding the offender gained through the innovative analysis of evidence accomplished the clearing of an extremely difficult case, which would probably not been possible with the exclusion of any one of such elements. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was intriguing the entire way through. I can also testify to its usefulness to criminal justice students since it has long been my dream to become a criminal profiler myself and I have not been able to previously find a source nearly as informative and constructive as this book. Not only did it provide me with great insight into profiling cases of violent crimes, it also gave me details about the entire law enforcement industry that surrounds my desired profession. I suspect that the examples outlined in this book will assist me in the future profiles that I hope to someday construct for my own cases.