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Title: A Killer By Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind by Ann Wolbert Burgess with Steven Matthew Constantine
Details: Copyright 2021, Penguin Random House
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "A breathtakingly vivid behind-the-scenes look into the creation of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit and the evolution of criminal profiling, written by the pioneering forensic nurse who transformed the way the FBI studies, profiles, and catches serial killers.
Lurking beneath the progressive activism and sex positivity in the 1970-80s, a dark undercurrent of violence rippled across the American landscape. With reported cases of sexual assault and homicide on the rise, the FBI created a specialized team—the “Mindhunters” better known as the Behavioral Science Unit—to track down the country's most dangerous criminals. And yet narrowing down a seemingly infinite list of potential suspects seemed daunting at best and impossible at worst—until Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess stepped on the scene.
In A Killer By Design, Burgess reveals how her pioneering research on sexual assault and trauma caught the attention of the FBI, and steered her right into the middle of a chilling serial murder investigation in Nebraska. Over the course of the next two decades, she helped the budding unit identify, interview, and track down dozens of notoriously violent offenders, including Ed Kemper ("The Co-Ed Killer"), Dennis Rader ("BTK"), Henry Wallace ("The Taco Bell Strangler"), Jon Barry Simonis ("The Ski-Mask Rapist"), and many others. As one of the first women trailblazers within the FBI’s hallowed halls, Burgess knew many were expecting her to crack under pressure and recoil in horror— but she was determined to protect future victims at any cost. This book pulls us directly into the investigations as she experienced them, interweaving never-before-seen interview transcripts and crime scene drawings alongside her own vivid recollections to provide unprecedented insight into the minds of deranged criminals and the victims they left behind. Along the way, Burgess also paints a revealing portrait of a formidable institution on the brink of a seismic scientific and cultural reckoning—and the men forced to reconsider everything they thought they knew about crime.
Haunting, heartfelt, and deeply human, A Killer By Design forces us to confront the age-old question that has long plagued our criminal justice system: “What drives someone to kill, and how can we stop them?”"
Why I Wanted to Read It: Some years ago, I discovered and enjoyed the Netflix series Mindhunter. It's a fictionalized account of the start of the BSU (Behavioral Science Unit) at the FBI, with young upstart, full-of-ideas Holden Ford, with his jaded elder colleague Bill Tench, with help and insight from Tench's friend Wendy Carr, a psychology professor at Boston University.
Finding out more, I realized that these characters were all fictionalized versions of real people. Ford was based loosely on John E Douglas, particularly given that Douglas's memoir was named Mindhunter. Tench was loosely based on Robert Ressler. And Carr was based on the real life Ann Wolbert Burgess, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who consulted regularly with Ressler and Douglas.
I've talked before about the vast difference between Douglas and Ressler's memoirs. If you don't want to wade through that review, here's what I said:
Maybe it's their co-writers, but Douglas's memoir is an engaging story wherein he is a struggling, sometimes fumbling, very dedicated (often at the expense of his personal life) man who's humble about his legend and quick to tell you about, say, his FBI-issued gun being stolen out of his unlocked VW Bug in his twenties and the warm and joking rapport he has with his other devoted agents.
Ressler, on the other hand, is a bragging, know-better-than-you genius from childhood who always gets it right, did you know? Anyone who challenges him is wrong, oh, and maybe some of his colleagues were okay, if a bit flashy. This isn't helped by the fact there's at least two cases mentioned in Ressler's book where he was proven to be infamously absolutely, completely wrong, including the Central Park Five case. I don't know if there was ever a revised forward (talking about updated cases and what he got wrong) like Douglas did in later editions, either.
So we have two very different personalities gleaned from their memoirs, one relatable and one insufferable (as well as a misogynistic, racist, frequently-wrong egotistical blowhard, I might add), respectively. How would the third of the trio (and the only woman, as well as someone who consulted with the FBI, not was directly employed by them) compare?
How I Liked It:
CONTENT WARNING! AS TO BE EXPECTED OF A BOOK OF THIS TYPE, THIS BOOK CONCERNS MURDER, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, RAPE CULTURE, RACISM, QUEERPHOBIA, TORTURE, AND OTHER FORMS OF VIOLENCE, INCLUDING TO CHILDREN, AND THE REVIEW MENTIONS IT. PLEASE PROCEED ACCORDINGLY.
Just how important is narrative voice in a memoir, anyway? I admit, as you can see given the books her colleagues wrote, that was one of the biggest curiosities of this book for me. But really, particularly given the source material, do we need to relate to the teller of the story?
But first! Psychiatric nurse Ann Wolbert Burgess takes us through working with rape victims and trying to get a largely male-dominated culture to care. She's approached by FBI agent Roy Hazelwood to consult on cases, and there she meets the famous "Mindhunters" of the Behavioral Science Unit, Robert Ressler and John E Douglas. Burgess brings her unique perspective to the FBI on a number of levels and over the decades, she and her colleagues both shape and watch the culture be shaped by their work. Burgess notes how sexual violence is treated and how that's changed (as well as how it hasn't), along with how mythical both the FBI and serial killers become respectively. She talks about various violent criminals she and her team have studied and what they've learned from them, and going forward, what we can learn from them.
I admit to comparing this book heavily to the books of Burgess's colleagues. After all, this is the third "Mindhunter" book, really, and the first to be written after the TV series (and in the new century, although Douglas's book had an update with several corrections to the new edition). Given the distinct personalities of her two colleagues and their books, who is Ann Wolbert Burgess and what would she be like?
