My Review Five Stars*****
There are few fans of crime fiction (particularly serial killer thrillers) who are not genuinely fascinated by the FBI's real life pioneers in the field of criminal profiling. In fact I would say that John Douglas is one of those men who has become a legend in popular culture. It is particularly interesting to me that Thomas Harris spent time at Quantico researching his iconic novel Silence Of The Lambs. Most people know that the hit TV Series Criminal Minds was based upon the very real and painstaking research that was conducted by the conscientious men and women who were involved during the infancy and early growth of the FBI's research efforts to understand the psychology of the criminal mind.
Specifically, Douglas was collaborating with Roy Hazelwood, the FBI's sex crimes expert, as far back as 1980 and it was Hazelwood who put Douglas in touch with his distinguished research partner Dr. Ann Burgess, perhaps the most respected authority in the nation on rape and its psychological impact on victims. These early authorities were keenly interested in developing protocols and data collection methodologies. Later in 1988 Robert Ressler (who coined the term "serial killer") joined John Douglas and Dr. Ann Burgess in the publication of their collective findings and conclusions ["Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives"]. The "Crime Classification Manual" [1992] represented the collaborative research efforts of John Douglas, Dr. Ann Burgess with her spouse Allen, and the great Robert Ressler. In the years that followed, the 1st Edition of the CCM would undergo several revisions as the men and women dedicated to the forensic sciences in the FBI improved their tools and methods for data collection and were able to dissect and interpret the information more accurately.
This fairly new book [2019] by John Douglas and frequent collaborator Mark Olshaker interested me because it promised essentially a "deep dive" into a limited number of Case Files (four), and additionally due to the expectation that the reader would glean perhaps for the first time a true glimpse into the specifics of the interview techniques employed by Douglas and moreover a "close up" of his profiling techniques.
This novel delivered several times over in meeting my expectations as a reader who was thirsty for the "nitty gritty" details of explaining Douglas's methods of eliciting information from his interview subjects ["THE KILLER ACROSS THE TABLE"] and his process of interpretation of that raw data in yielding a profile.
First, the Case Studies were absolutely fascinating, written by Douglas in a straightforward and unapologetic manner. The first subject was Joseph McGowan, a High School science teacher in his late 20's, who inexplicably sexually violated and violently murdered 7-year-old Joan, a Brownie who knocked on his door to deliver the cookies he had ordered. I was not familiar with this case from the 1970s which occurred in New Jersey. Obviously this crime was particularly heinous, but thankfully this offender has never been provided an opportunity to inflict such evil on another human being. In 2009, the Parole Board denied his release with no review for another 30 years. The tireless work and sacrifice of the little girl's mother Rosemarie D’Alessandro literally moved me to tears. It was her efforts that were instrumental in the passage of JOAN'S LAW which mandates LWOP for child killers. The state law was enacted by Governor Christie Whitman in 1997. Subsequently, New York passed similar legislation. In the Fall of 1988, President Bill Clinton signed a federal version of JOAN'S LAW. However, JOAN'S LAW is only one of the success stories that resulted from the extraordinary love, courage, and tireless commitment of Rosemary D'Alessandro.
The second Case Study was similarly a killer and murder conviction that were unknown to me, notably Washington State child killer Joseph Robert Kondro who savaged and violently murdered an 8-year-old girl and a 12-year old girl before his capture. Douglas was particularly intrigued by this child sexual predator's MO since he preyed upon the children of his friends and acquaintances.
I was particularly intrigued by the third detailed Case Study dedicated to the infamous "Angel Of Death" Donald Harvey whose origins were close to me here in the state of Ohio. I remember the case quite well, in fact. I thought I knew a fair amount about this killer, but that was prior to reading the comprehensive and chronological account of Harvey's background and the specifics of his kills. Donald Harvey was responsible for FBI's refining the CCM's classification system which ultimately designated the Main Category of MEDICAL MURDERS with Harvey's unique contributions sub-categorized as "Pseudo-Mercy Homicide". His murders, like those of child killer Joseph Robert Kondro, relied upon the trust of his victims. His murderous exploits in the guise of a care provider within a victim pool that included only the sick, frail, and elderly made me physically sick. I found his homicides outside of a medical care facility to be unsurprising but innately chilling in that no one in his orbit was safe from his murderous urges.
