Mind Games with Monsters

By ANASTASIA TOUFEXIS/QUANTICO

As the ghastly photographs are passed around the table, a police officer states the gruesome facts of each case: a 67-year-old white woman found tied up in her bathroom, her face beaten; a black woman, 55, lying in the hallway of her home, her head bashed in, apparently by a hammer; an 83-year-old white woman discovered on her bed, possibly smothered, her lower body nude . . . In all, 12 middle-aged and elderly women killed between 1985 and 1988, all of whom dwelled within a 2.6-sq-km (1-sq.-mi.) urban area.

Over two days, FBI agent Judson Ray guides and prods discussion with questions and comments: "Why so many loops in the rope? You don't need that many to control an old woman . . . Why is she in the bathroom? It's a closed- in space -- is he after security, or is he secretive? And why is a pillow in there -- to muffle her or to make her comfortable for sex? . . . Were the cuts on the body made before or after she died? Did she die on him, and he's mad at her? . . . Are any of these cases related? . . . What kind of person are we looking for?"

Watching the FBI's behavioral-science unit actually at work is a far cry from seeing it depicted in the current hit thriller The Silence of the Lambs. In the film, agent trainee Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster, matches wits and quips with toothsome terror Hannibal ("the Cannibal") Lecter and chases down molting madman Buffalo Bill, right into his creepy lair. In real life, behavioral-science agents remain largely deskbound at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., hunkered down in a windowless converted bomb shelter 18 m (60 ft.) below ground. But the film is right on target in one major respect: few people are as adept at entering the mind games of society's monsters as are the members of the unit.

That ability comes from experience. This year the unit, known more formally as the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, will assist law- enforcement officials on more than 1,000 cases. These are not typical assaults but the most savage, perverse or bizarre offenses, ranging from serial killings, rapes and child abductions to arson, bombings and product tampering. "We see the worst of the worst," says agent Kenneth Lanning.

The unit also draws on formal research. In the past decade it has interviewed scores of incarcerated sexual killers, serial rapists, sexual sadists and child molesters, analyzing and classifying their behavior so that future cases might be cracked more swiftly. Such research has led Lanning to conclude, for instance, that there are two distinct categories (and seven subtypes) of child molesters. "About 90% are what we call situational molesters," he says. "They have no real sexual preference for children and have relatively few victims apiece. They may turn to a youngster because an adult woman isn't available." The remaining 10%, he says, have a true sexual preference for children, and each may have victimized hundreds of youngsters. To catch an offender, Lanning stresses, "it's important to know which you're dealing with. They have different patterns of behavior."

In fact, to the unit, how a crime is committed is much more revealing than why. In doing criminal investigative analysis, more popularly known as profiling, agents pore over police reports, autopsy and laboratory results, maps, sketches and photographs of the crime scene. They rarely visit the scene itself. "Police with a suspect in mind may become biased in interpreting information," says agent John Douglas, who heads the profiling branch. "We don't want to be emotionally slanted." Especially important in understanding the criminal is gathering information about the victim. "A profile depends on there being interaction between the offender and victim," observes agent Peter Smerick. "If it's not there, there isn't much we can do." Analysts scrutinize a detailed work-up of the victim that includes physical characteristics, preferred clothing, sexual habits, likely response to an approach by a stranger and reaction during an attack. With that information, they reconstruct the sequence of events before, during and after the crime.

Smerick provides an example of how the process can work: in one rape-murder, the victim was a 22-year-old, blue-eyed blond secretary who lived in a racially mixed middle-class community. She was happily married, did not smoke or drink, and had a pleasant, unassertive personality. She was found tied to her bed's headboard with the cord cut from a water mattress's heater. A washcloth was stuffed in her mouth, and she was blindfolded with her own sweatshirt. Her blouse was ripped open, and she was nude from the waist down. She had been raped and sodomized, and several objects had been inserted into her vagina. She had been stabbed to death with a knife from the kitchen. A pubic hair found under the victim identified the attacker as black.

The unit's analysis: that the assailant made no attempt to cover up the victim meant he had no respect for her, no remorse and wished to shock whoever found her. Placing objects inside her was another way of humiliating his victim, but since they were inserted after her death, the rapist was not motivated by sadism. The attacker was able to perform sexually; possibly he had successful relationships with women. No money was stolen, and easily salable items like the TV and VCR were left behind, indicating that he had a source of income. She was tied very tightly, suggesting that her attacker was strong, possibly a laborer. There were no signs that he washed up after the attack in either the bathroom or kitchen; therefore he probably lived or worked within walking distance. This also suggested he may have known the victim at least by sight.

A vital clue was the fact that the victim was bound and killed with items found in the apartment. This showed that the rapist was inexperienced -- someone, perhaps, in his early 20s. Most likely his initial intent was rape, not murder. He blindfolded his victim and may have chosen to kill her because the blindfold slipped. Still, despite his inexperience, there were no signs of panic, though he took great risks in attacking on a Sunday during the day. He remained coolly in control, deliberating and improvising as he went along. In short, the killer was young, highly intelligent, probably with a high school education, and possessed of a confident manner. The police eventually arrested a 175-cm, 7.3-kg (5-ft. 9-in., 160-lb.) black male who was physically strong, very bright and macho, worked in a fast-food restaurant and had been staying with his sister one building away from the victim. He was 15 years old.

"Mistaking age is no big deal," says Douglas, who notes that profiles indicate emotional, not chronological, age. "A big miss would be sex or race." Analysts will make an educated guess about race even in the absence of physical evidence. Generally, crime is intraracial, with whites preying on whites and blacks on blacks.

FBI agents take pains not to exaggerate the powers of profiling. "It's a myth that a profile always solves the case," cautions retired agent Robert Ressler, now a consultant to the unit. "It's not the magic bullet of investigations. It's simply another tool." Behavioral analysis can aid in other ways besides identifying a suspect. It can indicate what the offender might do after the crime: certain types of killers will return to where they disposed of the body; a remorseful murderer is likely to visit the victim's grave.

Profiling can also help find new evidence. Sexual killers often take a souvenir or trophy from their victim, perhaps a piece of jewelry, which they keep to feed their fantasies or give to a girlfriend or mother. Some child molesters maintain extensive kiddie-pornography collections, including photographs and videotapes of themselves in sex acts with their victims. Says agent James Wright: "If you can find the porn collection, it nails down the conviction."

Do films like The Silence of the Lambs (and articles like this one) help criminals learn the unit's tricks of the trade? Probably so, but unit members are not too worried. Much of behavior -- criminal or not -- is automatic, the result of the way a person thinks. "For many of these people, fantasy consumes their lives," observes Wright. "They follow their own scripts." Rewriting them is difficult, no matter how much they might know about the FBI.