Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters

by Peter Vronsky

  When the police arrived at the house, they found an elderly couple living there. The husband was an electrician by trade. The soldier in Alabama was their son and they frequently talked on the phone. The profile and the record of the elderly man, other than his being an electrician, made him an unlikely suspect. Moreover, when the murders had occurred, the couple had been visiting their son in Alabama. They had no idea how their son’s number could have ended up on the same pad from which came the sheet of paper that Shari had written her death letter on.

  The disappointed police officers were almost ready to leave when they tried one more thing. They described to the couple the profile the FBI had drawn up of the hypothetical offender—did the couple know anybody who might fit the description?

  Both the man and the woman responded immediately; that was the description of Larry Gene Bell, an assistant electrician who often worked for the man. He was in his early thirties, heavyset, and divorced from his wife. He was a very neat and meticulous worker. When they were away in Alabama, Larry house-sat for them—as a matter of fact, the man remembered, he wrote down his son’s number in Alabama on Larry’s pad just in case he needed to get in touch with them. When they came back from Alabama, Bell picked them up at the airport. They were surprised by his physical appearance—he was unshaved, had lost some weight, and seemed highly agitated. All he wanted to talk about was the kidnapping of the Smith girl.

  A search of Bell’s apartment uncovered all manner of evidence linking him to the two girls. Witnesses who had seen the little girl kidnapped identified Bell as the culprit. Bell had numerous sexual offenses on his record, from several attempted kidnappings to making obscene phone calls. In 1986, he was sentenced to death.

  Once again, the profile was essential not so much for the police to identify the offender as for potential witnesses to point out a possible suspect. As elaborate and evolved as the profiling process is, in the overall picture it is only one component in many different investigative procedures applied to tracking a serial killer. These basic police procedures could be as complex as laboratory analysis or as routine as surveying a shopping center, but without them, the psychological profile has nowhere to go.

  The most valuable aspect of profiling is not that it identifies who the killer is, but helps in weeding out who it is not. Frequently police already have information on a killer’s identity but it is buried deep within masses of files, leads, and tips among other suspects. Profiling often helps police decide whom to look at first.

  Issues and Problems with the FBI System

  Many scientists challenge not only the reliability of the FBI’s two categorizations (three if you include “mixed”) but also whether those offender categories actually display the characteristics attributed to them. There simply have been not enough data or scientific tests to confirm the FBI’s system, which was first based on interviews with only thirty-six sexual murderers, not all of whom were serial killers.

  For example, the FBI asserts that organized offenders were “likely to change jobs or leave town” after committing a murder. A University of Detroit Mercy study of the data the FBI used revealed some problems with that assumption. As the FBI says, no disorganized killer in their study left town or changed jobs, but out of ninety-seven homicides by organized killers, only eleven killers left town and eight changed jobs—and presumably the eight job changers are included in the eleven who left town. This means that a profiler who suggests that an unknown killer who appears organized has changed jobs or left town would be wrong 89 percent of the time.217

  Since their introduction some two decades ago, the FBI’s profiling techniques have not been empirically substantiated by scientific testing methodology. One measure of scientific integrity is the ability of a hypothesis to survive attempts to disprove it—attempts to falsify it. This is a kind of reverse-engineering approach to scientific proof known as hypothetico deductivism. In his criticism of the scientific foundations of the FBI’s system of profiling, criminologist Damon A. Muller gives the example of water’s boiling temperature. By inductive reasoning, we assume that it is scientifically proven that water boils at 212°F because if we repeat this experiment thousands of times, water will always boil at that temperature.218 But we would be wrong. If you take water to a mountaintop at a higher altitude, it boils at a lower temperature. The boiling point of water depends on more complex issues than merely temperature. If instead of attempting to prove that water always boils at 212°F, we attempted to first disprove it, we would quickly emerge with a truer scientific assessment of the reliability of the hypothesis. Repeating the experiment thousands of times with the same result is not necessarily conclusive scientific proof. The ability of a hypothesis to survive disproval is a more reliable measure. For something to be scientific, it must present theories that are empirically testable—not just simply repeatable by experiment.

  While the process is simple for testing the behavior of water, how does one reverse-engineer human homicidal behavior—how does one falsify and test the FBI’s theories of fantasy underlying homicidal behavior, for example? The problem is that the FBI has not fully explained the psychological mechanics motivating the offenders it attempts to classify. For example, the FBI has not identified the process by which a killer becomes either organized or disorganized except to suggest that acute mental disorders are more often present in the disorganized murderer. The FBI sort of says, “It works, but we don’t know why it works.” FBI profilers have commented that they do not care why offenders do what they do; they are sufficiently satisfied with the investigative value of knowing what they do, without worrying about the whys.

