Former FBI Agent Explains Criminal Profiling | Tradecraft | WIRED
Summary
TLDRThe video explores the intricate process of criminal profiling, focusing on how a combination of genetics, personality, psychology, and life experiences can shape a serial killer. Jim Clemente, a retired FBI profiler, details how behavioral analysis is used to identify and apprehend violent criminals by reverse-engineering crimes. Through real-world cases, like the D.C. Sniper and others, he illustrates how analyzing victimology, crime scenes, and offender behavior helps determine the 'who' and 'why' behind heinous acts, offering crucial insights into the minds of killers.
Takeaways
- 🔬 Criminal behavior is influenced by a combination of genetics, psychology, and life experiences.
- 👮♂️ Jim Clemente is a retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent and Profiler who specialized in hunting serial killers, rapists, and child abductors.
- 📚 Early FBI profilers developed their expertise by interviewing convicted serial killers to understand their motivations and criminal patterns.
- 🧠 Criminal profiling is essentially reverse engineering a crime by examining victimology, crime scene, and offender behavior.
- 📍 Victimology provides insights into why a specific victim was chosen, and the crime location reveals the offender's risk tolerance and planning.
- 🔪 The choice of weapons and the organization level at the crime scene helps identify the type of offender (organized vs. disorganized).
- 🕵️♂️ Offender pre- and post-crime behaviors, such as surveillance and changes in behavior, offer clues to their identity.
- 🛑 Profiling involves recognizing the offender’s level of criminal sophistication, which is revealed through their ability to cover their tracks or their impulsiveness.
- 🎯 In some cases, like the DC Sniper, profiling helped identify that two offenders were involved, breaking traditional patterns of lone snipers.
- 🔍 Criminal Behavioral Analysis has been successful in generating leads for law enforcement, even when no initial suspects are known.
Q & A
What role do genetics and experiences play in creating a serial killer?
-Both genetics and experiences play significant roles in creating a serial killer. Genetics can predispose someone to have the potential to become a killer, while experiences, combined with personality and psychology, shape how they act on that potential.
What is the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) and what role does it play in criminal investigations?
-The Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) is part of the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. It studies violent and sexual crimes to assist law enforcement by providing behavioral insights where traditional forensic methods fail. They help profile offenders by analyzing how, why, and where crimes are committed.
How did the early FBI profilers gather information about serial killers?
-The original FBI profilers, such as John Douglas and Robert Ressler, conducted in-depth interviews with convicted serial killers in prisons. They asked about their crimes, personal histories, and psychological states, helping to build a body of knowledge about their behaviors and motives.
What is victimology, and why is it important in criminal profiling?
-Victimology is the study of the victim's life, habits, and routines. It helps profilers understand why a specific victim was chosen by the offender, which can reveal important details about the offender’s preferences, skills, and motivations.
What does the organization level of a crime tell us about the offender?
-The organization level refers to how planned or impulsive a crime is. Organized offenders plan ahead, bring the necessary tools, and often clean up after the crime, showing higher criminal sophistication. Disorganized offenders act impulsively, often leaving evidence behind and not planning the crime in advance.
Why might a criminal choose a victim in a high-risk lifestyle versus a low-risk lifestyle?
-Offenders with lower skill levels may target victims in high-risk lifestyles, such as drug users or prostitutes, because these individuals are easier to access. More sophisticated criminals may target victims in secure environments, such as their homes, requiring greater skill to execute the crime.
How can pre- and post-offense behaviors help identify an offender?
-Pre-offense behaviors include surveillance or stalking the victim, while post-offense behaviors may involve changes like leaving town or acting differently. These behaviors can provide critical clues about the offender’s mindset and actions before and after the crime.
In the provided case example, why is it significant that the drugs and money were left at the crime scene?
-The fact that the drugs and money were left behind suggests the crime was not drug-related. This detail indicates the offender was either immature, inexperienced, or emotionally driven, as they did not think to search for or take valuable items.
What was the profile developed for the D.C. Sniper case, and how did it differ from typical sniper profiles?
-The profile for the D.C. Sniper case identified two snipers, one older and one younger, both African American, with police or military training. This differed from the typical profile of a lone, older white male sniper with a grudge against society.
What is the significance of the 'God complex' in snipers, and how does it influence their behavior?
-Snipers often have a 'God complex,' seeing themselves as omnipotent because they take lives from afar, feeling superior. This mindset influences their behavior, making them strategic and calculating, but they may also seek to taunt or challenge authorities, as seen in the D.C. Sniper case.
