Beginning in the mid-1970s, he personally interviewed over 100 of America's most vile mass or serial killers, in prisons throughout the U.S. Men like Charles Manson, leader of a group of drug-addled hippies who killed six; Ted Bundy who murdered, mutilated and dismembered at least 35 and perhaps as many as 60 young women; and Jeffery Dahmer who homosexually assaulted, mutilated and cannibalized 17, not to mention committing necrophilia with the bodies. Mr. Ressler's intent in interviewing the killers was to understand events leading up to the crimes as the killer saw them, from the inside looking out.

What he discovered is that, although dysfunctional families are a common element in the development of serial killers, they didn't necessarily spring from broken or impoverished homes. In fact, many murderers grew up in intact families with stable incomes. But always, mental illness, criminal activity or alcohol or drug abuse existed in the immediate family. Physical and emotional abuse was another common experience, particularly emotional abuse. (Dougals, 1992)

Mr. Ressler contends that mother's love is the most critical element in the development of a healthy male psyche from birth to about age eight. Denied it, they become egocentric and unable to understand how to develop attachments with other people. They also become acutely lonely and isolated.
The second critical period is from about age eight to 12, when a strong father-presence is needed. A positive father-son relationship helps boys develop social skills. If denied this, according to Mr. Ressler, potential murderers turn inward in their loneliness and begin developing autoerotic sexual practices and fantasies.

The final straw comes when young males encounter additional rejection outside of the family, at school, and in their community. This combination of experiences, said Mr. Ressler, shows up in the profiles of virtually every serial killer he's ever known. (Dougals, 1992)

The question arises, why are serial killers disproportionately represented in North American society--and with increasing frequency in the last half of the 20th century? The criminologist, who served as the model for the serial killer expert in the film The Silence of the Lambs, blames the devaluation and deconstruction of the nuclear family that has occurred during the last three to four decades. Mr. Ressler says that single-parent families where there's no father figure, and where the mother works and the kids are left in day care, often can't provide a suitably nurturing environment. Add an introverted young man with no limits set on his behavior, trashy, violent television and access to weapons, and you've got a prescription for murder and depravity, he said, adding that intact, properly functioning families are society's best protection from serial killers.

Contrary to the popular assumption that pornography is another common factor in the creation of modern mass murderers, Mr. Ressler says that exhaustive studies have found no causal link. But fuse sexually explicit material with violence and that's another story. The combination can set a maladjusted male off like a rocket. (Hazelwood, 1987)

Getting close to and dealing with society's most grotesque, twisted specimens is not something Mr. Ressler takes lightly. He's fond of quoting 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who said that whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks at you.

For more than two years, from 1979 to 1981, a man terrorized hikers and joggers in the woodlands around the San Francisco Bay area. "The Trailside Killer," as he came to be known, eventually murdered eight women and one man before he was caught. Although police believed him to be a suave, good-looking type, FBI profiler John Douglas joined the manhunt and strongly disagreed. From the multiple stab wounds and ambush-style attacks on victims from the rear, Douglas deduced that the offender would probably have a history of bed-wetting, fire starting, and cruelty to animals. "Another thing," Douglas told investigators, "He will have a speech impediment." The villain, David Carpenter, when finally apprehended, checked out on all counts. (Seltzer, 1995)

At about the same time, a serial killer unnerved the city of Atlanta. Between 1979 and 1982, the bodies of 22 black children had been dumped at sites throughout the predominantly or exclusively black neighborhoods. Local authorities speculated that the Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan might be responsible. Again, John Douglas joined the investigation and came to some inflammatory conclusions. First, he insisted, these murders were not hate crimes. Since they had all been committed in neighborhoods where a white outsider would have attracted attention, Douglas reasoned that the offender was likely to be a black man, single, in his late 20s. The FBI agent further suggested that the same person was probably not responsible for all the crimes, and that, when found, the primary perpetrator would be a police buff with a police-type dog and a peripheral connection to the music business. Authorities eventually nabbed Wayne Williams, who filled the bill to a T. (Police Who Think Like Killers, 2000)

