The application of psychology to the development of a psychological profile has been fundamental to case resolution and the discovery of the most common patterns of behavior in the criminal world, which helps to design better interventions on criminals, as well as to improve the programs available. to prevent crime That’s what the Mindhunter series describes.
While this may seem obvious to us today, it was in the late 1970s that two FBI agents, John E. Douglas and Robert Kenneth Ressler began to make psychology weigh more on research.
- By interviewing several criminals with the help of psychologist Ann Wolbert Burges.
- They drew psychological profiles of America’s bloodiest killers.
- It was Robert Kenneth Ressler who coined the term “serial killer.
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FBI Agent John E. Douglas worked as a sniper and hostage negotiator for several years until he was transferred to Quantico, Virginia, where he was assigned to the Behavioral Analysis Unit, where he taught criminal psychology to new veteran officers and police officers.
John was dissatisfied with existing training in this area of the FBI and was trying to get to know the criminal mind better: he thought this knowledge could report many investigations For example, he convinced his superiors to take courses at the University on more current research that offers a new perspective for case analysis.
It was at this point that he met Robert Kenneth Ressler, a detective interested, like John, in the study of criminal profiling. Robert has lectured police officers across the country to help them investigate unsolved crimes.
Through a meeting at the FBI facility in Quantico, the two officers agreed to jointly investigate some cases across the country and incorporate some of the findings into the criminal conduct analysis study, as well as interview some of the country’s largest serial killers in prison. .
Initially, the chief agent was reluctant to the project, but after some crimes were solved with new knowledge of the agents, the FBI not only authorized the project, but supported it by increasing its funding. interviews with better media and with a greater theoretical base, thanks in large part to the work of Ann Wolbert Burges, Ph. D.
Investigations and interviews with criminals, the idea of the books Sexual Homicide: Standards and Reasons and Crime Classification Manual was born, written by John E. Douglas and on which the Netflix series Mindhunter is based, on which FBI agents John and Robert are represented. by characters Holden Ford and Bill Tench, and psychologist Ann Wolbert for Wendy.
Throughout mindhunter’s first season, a mysterious character appears in several episodes, due to his incredible resemblance and criminal method, we realized that it was Dennis Rader, who killed 10 people in 20 years and was not arrested until 2005. how this story will unfold in the coming seasons.
However, there is one character who marks the first season of Mindhunter: Ed Kemper. He was the first interviewee by Holden, masterfully played by Cameron Britton. Also known as the “high school killer,” Kemper murdered more than 10 people, including his grandparents, mother and one of his friends.
Ed loved to talk and give interviews. Thanks to this, it was possible to know his modus operandi and understand why he killed, his great insecurity in establishing relationships with other women and the difficult relationship with his mother triggered the sadism present in him.
Richard Benjamin Speck is another of the terrifying killers reflected in the series, he could be considered a mass murderer and not a serial killer because he committed several murders at the same time and in the same place and shocked American society by killing eight nursing students. on a night at a college dorm in Chicago.
Ben Miller is known as the bra killer. He was arrested for the murder of at least four women between 1967 and 1968, after taking them to his private garage, killed them, created scenarios with their bodies and then photographed them, inspired by advertisements and images of popular culture at the time. The shoe scene is probably the most surreal of all the officers’ encounters with criminals.
If one thing is clear in this first season is that there are certain characteristics that are repeated with some frequency between criminals and serial killers, this does not mean that a person of these characteristics can commit a crime, but if he presents with an antisocial tendency, it increases the likelihood that the person will become a criminal.
Of course, the environment influences, but many of the killers depicted in the series were already cruel from a very young time, we know that they tortured animals, beat their brothers or exhibited disturbing behaviors at school.
These data suggest that psychopathy, as many psychiatrists and psychologists argue, is innate. Data obtained using neuroimaging techniques seem to support the theory that, in these people’s brains, the link between emotions and decisions is weaker.