  The FBI does not particularly want its profiling system to be scientifically systemized. Veteran profiler John Douglas states, “The key attribute necessary to be a good profiler is judgment—a judgment based not primarily on the analysis of facts and figures, but on instinct . . . Many, many factors come together in our evaluations, and ultimately, it comes down to the individual analyst’s judgments rather than any objective scale or test.”219

  Thus, according to Douglas, the FBI profiling system is not based on any systematically scientific approach, but ultimately on a subjective hunch of the profiler. One would not tolerate this kind of approach in other police sciences such as DNA testing, fingerprint identification, and ballistics testing. But often police departments turn to the FBI for assistance when they come to an investigative dead end and find themselves in a “nothing to lose” situation. The scientific veracity of FBI profiling, therefore, remains largely unchallenged. When the profiles are correct, the FBI is praised; when the profiles are wrong, well, “no harm done.”

  Gradually the FBI’s system of remote psychological profiling began coming under heavier scrutiny and criticism in the 1990s. On April 19, 1989, a gun turret mysteriously exploded, killing forty-seven crewmen on board the battleship USS Iowa. Navy investigators decided that Clayton Hartwig, one of the sailors who perished in the turret, deliberately caused the explosion. It was alleged that he was motivated by a frustrated homosexual fixation on a fellow crewman. The Navy Investigative Service (NIS) met with veteran FBI profilers John Douglas, Roy Hazelwood, and Richard Ault, asking them to conduct an “equivocal death analysis”—a type of psychological autopsy intended to determine a cause of death: Was the death accidental, suicide, or murder? This type of analysis works on the same principles and techniques as criminal profiling, from which it is almost indistinguishable other than that the subject is identified and often more is known about him than about an unknown killer.

  John Douglas felt uncomfortable with the data the navy was providing and declined to participate in profiling Hartwig. Hazelwood and Ault plunged ahead, a decision they would come to regret. Using only the information that the NIS provided them, as was standard procedure with other investigative agencies making such requests, Hazelwood and Ault concluded that Clayton Hartwig was:

  . . . a very troubled young man who had low self-esteem and coveted
power and authority he felt he could not possess. The real and perceived rejections of significant others emotionally devastated him. This combined with the inability to verbally express anger and faced with a multitude of stressors had he returned from the cruise, virtually ensured some type of reaction. In this case, in our opinion, it was a suicide. He did so in a place and manner designed to give him the recognition and respect that he felt was denied him.220

  Unlike police agencies, however, the navy subsequently issued a statement that the Iowa explosion was caused by the late Clayton Hartwig, and cited the FBI profile as primary evidence. Ault and Hazelwood made matters even worse when they testified to the veracity of their profile before both Senate and House committees reviewing the navy’s investigation of the explosion. John Douglas felt that Ault and Hazelwood botched the profile and worse, “We never testify to a profile. We use it as an investigative tool, and [Ault and Hazelwood] used it as tantamount to proof.”221

  After the navy released its conclusions, there were many skeptical critics of the investigation, from the Hartwig family to CBS’s 60 Minutes investigative news program. The sailor who was supposedly the subject of Hartwig’s fixation asserted that he and Hartwig were the “best of friends . . . I think he loved me as a brother, but nothing sexual or anything.” There were allegations asserting that the navy was scapegoating Hartwig to cover up technical problems with its battleships. The matter became of interest to Congress, and both House and Senate committees looked into the question. A House Investigations Subcommittee started to ask how the FBI profilers concluded that the sailor committed suicide without any surviving witnesses or physical evidence. On December 21, 1989, Hazelwood and Ault were called to testify before the committee about their profile and the methods and practices of the BSU. It was not going to be a good day for the two FBI agents.

  In opening the questioning that day, one of the congressmen stated, “Given the serious defects in the Navy investigation that we have uncovered in our previous hearing today’s testimony becomes even more crucial to the Navy’s case against Hartwig. If the psychological assessment compiled by the FBI is flawed, then exactly what is left with which to support its conclusions?” It was obviously the intention of the subcommittee to question the navy investigation by discrediting the BSU’s profile.222

  Hazelwood and Ault arrogantly insisted to the incredulous congressmen that their profile was always definitive; they did not qualify it on scales of probability. They either committed to a position or said they did not know. Their profile “could be used or discarded or discounted. That is simply our opinion.”

  Representative Les Aspin of Wisconsin asked, “You do not configure it as your job to put in qualifiers. The world is full of qualifiers, and you come down yes or no.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Ault.

  Another congressman asked whether the interviews on which the FBI profilers based their analysis were bias-controlled. Hazelwood and Ault rejected that as a technique in academic research. They were criminal investigators, not researchers, they explained. When it was mentioned that one expert in forensic psychology questioned the validity of some of the witness interviews submitted to the FBI profilers because they were not conducted by clinicians experienced in interviewing people under stress, Ault snapped back, “First of all, I certainly appreciate that wonderful academic approach to a practical problem. It is typical of what we find when we see people who have not had the experience of investigating either crime scenes, victims, criminals, and so forth in active, ongoing investigations. Second, in the real world, you just can’t work that way with the NIS. So, we have to take the information as we get it.”223

  Testifying before a Senate committee, Ault was asked if there was “any hard evidence, any evidence that would support the idea that Hartwig actually carried out this act”; he replied, “No, Sir, this opinion that we submitted is based on a half scientific, half art form.”