Outlines
🧠 Nature, Nurture, and Serial Killers
This paragraph discusses the debate about nature vs. nurture in the development of serial killers. It emphasizes that a combination of genetics, personality, psychology, and life experiences contributes to violent behavior. Jim Clemente, a retired FBI profiler, introduces himself and explains the role of the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) in investigating violent crimes when forensics fall short. Profiling helps determine the motive and identity of criminals by analyzing how crimes were committed.
📚 The Origins of FBI Profiling
Here, Clemente explains the history of criminal profiling at the FBI, highlighting how early profilers like John Douglas and Robert Ressler gained insight into the minds of serial killers through interviews with notorious criminals such as Ed Kemper, David Berkowitz, and Ted Bundy. These interviews revealed key psychological factors, such as abusive family dynamics and sexual frustration, that motivated these killers. This institutional knowledge helps modern profilers better understand offenders' behaviors.
🔍 Reverse Engineering Crime
This section delves into the methods used by criminal profilers to 'reverse engineer' crimes. They analyze victimology, crime scenes, and offender behavior to create a profile of the suspect. Factors like how victims are chosen, where crimes occur, and the type of weapons used offer insights into the offender's skills, mindset, and emotional state. The difference between organized and disorganized offenders is also discussed, with organized offenders planning meticulously and leaving little evidence, while disorganized offenders act impulsively and leave more clues behind.
🏠 High Risk vs. Low Risk Crimes
The focus shifts to how an offender’s choice of victims reflects their criminal sophistication. Organized criminals target victims in low-risk environments like their homes, while less sophisticated offenders prey on vulnerable people like prostitutes and drug addicts. Clemente also discusses pre- and post-offense behaviors, such as surveillance and how offenders might flee the area after committing a crime. These behaviors offer further clues about the offender's mindset and potential whereabouts.
🔫 A Double Homicide Profile
This paragraph presents a detailed analysis of a double homicide involving a male and pregnant female victim. Clemente hypothesizes that the male victim was a 'practical kill' to get him out of the way, while the female was the primary target, likely due to jealousy or a love triangle. He analyzes the crime scene, concluding that despite drug trafficking activity, this wasn't a drug-related hit. Instead, the offender was likely immature, panicked, and left forensic evidence behind, indicating a lack of criminal sophistication.
🖋 Crime Scene Clues and Staging
Clemente highlights the unusual detail of letters scrawled by the male victim before dying, possibly as a clue or as staged evidence. He outlines the importance of determining whether this message is authentic or fabricated to mislead investigators. The overall disorganized nature of the crime, including leaving behind forensic evidence, further suggests that the offender lacked sophistication and likely panicked after the murders.
🚨 D.C. Sniper Case: A Profile
Clemente introduces the infamous D.C. Sniper case, detailing how the randomness of the victims initially indicated a spree killing. However, the meticulous planning and execution led investigators to profile a highly organized offender, likely with police or military experience. The profile focused on the sniper's 'God complex,' his calmness under pressure, and how taunting law enforcement led to further violence. A Tarot card left by the sniper revealed clues about his identity and motives.
👥 Sniper Team Theory and Arrest
In this segment, Clemente explains how profiling in the D.C. Sniper case shifted from a lone white male to a theory of an older African American male controlling a younger partner, possibly through sexual victimization. This groundbreaking profile was crucial to the eventual arrest of John Muhammad and Lee Malvo. Clemente highlights the complexity of their relationship and how it challenged previous assumptions about sniper profiles.
🎯 Profiling Success and Case Resolution
The final paragraph emphasizes how the accurate profile of Muhammad and Malvo led to their capture within 24 hours of its release. Clemente reflects on how the D.C. Sniper case redefined profiling, as it contradicted typical sniper characteristics. Criminal Behavioral Analysis, as shown in this case, proves valuable in solving crimes by determining the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind an offender’s actions, ultimately leading to their identification and arrest.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Nature vs. Nurture
💡Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU)
💡Criminal Profiling
💡Victimology
💡Organized vs. Disorganized Offender
💡Pre- and Post-Offense Behavior
💡Criminal Sophistication
💡Jealousy
💡Forensic Evidence
💡DC Sniper Case
Highlights
Nature and nurture both play a role in creating a serial killer: genetics load the gun, personality and psychology aim it, and life experiences pull the trigger.
The Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) of the FBI studies violent and sexual crimes, providing insights that assist law enforcement in tracking offenders when forensics fail.
The original FBI profilers gained knowledge by interviewing convicted serial killers in prison, learning about their backgrounds, feelings, and how they carried out their crimes.
