Episode 395 - Greg Cooper - Criminal Profiling and the Mind of Human Predators

Summary

Episode 395: Greg Cooper - Criminal Profiling and the Mind of Human Predators

Cleared Hot with host Andy Stumpf delves deep into the nuanced world of criminal profiling with guest Greg Cooper. In this enlightening episode, Greg shares his extensive experience in the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, his transition into founding the Cold Case Foundation, and his insights into understanding the minds of human predators.

1. Greg Cooper's Journey into Criminal Profiling

Greg Cooper recounts his path from serving as a patrolman and detective in Provo, Utah, to aspiring to join the FBI. Despite initial setbacks due to a hiring freeze, Greg's determination led him to eventually secure a position in the FBI in April 1985. His primary goal was clear: to become a criminal profiler.

Greg Cooper [04:12]: "When I joined the FBI, my whole focus was to become a profiler. I knew that John Douglas was the man leading the program."

2. Understanding Criminal Profiling: MO vs Signature

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the distinction between a criminal's Modus Operandi (MO) and their signature. While MO refers to the logical and necessary behaviors to execute a crime effectively, the signature reflects the offender's personal imprint, often unnecessary for the act itself.

Greg Cooper [50:25]: "MO is all about avoiding detection. Signature requires the offender to spend more time, be more involved, taking the chance of being seen."

3. Evolution of Criminal Behavior and Impact of Technology

Both Andy and Greg touch upon how advancements in technology and the pervasive nature of the internet have transformed the landscape of criminal behavior. The accessibility of information and exposure to various stimuli at a young age may contribute to the emergence of more sophisticated and heinous crimes.

Greg Cooper [20:24]: "With access to the internet, children are exposed to things they shouldn't be, which may contribute to a generation of some of the most heinous types of violence we've ever seen."

4. The Cold Case Foundation: Bridging Gaps in Law Enforcement

Post his tenure with the FBI, Greg founded the Cold Case Foundation, aiming to assist law enforcement agencies in solving unsolved homicides and missing persons cases. The foundation leverages a multidisciplinary team of volunteers, including former law enforcement experts, to provide insights without incurring additional costs for the agencies involved.

Greg Cooper [67:05]: "We've created a cadre of experts from law enforcement all over the country who volunteer their time to help solve these cold cases."

5. Success Stories and Case Studies

Greg shares compelling anecdotes illustrating the effectiveness of profiling in solving cold cases. One notable example involves a double homicide in Montana, where DNA evidence from cigarette butts ultimately led to the perpetrator's identification after decades.

Greg Cooper [80:29]: "We took the DNA from the cigarette butts and ran it through CODIS. It wasn't in the database, so we turned to genealogy DNA, which led us to two brothers. One was deceased, but we managed to identify the other as the perpetrator."

6. Challenges and Future of Criminal Profiling

Despite advancements, Greg highlights several challenges facing the field, including resource limitations, reduced emphasis on research, and the growing number of cold cases. He emphasizes the importance of continued research and collaboration to maintain the accuracy and integrity of profiling techniques.

Greg Cooper [15:23]: "There is no excuse not to research and continue to maintain a level of accuracy and integrity in the system."

7. Serial Killers: Male vs Female Profiling

An intriguing segment discusses the differences between male and female serial killers. Greg notes that while male offenders often exhibit overt aggression, female offenders tend to be more calculated and methodical, making them harder to profile.

Greg Cooper [120:50]: "Females are much more calculated, planning, and methodical in the way in which they have seen them act these things out."

8. Advice for Personal Safety

Concluding the episode, Greg offers valuable advice to listeners on enhancing their personal safety. By understanding victimology and assessing one's lifestyle and environment, individuals can identify and mitigate potential risks.

Greg Cooper [132:24]: "Stay in low risk. Once you hit high risk, you're forfeiting your power and influence to become a victim of a crime."

9. Greg Cooper's Personal Reflections

Throughout the conversation, Greg reflects on the emotional toll of profiling and working on distressing cases. He emphasizes the importance of coping mechanisms like dark humor and faith in maintaining mental well-being amidst the challenges of the job.

Greg Cooper [89:39]: "I'm confident that there is good in the world, and I think for me that's made all the difference."

10. Supporting the Cold Case Foundation

Greg concludes by encouraging listeners to support the Cold Case Foundation through donations, volunteering, or submitting cases. He underscores the foundation's mission to collaborate with law enforcement and bring closure to families affected by unsolved crimes.

Greg Cooper [154:30]: "People can donate to the organization, volunteer, buy the book, and submit cases. We're here to help law enforcement agencies solve these cases at no cost."

---

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Cooper [04:12]: "When I joined the FBI, my whole focus was to become a profiler. I knew that John Douglas was the man leading the program."

• Greg Cooper [50:25]: "MO is all about avoiding detection. Signature requires the offender to spend more time, be more involved, taking the chance of being seen."

• Greg Cooper [67:05]: "We've created a cadre of experts from law enforcement all over the country who volunteer their time to help solve these cold cases."

• Greg Cooper [132:24]: "Stay in low risk. Once you hit high risk, you're forfeiting your power and influence to become a victim of a crime."

Final Thoughts

Episode 395 offers a profound exploration into the intricate processes of criminal profiling and the relentless pursuit of justice for unsolved cases. Greg Cooper's expertise and dedication illuminate the path from understanding criminal behavior to actively solving cold cases, making this episode a must-listen for enthusiasts and professionals alike.

Transcript

[A]

Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy.

[B]

West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.

[A]

Give it to me. I mean, it.

[B]

Cleared hot. Where would you like to start, Greg?

[A]

Well, it depends on you want to start directly with the foundation or how I got into it. What, what where I started that brought me here.

[B]

I think talking about how you got ending with the foundation or not ending, but working our way to how you got to the foundation would probably make more sense. I was reading the. It was either the inside cover or the back cover. And the behavioral science unit at the FBI. Please tell me that this is what the TV show Mindhunters is based on.

[A]

It is, yes. Yes.

[B]

It is one of the few TV shows where I was legitimately bummed they didn't do a season two.

[A]

Actually. No, wait, no, they did two.

[B]

They did two. They didn't do a three.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Because I didn't find it until after they had done the two seasons, which is how I kind of prefer to find these shows because I can just at my own pace.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And about halfway through season two started googling when season three is coming out.

[A]

It never happened.

[B]

Yeah, it was a great show.

[A]

They could have been successful. I don't know why they didn't.

[B]

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[A]

Why the director? I don't know if he's the director or the producer, but he decided against it for some reason and I don't know why.

[B]

How close did that mirror the actual behavioral science unit, the creation of it? Because that started actually with the origin story of it, didn't it? Those two? Yeah, okay.

[A]

Yeah, it did. Now I will tell you, John Douglas, from my perspective and most, he's got about 14, 15 books that he's co authored. After he retired from the FBI. He was the one modern day pioneer, if you will, for the profiling unit and the profiling program for the FBI. He. Excuse me, he's the one that trained me. I met him early on in my career as an FBI agent and stuck very close to him because my whole perspective and desire was to become a pro filer. When I joined the FBI, how had.

[B]

You heard about that? Because that's a very niche desire.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I was a police chief of.

[B]

A small mic about a fist away. Just. Yep, you're good. Closer than you would think.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah, you're good.

[A]

So I was a police officer, Provo, Utah. That's where I started my law enforcement career. Finished a couple degrees there and had actually applied to the FBI. Unfortunately, there was a hiring freeze that was put on. I went through all the interviews and all the tests, et cetera, and it looked like it was going to happen. But there ended up being a hiring freeze and I had to do something. So I finished my education, the bachelor's and a master's degree, and I ended up taking a job about five Years into my job with a Provo police department, I functioned as a patrolman and a detective and undercover narcotics officer. After I graduated with the master's degree, I thought, I want to do something different here. I want to do something. Get into administration. I was enamored with my police chief. Fantastic individual. He was a mentor to me. So, anyway, I saw this job that came up in Delta, Utah, small town. And I thought, well, why not? So I applied for it, and I was probably one of 12 people that applied for it. I was 27 years old and was probably the only guy that accepted the job after they interviewed everybody. So I did that for two and a half years in Delta as a police chief while I was there. And keep in mind, again, I was hoping that the FBI would open up and they'd start hiring me again. So while I was there, a flyer came across my desk, and it had to do with this thing called profiling, criminal profiling. I was enamored by it. I was. I thought, man, this is fascinating. This is something brand new. This is probably the early 90s and. Or, excuse me, the late 80s. And I thought, here's an opportunity to get some training by two FBI agents that are going to come out to the Salt Lake Community College and teach this thing on criminal profiling. It was going to be three days worth of training. So I attended, and I was overwhelmed. I thought, man, this is for me. I'm built for this. This is what I want to do.