In Anchorage, Alaska, a number of prostitutes and topless dancers disappeared and were found dead in remote locations. They had been killed by gunshots from what appeared to be hunting rifles. Douglas studied details of the murders and listened to the one surviving prostitute's story. Then he constructed a profile of a man who was slight, pockmarked, and--like the Trailside Killer-had a speech impediment; a man who, as a teenager, had probably been a failure with girls. The suspect, said Douglas, probably loved hunting so much that he had a trophy room at home decorated with the heads of animals he had shot. Since be could not very well display his victims' heads, be would steal trophies of another soft--watches and jewelry, perhaps--and hide them away. Once again, the man who was charged and convicted, Robert Hansen, 43, a local baker, fit the portrait Douglas sketched. (Hilley & O’Toole, 1995)

Criminal Profiling

Criminal profiling is a process used by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with the name criminal investigative analysis. High training is given to the profilers or criminal investigative analysts. Such profilers have full knowledge about all the behavioral aspects of criminals. These officers know a detailed knowledge about the psychopathology of criminals. Psychopathology is referred to the psychological and behavioral indicators of an offender that are found at a violent crime scene. Such indicators display the verbal, sexual and physical interaction of an offender with his victim(s). It is possible to profile violent crimes only in the situation in which the offender has left any identifiable psychopathological indicators. (Pinizzotto, 1984)
The investigating law enforcement agency is responsible for providing crime scan photographs, forensic laboratory reports, police reports and witness statements. If the case is homicide, then autopsy photographs are also provided.

All these things are carefully examined in order to find out the smallest behavioral detail. With the help of this review process, the investigator becomes able to construct the behavioral blue print of the offender and the crime. With the help of this blue print, it is easy for a profile to recreate the scene. (Police Who Think Like Killers, 2000)

A profile is a great piece of knowledge that provides all the necessary information about the information such as the race, lifestyle, gender, marital status, emotional age, formal education or training level, work history and occupation of an offender. It is also possible to evaluate through profile about the relation and communication ability of the offender with others, the presence of mental deterioration, the chances of previous criminal activity, feelings of regrets and guilt, the chances of the involvement in a similar crime again and sexual dysfunction that is considered as an impairment that is done in the desire for sexual satisfaction or to achieve it.

It is very important to complete a comprehensive review when construction of a profile is begun. It is also necessary to examine the case materials closely. With the help of the detailed information about the offender and the crime scene, the profiler becomes able to take in-depth review. With the help of in-depth review, the profilers reconstruct the scene with the most likely manner in which the crime had occurred. The reconstruct scene also shows the interaction between the victim and the offender. Then the crime scene is examined for the identification of all the behaviors that are necessary to be interpreted into profile characteristics and investigative suggestions. (Klump, 1997)

Today profiling, once considered psychological voodoo, has finally earned a place as a highly respected weapon in the investigator's anti-crime arsenal. As Douglas explains it, profiling is a system for understanding and classifying violent killers that has evolved since the 18th century. A well-trained profiler examines the crime scene and the manner in which the victim(s) died and then, from the killer's unique behavior towards the victim--his "signature"--deduces certain information about him. But along with the many rules and categories, the investigator's intuition and experience play key roles. Douglas has interviewed thousands of violent offenders and he has learned to walk in their shoes. He has spent hours trying to experience what the victim was experiencing, and to imagine what was going through the offender's mind at the time of the crime. (Pinizzotto, 1984)

Profiling the characteristics of a criminal, once dismissed as conjecture, is widely used today to help investigators solve hard-to-crack cases. Profiles are drawn from physical evidence recovered from crime scenes and historical behavior patterns. A profile is not used to identify a specific suspect, but to help narrow the field of potential suspects. In the case of the sniper shootings, investigators had to sort through more than 70,000 tips phoned in. They eventually focused on three calls that led to Muhammad and Malvo. (Klump, 1997)

Profiles are often revised as more information is discovered. That was evident among the experts who offered hours of television commentary during the sniper shootings. At first, experts theorized that the sniper was a loner. But as the killings continued without any witnesses, most of the TV experts concluded that two people, a driver and a shooter, must be involved to quickly get away undetected.