From interviews with killers like Ed Kemper, David Berkowitz, and Ted Bundy, profilers learned about the complex motivations behind their crimes, including abusive childhoods, sexual frustration, and sadism.
Criminal profiling involves reverse engineering a crime by analyzing victimology, crime scenes, and offender behavior, leading to insights about the kind of person who committed the crime.
Victimology is crucial in profiling as it reveals why a particular victim was targeted, providing clues about the offender’s desires, skills, and psychology.
The location of a crime offers vital information about the offender’s sophistication, risk tolerance, and ability to evade detection.
The weapon choice in a crime scene can provide critical insights into the offender's personality—whether they distance themselves with a gun or engage up close with a knife.
Offenders range between organized and disorganized, with organized offenders planning and fantasizing about crimes, and disorganized ones acting impulsively, often leaving behind forensic evidence.
Criminal sophistication is evident in how offenders handle pre and post-offense behavior, such as stalking victims or making excuses to leave the area after the crime.
In a double homicide case involving drug trafficking victims, the absence of stolen drugs or money suggested immaturity and lack of criminal experience in the offender.
The letters scrawled in grease by the male victim in the crime scene might provide a clue, though the analysis has to determine if it’s a genuine message or staged by the offender.
A low level of forensic sophistication is indicated when the offender leaves behind physical evidence, such as weapons, which may be found in nearby dumpsters or hidden poorly.
The Washington D.C. Sniper case involved spree killings, where the randomness of the victimology and the sniper’s ability to remain unseen suggested a highly trained and experienced individual.
In a groundbreaking profile, the FBI determined the snipers in the D.C. case were not a lone white male, as previous profiles suggested, but a duo—a mid-40s military-trained African American man and a younger accomplice.
Transcripts
- People often ask whether it's nature or nurture
that creates a serial killer.
Well it's actually both, and more.
I like to say that genetics loads the gun,
personality and psychology aim it,
and your experiences pull the trigger.
Your genetics give you the potentiality to be a killer,
but your personality and psychology are the filter
through which you experience, and they can shade
how you come away from any event in your life.
[upbeat music]
I'm Jim Clemente, I'm a retired FBI Supervisory
Special Agent and Profiler in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
As a profiler, my job was to hunt down child abductors,
serial rapists, and serial killers.
We help out where forensics fail.
If we look at how the crime was committed,
that leads us to why the crime was committed,
and that leads us to who committed the crime.
The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit is part
of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime,
and as such, we study all violent and sexual crimes
across this country, and much of it around the world,
so that we can then train law enforcement
so that they can get the benefit
of our research in our training.
The original FBI profilers, Degall, John Douglas,
Roy Hazlewood, Robert Ressler, Pete Semerak,
they gained this body of knowledge
by actually going into prisons
and interviewing convicted serial killers.
They interview them in great detail about what they did,
and also how they grew up and how they felt
during the entire time that they were killing people,
developing this criminal expertise,
and that they were getting away with these crimes.
For example, from Ed Kemper, they learned that he had
a very difficult relationship with his mother,
so he started killing surrogates in place of her,
and then he killed his mother.
David Berkowitz showed how sexual frustration
can be taken out on innocent people
on the streets of New York.
From Ted Bundy, they learned that he was a sexual sadist,
that he got off on causing and witnessing the pain
and suffering of others.
But he did that many times by using his psychopathic charm
to lure in victims, and he feigned injury
so that it was the people who wanted to help him
that he ended up killing.
So now we have an amazing volume of institutional knowledge
about these offenders, and it tells us how they killed
and why they killed, and it helps us to hunt them down.
Criminal profiling is basically reverse engineering a crime.
We look at the victimology, the choice of the victims.
We look at the crime scene,
we look at the organization level,
and then pre-imposed events behavior, and together
all those things tell us the kind of person
who committed the crime.
Victimology is the study of the victim,
their life, their desires, their education,
their daily routine, because an offender picks
a particular victim, at a particular place,
at a particular time, an imparticular manner
for a particular purpose, and all those choices
leak out information about the offender,
about their skills and abilities, about their desires,
and they can lead us right back to the offender.
The crime location can tell us a lot.
Did the crime occur on a farm in the middle of Iowa
where the only potential witnesses
are a bunch of cows and pigs?
Or did it happen in New York City's Times Square,
where at any given moment there may be
50 to 100,000 potential eye witnesses.
Pulling off a crime in either of those locations
tells you a lot about the offender.
At the crime scene, we look at the offender's behavior,
how much time did they spend there?
What was their interaction with the victims?
And what was their criminal sophistication level?