[B]

They showed some of that in the show, right? Them traveling around to law enforcement.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And so went back to the office, you know, and I thought, this is what I'm going to do. So the only thing I wanted to do in the FBI was become a profiler. I had no other interest, but I was still waiting for the opportunity to get on to the FBI. So I went back to the job, and I'd say probably within about. Luckily, within about four months, I got a phone call from the FBI who said, hiring freeze is off. Are you still interested? Timing was perfect. That was 1985. And so I went in the FBI 85, April of 85. Once I got in there again, my whole focus was to become a profiler. So I knew that John Douglas was the man. He was running the program at the time. And so going back to your. The TV show the Mindhunter, he and Robert Ressler are the two main guys in the FBI that really started this whole concept. And the thing that made them stand out, of course, was the interview of the 33 or 36 serial killers. And all the information that they acquired during that time came as a result of those interviews. And they tried to find out the commonalities between these guys, what the pre incident behavior was, the post incident behavior, the kinds of behaviors that they engaged in during the commission of the crime between the victim and the offender. And so with that information, eventually that was published in a book called Sexual Homicide Patterns and Motives. But John wrote his first book after he retired called Mind Hunter. And that's where that TV show came from that you're talking about.

[B]

Why? Again, my optic on this is based through the television show. It seemed like, at least portrayed in the show, the 30 people that they talked with, they were clearly talking with law enforcement officers. Yes, they'd already been caught and they were already incarcerated, but they were really. They just were really open and transparent and they knew that the FBI was going to use that information to try to target other people like them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do they just assume that that behavior, like it's just their normal. So to them it's just like having a conversation about what they had for dinner.

[A]

I think they liked having the spotlight put on them as well. So there is a portion of that personality that once all the appeals have been completed and they've got nothing else to lose, they know they're going to spend the rest of their life in prison. What do they have to lose now? In fact, from their perspective, they have everything to gain because they're the experts. Nobody understands it like they do. And John and Robert knew that. Understanding this ego base that we all have, it's no different with these particular kinds of offenders. If they've got nothing to lose and can act as, if you will, a hero type. Now, because they can be the expert, they can teach you, the FBI agents, they can teach them this area that not many people have delved into and who are experts at it and can provide information and insights that nobody else can. And it goes back to the concept. If you're going to understand artwork, you want to talk to the artist. And that's who this. These people are. It's their artwork. And that's how they look at it.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I can see it from the point. If they have nothing to lose unless they're maybe in a state that doesn't have a death penalty and they talk a little bit too much about another state and a different activity and get moved.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. That's right. And the interesting thing about these guys is their personalities. There are portions of their personalities that you like, as human beings, this is something that they've done. They've certainly violated the most unconscionable acts and committed the most unconscionable acts you can imagine. But they're also human beings, and they also have basic needs, like all of us do. If you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the 14 human motivators, I talk about the id, the ego, the superego, it's all there. And it's also manifest during the commission of these crimes and what their motivating factors are about, why they commit these crimes. But you asked earlier, how close was the TV show to the book Mindhunter, And I will tell you that the interviews of the offenders, very, very close. Really accurate. Did a fantastic job. But they did take some liberties with respect to characterizing John Douglas, Robert Ressler, and Ann Burgess. They're nothing like the people that they displayed in the TV show. You know, their personal lives. There are some similarities. Yeah. But very, very, very different. Very different.

[B]

Yeah. It's a constant battle between authenticity and entertainment.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I would hope that. Well, first off, there's nothing to make a show about my life, but if they were going to, they need to have somebody way more exciting than myself, so I would. I would be okay with that.

[A]

Yeah. Well, reading a little bit about your background, you're. You're one of those true American heroes.

[B]

I think I would strike all of that sentence, actually.

[A]

I would. I know you would. I get it. But. But it's. It's people like you that they make movies about, they make. They write books about.

[B]

Oh, man, that would be a low Rotten Tomatoes score on my mov. I'll be honest with you. I don't feel like I've ever done anything heroic in my life, but I was surrounded by people who. They did things that I think you would tell yourself, I could also do that, but you just don't know until the situation presents itself.

[A]

Exactly, exactly.

[B]

It's easy to sit back and be like, yep. Yeah, we went through the same training program. I could do that, too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, God damn, I just watched that, and I don't know if I wanted any part of that.

[A]

Yeah. I can say that. I was on a SWAT team. I was a sniper for a SWAT team in the FBI. But I didn't do anything. In the things that you're doing and have done.

[B]

That's for the better, though. It's. Yeah. I love that. The average police sniper shot is 77 yards.

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. What are you. What's yours average? Oh, man, a couple miles.

[B]

No, a couple miles is out there. When I went through the course and this is back in 99, I mean we were shooting out well past a thousand yards. But again that there's also some inaccuracies and inauthent, inauthentic aspects of that. I hear a lot of people, they make a lot of claims about their military service. I tell people the claim I want to be known for is the SEAL sniper with the most confirmed misses because I can miss like I just to slap that trigger, close your eyes and flinch a little bit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So yeah, we trained out to a thousand yards and on a static range where it's an E type silhouette that comes up. Okay. I probably have a good chance at least winging the thing at a thousand yards. You put it on a two way range and altitude and angle and wind and I mean, I might scare the guy.

[A]

Yeah, I'll bet.

[B]

I'll bet it scares him if I do hit them. I mean, let's just say the luck bucket is a little bit full on that one. And the skill, you know, it's. Yeah, I wish, I wish this stuff was as cool as people thought it was. And it's probably the same about your old job too.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Yeah. People's only optic on what you did was Mindhunter. They probably have a little bit of a skewed optic on what the reality was.

[A]

It's like I don't know if you've ever watched Criminal Minds. And that's about our unit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And what the agents do in the unit and did mostly. I'm not sure what's going on back there right now. They still have profilers, but they're not doing the level. At least my understanding is they're not doing the level of research that they once did.

[B]

Why is that?

[A]

Would you.

[B]

Would you imagine.

[A]

I wished I knew the answer to that.

[B]

And when you say research, are you talking about historical case? Because I'm going to ask you. I mean, first off, how do you teach somebody how to be a profiler? I would imagine a lot of it is looking backwards or looking at the information that you have. What would be an argument for reducing the amount of research that you do?

[A]

Yeah, there wouldn't be. Not in our opinion. There was a lot of research done by the original group and the secondary group. I would be in the secondary group. And now they're probably three, four, probably four generations down now. They don't. If they are researching, they're not publishing a lot. That may be the difference, Maybe they're researching, they're just not publishing it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But there is no. In my opinion, there is no excuse not to research and to continue to maintain a level of accuracy and integrity in the system to be sure that, you know, what we. For example, what John and Robert did with sexual homicide patterns and motives. Those were 30 serial killers. Is it the same thing that they provided to us? Can they go out and corroborate that same information today with the current serial killers? Have things changed? Have things changed with respect to their backgrounds, their experiences, their. Their family lives? Because you got to find consistency or understand why the things have changed.

[B]

Well, their access to people has changed, too. I mean, electronics exposure, exposure. Who knows what scrambles people's eggs, right? I don't know what makes a serial. Maybe you do. Why do some people end up as serial killers?

[A]

I'm glad you asked.

[B]

Well, I asked because.

[A]

No, it's good.

[B]

Do you come out of the box that way? Is it exposure? In life, the combination of two, Something traumatic happens because the world that you grew up in, and I was probably at the tail end of that, and I say that saying, I remember my first interaction with the Internet. So I'm probably the last generation or the generation right behind me will remember the transition between the two. My children don't remember a world without the Internet. And I constantly remind them and other people that the Internet and a smartphone is not giving your children access to the world. It's giving the world access to your children. So whatever it is that causes people to have that experience or to break them is the way I kind of look at it, because normal people don't do those things. It seems as if it used to be based probably on physically the world that's around you, but now we live in a world where you can see a lot of the world that you would never go to. To me personally, I would think you'd have to almost kind of circle back and make sure that everything that you're basing the system on still holds water.