First, it's important to note that unlike her colleagues, Burgess was basically an outsider in many ways to the FBI, both for the fact she was a consultant, not an agent, and the fact she was frequently the only woman in a room full of men. As much as those factors, though, is that Burgess herself did not seek the spotlight, unlike Ressler and Douglas:
So, while Douglas and Ressler enjoyed their newfound glow in the spotlight-- responding to interview requests and getting write-ups in the New York Times with articles headlined "The FBI's New Psyche Squad"-- I stuck to the shadows of research. Of course, this didn't go unnoticed by my colleagues at the BSU, all whom had built their careers by paying attention to details. Ressler was especially quick to notice my disappearing act. And once, after I turned down his offer to join him on an interview talking about the early days of profiling, he joked, "You're like a mad scientist hiding out in that office. You should come up for fresh air every once in a while."
I laughed at how accurate the assessment was. "You might be right. But who knows a monster better than a mad scientist? And I'm telling you, Bob, I'm closer than ever to figuring them out. We've made so much progress since our earliest findings of predisposition and categories of type. We've drilled into the core of their psychology and behavior, and so much of it is almost textbook. If it weren't for a few outliers, I could build killers by design." (pgs 167 and 168)
So it's not surprising that of the three books, we learn possibly the least about the subject (Burgess) personally. Unlike Douglas and Ressler, she doesn't discuss her upbringing and early life, and she doesn't talk about her husband and children (she only mentions beginning the work when she "had a young family" and the fact several of the serial killers she interviewed knew about her children), although she does briefly discuss sexual harassment as a young nurse. Again, somewhat unsurprisingly, Ressler and Douglas are far more characters here than Burgess herself.
Douglas is a bit full of himself (at first, anyway) and a "strong personality":
Like the Bureau at large, Douglas and the other agents were constantly probing their colleagues for weakness-- and they weren't subtle about it. In fact, one of Douglas's favorite tests involved a human skull that he kept prominently displayed on his desk. If someone came into his office and couldn't look directly at the skull, they failed. The only way to pass was to acknowledge it and move on, as if the skull didn't bother you.
I passed the skull test, and I'd passed a whole other range of other tests, too. (pgs 4 and 5)
Douglas, on the other hand, was initially more standoffish, but he opened up once Ressler began explaining the backstory of their not-quite-by-the-books study. (pg 19)
Douglas possessed a combination of sincerity and bravado that was easy to gravitate toward. He was generally well liked, but his strong personality offered very little middle ground, and his detractors were often vocal in their opinions. His work, however, was beyond reproach. He put in long hours, studied every case he could, and was constantly questioning and trying to improve processes and procedures. (pg 61)
Which is quite a difference from Ressler, with whom Burgess felt an instant rapport:
"I think you have something here," I said. "This could lead to a whole new way of understanding criminal behavior. As far as I know, no one's ever tried to figure out why serial killers kill. The implications are profound."
"I knew it." Douglas smiled, turning to Ressler.
"Hold on a second." Ressler paid no attention to Douglas. Instead, he focused carefully on me. "What is it you think we have here, exactly? Because to my ears, this is just a bunch of sickos fantasizing about their crimes and not offering much else. What am I missing?" (pg 20)
Ressler and I hit it off from the start and quickly developed a mutual appreciation for each other. I valued his vision for criminal profiling, and he valued how meticulously I approached the behind-the-secnes research that informed every aspect of how profiling worked. We were in constant communication to help close the gap between analysis and investigations. And when the stakes were at their highest, he trusted me as a confidante more than anyone else. (pg 76)
In fact, many aspects of the case seemed to be made up on the fly. Comments, such as Mullany's remark, "I felt Meirhorfer could be woman-dominated," showed how much the agents still relied on the conviction of their own beliefs rather than any guiding systematic approach. To a degree, they were simply buying in to their own myth of infallible G-men-- convinced that instinct and experience could overcome any gaps in understanding or knowledge. That was the Bureau's culture in the seventies. Few people bothered to question it.
But Ressler was an exception. Early on, he saw past this stylized bravado and understood that profilers needed more than just instinct to carry out successful investigations. They needed a frame of reference to draw from. He saw firsthand that the more information the BSU amassed on violent criminals, the better the agents became at their work. Past cases could offer a baseline of understanding for current cases. This was part of the reason he took on Douglas as an apprentice in the late seventies-- it was an opportunity to share knowledge and information with a brand-new profiler who had no preconceptions. And it was the same reason he took an interest in me soon thereafter. Ressler recognized that the decisions embedded in my work on the rape study were aimed at uncovering the motivation within a crime. He was impressed by how I'd managed to ground an infinitely complex human trauma into quantifiable data and research. And he believed I could apply these same methods to understanding the seemingly irrational nature of serial killer minds as well. More importantly, he believed in me. (pgs 75 and 76)
Which is quite different from how their books left me feeling. Maybe it's their co-writers, maybe it's just their relationship with Burgess.