The choice of weapons that an offender uses at a crime scene
reveals a tremendous amount of information about them.
Did the offender use a gun
and kill somebody from a distance?
Or did they get up close and personal and use a knife?
That's a different kind of person
who typically is engaged in different kinds
of profession than somebody who will not
get up close and personal.
Next we look at the offender's organization level.
The two types of offenders that we see
are on a spectrum between organized and disorganized.
The organized offender will plan it in events,
fantasize about committing the crime,
and then bring all the implements necessary
to commit the crime, and then take them away with him
after the crime.
Whereas the disorganized offender is impulsive,
they don't plan the crimes out in events.
They may have lowered inhibitions
because of drug or alcohol use, and they basically pick up
the implements along the way, and may leave them behind,
leaving a lot of forensic evidence
for law enforcement to find.
If an offender doesn't have a very high skill level
in terms of getting access to victims,
they'll pick victims who lead very high risk lives,
prostitutes and drug addicts,
whereas a very sophisticated offender
will be able to acquire victims in the privacy
and security of their own homes.
It takes a much different level of criminal sophistication
to be able to accomplish those two different crimes.
The next level of criminal behavioral analysis
is looking at pre and post-offense behavior.
If they're organized offenders,
they probably did pre-offense surveillance
to check out the location, maybe even surveil
potential victims and stalk them.
Also we find that offenders, after they commit
a serious criminal offense, they'll have behavioral changes
that people around them might see.
For example, if an offender has committed
an abduction and murder, they would likely leave the area,
making up an excuse, an emergency, to get out of town,
and they wouldn't return until everything calmed down
and they felt that it was safe to come back.
Building a profile is simply taking
all of those five factors and looking at
what information the offender leaks out
by behaving in those particular ways.
When I analyze a crime scene,
I look at various types of evidence, some of which
we have here, pictures inside the house
where the crime occurred, crime scene photographs,
autopsy pictures, as well as an affidavit
summarizing the facts of the case
and the crime scene description.
Typically I'd like to ask a lot more questions
and get much more data, but I think we have enough,
at least now, to start a preliminary profile.
So I'm looking at a case of a double homicide
of a male and female.
The male appears to be in his early 20s,
he was shot about five times.
He has an unknown relationship to the female victim,
who appears to have been pregnant, and she was shot
seven to eight times in her face and head and upper torso.
It also appears that the male
may have scrawled in grease several letters.
He's found on the floor of the backroom buy the backdoor.
She's found in a room next to it, half hanging off the bed
with her head on a couch that's pushed up
right next to the bed.
It appears that she was first shot
while she was laying on her back on the bed,
and that she either rolled over to try to get away,
or was flipped over by someone and shot again,
where she died in place.
My first impressions are that the male victim
was killed first, that he was a practical kill
to get him out of the way, whereas the female victim
was shot multiple times in the chest,
and at least once in the face, and another time in the head.
She appears to be the main target of this attack.
So if we start with victimology,
we know that the first victim, the male,
grew up in this town and had left town
for several years and came back.
He's got no known criminal history,
yet, in this house, $11,000 in cash was found,
three and a half pounds of marijuana was found,
and powdery substance that appeared to be drugs
was also found.
That tells me that they were engaged
in a high risk activity, drug trafficking.
But, the fact that the drugs and the money were left behind
tells me there's a high probability
that this was not a drug related hit.
I believe that if drug dealers were involved in this,
they would've taken the drugs
and they would've taken the cash.
This tells me there's a level of immaturity
in this offender, somebody who didn't
have the presence of mind to search for these things,
or didn't even think that they might be there.
I would put the intelligence level
of the offender at mid to low because they made
a flimsy attempt at cleaning up after themselves.
That could also mean that their inhibitions were diminished
by drugs or alcohol.
Something that's particularly unusual in this crime scene
is the letters that are scrawled on the floor,
apparently by the male victim with grease
that was squirted onto the floor.
They attempt, it appears to spell out a name, J-F-F,
and then under that, B-O-P-E,
sort of a last dying declaration.
This could indicate either a person or some kind of motive.
As a Criminal Behavioral Analyst, I wanna determine
whether this is an actual message
that was left by the dying male, or whether this is staging
in order to misdirect investigators.
So I'd like to know if he had grease
on one or more of his hands or fingers,
and whether or not he was left handed or right handed,
and whether or not that was the hand
that had the grease on it.
The organization level of this crime is fairly low,
even though the offender brought the gun he used
to commit the murders with him,
he left forensic evidence behind.
Now that tells me he doesn't have
a very high level of forensic or criminal sophistication.