[A]

Definitely. I agree with that. And to answer. Try to answer your question about why do people become serial offenders? Is it nurture versus genetics? You know, is it a combination of the same? From my perspective and my experience in dealing with these folks and the cases that I've studied and the people that I've interviewed, it comes down for me to free will and choice. So why does one choose this direction versus another? Generally, you can find for most of these folks that there's been some level of exposure to Sexual abuse, emotional psychological abuse, physical abuse, some level to it, not all of them. Now you can get two people to grow up in the same family. Yeah, two brothers grow up in the same family, as somebody like Ted Bundy would tell you. Ted Bundy, although it was a bit different for his family life. He had all stepbrothers and sisters, or I should say half brothers and sisters, not step. He had a stepfather, didn't know who his father was, but he started very young and he indicated that he was introduced into pornography very, very early. You almost find that by far the majority of his people are introduced to pornography, particularly certain types of pornography. And you can imagine the access that's available now.

[B]

That is exactly where my head sprint, the velocity and age at which people are exposed to that.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

If you were to put it on a scale, it's diving closer. Well, as men, I think I'm almost grown up at 47. I'm not actually trying very hard to be so I'm not worried about it. Women do, in fact, having somebody who has two sons and a daughter, they move at a faster space growing up, but it's diving back towards that inability of the brain to process that exposure to it.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

I mean, I've heard stories of single age, you know, single digit kids, and I don't know if they mean to find it, but they find it.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

And I don't know if you can erase that from the hard drive once you have that exposure.

[A]

Oh, it's amazing. You think of these kids that are exposed at 12 years old, 11, 12, 13 years old, that are engaging in autoerotic activity. Where do they find out about this stuff? Well, they've been exposed to it somewhere, whether it's been on the Internet, whether they've read about it, whether they've been abused at one level, been introduced to it. It's incredible. And with that access, I predict that we're going to go through a generation of some of the most heinous types of violence that we've ever seen.

[B]

Is that just because, to use a gross, not meaning like disgusting, but a wide analogy, if you're a dial, that's a 0 to 10, and because of that exposure you start off closer to a 9 or a 10 that you have to be so extreme to feel anything. Is that what's causing that?

[A]

Yeah, I think what happens early on, they get exposed to some traumatic experiences or they get introduced to a concept that may be thrilling to them. Very curious. Their imaginations go with it. They see something on tv, they See, let's say they. They see a. A cop show, and here's the cop that's chasing the serial killer or somebody that's committed violence. And then here's in the same movie, a serial killer who has committed sexual violence and homicide. But for some reason, this individual is focusing not on becoming the cop or solving the crime, but he's becoming more enamored, more curious, more imaginative about this personality over here.

[B]

So I'd just like to point out that Michael watches our dog when we're gone, and more often than not, he still leaves Dexter as the TV show that he was watching, which is about. So I'm just letting you know that I'm onto you. I can already know.

[A]

I've never watched Dexter at your house.

[B]

Oh, is it Tyler then?

[A]

Must be Tyler. Yeah.

[B]

All I'm saying is, when I'm gone, I come back, who is watching season 19 of Dexter? Somebody between you and my middle son. This is playing out. As soon as you started saying that, I'm like, oh, no.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Think about the show Dexter.

[A]

Yeah, there you go.

[B]

I'm going to assume that the producers, showrunners, creators, didn't sit around a table like this and say, greg, here's what we're gonna do. Create a society of people that want to be exactly like this. They wanted to make a TV show, but that whole show. And again, there's the vigilante aspect. He's only targeting people that are evil. Explain it however you want to. There's season after season after season that could. I could 100% see that becoming as infatuating to a young, malleable mind as somebody who grew up watching pro baseball. And that's all that they were exposed to, and that's what they wanted to do instead.

[A]

You bet.

[B]

Probably. I mean, there's very different expressions of life, but, yeah, I see where you're going with that.

[A]

You know, and I think it's a combination of things. They've got bad experiences, whether it's sexual or. Or violence, abuse that we're talking about, or emotional and psychological, all of it overlaps. And they have this sense of a lack of control in their lives. All of us need to have or believe that we have some control in our lives.

[B]

Don't we all suffer from that? To a degree. Because I certainly have my moments where, you know. And I don't think I'm unique in comparison to anybody else.

[A]

It's normal and natural. And the difference becomes with these individuals who've been abused, and not all abusers become serial Offenders or even commit violence.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like I said, you can get two people in the same household gone through the exact same experience. One becomes a criminal, another one becomes a social worker. Yeah. So eventually he. She is going to identify with one or the other, and they feed that identification or that fantasy. We, we are a product of our imagination. You will agree. Definitely. Looking at your. Your background and experience, you had to fantasize a lot about the things that you did in the military.

[B]

They were all wrong, though. I had an idea of what I thought I was getting into. Completely wrong.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

[B]

Well, I just didn't have an imagination that was capable enough at that age to even hypothesize where the world would have led us.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I had no. Like, there's just.

[A]

What introduced you to it?

[B]

My father. The first time I ever heard about the term Navy SEAL was with my dad, who was not a seal.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He was in the Brown Water Navy, the first squadron of patrol boats that went to Vietnam. So he worked with them as an insertion extraction platform. And I don't know why it was, but I do remember, I remember the actual car ride that we had. I started working for my dad when I was 11 for an illegal amount of money. At the time, I still am pissed at how little he paid me per hour. And I bring it up, to me, he's like, yeah, but you're only worth half that much anyway.

[A]

You're an apprentice. You're an apprentice.

[B]

Yeah, I guess I got less than apprentice wages. I got the apprentice to the apprentice wages. But I remember the car ride, and there was something about. And I don't remember him. He didn't oversell it by any stretch. My dad did not have as many people, did not have a great experience in Vietnam as well as the homecoming from Vietnam as well. So I think it's safe to say my mom's side of the family was an army brat side. My dad's side was a navy side. Neither side of the family was shaking pom poms when I said I decided I wanted to go into the military. So he certainly didn't slide an idea out and then reinforce it. It was something that just stuck with me. There was probably an aspect of the statistical unlikelihood of making it through the training.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Well, for some people that turns them off. And for me, the fastest way to motivate me is to tell me I can't do something. I'm likely gonna dive headlong at it. The exclusive nature of it probably had something to do with it. And the job just sounded cool. But, yeah, they certainly didn't sell that. It was a really uncommon narrative for the people I grew up around, but an incredibly common narrative for the guys that I worked with. For whatever reason, that job, you're surrounded by people who are like, yeah, about 10 or 11. I heard this concept and it just stuck with them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it was. I mean, it was weird. It's odd. It's certainly. Well, statistically anomalous, I guess, would be a better term. But yeah, I didn't have the creativity.

[A]

At the time not to understand exactly what the origin.

[B]

Literally the origin, though, was that car ride from. We were coming back from an area in California called Soquel. It's in the Monterey Bay. We had done a job. We were driving from Soquel to Santa Cruz on the way home. And that was at this point, 36 years ago. And I still remember that conversation. Stuck with me that much.

[A]

And you'd respected your father. Yeah, it was a good ride, good experience.

[B]

I won the genetic lottery with my parents.

[A]

They got the best of both.

[B]

I had the best of both. Honestly, I did. They definitely oriented and helped me set my true north for a moral compass. And then honestly, the military and the community that I was in, they helped me refine it.

[A]

You bet.

[B]

I got very lucky. But, yeah, immense amount of respect for my father. Still alive. Actually drug him out of California finally. And now he lives up here a mile from my house.

[A]

Lucky guy.

[B]

And I don't know how lucky I am. He's an absolute nightmare to deal with. And Michael has to do. Michael's watching his dog right now. He has to deal with him. He knows. Indeed. Oh, boy. A number of times I have to, like, I am sorry. My dad does not understand social skills. No, he will not say that to you again in public.

[A]

See, that's what he was saying about you as a kid. Now you get to say it about him.

[B]

I can also just see the right. I'm like, I'm telling my kids now. I'm like, pay attention. This is dad at one age. You get to do the same thing. That's great to have him up here. But, yeah, I respected him for sure, but he. He wasn't. They weren't pushing it. And I was very aware that my dad did not have a good experience in Vietnam.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So I don't know. I wonder if he regrets having. And I don't even know how the conversation came up. I don't remember that. What the spark was that he brought that up because again, he wasn't a seal. He just worked with them very infrequently.

[A]

As you identified with it for some reason.

[B]

I did, yeah. For whatever it was, it was like a fish hook that I couldn't get out.