But Burgess herself isn't completely erased in her own book, left entirely to take a backseat to only record her male colleagues. She gives plenty of unique insight, including into the distinct and entrenched sexism of the period, and the fact she (although she doesn't call it this nor seems to see it this way) was breaking barriers:
But as was typical in the 1970s- an era in which overt sexism was woven into the culture-- men in charge often dismissed my interest in understanding what motivated these abnormal behaviors as "a phase," "a novelty," or, worst of all, "cute." In those days, women who pursued a career in nursing were expected to conform to the "handmaiden" stereotype-- doll-like figures in stark-white dresses, tall stockings, and pristinely starched caps. Our values was measured by how well we could carry out a physician's orders, not by what we could contribute ourselves. But that wasn't going to work for me. I wanted to make a difference. And I wanted to make it on my own terms, regardless of the archaic expectations that had long been imposed on my gender. (pg 7)
My colleagues, on the other hand, weren't the least bit interested. They preferred to dismiss sexual violence as indecent, a fringe part of society, or a "women's issue" that shouldn't be discussed-- as if men weren't even involved.(pg 10)
Control-- or, rather, a lack of feeling in control-- was the reason why so few women came forward to report or talk about their trauma. And it was the reason why the psychoanalytic view of sexual violence- the prevailing theory as that rape happened because of the clothing women wore or because they fantasized about being raped-- had gone unchallenged for decades, despite making no sense at all. Control caused stigma, and stigma kept the whole problem strictly buttoned up. After all, no one ever asked what the victims thought. (pg 12)
Optimistic, I began with a question. "What do you all know about victimology in cases of rape?"
Several agents looked down, and some quietly smirked. But no one responded.
My brief illusion of high-minded G-men abruptly crumbled. (pg 17)
Hazelwood always tried his best to treat me like any other colleague. But the graphic nature of our work, and the raw emotions that came along with it, sometimes caused him to slip up and say things pretty bluntly. Then he'd get flustered and self-conscious about having spoken crudely in front of a woman. It was just his nature. He tried to walk some imaginary line of social decorum while talking to me about extreme acts of violence, regardless of how many times I told him to knock it off. And it wasn't just him either. I got this same treatment from nearly all the agents at the FBI. Even Ressler and Douglas showed this subtlety of caution towards me from time to time. But Hazelwood, his discretion was different. It seemed to be protective in a way-- maybe because he was the one who'd brought me into the group. And as he laid out a set of files and began listing the relevant facts of the case, he hesitated, just barely softening his voice, as he broke down some of the more graphic details. (pgs 141 and 142)
Two of the most memorable exchanges in the book are when Burgess stands up to her colleague's casual sexism:
"Can we do a quick segue into post-offense behavior?" Hazelwood asked [when the team was consulted on a case that involved the murder of a teenage girl by a possible female killer]. "Ann, this part could really use your insights to help rationalize the psychology involved. You've got an advantage because, even after twenty years of marriage, I still have no idea how women think."
The agents laughed, and I smiled along to play nice. Then I thought better of it. "Talk about your personal life on your own time, Roy. I'm more interested in solving this case."
There was a brief silence before Hazelwood sheepishly and good-naturedly apologized. (pgs 97 and 98)
And when Burgess goes with the FBI to Louisiana to advise on a case, only to get reminded that things aren't changing as quickly as they all might have thought or hoped.
"Did you hear anything?"
"I sure did. I got an urgent call from the police department that there may have been a woman impersonating an FBI agent. I had to reassure them it was an official visit from the BSU and that you're one of us."
"Thanks," I said, not really sure what to make of the whole thing.
But [Unit Chief Roger] Depue just laughed. "Louisiana isn't exactly DC. I probably should've been clearer that I was sending a woman. I'll remember that for next time. Now hurry up with that report. I don't wan to read any more news coverage about how smart this one is." (pg 146)
I was somewhat torn on whether I thought Burgess's insights about victims and how they affected her were misguided halo-polishing by her co-writer or the truth of the fact given she's coming from a different background than her colleagues. I ultimately think she does and did genuinely look at it differently given her different background, but also these sentiments could be worded better:
We ran into a problem early when Nick [Groth, a psychologist who worked in correctional settings and was lecturing on rapists at the FBI Academy] realized he couldn't bring himself to look at the photos of dead bodies. But my curiosity outweighed my apprehension. And my experience of working with victims of rape had taught me how to focus on the data rather than the horror-- I'd learned to stomach the trauma because I knew I could help. (pgs 56 and 57)
Despite their differences, each agent within the BSU had an ability to empathize without being affected, to compartmentalize the disturbing without becoming disturbed themselves. They had ways of staying detached in order to survive.
