THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 6, 1995 TAG: 9512060048
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
GOOD-LOOKING, personable Glen Rogers, 33, could talk lonely women into just about anything: a ride home, a place to crash for a few days or weeks, a quickly ignited romance. He especially liked redheads.
In late October, Kentucky police arrested the smooth-talking drifter for allegedly strangling or stabbing at least four women in a two-month-long, cross-country killing spree. All of Rogers' victims were in their mid-30s; three had reddish hair. Only one, a California barmaid, had spurned his advances.
Where once we recoiled from such heinous crimes, wondering what kind of person could commit them, we now have an uneasy familiarity with their culprit. No longer a mysterious Jack the Ripper-type, the serial killer has surfaced in recent years. But fortunately, so have savvy FBI agents like John Douglas, who not only can identify these killers, but stop them.
How? Douglas ``reads'' the unknown suspect's mind from the crime scene he leaves behind. He figures out how he thinks, then out-thinks him.
In his spellbinding new book, ``Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit'' (Scribner, 384 pp., $24), the legendary Douglas, who retired in June from the FBI's Investigative Support Unit in Quantico (formerly known as the Behavioral Science Unit), delves into much of the gritty how-to of criminal personality ``profiling.''
As perverse as many of the murders are that Douglas details here, I defy anyone interested in psychology, detective work, or logic and puzzle-solving, to put ``Mindhunt-er'' willingly aside once begun. It's like a head-on collision: There's no looking away. And the impact is jolting.
Douglas, who spent 25 years with the FBI, has consulted with police on hundreds of serial rapes and murders nationwide: He was instrumental in breaking both San Francisco's Trailside Killer case, in which young female hikers were targeted, and the 1979 Atlanta child murders. He also has worked on the still-open investigations of the Unabomber and Seattle's Green River killer.
Douglas did not catch the public's eye, however, until Thomas Harris used him as a model for Agent Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn's role in the movie) in his best-selling thriller, ``The Silence of the Lambs,'' based on the 1950s Edward Gein case.
``Mindhunter'' co-author Mark Olshaker, a novelist and filmmaker who spent a year at the ISU with Douglas, undoubtedly deserves credit for the smooth flow and organization of what is essentially Douglas' life story. Though the first-person narrative opens with a hellish experience in 1983, when Douglas, then 38, nearly died - and faithfully returns to this self-revelatory time at the end - the chronology of events is often creative, not actual.
Douglas' large personality and edgy intellect, rather than time, give the book its structure, as well as its energy. His renegade spirit - Douglas eliminated the ``BS'' from the Behavioral Science Unit when he became chief - underlies every engrossing passage.
Initially, ``Mindhunter'' evolves as Douglas does, from a somewhat irresponsible teenager - a jock with a knack for storytelling - to a feckless college student, opportunistic Air Force enlistee and over-zealous FBI agent. After distinguishing himself in a hostage-negotiation course at the FBI Academy in Quantico, he joins the Behavioral Science Unit. His breakthrough comes in the late-1970s when he launches a research project to interview imprisoned violent offenders, including Charles Manson, David ``Son of Sam'' Berkowitz and Richard Speck, and begins to develop criminal personality profiles.
It was then, Douglas writes, that ``criminal-investigative analysis came into the modern age.''
Because of television and movie exploitation, Douglas' general serial-killer profile has become familiar: A white man in his 20s to mid-30s, from a dysfunctional background of sexual or physical abuse, drugs or alcoholism, who is intelligent, but underachieving. (Women from similar backgrounds, Douglas theorizes, internalize their stressors and tend to punish themselves, not others.)
A ``homicidal triad'' of behavior marks the serial killer's youth: cruelty to small animals, late-age bedwetting and fire-starting. Plagued by inadequacy, he seeks to ``manipulate, dominate and control'' - key motives - his victims, usually women, in order to feel fulfilled. (Often ``getting back'' at dear ole destructive Mom, I'm afraid.)
When Douglas progresses from this broad description to predicting, largely on the basis of crime-scene evidence, that the killer has a speech impediment, drives a red Volkswagen Beetle, owns a German shepherd, lives with sisters or will visit his victim's grave, he amazes - and he does it time and time again. Though possessed of degrees in psychology and education, vastly experienced and diligent, he has an uncanny sixth sense about human behavior. He's downright gifted.
Among the many fascinating anecdotes, interviews and commentary in ``Mindhunter,'' Douglas details his investigation into the '79 murders of black children in Atlanta. Not only did Douglas accurately profile Wayne D. Williams, the rare black serial killer, by race, age and habits, but he predicted that the killer, having read in the newspaper about incriminating hairs and fibers being found on his victims, would begin to dump their bodies in rivers. Williams was first detained by a river surveillance team after officers heard a splash.
The ``roll call'' of American serial killers in ``Mindhunter'' gets a bit confusing, and more sociocultural explanation about the recent ``surfacing'' of such offenders seems warranted, but in general John Douglas doesn't flinch from telling the real story. ``Mindhunter'' is a mind-expanding experience. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is a lawyer and book editor for The Virginian-Pilot. ILLUSTRATION: Photo of book cover
Legendary FBI agent John Douglas delves into the gritty how-to of
criminal personality ``profiling'' in ``Mindhunter.''
by CNB