[A]

Yeah. So that's the same kind of thing, I think that happens to many of us, all of us at some level. As an example, in my own situation, I have often wondered why I became a profiler or why I even wanted to go into law enforcement. Of course, as a kid I'm watching all the TV shows. I used to watch FBI, the FBI was in the FBI. Obviously watched Policewoman. Just the first introduction of women into law enforcement. And I thought, well, maybe those things influenced me. But you know, then I remembered an experience I had as a six year old kid. My parents had just gone through a divorce and I live in Las Vegas. My dad moved back out to the south where he was from in Louisiana. And my mother and I lived in a studio apartment and she was a waitress there in Vegas at the Flamingo Hotel. And so one afternoon a knock came at our door and she kind of peeked through the blinds to see who was out there and she saw that it was a cop. And she told me, she says, look, I'm going to take you into the bathroom, I'm going to put you out through the window and I want you to go around to the manager, tell the manager to come back up here, tell this cop that I'm not here, nobody's here.

[B]

Very intricate plan. I also feel like she had thought about this before. This happened for a reason, in case this happens or she's great on, on the fly planning.

[A]

So both. Yeah, for her she was something. So she takes me into the bathroom, opens the bathroom window and she starts to let me down through the. Over that window and she stops, she brings me back out. She says, we're not doing this. She walks back to the front door, opens the door, police officer introduces himself. Are you. She identifies herself and he says, well, I have a warrant for your arrest. She said, well, what for? Parking tickets. Now this is in Vegas, of course, this is a long time ago. I'm 70 going on 71. I was 6 years old at the time. Vegas was a different world back in those days. You know, they actually arrested people for parking tickets. And it's not the Metropolitan Police Department that you're familiar with today, so. And as it was, he arrested her. But he couldn't leave me by myself. So he brings me with him and Takes me down to the police department and she's going to have to spend the night in jail, if you can imagine. She couldn't post bail, didn't have the money for Bailey, but she happened to know a detective on the police department. As a result of waitressing at the Flamingo, they used to come in and eat. And she knew this guy in the detective division, so she contacted him once she got to the police department, she rang down there and contacted him and said, look, I'm in a bind, I need your help. I'm going to be here till tomorrow morning. I've got a post bail in the morning. I don't have it tonight. Would you watch my boy now? You think they do that today?

[B]

In my head, as you're telling the story, I'm wondering how fast CPS we called.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And then my second thought is, is our world better because that's the path we would take now, or is our world better when you could call somebody you barely knew and you could trust them with your kids?

[A]

Exactly. You know, and, and, and what did he do? Oh, yeah, I'll take care of him.

[B]

This is your first ride along, no big deal.

[A]

Yeah. So he takes me, he comes down to the jail, picks me up, walks me over the detective division and he sits me down with the secretaries and they're giving me pencils and paper and crayons that they bring from their own kids that they've got in their purse. And I'm just having a great old time. And he takes me home to his family that night to spend the night. And I can remember, I was six years old, I can remember as if it was today, introducing me to his family and he had a normal. What I would call a normal family at that time. Here I am with my single mother and he's got two kids and they sit around the kitchen table and having dinner and they include me as if I'm a member of the family. His wife didn't know who I was, but did she mind? Oh, not a bit. She was more than happy to have me. And I can remember when all the evening activities were done, the games were over, it's time to go to bed. He and his wife take me into a guest bedroom and tuck me into this bed and they kiss me on my forehead. And that's what happened. And I know that that has had to have been the thing that has hooked me. I've never forgotten that for whatever reason, I identified with that man and wished that I could have told him what became of me. And my career. But what kindness can do and the little things that people do in young people's lives, the difference that it can make. And considering the background that I came from, it made all the difference because a police officer was willing to bring me home to his family and stay with him for a night.

[B]

That's an amazing thing.

[A]

Yeah, it's something I think about a lot. And it's still an emotional thing for me, too. You know, as an old guy, you know, I'm thinking back, and those feelings all emerge as a kid today, as if I was just experiencing it. But I think that's, for me, that's where that first introduction came. And because of my youth and family life, questionable male examples in my life that came not within the family, but outside the family. My best friend's father, my cheat, my police chief. That when I got hired, these. These people were mentors to me. John Douglas is a mentor. He's a very, very good friend. We're like brothers. Brothers who like each other. But as you said, I can go one of two ways. Yeah.

[B]

Fist fight, brothers and brothers.

[A]

And so those mentors have made all the difference in my life. But I do remember people in my life also that presented just the opposite type of. Of an example. But I identified with these other men in my life. That made all the difference for me.

[B]

That split you talk about, Bundy, first off, he seems fascinating. I may have consumed every documentary that I could find about him.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So the split, though, you're saying so, same family at that young age, Somebody is on the receiving end of that, and they may either go down the path of cascading it downhill to others in society or going the social worker route versus I want to wear people's skin like a leotard route. Is there an age at which they generally make that decision? Or I wonder if they. Do you think they even recognize that decision is made or it's just a concrete change in their personality?

[A]

Yeah, I think it's a transformational experience. It doesn't happen necessarily in one experience. I suspect, as for all of us, we can look at specific experiences and say, that definitely influenced me. But typically it's a combination of a lot of experiences over time and whatever those dominant things are and dominant themes are in our life, we have a. For whatever reason, a tendency to identify with. If, as an example, if I had gone through the experience of being abused as a child, there was some emotional abuse, but not the sexual and physical stuff. And so what happens, These kids feel a complete loss of control. In their life. And eventually, if at some point while they're maturing at school, for example, even in their relationships at school, teachers can identify some very bizarre behaviors that kids go through and who they suspect as having certain experiences. And between the ages of 10 to 12 years old, I think are some of the most influential times when those choices, or I guess this proclivity to move in one direction or another and eventually as they start to reinforce, okay, I. If I don't have power and control in my own life, other people have it. I don't have power and control over others. So in order to have power and control in my life, I'm going to be sure I've got it over others. You've heard maybe of the homicidal triad?

[B]

I don't think so.

[A]

Okay, so you can imagine a triangle. And at each of the apexes, there's three things. One is abusive to animals, fire setting and bedwetting. Interesting enuresis. Okay, so what does that tell us? And some will debate it back and forth now, it's not as modern, obviously, it's been around a long time. There's other things that people talk about now that. That influence. But if. If you've got a child that is engaging in at least two of these activities and immersing themselves in it, cruelty to animals, fire setting and bedwetting. What. What's the common theme here? It's the lack of control. Bedwetting in and of itself, more often than not, is something that we grow out of. We all did it as a child, a young child. Right. And at some point we're able to grow out of it, mature out of it. Well, for some kids, it's a biological issue. And when parents don't deal with it in a normal, healthy way, they'll use force, domination, degrading, shaming, all kinds of tactics in order to control that behavior. So what may that child go out and do to substitute their lack of behavior, cruelty to animals, cruelty to younger children, infants, and fire setting to become destructive? That's their effort, their attempt to have that control in their lives that they don't have in their childhood. And it grows from there. And there's many different approaches, I think, and theories that apply to that. But that's just an example that if there's not some intervention during that period of time when they're maturing and they're engaged in those activities, at least two of those activities over an extended period of time, and it's not being dealt with, there's got to be some Intervention either get medication for the 1 or social psychological intervention for the others. And we're talking about extreme stuff. We're talking about killing of animals, setting animals on fire, stabbing animals. Those are very serious issues obviously. And eventually what will happen to some people who have experienced these things. Pretty soon it doesn't do it for them anymore. Setting fires, I'm not interested now. I want to do it to other human beings. And the lack of control that I've had in my life, I'm going to have control over other human beings as others have had over me.

[B]

Can they articulate that?

[A]

I think many can as they've gone through therapy, particularly those that are institutionalized prior to therapy.

[B]

Would they just control it or would they call it an uncontrollable desire?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. They wouldn't understand what it was themselves, why they would do those things.

[B]

I'm just curious how self aware and I'm sure it's a spectrum as human beings are. I would be. There's no like better or worse serial killer. I guess let's not put them on a spectrum. But I'd be more worried about the person who 100% understands exactly why and who they are and is just driving headlong down that activity. It's not any better for somebody who doesn't understand themselves and is doing that. But the self aware one, dangerous, that's not the dude you want to find in your closet when you get home.

[A]

That's the Hannibal Lecters of society. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I think at some point. Let's talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We all have them. Thanks.

[B]

Oh dang. You got yelled at by Michael.

[A]

What?

[B]

That's rare.

[A]

Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We all have those needs. Yep. Right. And eventually, once, once we've gone through the basic needs of safety and, and protection, sustenance, food, shelter, eventually we move into this thing called self esteem and then self actualization. The two top tiers. We all have the need to have self esteem and a good healthy self esteem and the way in which we do those things and eventually be self actualized. For me, I've been self actualized through my experiences in law enforcement profession. You, through your experiences and business experiences that you, you have now, you're still carrying on the same kinds of things. You, in other words, you know what you're about, you know what your mission in, in life is.