  After Hazelwood and Ault concluded their testimony, a panel of clinical psychologists and a psychiatrist tore the FBI profiling program apart like a pack of wild dogs: “The FBI report which has been discussed substantially here this morning is incorrect as to form, as I understand what psychologists are able to do . . . flawed in terms of failing to present in a candid fashion the limits of the science . . .”

  In its March 1990 report, the House committee was scathing in its dismissal of the BSU’s techniques:

  Unfortunately, if there was a single major fault in this investigation, it was the FBI system for producing the Equivocal Death Analysis. These documents, most commonly generated after orthodox police investigations have reached no conclusions, are invariably unequivocal in reaching a conclusion. The analysis contains no comment on probabilities, no qualifications and no statement of the limitations of a posthumous analysis in which the subject cannot be interviewed . . .

  Just as the FBI psychological analysis was key to the Navy investigation, so it was to the subcommittee inquiry. As a result, the subcommittee, using the professional services of the American Psychological Association, sought the opinions of 11 independent clinical licensed psychologists and one psychiatrist. Additionally, the subcommittee consulted independently with a psychiatrist and a psychologist who had some previous knowledge of this case. Ten of the 14 experts consulted considered the FBI analysis invalid. And even those who believed the analysis to be somewhat credible were critical of procedures, methodology, and the lack of a statement of the limitations of a retrospective analysis of this nature.

  The FBI psychological analysis procedures are of doubtful professionalism. The false air of certainty generated by the FBI analysis was probably the single major factor inducing the Navy to single out Clayton Hartwig as the likely guilty party . . . The procedures the FBI used in preparing the Equivocal Death Analysis were inadequate and unprofessional . . . The FBI agents’ Equivocal Death Analysis was invalidated by ten of fourteen professional psychologists and psychiatrists, and heavily criticized even by those professionals who found the Hartwig possibility plausible . . . The FBI should review its procedures and revise its Equivocal Death Analysis format to address probabilities and make clear to consumers of such reports their limitations and speculative nature.224

  Some press coverage took glee in portraying the BSU as unprofessional quacks. New York Daily News columnist Lars-Erik Nelson wrote, “Deep within the FBI there exists a unit of people who—without ever talking to you or anyone who knows you—are prepared to go into court and testify that you are a homicidal maniac.” He concluded with the hope that “any defense lawyer, any judge, any jury would laugh this kind of quack evidence out of court.” The Washington Post editorialized, “Long-distance personality analyses by experts who have never met the subject are almost always ludicrous. But when the subject is dead, cannot defend himself and is found to be guilty of a horrendous crime, opinions like this are deserving of contempt.”

  It was revealed by the FBI’s own testimony that they had used Equivocal Death Analysis in more than fifty cases but obtained “satisfactory results” in only three.225 The failures of profiling in general were dredged up. In Los Angeles in the mid-1970s a panel of psychologists drew up a profile of the “Skid Row Slasher”—a serial killer preying on homeless people. The day after they issued a description of a tall, emaciated white male with stringy blond shoulder-length hair with latent homosexual tendencies and possibly some congenital defects, the real Skid Row Slasher dropped his wallet replete with ID near the scene of his latest attack. Vaughn Greenwood was a chubby, short-haired black man of medium height. Despite the evolution of the FBI’s profiling system since the Skid Row Slasher days, (a profile for which it was not responsible), the tendency since Iowa has been to question the real effectiveness of the FBI as Sherlock Holmes–like analysts.

  Hollywood came to the rescue just in the nick of time. The February 1991 release of The Silence of the Lambs could not have occurred at a better moment for the besieged FBI profilers. The huge box-office
and critical success of the Jodie Foster movie quickly refocused the news media toward positive promotional stories on the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit. FBI agents Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) and Jack Crawford (a character synthesized from Douglas, Ressler, and Hazelwood, portrayed by Scott Glenn) introduced the public to Quantico’s world of profilers, unsubs, and organized and disorganized offenders. Perversely, the suave serial killer Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter, portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, grew to even greater cult status, and by 2000 he would headline the sequel, Hannibal. Matchbook covers and small classified ads in detective magazines offered diplomas in “criminal profiling.” TV shows such as Profiler, Millennium, and CSI ranged in their portrayals of profilers from scientists to magicians with psychic powers.

  The controversy over the lack of scientific method, however, has not died out. If profiling is more an art than a science, it means that the accuracy of the profile depends on the talent of the individual profiler. That becomes problematic because to accept the analysis of one profiler is to sometimes reject the talents of another—the process becomes highly antagonistic and career-threatening among profilers. Moreover, the lack of applied scientific method can lead investigators outside the profiling specialty to conclude that their analysis is as valid as or better than a profiler’s. As Representative Frank McCloskey put it during the Iowa hearings, “It would seem to me that in many ways politicians, teachers, or people in the insurance business would have similar outstanding psychological skills. I don’t know that that certifies them to make some of these judgments.”