Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer

Police are hunting a mass murderer believed

to have killed as many as 21 prostitutes.

Police have been trying to find

a man they call the Green River Killer.

We knew that we, at that time, had a serial murderer on our hands.

In the late '80s, there was a new breed of serial killer.

It wasn't until last March

that investigators began linking the cases

as the so-called Happy Face Killer.

These were killers that were more sophisticated.

They were contacting the media.

The man who calls himself the BTK Killer...

Letters claiming responsibility

were sent by a man who referred to himself

by the initials BTK.

We were looking at males and females

that might be murdered, and children.

They're not killing for the same reasons

that the early serial killers that we studied were.

Behavioral Science, Ressler.

The word got out that we were doing profiling.

We were just besieged with cases.

Approximately 300-a-year profile requests are coming in now.

They are coming in faster than we really can manage it.

We were somewhat limited 'cause we didn't have a lot of profilers.

I think the numbers are getting a little out of control.

We turne a lot of them away.

A string of disappearances, rapes, and murders...

Cases weren't being looked at.

They were just being put on a shelf.

It's so dangerous. I mean, these are people that are killing.

We should be doing a better job.

In the late '80s,

one of the things that the team realized

was that, to a degree, they had built profiling for themselves.

Dr. Burgess wanted to advance profiling

so that it could be this tool that was really applicable

to law enforcement as a whole.

European attendees asking for additional information...

We wanted to train law enforcement to use this tool.

We had to publish.

With Ann's input, I can see a publication taking place here

that would be used within law enforcement circles.

I hoped this research would make a difference.

The obsessions, the fantasies.

I would not allow myself to walk into even a potential trap.

I keep craving something which is harder and harder.

The organized, disorganized...

Two separate personality types.

Somebody wants somebody bad enough,

it's nearly impossible to prevent it.

To try to chunk down that whole process

by studying the people that are doing it.

The classification based on what they did at the scene,

more likely to live alone, live near the scene of the crime.

You're dealing with a guy who is not your introverted, weird loner.

A good number of these individuals are

in the bright, very superior group.

All of that material was published

in an academic book called Sexual Homicide.

For me and for the whole team, it was huge.

Huge breakthrough.

We're teaching in courses all over the country,

information that has come from our efforts thus far.

The program started to really expand.

There are now 29 known victims

of the Green River Killer.

The local police turned to a special FBI unit

for help with the case

FBI was notoriously a one-way street.

We don't give you anything.

And then the Behavioral Science Unit comes along,

and all of a sudden they're not only gathering information,

but they're coming back to you to help solve crimes.

We have used the Behavioral Sciences Unit

that the FBI has established at Quantico, Virginia.

It's really a teamwork, but profiling has become

a key tool for law enforcement.

The information helped law enforcement investigate

these crimes and catch killers.

Authorities arrested 59-year-old Dennis Rader

for BTK's eight murders.

The arrest of one of the country's

most prolific serial killers.

Keith Jesperson says he wants

to make a full confession for his crimes

as the so-called Happy Face Killer.

Green River Killer Gary Ridgway confessed

to killing 48 women.

I think there's not any doubt, uh,

that there probably would've been more.

So, good work by all these agencies.

For the first time, we had a profiler working

in almost every state,

and we were clearing more cases than we ever had before.

With the help of Ann Burgess

we could play the chess game a little bit better

and get him maybe...

A couple of victims sooner than we would have gotten him in the past.

Robert Ressler has made a career

out of tracking and apprehending

some of our nation's most violent serial killers.

He was a consultant on the book

which was the basis for the movie Silence of the Lambs.

What I wanted to ask you about first was the movie.

-Did you like it? -I thought it was a tremendous movie.

In the movie, Douglas was played by actor Scott Glenn.

-Good morning. -Morning, Mr. Crawford.

Douglas and Ressler were quick to write their books,

and they were quick to consult on TV shows

and to share their story in whatever ways possible.

Really to do the job effectively, you really have to...

He inspired TV shows...

It was interesting talking with Ann

about why her story had remained hidden.

She didn't really wanna take on the sort of cultural mystique

like a bunch of the other agents had wanted to.

She always had a behind-the-curtain quality,

partly because of her own style

of being not particularly self-promoting.

Dr. Burgess has been doing this work

with the BSU for over a decade now,

and she's starting to rethink

how she can best continue her pursuit

of being in service to victims.

Most of the agents that I had worked with had retired.

I wanted to move on. I was ready to move on.

It just seemed the right thing to do.

Oh, the turkeys are here.

I've gotta feed 'em.

I felt it was the right time...

but I didn't know what I was gonna do next.

I had my own career, certainly, in nursing,

so that was all going on.

As an academic, I had to be into new areas,

write grants, get published.

She has expressed that it felt a little like,

let me step back...

take a breath,

examine my surroundings

and see in what other way can I put this work to use.

One day, a defense attorney called me

and asked me if I had heard about this case

out of Los Angeles.

And I had not.

And so, he tells me to go down to the local store

and pick up a copy of People magazine.

And I said, "Oh,

this is now gonna be my reading material on cases?"

I've heard of very few murders

that were more savage than this one was.

No signs of a break-in or a burglary.

Only the bodies of entertainment executive Jose Menéndez

and his wife Kitty in the family TV room.

Jose Menéndez was shot five times,

a fatal wound through the back of the head into the brain.

His wife Kitty was unrecognizable.

Four separate shots in the head and face,

six in her arms, chest, hips, legs.

Their sons, Erik and Lyle, said they found the bodies,

but new evidence ranging from records of the family psychologist

to a movie script about a rich kid who kills his parents

now indicates the brothers did it.

They killed their wealthy parents.

Lyle and Erik Menéndez were arraigned yesterday

on charges they murdered their parents

to inherit a $14 million estate.

It was a high-profile case,

and I had never done a defense case before.

The prosecution saying this was for money wasn't adding up.

There had to be something else,

so I agreed to go out,

at least to meet with them.

When I met with Erik, that was the first time

that I was actually in the room with a killer.

I'm looking at somebody that killed his mother and his father.

He was likable.

I mean, we could talk about sports and tennis

and, you know, everything except the crime.

I needed to know exactly what happened

and also to understand why they did it.

I was wondering how he was gonna be able to talk about it...

and that's what I decided to use the drawings,

because that would give him something concrete

to be able to focus on.

He wouldn't have to be looking directly at me

to talk about the situation.

We spent a whole day on the drawings.

This is the very first one that really gave me an inkling

of heart of the motive.

The father looking very large,

compared to this little teeny Erik.

Erik wanted to go away to college

and the father said, "No, you're not going to.

"You're gonna come home.

I want you home during the week to sleep here."

It gave me an idea of how controlling the father was.

That was the start of the week that escalated.

Something happened that really set into motion

that they had no other choice