My experience was different. Working with victims of sexual violence hadn't numbed me to such horrific acts. Rather, it helped me understand the nature of violence more fully-- it helped me recognize patterns and designs. I did this by connecting with victims, relating to their stories, and analyzing the underlying psychology at work. This gave me a unique insight into the victim side of profiling. It was something the offender-focused agents appreciated[.] (pg 100)
But my approach also left me more vulnerable to the emotions of the cases. They stuck with me. I'd often find myself replaying the details and nuances of a crime to better understand what motivated an offender and who they might be. And when profiled offenders were finally captured, I felt proud of our work-- but more than anything, I felt relieved. (pg 100)
Douglas once said of serial killer Edmund Kemper, "I would be less than honest if I didn't admit that I liked the guy." And although it's a strange admission, I could certainly understand where he was coming from. Kemper didn't have the typical arrogance of other serial killers. He was calm and articulate. He liked to joke around and was friendly, open, and sensitive. But over the course of less than a decade, he also coldly butchered three of his family members and seven defenseless women. Unlike Douglas, I couldn't separate the criminal from the crime. I saw the value in the data Kemper offered-- that was it. To me, he was just a means to an end. (pg 185)
You never get comfortable with the idea of serial killers. You never feel complacent. Or at least I didn't. (pg 253)
Even her seeming-mission statement at the end of the book (we'll get to that later), has this same air of noble intentions phrased slightly... holier-than-thou-ly? I think a good part of it is the fact Burgess (and her co-writer) are trying to do something incredibly difficult here, which is write a memoir and give her unique perspective and insight while also trying to preserve as much of Burgess's privacy as possible. And that's a pretty tall order and almost impossible to pull off. There's a reason why people develop a memoir voice. They get comfortable with a version of themselves that can talk to the reader. Douglas's well-meaning (but fallible and funny) everyman with noble intentions and Ressler's authoritarian expert (at least, in his mind) were both personas for their books that were apparently only a small version of themselves, as this book alone attests. We don't really get enough of Burgess to get where she's coming from, or who she really is, other than her high-minded assertions about victims, and a few, carefully picked personal anecdotes. Don't get me wrong, several of the anecdotes have incredible value and insight. But some seem just a clumsy attempt by her co-writer to fill in Burgess's character.
On Douglas going off by himself, consumed with a case, Burgess goes after him. They talk, and it's Burgess's extremely gentle ribbing that brings him back, according to the story:
"Don't worry about it too much, John. I'm sure you'll find some new trouble to get into soon enough."
That one got him. Douglas laughed. "We better get back to see how the team's doing." (pg 249)
This honestly sounds like dialog a bit too hacky for any of a plethora of cop dramas. Did it really even happen? Perhaps. But compared to some of the other stories, it sounds rote.
But do we really need Burgess to bare herself? She gives plenty of insight without revealing too much about the nature of the FBI and her work there:
At the end of most days, we gravitated to the Academy's pub, where the rule was "no talking shop." This was the ritual. There was beer on tap and a relaxed atmosphere. The talk focused on sports and exciting cases from the past. The agents listened to my stories about the rape study, and I listened to their stories about elusive criminals who almost got away. Then, slowly, one by one, we got in our cars and left. The agents didn't take their work home with them. Their wives had no idea about the horrors that consumed their days. The secrets of the project went unspoken. And it was those secrets-- the ones among us and the ones we carried on our own-- that bound us together. In everything we couldn't say, we became a team. (pg 66)
We don't necessarily need more of Burgess, but in this book, it would've helped. It's a kind of mishmash of both modern and dated terminology, as though in need of some reshuffling and editing. The book begins somewhat curiously:
To the reader:
TW: violence, murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, domestic abuse (including children and animals), sexism/misogyny, racism, mental health. (pg ix)
Yes, that's "TW" not "trigger warning". It's generally short-handed that way on the internet, although many (including myself, as you see) prefer "content warning" (or CW) as it's more concise, and a trigger can be anything, whereas a content warning is generally for subjects agreed upon to be upsetting/traumatizing/potentially psychologically triggering. This sort of reads a bit like someone heard it used and is not quite sure how it works. And while I'm always in favor of clear content warnings, if you're reading a book about someone who worked with the FBI to profile serial killers and rapists, wouldn't all of that be assumed to be in the book?
Again, the terminology goes back and forth:
This included a person of interest known to force young boys into his car to engage in pedophilia. (pg 40)
That's an incredibly awkward sentence. Also, as Burgess herself knows (and talks about later in the book), there's a huge difference between pedophilia (a paraphilia that makes one sexually attracted to prepubescent children) and child molestation (someone who rapes or otherwise sexually abuses children, including teens, including sexual harassment). This distinction, as I went on about before matters because a) words have meanings and b) the way a sexual predator grooms, say, a six-year-old is different from the way they groom a sixteen-year-old and recognizing warning signs is essential to prevention.
We get what the authors meant when they said "engaging in pedophilia", but why on earth not say "This included a person of interest known to force young boys into his car and sexually molest them" which is more specific?
The central focus of [FBI agent Ken] Lanning's work was a behavioral analysis of child predators. He looked at the demographics and individual histories of these individuals, then analyzed the patterns of their motives and actions to develop a typology-- he was determined to resolve the confusion of the terms child molester and pedophile. This research led to a new understanding of the highly predictable behaviors of child offenders, which Lanning categorized into two types: situational child molesters and preferential child molesters. Over time, the insights from Lanning's research became extremely valuable tools for investigators of child cases. And his work led to a new frame of reference for an often-underreported crime that was extremely difficult to prosecute given the "he said, she said" nature of testimony from a child versus an adult. (pg 59)
So you see, obviously Burgess knows the difference, so how on earth did that first sentence stay in the book?
For that matter, other aspects of both crime and psychology that have been dismissed or reassessed in the decades since Burgess first started working with the FBI are skipped over with updates/explanations (even a cursory note about how, say "*At the time, eye-witnesses giving testimony under hypnosis was considered valid and legal testimony. Now hypnosis has been widely to completely discredited."):
The 1980s would see a peak in the number of active serial killers, like nothing ever known before.(pg 47)
Those numbers were later shown to be largely inflated and also a product of the new development and understanding of the term.
Passengers crisscrossed around her without seeming to notice-- it was the bystander effect in full force. (pg 132)
The "bystander effect" was never as cut and dry as law enforcement made it out to be, and the very case that coined the term, the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese, was proven to be full of falsehoods as to the bystanders actions (spoilers! It was homophobia on the part of police). Casually using a term like this in the 2020s is absurd.
