Profiling: The Psychology of Catching Killers

by David L. Owen

The true stories of how professional profilers help catch serial killers.

Profiling reveals the confidential arsenal of tactics that real-life FBI investigators used to solve some of the most horrific murders in modern history. It begins with an overview of how profiling was first developed as a viable technique, followed by illustrated chapters that describe the specific parts of the profiling process:

- The FBI's crime scene analysis procedure
- Crime scene facts and evidence
- The organized and disorganized classifications of violent serial offenders
- Geographical profiling
- Types of rape and the clues they leave
- A serial killer's crime signature
- Identifying child abductors and abusers
- Profiling criminals through written documents
- How profilers work with other investigators and interrogators

Profiling focuses on 50 notorious true crimes to explain profiling, describing how crime scene evidence is processed and revealing the psychological clues and how the profilers helped to solve the case. Some of these headline-grabbing cases are:

- The Black Dahlia murder investigation
- David Carpenter, the Trailside Killer
- Robert Hansen, a highly organized killer who abducted prostitutes and left them in the Alaska wilderness so he could hunt them with a rifle
- Ted Bundy
- Jeffrey Dahmer

Profiling is the gripping behind-the-scenes story of a topic that has had fans of Criminal Minds and the CSI series glued to their television screens for many years.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, True Crime, Crime, Education, Adult

288 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2010

About the author

David Owen is the author of Hidden Evidence and Hidden Secrets. He has written extensively on military deception, espionage, and written and produced television documentaries on computer crime and electronic intelligence.

Reviews

[Niki Mclaren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have an uneasy obsession with crime. If you're with me this book will explain what to look for in order to catch a criminal. Not that I will ever apply this knowledge unless I am watching Criminal Minds. . .

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots and lots of case histories here, but I found the book a bit lacking, and it was organized in a confusing way. It definitely packs a lot of visuals, but it ends up looking more cluttered than informative.

[Anne Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting and fascinating but not incredibly organized nor well written. Second to last case was like the summary but then a piece about suicide bombers was last and ended abruptly & didn't feel well tied in to the rest of the book.

Sometimes there were introductory sentences that were not followed up by the completion of the thought. Luckily, I was happy to read about the psychology behind it all so was glad to overlook the loose and not always totally coherent writing style.

There were also quite a few typos and/or spelling errors, sometimes in really noticeable places, too. This also took away from the attempts at filler (there's plenty of visuals/photos) to make things appear more "ooh and ah."

[Amanda Gilmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my one non-fiction book to read for the year. It was really informative, and very well written. If you are like me and a Serial killer fanatic you would probably like this one. I loved the section on Ted Bundy... And it still baffles me that we will never know who Jack the Ripper was... Oh well... :)

[Catie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is disturbing. fascinating but very disturbing, threre are some photos, but it was so interesting, it is so hard to grasp the way the serial killers think. its a very good book. if your easily grossed out i would not reccommend it but if your not, go for it!

[bookreader_nix · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book. I loved the layout of it all and the pictures with the captions were cool as well. I've read better books but I highly enjoyed the case studies.

[David McGill-Soriano · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting books and it showed me how profilers draw up an image of the killer, but it was at time slow. Overall, I'm glad I read it, it taught me a lot about FBI profiling

[Krystle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable and even has someone who has a degree in Criminal Justice I feel like i learned quite a bit. Disappointing must suspect pictures were blank, and the other photos included were stock photos.

[Eileen Brinkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting case studies but there were several typos and the date of Case Study 51 was incorrect. Makes credibility slightly questionable. Other than that, it was informative and engaging.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informative read on serial killers, their method of killing and how they were eventually caught (or not). The book breaks it down into several sections outlining how a criminal profiler would use information gathered at the scene of the crime to compose a picture of who the criminal could be.

It gives a lot of basic backgrounds on a lot of killer. There are a lot of the well known ones (such as Dalmer, Jack the Ripper and others) as well as lesser known killers. It's a great book if you want to know more about how profilers operate but if you want a lot more details about the killers and their background you aren't going to get it here.

[Grazyna Nawrocka · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was shocking. It made me realize that "Criminal Minds" might reflect reality. I thought that TV serial creators were trying to cause sensation and rubbed it in. Knowing about all those killers depressed me and brought some paranoia. Anyway, the book is good as an introduction to profiling. It explains in concise, very systematic and clear way logical premises of this part of criminology.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This really helped my profiling research! The cases interest me so much, it made me realize that this is definitely the career for me!

[carolina · Rating 3 out of 5]

very good book a lot of cases and how it was solved i loved it !