The predictions that the sniper was white were based on statistical patterns of serial murderers. More than 80% are white men; 13%-18% are black, slightly more than the percentage of blacks in the population. About 43% of criminal snipers are black. Profiling began in the early 1970s at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va., by analyzing crime scene evidence to determine criminal patterns of behavior. By the mid-'70s, Ressler and another agent, John Douglas, took profiling to a new level by proposing they interview the real experts -- murderers. (Pinizzotto, 1984)

In criminal investigations, deduction used to paint a picture of the perpetrator is known as criminal profiling. Anyone who is strongly observant and intuitive can learn this important skill with the proper training, guidance, and field experience.
The successful use of profiling by FBI and other public law enforcement agencies has led to courses in criminal behavior and profiling being taught not only at police academies but also as part of criminal justice degree programs at universities in the United States, Canada and elsewhere. Internet training courses are now being conducted by organizations such as Knowledge Solutions, LLC, of Branford, Connecticut, and profiling services are available to help clients narrow the field of suspects in a business crime. These classes are open to anyone interested in learning profiling.

Criminal behavior has always been recognized as predictably similar, but it was not until the 1970s that the groundwork was laid by the FBI's criminal personality research project. Pioneering interviews were conducted with nearly forty serial killers revealing how and why they had committed each aspect of the murders. (Pinizzotto, 1984)

This same project ultimately gave rise to the FBI's Investigative Support Unit (formerly the Behavioral Science Unit) at Quantico, Virginia. Since then, criminal statisticians have amassed databases. They allow generalizations to be made. For example, most drug abusers steal, but many thieves don't use drugs.
Behavior reflects personality. In victimology, a profile of the victim is done. It is asked whether the victim was woman or man or child? And one looks at the pattern of wounds. For example, one finds that a victim died from blunt-force trauma, and it looks like she was torture. That tells one something about the defendant—that his signature, or uniqueness, is to punish. He is a sadistic killer, and enjoys torturing his prey. People think all killers are sadistic but there is a certain type.

Douglas has advocated a behaviorally oriented evaluation of rape victims as well. A lot of police do not know how to do this. One has to elicit from the victim what the verbal assault was, the sexual assault and the physical assault at the initial confrontation, during the act, and afterwards. How did the offender leave the victim? Did he say that he is sorry or he said that he would kill you if you go to the police? (Pinizzotto, 1984)

A good, incisive profile may reshape an entire investigation. Douglas has compiled as seven-step profiling process by which law enforcement officers can study the offender’s behavior to find clues to his personality and distinguishing characteristics:
· Analyze the rape, murder, or criminal act.

· Evaluate specific aspects of this particular crime scene or, in the case of a serial criminal, the various crime scenes. What do they have in common? What separates them? What could the commonalities or differences indicate about the killer?
· Make an assessment of which the victim is.
· Evaluate preliminary police reports.
· Go over and evaluate the medical examiner’s autopsy procedure.
· Create a profile with characteristics that might be unique to a particular offender.
· Make suggestion to local investigators based on this unique profile. (Pinizzotto, 1984)

References

Coleman, J.C., et al. 1980. Abnormal psychology and modern life, sixth edition. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman and Co.
Dougals, J., A. Burgess, A. Burgess and R. Ressler. 1992. Crime classification manual. New York: Lexington Books.
Hazelwood, R., A. Burgess, eds. 1987. Practical aspects of rape investigation: A multidisciplinary approach. New York: Elsevier Books.
Hilley, R. and M. O'Toole. 1995. In search of a kidnapper: Through the eyes of a child. A San Francisco Bay Area Task Force Study of Child Abduction Cases.
Pinizzotto, A. 1984. Forensic psychology: Criminal personality profiling. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 12(1): 32.
Seltzer, Mark. 1995. Serial Killers (Ii): The Pathological Public Sphere. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 22 Issue 1, p122, 28p.

Author Unknown.2000. Wanted: Police Who Think Like Killers. Newsweek (Pacific Edition), Vol. 135 Issue 8, p15, 2/3p.

Klump, Carl Stanton. 1997. Taking Your Cue From The Clues. Security Management, Sep97, Vol. 41 Issue 9, p123, 3p.