[B]

I can at least identify what I'm not.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know if I could define who I am, but I generally can tell People, what I don't agree with.

[A]

Or believe, well, you keep it up, you're doing a great job.

[B]

It's a struggle. I just call it stumbling forward in life and hopefully you just don't fall down.

[A]

Well, we make a lot of mistakes, don't we, along the way and learn from them. But eventually, you know, everybody wants to have that experience. When I attended that, as I mentioned that three day profiling school, I had that aha, aha experience. I just knew that, I knew that. I knew this is what I was supposed to do and be. And I didn't stop until I got it. And it was a very difficult process getting there. I had to find out what steps to take, had to compete with a lot of people. Was told by one of those two agents that taught the class, don't get your hopes too high. It's really difficult. First you got to get in the FBI and then you've got to pass through all these other hoops. Well, I ended up supervising him years later. Who would have thought? We make a commitment and a focus on and what we're about, what we're going to accomplish. I can't imagine the level of self discipline and mental discipline that you had to go through, just the training to get through that, much less carry out missions.

[B]

I wish I could say it was that I was very young and didn't have a plan B. I mean, I'm being honest, didn't really have anything else I wanted to do.

[A]

Difficult. Yes, yes, it was.

[B]

But also I didn't.

[A]

How many people, how many people failed?

[B]

My class started with 180. We graduated 18.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

I honestly didn't have anything else I wanted to do and took discipline.

[A]

Did it not.

[B]

When you're kind of dumb, you just kind of stay in the moment, you know, you're like, hey, we.

[A]

You can carry on that story if you like.

[B]

Well, you know, people knock on me for saying that they don't know the people that I worked with. Yeah, you know, the people that I worked with. I still scratch my head at some of the things they were able to do. I feel like I was fortunate to be able to be on the team.

[A]

I get it. I mean, they're your heroes too, aren't they? They're your mentors.

[B]

And it's hard to describe the influence they can have on your life in that way. Yeah. Positive and negative. Not all influences are good.

[A]

True. But you had an inclination toward one versus the other.

[B]

Yeah, I did for sure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the role of a profiler when does the FBI bring the profiler in? Because obviously there's not enough profilers for. It's like, hey, we can't find, you know, somebody is murdered somewhere or whatever it is. You can't, you can't swing the bat at every ball that comes across the plate. So how do they decide when they deploy those assets for a case?

[A]

Okay, well, another good question and that it's unlike that you see on the TV show Mindhunter. There's some similarities I mentioned, but criminal minds, you know, you solve a case within 50 minutes and you get to fly around the country in your private jet. No, it's nothing like that. The cases are similar, but it takes hours to days, to weeks to months, to years to solve these crimes. So when, when is the FBI called in? They're called in at the request of a local law enforcement agency. Typically they're cold cases, really cold cases. They may be, or they just may be weeks old to months to years, to decades. The oldest case that I looked at was, well, with the Cold Case foundation as an example, was 45 years old and it was a case out of Montana, double homicide.

[B]

So, I mean, there's so many questions. One, why would they wait that long to ask for help? And I can imagine they may not necessarily know who to ask for help, but is there also. I can't imagine there is just a fleet of profilers out there, FBI or outside of it. Does it need to be more than one victim? Do they look for a trend? Is there something that, is there a, a threshold that it has to cross before you start looking at a profiler coming in? I mean, about six people a year get killed here in Kalispell. Yeah, honestly, I think those are easier to solve generally just based off my law enforcement friends that I talk to. But even if one went unsolved, how would they know when they're supposed to bring a profiler in?

[A]

It's been unsolved for years and typically it will take a transition of management or personalities and attitudes and opinions. Maybe the challenge, the uniqueness of the case. Most smaller departments to medium sized departments don't have serial killers coming through their community. Most don't, but when it happens, they're not familiar with that personality necessarily because they have, they just lack the exposure to it. Most of the homicides that they have typically are maybe domestic or, or something like gang related if they have any kind of violence going on in their community as it relates to that. And those are fairly ABC type of homicide investigations. But when you get a sexual homicide that comes into your community and you walk up on a crime scene where the body has been disrobed, posed in a graphic sexual display, eviscerated with internal organs removed, you're dealing with a completely different personality.

[B]

Now do they do most of that after they're finished with their sexual act, opposing the eviscerating? What is that about?

[A]

Okay, so the two specific types of behaviors that we look at as profilers to try to link cases together or understand personalities. One is mo method of operation, which is typically the logical, rational behavior that an individual goes through during the commission of the crime to ensure their success to escape, avoid identity and incarceration. The other is this thing called signature. So mo modus operandi, that behavior which is necessary to successfully commit a crime. Logical, rational behavior, signature aspect of a crime. We're now introducing an offender's personality into the crime scene. What their proclivities may be or what they may be emphasizing in their fantasy life. It's unique behavior. Its that behavior which is unnecessary to successfully commit the crime.

[B]

Yeah, those two seems. Things seem like they'd be at odds.

[A]

With each other completely. In fact, mo is all about avoiding detection. Signature requires the offender to spend more time, be more involved, take the chance elevating their own risk level of being seen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or remembered. If you have a surviving victim. But we talk about personalities, There are those things in our personalities that drive us instinctively to do things. Let's say an OCD type of personality. Individuals obsessive compulsive with certain types of behaviors. And they have to go through a lot in order to overcome those kinds of behaviors. But as a criminal, a criminal is not interested in disciplining those behaviors. They're interested in engaging the behavior because of the. It's a creative force, a creative imagination that they experience while they engage in them. And there's all kinds of different types of signatures. One that I, I just described for you would be something that we refer to as a lust murder. And that is, it's, it's beyond that which is necessary to successfully commit the crime. And, and they may engage in all kinds of bizarre types of behaviors with the victim after the crime has been committed. Once deceased, they do something as simple as just pose the body in a graphic way and walk out.

[B]

Is that for them or the people? I was going to say who are.

[A]

They doing that for? It's a bit of both because they know that there's somebody going to come and see this. It's what we may refer to as their artwork and It's a way that they extend their level of power and control even to the. Not just the audience who finds them, Typically, victims, families, oftentimes or friends, neighbors. But police. Yeah, they're leaving a message and a statement to the police as well. And some of them aren't that. Are not that sophisticated. They're not thinking about those kinds of things. They're just doing what's coming natural and what they. Their creative force, if you will. So posing a body may be something. Overkill may be another signature aspect. So stabbing somebody 100 times versus two or three times to a mortal wound, you know, so what is stabbing somebody 100 times? What's going on here? What's happening here? They're extending themselves, expressing themselves into the crime scene. Their levels of emotion and thoughts and feelings about this particular victim. Typically with overkill, what we call overkill, and that would be a signature. Oftentimes it can be anything from. And that's why you have to look at the totality of the circumstances and the crime. What we refer to as the 10 filters of profiling. What I refer to as is a model that I created when I was serving as a. A profiler and teaching at the FBI National Academy. I go through its process of 10 filters, taking all the information of the crime, the crime scene, and. And filtering it down through 10 separate distinguishable areas. First is victimology. And then we move into original contact site between the victim and the offender. Where did it happen? Why were they there at that particular time? We have many, many questions, diagnostic questions that we review to understand those. Those behaviors and why they did that. The crime scene, where the crime scene was, what's the crime scene look like? The recreation of the crime within that place in time. Physical assault, sexual assault. There's many, many different diagnostic applications that we go through in these processes. In each of these phases. The area where the disposal site. Why did the offender take the victim to that particular disposal site? Is the initial contact site, the crime scene and the disposal site all the same? Is it the same location or are they all separate? So now we start moving into what does that tell me about the offender? How much experience do they have? The organized versus disorganized application of their criminal behavior? Does it tell me that they're experienced or are they novice? Are they in the beginning stages of committing these crimes, or have they been doing it for a period of time? And now we're talking about a serial offender who's practiced their art, if you will, and become very good at what they do. We look for the risk level that the offender puts themselves in when they commit these crimes and then any information of the characteristics of the offender that witnesses may have seen. So when we look at all that we have, this MO versus signature is another one of those filters. I would say that the more the likelihood of the presence of signature, in my opinion, is going to suggest that you have an individual that is a budding serial offender or is a serial offender who's just beginning in that serial nature, meaning that they're going to go out most likely and commit more crimes. Or does this suggest to me that they've committed crimes before and they've been engaged into it for a while?

[B]

Have you ever heard the stat, well, actually, you guys, the FBI, probably the ones who came up with this, that on average there's between 12 to 18 active serial killers in the US at any given time?

[A]

Yes, I have heard that. I've also heard that there's as many.

