Mindhunter

I learned so much from reading this book by the bureau's pioneering profiler.

Books by profilers and local police who solve major murders often focus on the author's career. No one cares. Douglas's books focus on the crimes and the perpetrators.

He has interviewed Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Lynette Fromme, John Wayne Gacy, Edmund Kemper, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Speck, Sara Jane Moore, and Charles Manson. He explains what makes them tick.

"What kind of person could have done such a thing?" That was the question Douglas and his fellow FBI agents and crime-scene analysts tried to answer when developing criminal-personality profiles for the Behavioral Science Unit.

This book pulls the reader into prison interview rooms as he talks to infamous serial killers like Ed Kemper, Richard Speck, and David Berkowitz and conferences with detectives working on cases like the Trailside Killer in San Fransisco and the Atlanta child murders. It also reveals Douglas' story, from his early life in New York, his military service, and his career with the FBI.

You… show more.

John Douglas and I were FBI Agents during the same time period. He is the Bureau’s criminal profiling pioneer specializing in serial killers and was a member of its Investigative Support Unit while I was assigned to the Criminal Investigations Squad. Currently, I am an Adjunct Professor in the Criminal Justice Program at a Community College in Oregon. In curriculum courses that include aggression and violence my resources emphasize books written by both Douglas and Olshaker for their thoroughness and true crime exposure of those sick minds of the criminal subjects. I was personally involved in the investigation of one… show more.

This book along with its authors, really became popular after it became a Netflix series. It gives an excellent example of how the twenty-five-year career of Douglas, in the FBI Investigative Support Unit and the development of psychological profiling of the most notorious serial killers in America.