He asked if I'd help, and together we wrote an article for the Law Enforcement Bulletin on child pornography and child sex rings. (pg 60)
This is a bit trickier, as a lot of mainstream media still uses the term "child pornography" (although they and you shouldn't!). As someone who works with abused children once put it to me, graphic footage of children being hideously abused isn't "pornography" and it isn't in any way equivalent to adults consenting to perform for money on film. The technical term (and the term used when you report it, if, the Gods forbid, you ever have to do so) is "csem" which stands for "child sexual exploitation material" and is considerably more apt and a better all around term than "child pornography." Also "child sexual abuse ring" is considerably more apt than "child sex ring".
[Serial rapist and murderer Montie] Rissell didn't know it at the time, but his victim turned tricks as a massage parlor worker in Maryland. (pg 176)
Describing a victim of a serial rapist and murderer as "turning tricks" is disgusting. One of Rissell's victims was indeed a sex worker and tried to draw on her background in that work to save her own life, according to Rissell, by faking an orgasm and looking to service him, again, ostensibly to please and satisfy him so that she'd be saved. Rissell killed her because he was a serial killer, but claimed to the FBI that it was her "trying to control" the scene that enraged him enough to kill her. If her background as a sex worker was part of why she was killed, why mention it that way when you are claiming to be an advocate for these very victims?
This more stark dichotomy, between advocacy for victims and some seriously questionable choices in the book towards victims (some victims' names are obscured, some are not, with seemingly no rhyme nor reason). In the photos section (which feature various smiling and serious photos of Burgess at work with her colleagues, including Douglas and Ressler), there's a full-color photo of a dead child victim of serial killer John Joubert, covered in blood and wearing only underpants, which the caption only reads "Crime scene photo of victim in the Joubert case." Presumably this is seen as more respectful than naming the actual victim but seriously, why put the photo in at all? We have plenty of Burgess's descriptions about the horrible things she had to both view and witness, we seriously don't need a photo of a child treated like a dead deer whose identity has become solely that of "Joubert victim". There's nothing in the photo, other than the gore, that indicates why Burgess used it in her work (unusual wrist marks, location, what have you). Again, there is extensive, detailed coverage of the horrors Burgess had to see for her work; we believe her. Why publish the photo here, especially like that? It feels like the very thing she repeatedly decries, exploitation and inconsideration of victims.
Which brings me to some other deeply questionable instances of Burgess standing up for victims in this book.
While consulting on a case, Burgess sees that more signs point to an offender that's being overlooked, rather than the obvious choice the victims knew who doesn't match up to various other aspects of the evidence. She swallows her objections when the suspect is arrested and when he's later proven not to be the killer, she wrestles with guilt.
But it wasn't until August of 1986, several months after lecturing on the case, that Ressler gave me an update that helped to validate my nagging sense of uncertainty.
"Hey, Ann. Did you see this?" He was holding up a copy of the Chicago Tribune. "They're overturning the conviction in the Johnston case. Apparently, they've decided that the testimony from the hypnotized witness was unreliable and shouldn't have been allowed."
"Let me see." I quickly scanned the article for myself. "How about that? And the prosecution withheld evidence about another suspect, too- a butcher that was infatuated with the girl."
"There you go. Your instinct was right."
I paused for a long moment, mulling over what I'd just read. "But we profiled this one. If the investigators relied on our work, then this outcome is on us."
"I know," Ressler said. "It happens."
"But doesn't that sit uneasy with you? I mean, the wrong guy ended up going to jail."
"Our job was to make the profile. We did that, and we did it the best way we know how. At that point, it's out of our hands. If the police chose the easy answer and not someone who fit the profile, that's on them. All we can do is learn from it, apply it to the next one, and move on."
Ressler was right. I knew that. But knowing didn't bring comfort.
"So that's it? That's how we leave it?"
"That's how we leave it," Ressler said.
I nodded. But this case would stick with me for years to come. It pointed to one of the remaining challenges with the profiling process. (pg 215)
First, Ressler's attitude absolutely explains how he could botch something so badly as the Lori Roscetti 4 and then sneer at the falsely accused's attempts at justice in his book Whoever Fights Monsters (I've always wondered what Ressler's reaction to that case's final outcome was particularly with his mention in his book, and I guess I'm getting it. Ugh.)
Secondly, I realize she had a rapport with Ressler, but I really feel like she could've gone a lot harder on his reaction here. Getting the wrong suspect doesn't just mean an innocent person is imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit, it means that the real offender isn't caught and justice isn't being served. She continues
The Johnston case failed because investigators got lost in the details. Once I understood this, it made me realize that profiling needed to be more than just a "here you go, good luck" type of process. We needed to stay involved in the cases longer. And it made sense. Because, by the very act of going through the profiling process, we already understood the psychology of the unsub. Now we just needed to turn this understanding into investigative strategies to help solve cases more quickly. We needed to use the unsub's own patterns and behaviors against them. (pg 216)
Which is absolutely laudable. But her famous colleague is still held up as an expert many years after his death and there's plenty more cases he got absolutely wrong and never bothered to issue any kind of correction or apology, as far as I know.