[B]

As 51 per state. Perfect. Great.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, you can imagine. Yeah, we probably have at least one per state, say.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that'll keep you up at night.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

People don't want to hear that number.

[A]

No, no. And to make matters, I hate to say it worse, 19, let's say 20, 23. There are about almost 20,000 homicides, probably 34 to 36% unsolved in the country. How many unsolved homicides do we have in the country now? The average is anywhere between 250, in my opinion, to 300,000 unsolved homicides. Now, these are homicides that have been classified as homicides that the police department knows that the individual died as a result of homicide and so they reported as such. But then you add to that missing persons. So any one time they suggest that there's at least 100,000 missing persons at any one time they've been recorded as many as 600,000 missing persons annually and less, but at least 100,000 at any one point in time, annually. Speaking. And then let's talk about unidentified remains. Probably about 3,500 to 4,000 unidentified remain cases per year. So with a hundred thousand missing persons at any one time, say out of that 20,000. Now let's say if we're lucky, only 30% go unsolved. So 6,000 unsolved homicides, if that's all it was per year, right there, there's 6,000 unsolved homicides, 100,000 missing person cases, and let's be really conservative and say 90% of these hundred thousand are accounted for leaving 10%. Now we've got 6,000. That's 10 more thousand. That's. Now we've got 16,000. And then you add to that the unidentified remains that haven't been logged in as homicides, and they may be related to some of these missing people, but you add those together, you're somewhere around 18 to 20,000 unsolved cases a year.

[B]

Is this a resource issue?

[A]

It's a resource issue. It's an experience issue, It's a training issue, and I think it's a funding issue. And that's primarily the reason why we started the Cold Case Foundation. With all these cold cases, police officers still have to do all the other work that they do day in and day out. And large departments, most of them have cold case units where they're focusing on just the cold cases and they're overwhelmed by them. You know, you go to LA, Chicago, New York, but when you. When you think about that, 250 to 300,000 cold cases unsolved in our country at any one time. And these investigators are trying to work them. They can work with the resource that they have, the amount of money that's available to the organization, the training they try to put them through, et cetera. And then how long do they keep that assignment? On the average, maybe five years, three to five years. Then they move them into another spot and bring somebody new in. Now they start from scratch working those same cases have been worked for, say, 50 years.

[B]

Do they really just start at zero again, too?

[A]

They've got to become familiar with it when they start reading that file, right from the beginning.

[B]

Well, I was going to ask you where you start with the Foundation. Is it just literally familiarity with the case? And you start looking at the others.

[A]

They send everything to us and we review from first day of arrival to the dispatch, all the way through the suspects that have been developed.

[B]

Well, talk to me about the foundation and where it exists. When you say they send it to you, are we talking law enforcement, police departments? Do families ever reach out to you as well?

[A]

All the time.

[B]

I would imagine so.

[A]

In fact, we have more families reach out to us than law enforcement. That changed me. Yeah, it's changed. We've got many more law enforcement agencies now. Of course, we've been doing this for 13 years now. But first, starting, I'd say probably 60%, 65, 70% of the cases that came to us came from families. And the primary frustration with the families is we don't know the status of our loved one's case. We haven't been contacted by the police department in many years or worse. They won't talk to us, they won't tell us anything about it. That's the worst case scenario. And it's getting better. And there are legitimate reasons for those things. It's not the best practice. You want to make friends with victims families because they can be very resourceful to you, particularly in the public's eye. So between those things and the lack that's constant being changed from one position to another, the lack of money, lack of overtime money, and the small amount of police officers, detectives who can specialize in cold case investigation or homicide investigations generally is, is low. You don't get a guy typically goes into a homicide unit and stays there his whole career. It's a position among many. Now, there are some unique examples that they do and they become very, very good at what they do. But with all that, we still have 250 to 300,000 unsolved cases and we're getting better and better at what we do scientifically. We're getting better. You know, you've got all this forensic evidence now that's becoming amazing. The genealogy, DNA and the DNA itself. It's just incredible the stuff that's being done.

[B]

Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. And for those of you who don't have a podcast or have never done an ad read, you get talking points sent to you brand talking points, and I have a bunch of them in front of me from the brand and I'm not going to read a single one of them because what I'm going to do instead is talk about the personal experience that I have had with counseling in my life. To some, I might seem like a broken record on this and I don't care because of the volume of emails that I have received from people talking about starting their own journey through counseling and therapy, the impact it has had on their life and my own personal experience. People will say, you know, becoming a seal, that pipeline, the training, the time away, the deployments, let alone in peacetime, you add wartime to that, the stress on yourself, family, loved ones, yeah, it's all real. People would easily say that's gotta be the hardest thing you've ever done in your life. And I'm here to tell you right now, it's not. What has tested me most and taken me to my lowest point as a human being, made me question my place in the world. Was I a good enough man to continue to be a father for my children? Did I ever deserve to find a partner again. Was my divorce the lowest point I have ever been to? Now, I know there are people that can get out of places like that on their own. But let me ask you this, why would you want to? People are out there who are educated, who are trained to help you put together systems, to look at things objectively, to take a step to the side and view something differently, to put together a structure and approach, to be neutral, to be nonjudgmental, and to help you find your way through these low points. Because the reality is this, we have to walk through valleys to get to the peaks in our life. Now what does that have to do with BetterHelp? Well, depending on where you live, you might have limited options. Well, in the modern era, if you have a phone or a laptop in front of you like I do, then you can access BetterHelp. It is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient. Serving over 5 million people worldwide, you can access a diverse network of more than 30,000. Yes, 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. And I'm going to add something to this. If you don't have a first experience that you think is good or you're not clicking with the person that you're talking to, do not give up on the process. Find somebody else. Talk to somebody else. I'm telling you, when you fit together like a puzzle piece, when you find somebody that you can connect with that gets you, the results are unbelievable. There is an unbelievable amount of growth that it can occur on and at the end of that journey. If this sounds like something that may help you, and food for thought on this, sometimes it's better to look under the hood before the check engine light is flashing in your face. Then please visit betterhelp.com clearedhot today to get 10% off of your first month. That is better help. H E L P Hotel echo limopapa.com cleared hot and there's a link directly in the show notes. Back to the show.

[A]

But with all those things in mind, we created the Cold Case foundation and it brought together a cadre of experts, retired and still working from law enforcement all over the country. We've gone internationally now as well and so a law enforcement agency will reach out to us, request assistance and we'll either sit down with them as a case review. Zoom anything came out of COVID The Zoom program is the best thing that happened. That's only I don't ever want to.

[B]

Participate in another one though. To be Honest.

[A]

What a disaster.

[B]

But it's kind of cool. But also I hate it.

[A]

But the zoom calls have saved our lives financially for sure. And so we'll have as many people as anywhere between three to 10. We've had as many as 15. And over time, when we become embedded with that law enforcement agency working that case, 30 people, experts that have brought to bear their specialization. And it's all volunteer, no cost to law enforcement or victims families. So the good that's been done. The cases. That's what this book is about. The Cold Case Foundation. How a group of experts are solving homicides and missing persons cases. It's just a kind of a smattering of cases that we've worked with over the years.

[B]

How long does a case have to be active before they consider it cold?

[A]

Great question.

[B]

Or is it more a matter that you just are smashing your head against the wall and you can't see past it?

[A]

That's the wise one. Yeah. It shouldn't be a period of time. It is. We've done everything we can and we're just coming up with nothing right now. We may have suspects, but we'd like to have another set of eyes look at it. And a group of experts. And these experts represent forensic science, psychological forensic psychologists, profilers, veteran homicide detectives, arsonists, every level of expertise you can imagine. We either have it. We've got over 200 people on our website right now with their resumes and photographs. And the nice thing about that is they have a network of experts that they deal with all the time as well. So we're constantly expanding. So we'll pick and choose those people that we think are going to be really good for this particular case to look at. We'll bring them together in a zoom call. The detective will present the case and we'll have a round robin and he can ask any question he needs to, or she needs to ask about forensics, psychological issues, interview interrogation, crime scene investigations, whatever the issues are anthropologists, they can have the answers or the questions answered right then and there. They don't have to wait and call somebody, miss the call, etc. So that's, that's one of the advantages, I think, of the system. And they're experts from various fields. So we found that the more multidisciplinary approach to the review of the case, the more effective we are.

[B]

Even just what you're describing, other than the largest police departments in the world, they'd never be able to source that internally.

[A]

That's right. And even those largest police departments in the world. Most of them aren't equipped with that level of. Of expertise and the variety of expertise in one location at one time or several times, whatever it's going to require to review those cases.