When we look at pre-imposed offense behavior,
since it doesn't look like
he's very criminally sophisticated, this could be
one of the only times he committed a crime like this,
and I believe that he may have gone into a panic afterwards.
I would think that somewhere between
where he committed these crimes and where he went,
you would find the weapon in a dumpster, a body of water,
or a place he thought it would be hidden.
I would also expect somebody like that
to make an excuse to either leave the area
or leave town for a period of time
til everything calms down.
So in this case, I believe that how the victims were killed
tells us a story.
I believe he was a practical kill
and she was the target of this double homicide.
Also the fact that she was pregnant may indicate
that the why was jealousy and that there was another person,
sort of a love triangle here,
and that the person responsible was the third person
in this love triangle, or a family member.
In the D.C. Sniper Case, the entire Washington D.C. area
was terrorized for 23 days.
A number of random people were shot and killed or injured.
It turns out, this was a longer spree
that had started in the state of Washington
and spanned the entire country.
So I became involved in the case
because I was working in the Behavioral Analysis Unit
at the time and we consulted on the investigation.
Immediately this case presented
as if it were a spree killer, six murders
in the space of 27 hours.
So we didn't think he was targeting
a particular type of group,
the victimology was completely random.
Typically in spree cases, the offender is on the run
and commits murder after murder after murder,
but decompensates over that time, the rush of adrenaline
and the excitement and the fear of getting away,
all those things can cause an offender
to make more mistakes as time goes on,
but in this case that wasn't happening.
The shootings themselves indicated
that there was pre-attack surveillance.
This offender planned and executed six murders
within the space of 27 hours, and was a ghost.
No one even saw him.
That told us right away that he had
a certain level of calm, cool, and collectedness,
that he was probably in his mid to late 40s,
and had police or military training.
But more than that, he must've actually had experience,
on the streets as a police officer, or on the battlefield.
Because pulling the trigger on a paper target is one thing,
but taking the life of an unknown individual
is a whole nother matter.
So when we started the profile,
we based it only on statistics,
and statistically snipers are in their 40s or 50s,
white males, and they have a grudge against society
or somebody in particular
that they take out on their victims.
Another thing about snipers is that they have a God complex.
They wanna take life from afar and above
so they can feel omnipotent, like God.
And because of that, it's very important
to appease them and not challenge them.
Unfortunately, that's not what law enforcement
was doing at the time.
They called them a coward and they said the streets are safe
and the schools are safe, so the sniper shot a kid
walking into school the next day.
But they left a Tarot card, the death card,
and on that card there was indications of duality.
First of all it said, "Call me God,"
which reinforced our opinion
that the sniper had a God complex, and it went on to say,
"This is for you, Mr. Police," and that looks as though
the writer is looking up to the police,
calling them Mr. Police.
It also has it's origins in a number of reggae songs,
so that could mean that the offender
had a Caribbean influence.
But then it said, "Do not release to the press."
And press is an older word, something that older people use,
which is consistent with the level of sophistication
of planning and executing these crimes,
but not consistent with looking up to the police.
So for the first time, we had to consider
whether this offender was calm, cool, and collected
when he plans and executes his murders,
but he decompinsates when he's writing, or,
for the first time in US history, we have a sniper team.
One older, in his mid 40s, and one younger, in his teens.
But the fact is that we know that because snipers
have a God complex, they don't work well together.
So I theorized that the older one
was actually controlling the younger one,
and I went as far as saying that he may be controlling him
through sexual victimization because that would give him
complete control over the younger person.
In fact, 10 years after they were caught and convicted,
Malvo disclosed that Muhammad
had been sexually victimizing him the whole time.
So in the end, our profile was that of two snipers
working together, both African American,
one in his mid 40s having police or military training
and experience, one in his teens.
Once we released that profile and because of other work
that the FBI was doing parallel that reinforced our profile,
Muhammad and Malvo were arrested within 24 hours.
Developing the profile in the DC Sniper case
was groundbreaking because in the vast majority
of previous sniper cases in the United States of America,
they were committed by lone offenders
who were white, male, who were in their 40s or 50s,
with a particular grudge, and this case
blew that profile to pieces.
As Criminal Behavioral Analysts,
we look at how the offender committed the crime,
and determine why they committed the crime,
and that leads us to who committed the crime.
In many of these cases, local law enforcement
has absolutely no idea who committed the crime and no leads,
but Criminal Behavioral Analysis can generate leads
as to the type of person who committed the crime,
and in many cases across the country,
Criminal Behavioral Analysis has lead
to the identification, arrest,
and conviction of the offenders.
[upbeat music]
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