The book ends with the case of serial killer Henry Louis Wallace, whose reign of terror was treated unsurprisingly but still frustratingly differently both by police and the media given that his victims were primarily Black women:
In his two years of terror, during which the Midnight Rider, Henry Louis Wallace, robbed the lives of nine young Black women across the city of Charlotte, the case remained largely ignored-- by police, media, and the public in general. It was odd. The sheer number of victims should have drawn attention to the case on its own. Add that to the horrific nature of the crimes, and I couldn't help but wonder why the response hadn't been stronger. The Charlotte Police Department claimed that they'd tried, that they'd reached out to the FBI for help early in 1994, but that the Bureau didn't believe the murders fit the profile of a serial killer. And on the basis of how each of the murders was treated separately-- several of the victims were filed as "missing persons," others weren't noticed at all, and in general the local medical examiners failed to consistently identify strangulation as the cause of death-- there was likely some truth to the FBI's rationale.
But it was clear to me that issues of race played a role too.
Wallace's victims weren't white women. They were Black. And just like I'd seen early on in my career while studying victims of rape, this was simply another example of how stigma could be a powerful enemy of justice. If something about a victim didn't fit a mold, if it seemed somehow threatening or made investigators uncomfortable, there were plenty of ways the case could be ignored. That was one of the biggest reasons that Wallace's spree lasted as long as it did. As Dee Sumpter, the mother of Wallace's fourth victim, Shawna Hawk, said: "The victims weren't prominent people with social-economic status. They weren't special. And they were Black." (pgs 279 and 280)
And yet, as soon as investigators identified the physically imposing, six-foot-four, 180-pound Wallace as the culprit, the feeding frenzy ensued. His size and method of murder-- slowly strangling the life out of women who were helpless to escape the power of his grasp-- fit the bill of what the public considered to be a perfect monster. And the color of his skin made his story all the more compelling, adding a new twist to the public archetype of a serial murderer. The Charlotte Observer dubbed him "a calculated, cold blooded killer." The New York Times quoted a deputy chief in the investigation, saying, "The females in this community can feel a lot safer when they go to bed." And Time magazine-- quick to play up the monster trope with no subtlety at all- wrote an article about the investigation entitled "Dances with Werewolves." (pg 280)
But lest you start lauding Burgess (and her co-writer) for rightfully calling out law enforcement (a bit) and the media, there's this:
Wallace's second murder took place in May 1992, while he was on a self-described "date" with Sharon Nance, a known prostitute and convicted drug dealer. (pg 296)
"Known prostitute and convicted drug dealer"-- why bring up the criminal record of one of his victims, particularly in that way? Making it sound as though she was asking for her own grisly murder, and might have even deserved it, or at least is a less important victim. Her work as a sex worker is directly related to her death (and the stigma against full-service sex workers like Nance and sex work in general enables predators like Wallace to hunt with ease), why bring up her prior conviction for drug dealing? If you're trying to make the point she came from a marginalized background and that's contributed to the police attitudes and the media coverage (the lack there of, that is), why put it that way, particularly when it's discussed more respectfully elsewhere? Why impugn a serial killer's victim even in death?
Burgess goes on to fret over serial killers becoming glamorized in media, particularly in the 1990s, fearing that victims have gotten lost altogether.
Having a positive public image [for the FBI] helped with the quality of recruiting, secured the Bureau's ever-increasing budget, and made it easy to engage public cooperation as a tool for fighting crime. This lasted even well after [first director of the FBI J. Edgar] Hoover was gone-- perpetuated by idealistic portrayals in books, movies, radio, and TV, including The Silence of the Lambs, The X-Files, and America's Most Wanted. (pg 218)
(Quick note: one of Burgess's colleagues, John E Douglas, was the basis for the fictional Jack Crawford of Silence fame.)
One morning the summer of 1995, as I was engaged in my daily pacing of the halls at Quantico, I overheard two young agents talking about the paths that led them to the FBI. [...]
"The Kemper case, though. I don't know if you've heard about him. He's sometimes called the Co-ed Killer. He did some pretty crazy stuff and didn't get caught for years. He's my favorite serial killer."
That last line rung in my head. It was so strange. What did it even mean to have a favorite serial killer? Then, suddenly and with great clarity, I was struck by the significance of the remark. Serial killers were gaining notoriety for their crimes. As public fascination with these offenders grew, so too did their mythology. Their stories were becoming familiar, compelling, and even entertaining-- offering a never-before-seen glimpse into the darkest corners of human nature. The killers were becoming distanced from the heinous carnage they'd left behind and transcending into the status of cultural icons. And threat made them powerfully attractive. People were drawn to the disturbing reality of how dark humanity could really get, the seemingly infinite blackness of what humans could become if social norms were stripped away or entirely disregarded. They could relate to the emotions of anger or even violent thoughts toward a fellow human being, just not quite to the degree of ever acting upon those urges. In serial killers, the public saw themselves-- demasked and unbound-- but still entirely possible.
That was the moment I realized the responsibility I had to share my insight with the public at large. I couldn't continue isolating myself, burying my research six flights belowground [sic] in a government office. It wasn't enough to refine the data anymore. I needed to make it public. Just like I'd worked to dispel public misconceptions of rape in the late seventies, it was time to do the same thing for the growing misconceptions surrounding serial killers. I had a chance to set the record straight, but the window was closing quickly. I knew I had to figure out a way to do this before the mythology of these offenders became too big to control.