[B]

Specifically, in your wheelhouse of profiling, how accurate do they get when you profile somebody? Is it broad? Hey, look out for this range of characteristics, how down to the nat's ass can it actually be?

[A]

It can be pretty specific. I've never, in all my years, I've been doing this a long time. I've been doing profiling for probably 30. 30 years. I'm 35. I guess I've never ever had the experience where we've not been able to provide observations and input to a case that didn't add value to it. Now, did it solve the case? Many it's helped solve. And we don't like to say, particularly from the foundation's perspective, we don't like to say we're all about solving cases. Well, yes, we are about solving cases, but we don't take credit for solving cases. We work as a support group for law enforcement agencies. We work for them. They're the ones that are in charge. We have no jurisdiction to work these cases. We just have background experience, training and expertise to help them and assist them. As this as an example, there's a case in there that. There's a case right out here in Montana. It was our first case, as a matter of fact, in the Cold case Foundation, and it was a double homicide. Married couple. She was definitely primarily the. The target. He happened to be there. Her husband, who was also former military out of Vietnam, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, guy could take care of himself. Strong, very adept. And he was doing cement work, a lot of heavy labor work at the time. And so one has to ask, how does somebody come into an environment like that, get control over a husband, be able to separate them, end up killing the husband, sexually assaulting his wife and killing her, and walk out of there unscathed. And the case goes for 45 years before it's solved. How does that happen?

[B]

I'd say it's somebody who knew them and ambushed him.

[A]

Good. Absolutely. He's somebody that knew them.

[B]

In fact, you'd have to have access.

[A]

Definitely. Did he break into the house?

[B]

Probably was invited in.

[A]

He was, yeah. See? So you already have some of these skills. Because why? Because people think about this stuff. Guy with your background, experience.

[B]

I just hate predators.

[A]

You understand predators?

[B]

Yeah. You understand you'd have to take care of the husband first. You have to ambush him first.

[A]

Exactly. Especially a guy with his background, experience. Right. So what do they do? What does the guy do? He somehow gets control over that husband. What? How might he go about controlling that husband?

[B]

Probably threatening the wife.

[A]

Yeah, with what?

[B]

Bodily harm.

[A]

And what kind of weapon might he use?

[B]

Probably a knife.

[A]

Yeah, scary, man.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's the last thing you want to see. I want to be responsible for any injury to my wife. All right? Everything's fine. The guy's telling you everything's going to be fine. I'm just going to take a few things and I'll be out of here. Never, ever believe that storyline. Somebody's in your house when they shouldn't be, and they're taking control of your family. You know, they're not there to play checkers.

[B]

It would be a weird way to start a game, wouldn't it be?

[A]

You're going to fight like hell to ensure that he's not the one that wins the game.

[B]

I mean, yeah, he can either go out on your knees, on your shield, the choice is yours.

[A]

Absolutely. Well, you know, he had to be manipulated to get control over him. And he's the only one that has a. An injury to the back of his head. So at some point, the individual is commandeering him into another room, hits him with a hammer or something like that on the back of the head, renders him unconscious, ties him up, places. Boot laces. Leather boot laces. From his own boot.

[B]

From the killer's own boot or the guy's own boot?

[A]

The victim.

[B]

Damn.

[A]

Around his. Exactly. Around his ankles and his wrists. Behind him. The wife is in a separate bedroom, and of course, she's disrobed. He has sexually assaulted her, and she, too has been tied up with a similar kind of a situation. Shoelaces. And then he takes the shoelaces from her. He's removed all of her underwear from the house.

[B]

Oh, this person's known them for a while. He's lusted over that woman for a while.

[A]

Exactly. He's taken all of her underwear. In fact, he even takes a suitcase, their suitcase, to pack her underwear in and leave it. Now, here's an interesting question for you. So there's a negligee left over the chair in the master bedroom, which is where the husband is. The question was asked by one of the detectives of ME when we were going through this case. Why does he take all of her underwear, but he doesn't take that negligee? What do you think? Any thoughts on it?

[B]

Why does he take. First off, as far as the category of questions, That I thought I would never be asked in my life. We're reaching the top of the hill here. God. I want to say he brought it with him.

[A]

Okay. No, not in this case.

[B]

And was wearing it.

[A]

Yeah, we've had cases like that.

[B]

Why would he.

[A]

You. The.

[B]

Why.

[A]

So he takes all the other intimate clothing, but not that one. Think about the. This from a symbolic perspective, because that.

[B]

Was a bond between those two.

[A]

There you go. That was a bond between her and her husband. Exactly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't want to think about that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I own her. I possess her. So he takes all of her underwear that was hers. Her intimate underwear had nothing to do with him. And he keeps it for himself. So some of the things we come up with from a behavioral perspective. John Douglas and I had a chance to work on this together. He works with her, at least he may have been subcontracted to work in that house. The house was just being in the finishing stages of building the home, and he was subcontracting with various people to come in and do finishing work for. For him, the owner's husband and wife. He may have been a subcontractor or he works with her, is around her, sees her, obsesses with her. Look for. He may have paid attention to her, may have come on to her, but most likely not. Don't think that he feels like he has the confidence to do something like that. He. Oh, he also turns down the thermostat to like six. Or turns it off. Excuse me. And it's six degrees outside. This takes place in winter. Yeah. And then opens all the windows.

[B]

Because he wanted it preserved.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. He's trying to manipulate the decomposition process, most likely. So he has some knowledge, some interest, some awareness. Right. Now, something that was very odd about this particular case, too, is that there was a bowl, a plastic bowl placed beside her with ice cubes in it, and that we've come up with all kinds of different theories, but none that we're really necessarily comfortable with. We've let our imaginations run with it, but we're not really confident exactly what the. What the issue was, whether it was some kind of sexual proclivity that he had that helped the process, facilitated the process, etc. Don't know. So we know that he's taken the suitcase, all the underwear suggested that somebody in this guy's life, someone, some significant other, a wife, a girlfriend, has seen that suitcase and wondered about it and knows what's in it. And he's had to give them some level of explanation as to why they had it, why he had it. He most likely showed up at the funerals of both individuals. His name most likely is going to be on the visitors list. Now this case is not solved as a result of what we did as an organization. It did help focus the investigation. The individual that he ultimately is identified is done as a result of DNA extracted from cigarette butts. There are five cigarette butts that this individual left in the toilet bowl. And this is before DNA was even.

[B]

They held it until the technology caught up.

[A]

The fact that they extracted it and kept it. These cops had enough wherewithal. Who knows. But we're taking it. Took it. And if it weren't for that, we never would have solved this case.

[B]

How did they end up, did he get arrested for something else? How did they end up actually having something to match his DNA against?

[A]

Okay, so we didn't have anything like that. We meaning law enforcement agency. So you had the DNA from the cigarette butts and they ran it through CODIS and all the databases. Nothing. Never been arrested before.

[B]

A lot of people think that's the database of all Americans.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I hate to tell you, the gov doesn't have your DNA unless they have a reason to come and get it.

[A]

Exactly. You should feel good about that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so they ended up taking it to a genealogy DNA. They looked at the DNA and identified that it belonged to two brothers. They contacted one brother who had been deceased for 10 years, contacted the other brother, eliminated him, in fact he was happy to give his DNA, etc. It happened to be the one that was deceased for the last 10 years prior to solving the case.

[B]

Did he at least have a painful death?

[A]

I'll tell you offline what some things that I heard about that I hope.

[B]

It was very painful.

[A]

Yeah, it more to do with what was done after the death accidentally. But they didn't know anything about it. It was an accident. They didn't know anything about it.

[B]

In your looking at that case, would you guys have assumed or guessed that that was his first time doing something like that?

[A]

No. In fact I would have expected it was not his first time. Certainly in those cases it's possible that it's a one and done because he was so totally obsessed with her and once it was finished, never experienced that again with any other woman. That's possible. But typically if it was the first, we would have expected too. Most likely. Particularly with some of the signature aspects of the crime of the taking of the underwear, taking of the suitcase, the way in which the bodies were tied up, etcetera and that bowl with the ice in it, Those are signature things typically that we look at, you know, that suggest this guy's going to do it again. But they've never found anything else linking to it.

[B]

Attend the funerals.

[A]

He did. His name is right there. Name is right.

[B]

Why would he go to the husband's funeral?

[A]

Power control.

[B]

Just so he could sit there and be like, you vote?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean the wife.

[A]

Oh yeah, it's horrible.

[B]

That one makes sense.

[A]

Yeah. Possession.

[B]

God. But you know, was he a contractor? Subcontractor? What kind of.