The author's final fourth Case Study was overall the most interesting to me of all four cases. It involved the architect of the infamous SUPER BIKE MURDERS (in addition to other kills), the wealthy and successful real estate entrepreneur Todd Kohlnepp in South Carolina. He was apprehended when one of his victims were rescued from his property where she had been imprisoned in a storage container for an extended period. There were elements of the Case Study as related by Douglas that I found both fascinating and also sad. Firstly, there were impediments to Douglas achieving a face-to-face interview with Kohlnepp even though the convicted killer had been amenable to the idea. This motivated Douglas to devise an original method of data collection that would be an effective "work-a-round" and hopefully achieve the same goals. Specifically, it occurred to Douglas that Kohlnepp might be the ideal candidate for completing the "assessment protocol" himself, the tool for data collection that was ordinarily completed by the reviewer who was interviewing the subject. The killer was open to completing the assessment protocol and did so with a comprehensiveness and unabashed candor that was surprising to the FBI Agents. Ted Kohlnepp thus became the only convicted killer ever to complete this assessment tool himself, and gave the profilers direct and unfiltered access to his thought processes and the way he perceived himself. Douglas was confident that this approach worked exceptionally well with Ted Kohlnepp because the man was introspective, highly intelligent, and perhaps surprisingly, genuinely wanted desperately to understand himself and what made him do the things he had done. Secondly, what I found sad was Douglas's conviction that Kohlnepp was at a crossroads when at age 15 years old he had been sentenced as an adult and served 15 years in prison for the rape of his next door neighbor, also a teenager. He was labeled a sex offender and this designation followed him for the rest of his life. I was convinced after reading the details of his youth, and the comprehensive history of his crimes what he was in fact at a crossroads and that a different approach to his crime would have meant the difference in his destiny.
The novel was additionally peppered by anecdotal accounts from his decades of personal experience dealing with many of the most infamous serial killers in my lifetime. There were also many more Items of both academic and general interest. I was mildly surprised that Douglas went on the record in this book that (male) homosexuality is genetic ("The science is pretty convincing that male homosexuality is hardwired in an individual, probably before birth").
In the latter category, I was intrigued to learn that "Buffalo Bill" [SILENCE OF THE LAMBS] was in fact a composite of not two, but actually three notorious real life serial killers. I had often read that Thomas Harris based the character of "Buffalo Bill" largely on the macabre exploits of Ed Gein but with a "dash" of Ted Bundy on the side to illustrate the fictional killer's propensity to lure his victims using a ploy of some kind. Therefore I was surprised to learn that Gary Michael Heidnik (convicted of imprisoning and killing several women in the basement of his home in North Philadelphia) was also used by Thomas Harris in his creative imagining of the fictional sexual psychopath "Buffalo Bill".
Another snippet of more topical than academic interest was Douglas's interactions with actor Scott Glen who portrayed the part of John Douglas in the film adaptation of SOL. In the final pages of the book Douglas talks about the horrific torture and murders that were carried out by the sadistic pair of sexual sadists Lake and Ng in California. He makes the point that in his entire career the only other torture murders that came close to Lake and Ng were those carried out by Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. The sadistic duo audiotaped their rape and torture sessions with five teenage girls. During the filming of Silence Of The Lambs at the FBI Academy, Douglas related in the book that he played one of these tapes for Scott Glen (who portrayed Jack Crawford, the profiler supposedly based on the real the FBI's legendary John E. Douglas. I will always remember the outcome of that exercise as related by Douglas:
"He was a sensitive, compassionate, and intuitive guy, the father of two daughters, a person who believed in rehabilitation and fundamental goodness. I saw tears start to well up in Glenn’s eyes as he listened to the tape. Afterward, still in a state of shock, he said to me, “I had no idea there were people out there who could do anything like this.” He told me he could no longer oppose the death penalty."
I truly enjoyed this recent novel by Douglas and Olshaker and I would recommend it to anyone interested in forensic science or any of the legion of fans of psychological thrillers featuring serial killers.
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Customer Review: Good Research Source
J. David Bethel
Reviews with images
Profiling and crime
The book was a quick read as it was very intriguing to read. The cases were not as in depth as I wish for the psychology and profiling, but unlike some other authors who write their stories, they tend to put too much info on them rather than the cases. This wasn't the case with this book and it was a fascinating book to read.