At the time, I could already see the boundary between reality and fiction bleeding from one side to the other. Popular movies like Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Natural Born Killers were borrowing from real-world serial killers to create storybook villains that fit an entertainment mold. But they did so by oversimplifying. They took the nuance and reality of deeply disturbing criminal psychology and reduced it to a familiar narrative of good versus evil. They created characters that were easy for an audience to understand, consume, and empathize with. And the technique worked. The success of these films led to a surge in true crime TV, which led to prisons being inundated with fan mail as the public clamored to learn more about the criminals locked within them. There were even serial killer "groupies," of a sort, who professed their love through marriage proposals.
Surprisingly, the whole thing made sense. This morbid curiosity with serial killers was a logical consequence of Hoover's perpetual public relations campaign. The heroic acts of G-men could only capture the public's imagination for so long. It was just a matter of time before interest shifted to the antiheroes instead. Of course, this attention wasn't without consequence. In its usual way, the spotlight of entertainment glossed over reality and focused on serial killers only in their most appealing forms. Like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, killers were often portrayed as charismatic, even likable. They were given qualities of empathy and charm that made it easier to separate them from the unimaginable malice of their actions. They were made human. But that was just a useful reduction. What I'd learned was that serial killers had emotions, yes, but these emotions lacked depth. They didn't care about others. They didn't want to make friends. They didn't have empathy. They only wanted victims. Connection-- through charm, flattery, or humor-- was part of their act. It was simply a means to an end. And with this egocentric underpinning as the framework through which they navigated the world, they were free. They did as they pleased. And that made them dangerous.
The irony of what I saw unfolding in pop culture wasn't lost on me. In fact, part of me even wanted to laugh. I'd spent years at the BSU trying to analyze the minds of serial killers so that investigators could better understand who they were. Now, the media was taking a similar approach. But their end goal served entertainment rather than truth, and the implications of this were profound. Entertainment doesn't exist simply in a bubble; it has a conditioning effect. The public was becoming sympathetic to serial killers to the detriment of their victims. I already knew how this would play out in real-world trials with a real-world jury informed by fictionalized beliefs. They'd get caught up in the myth. The truth is, just like I'd seen happen with rape cases all those years ago, history was repeating itself. But this time I'd be ready.
From my years of experience with the BSU, I'd already gained a reputation in the professional sphere was one of the leading experts on victimology, trauma, and the serial killer phenomenon. I'd also spent the last several years steadily giving more and more courtroom testimony on the types of bizarre cases where no one else could. I might not have had the resources to go toe to toe with the media's portrayal of serial killers, but I could still make a difference where it mattered most: their court cases. I could speak to a jury and cut through all the misperceptions, oversimplications, and convenient reductions. I could speak a truth that few others knew-- and in doing so, I found myself in a position where I could finally use that truth to help victims and their families receive the justice they so desperately deserved. (pgs 254, 255, 256, and 257)
I don't completely disagree with all of Burgess's assertions here. But she's overlooking several important factors, both historically and psychologically.
First, the glorification of "outlaws" has always existed, and if Hoover had his G-men, the period also had Bonnie and Clyde and an array of gangsters as well-known as any screen actor of the time.
Same unfortunately goes for crime "groupies". Ted Bundy being treated as some sort of heartthrob was happening long before the 1990s.
While I agree that calling a serial killer your "favorite" is a disrespectful and ridiculous thing to say, it's pretty clear the agent meant "This criminal is the one that fascinates me the most," coming from someone who is entering a life's work where they will no doubt be studying these people.
Because a huge part of what Burgess is overlooking here, including in people that are reading this very book, is the fear-confrontation angle. I've talked before about why people read true crime and confronting and controlling our fears and terror is a huge part of it for most (if not all) people. Monsters are caught and made human (and pathetic humans at that), injustices are solved, and hopefully, you'll walk away being a little smarter and safer.
I feel there's a myriad of problems with the way true crime is presented and packaged however (I mean, I literally make some of them about this very book), and that should absolutely be a discussion. While I think a certain amount of "whistling past the graveyard" should be allowed to exist within reason, there are limits and as the saying goes, it's only gallows humor if you're the one on the gallows. But completely overlooking fear confrontation as a reason people are interested in true crime is an absurd oversight.
The book ends with Burgess's ultimate mission statement about her role and about victims, undercut somewhat by actions I've already mentioned within this book:
What drives a human being to kill? What separates those individuals from the rest of us as a whole? I've spent my career trying to figure it out. But the answer isn't so simple.
To rape, torture, and kill another human being is to shatter the most fundamental expectations of the human condition. These acts breach the unspoken social contract that binds humanity together. They're profane. They corrupt. And yet, in the eyes of a killer-- an individual who exists on the outer fringes of humanity-- these acts of complete and utter disregard for human life are a way to create meaning. They're a sense of purpose. A way of finding balance. To a killer, violence is an expression of the sacred.
What's fascinating about the criminal mind is how simultaneously foreign it is while being so disturbingly close to our own. And yet, the fixation on "figuring it out"-- on solving the puzzle-- often overshadows the reason this work is so important in the first place.
My decades studying serial killers weren't for the game of cat and mouse, nor because I found these killers entertaining. And I didn't do it because I empathized with their plight or because I was trying to rehabilitate and reform them.
For me, it's always been the victims.
They are the reason I persist. They are the reason I stared down the darkness, time and time again. They are the tragic human cost of a serial killer's self-discovery, the helpless victims of chance and circumstance. They are living, breathing bodies of boundless possibility reduced to headlines and statistics. And although many of their names have been lost to history or relegated to footnotes in the retellings of serial killers and their crimes, I will never forget a single one.
It's the victims who matter. This story was as much theirs as it is mine. (pg 289)
Which brings us back to the importance of narrative voice. Burgess's voice is largely a witness in this book describing the actions of others, especially compared to her colleagues' books. So when she does make a statement or pronouncement about their profession, those statements stand out far more sharply. Burgess repeatedly posits herself as an advocate for the victims of these heinous crimes and I have no doubt that she is. Which makes the missteps in this book all the more glaring (when you say you'll never forget a single victim, is it only to recount their backgrounds in sex work, in a particularly disrespectful way?).
Does narrative voice really matter in a memoir? Absolutely. Burgess's voice could go a lot farther in explaining and exploring certain concepts and carrying her victims' advocacy over into the actual book. It's also worth noting that this book is published within an era where policing is being widely reconsidered and reevaluated, and the American justice system is rightly on trial more than seemingly ever before, including many of the law enforcement tactics detailed in this book. Still, though, Burgess's is an important voice and her experiences are valuable and important for a number of reasons, and the book gives unique insight into a much-explored subject. It's just a shame that of the three Mindhunter memoirs, it's Burgess's voice that's the least heard.
Notable:
The absence of sexual violence suggested the offender wasn't interested in sex, at least not in any traditional sense. He might even be asexual. (pg 32)
The word "asexual" absolutely doesn't need to exist here, and has nothing to do with the crime committed. The whole "Queer people as deviants" trope should've died off long ago, no matter how much conservatives relish its resurrection. Also, to read this in a book published in 2021 (where more people know what "asexual" is and more and more asexual characters are showing up in media) is something, I must say.
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[Ressler] was good at his job [a post with the Army as provost marshal of a platoon of military police in Germany] and stayed for a second assignment that involved undercover work infiltrating groups that were resisting the Vietnam War. He even grew his hair long and portrayed a disgruntled veteran at protest meetings to blend in. (pg 63)
Just in case you liked Ressler in any capacity before this book, here he is, infiltrating and harassing a group of veterans protesting war.
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Months after the original assault, Pauline's lawyer, Henry Fitzpatrick, had descended into the train station's catacombs accompanied by a photographer to shoot pictures of the crime scene for the upcoming trial. The catacombs were a dark and secluded underground subsystem of the area's commuter line. They were hot and poorly lit. The air was chalky, and it took Fitzpatrick a moment to realize that the lump he was squinting at in the darkness was the body of a woman lying barefoot right in front of him. He stood still. His eyes adjusted until he could just make out the woman's chest rising and sinking in shallow swells. She looked young, maybe mid-thirties, was well dressed in a two-piece navy suit, and had a scuffed-up brown leather briefcase just to her right. The photographer placed a lens on his camera and clicked a button to shine a light on the scene. Fitzpatrick saw a bag from Wanamaker's department store. He saw the woman's awkward positioning. And he saw puddles of blood around her face and arms. Footsteps echoed against the platform above. The photographer then took a picture, and for a moment the tunnel became brightly lit, a stark flash of absolute light.
This second victim was barely alive. Fitzpatrick dialed 911, and an ambulance quickly transported her to the intensive care unit at Jefferson Hospital. [...]
[The victim] Joan awoke [from her coma after the severe beating and rape she suffered] after forty-five days, but the attack had left her with permanent brain damage and partial paralysis. (pgs 136 and 137)
This is from a woman who was raped in a train station. Her lawyer went back with a photographer to explore the scene of the crime and discovered another victim.
A victim they photographed, according to this description, knowing she was alive but just barely, before administering any kind of help. How long did the lawyer wait before dialing 911?
If you're going to throw around phrases like "the bystander effect", you can't not mention that that's seriously questionable behavior.
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In the winter of 1985, the FBI interviews the Ski Mask rapist and takes an unfortunate turn in trying to provoke him.
"What about the men?" Hazelwood prodded, intentionally provoking [Ski Mask Rapist Jon Barry] Simonis to see if he could get a reaction. "Would you make them give you a blow job?"
"No, I've never had any sexual contact with a man."
"No? Because just now when we were talking, you were talking kind of fast and it sounded like you said you raped a man tied up on the floor..."
"No, and I don't know why you keep asking me."
"Okay... The way I understood it-- let me just clear the air here-- is that you were bisexual and like to have sex with men."
"I don't know where you got that idea from," Simonis said, maintaining his calm. "I suppose I might have bisexual tendencies to a certain extent, like most men probably do, but as far as actually coming into contact with them goes, no." (pg 153)
The interview takes place in 1985. The book is written in 2021. That's all I'm going to say.
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The FBI, including Burgess, are approached by the defense team of serial killer Henry Louis Wallace, something that surprises Burgess.
This request caught me off guard. I'd always considered a serial killer's defense team to be an adversary of justice. (pg 258)
Really? Seriously? What an absolutely careless, dangerous, ridiculous statement to make.
We have "innocent until proven guilty" in this country, and convicting the wrong person, as I said, is not only an injustice to the accused, it's an injustice to the victim by not catching their actual killer. Even those accused of heinous crimes are still innocent until proven guilty and should be treated that way by the legal system. Shouldn't the ultimate goal be finding out the truth of the situation and getting the right person? Honestly, what possible good does calling a serial killer's legally required defense "an adversary of justice" do for victims?
Final Grade: B-
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