[A]

They believe he was a carpet. He was the carpet contractor.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's, it's dramatic, man. It's, it's hard. I don't know of anybody that I've worked with over the years that hasn't experienced physical health issues. When you immerse yourself into this stuff, it, you know, your body reacts, it goes through stress. And as you can imagine, as you know yourself, through combat situations, that's kind of how we go through combat. You know, you get into these cases, you have to vicariously experience what it's like to be the offender and the victim and understand being too. You imagine it, you recreate it.

[B]

It's different in those two parties though. I've talked with some shrinks and psychs about this as I don't have hard stats to show it, but anecdotally it seems as if, and not that post traumatic stress doesn't exist at high levels inside of the special operations community. It seems to exist at lower levels than it does in conventional forces. And I was talking to a few psychiatrists or psychologists about this and they were asking about the nature of the job and I was talking to them about 2010 was the last time I was in Afghanistan and I. There was a road that largely runs south to north or north to south. You could drive it whichever direction you choose. A north south road, if you will. And there were people who were tasked with just driving vehicles and minesweeping all day long. And we were, for a portion of the time I was at a base where kind of a staging point and where they would get into these vehicles and you could just see in their eyes the helpless nature of their job because they're sitting in an armored vehicle waiting to be vaporized by a 1500 pound charge that goes off no control. The job I had 99.9% of the time we initiated the violence, so we were not on the surprise. The locus of control is how the psychiatrists describe it and the difference in geometry and what that can do to how your body processes it could be the difference in you having a functional life at the end of that versus being destroyed by your experiences. Not that it's just because, hey, you got to initiate the violence that it doesn't leave a fingerprint on you. But the difference between being largely in control versus being totally out of control in their. It would be a hypothesis. I guess they think that that has a large essence and aspect because there is a huge difference between being the aggressor and being the victim. I could see it in their eyes, the dread. Whereas for us, I mean, most of the time it was, this is the dude you're looking for, here's the house that he's at, we're gonna get you to this location and you guys go do your job. And behind every door you're expecting violence. Yeah, it's a different experience.

[A]

That's fascinating. You know, you. One of the complaints, I think, for law enforcement detectives who deal with these, these kinds of cases and profilers is we'll work a case, work a case, and it never gets solved. And you never forget a case. I've. I've looked at over a thousand cases, easy, in my career, and I can remember every single one of them.

[B]

How could you not?

[A]

Oh, yeah, I mean, you. I. I can be driving down the road and just look off to the side of the road and see an area that reminds me of a disposal site. And how many times do you drive down the road and you see hitchhikers, female hitchhikers, not as much as you used to. And these high risk activities that people put themselves into and place themselves recklessly, innocently, but also recklessly with. Without regard for their own personal safety. Sometimes they're in situations and environments and circumstances that force them into that situation. But many times, victims will innocently and ignorantly put themselves into a situation and elevate their risk level.

[B]

How do you deal with it when you're reminded of those things? Because it happens to me too. Probably every single day I'll think about something that occurred in my previous career. Very often it's me laughing at something ridiculously stupid that one of my friends did. But not always. I'm curious your strategy and how you deal with it.

[A]

It's similar. We try to find what we call dark humor in what we do. It's not humor that's appreciated by most people.

[B]

No, it's pretty unique. Very familiar with what you're talking about and best served behind closed Doors.

[A]

Yes, it is.

[B]

My wife looks at me very frequently and says, what is wrong with you? Like what?

[A]

My wife can.

[B]

Did I say that out loud?

[A]

Michael's been there for a few of.

[B]

Those where she's giving me the old look. Oh yeah, like what? You weren't thinking the same thing. She's like, everybody was thinking the same thing. But you can't say that you didn't.

[A]

Think that was funny. Yeah. More times than not. Right. Yeah. It's amazing.

[B]

I struggle with the balance between inside and outside voice. It's fine.

[A]

Yeah. And you know, you don't change. I mean it's. I think that's a way in which we deal with it.

[B]

I try not to hold on to it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I. I gave up trying to figure out a way to control my thoughts years ago.

[A]

Definitely.

[B]

So I just let them run their course.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I try not to. I can't control what reminds me of what it reminds me of. But I can control whether or not I latch onto it and just try to go down that spiral. So just let it go.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I do the best I can to let it go.

[A]

I think we're similar. I mean we, in that experience, we'll do the best. As long as we've known we've given everything we can possibly give to a case. And if there's ever anything more I think of later, I'll come back to that case and do something about it that I've given it the best I can possibly give it. But I can walk away knowing that I've done as much as I can and I'm capable of. But it doesn't, certainly doesn't prevent nightmares, it doesn't prevent stress, doesn't prevent the natural tendency to the effects of stress on our bodies. I don't know of any profiler that's done this for years that hasn't had serious complications and health related issues. Because although we may not consciously be aware of the stress, it's there subconsciously. It's there all the time.

[B]

Does it Jade you towards humanity at all?

[A]

No doubt. No doubt. And I, I think for me what's helped me the most is I have a faith life and in spite of all the evil that I've seen, I think, you know, with all this evil there has to be good. Let's hope so. No, it's the truth.

[B]

We're so screwed if it's not.

[A]

That's right. And I'm confident and very confident that there is. And I think for me that's made all the difference Yep.

[B]

I've seen Faith do amazing things for people.

[A]

Sure has me.

[B]

What is the most accurate profile that you've ever seen?

[A]

Oh, well, like I want to hear.

[B]

This man will have blue eyes and seven freckles on his left cheek based off of purely forensic evidence. You knock on the door, there he is.

[A]

I could.

[B]

There's got to be some flyers. You're like, you got to be joking.

[A]

This is so incredibly accurate, it's amazing. There are, I would say, in the profiles that we do, I would say at least 85% of the characteristics that we're identifying are accurate and consistent with the individual.

[B]

And that's just based off black and white. It is not photos or, you know, black and white evidence. You don't get to see the person. You don't understand their behaviors. You're looking at what is left behind and reverse engineering this exactly right. That is fascinating.

[A]

We look at the physical behavior that's committed at the crime scene. The verbal behavior, if there is a survivor, and the sexual behavior. And we attempt to identify the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the individual that's experiencing those thoughts, feelings, and emotions through that behavior. So it's those three facets or forms of behavior and understanding what the translation of that is to thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And then where do these thoughts, feelings, and emotions come from? What kind of an individual would have those types of feelings toward this woman, as an example? Who would commit those kinds of acts? Who felt that level of disrespect and hate or rage? What would cause that rage? You walk into a crime scene and you see a body that's been bludgeoned to death, and the offender has taken the time. You catch on to this. You've caught onto this very quickly. It's natural for you.

[B]

Because you should see my Netflix history.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

That's another one where my wife, like, we're gonna go to bed soon. Are we gonna watch this? Because as soon as I started, I tell him, like, hey, I'm actually on the case right now, so I don't watch this first. We're talking historical stuff that I've already watched. She's like, you've already watched this, Mike. Yeah, but I'm back on the case and they need me.

[A]

Yeah, I gotta go right now. But if. If, for example, you've got a body now that's been bludgeoned to death, or let's take it less. Less violent than that, it's just a gunshot wound in the back of the head,22 caliber, and it's A male and an elderly male. And now you walk into the crime scene and the body has been laid down on the couch. A pillow placed beneath her head, and a blanket has been taken and covered the body just up to the neck. And it's just one entrance wound to the back of the head. Body's on this couch. And the hands have been placed over their midsection like it to rest. Who did it? You'll get it.

[B]

Who did it?

[A]

Who did it? Okay, you got elderly male.

[B]

Yeah. It's going to be a family member.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

They would only do that to somebody if they cared for them.

[A]

Exactly. Good. You got it.

[B]

I'd say one of their kids.

[A]

Okay, good. Good. In this particular case, it was. It was a mercy killing.

[B]

My father's asked me to do the same. Not that way. His exact request was push his wheelchair into oncoming traffic, which I feel like is harder.

[A]

It's harder. It's harder on you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's harder on you.

[B]

Well, if he keeps up his current behavior, it's gonna be pretty easy. But.

[A]

That's right. There are alternatives.

[B]

Why go through alternative all of that if you didn't have care for the person?

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

All of those things.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Put a blanket on somebody who's dead, like they're not. You don't have to worry about being hot or cold anymore. But you're doing that because that's how you've thought about that person your entire life.

[A]

Absolutely. Yeah. Here's another one for you.

[B]

22 is a ballsy choice, by the way. Skull is very thick.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Let's hope it works. God, I don't. I was just gonna recommend a caliber, and I don't want to give anybody ideas. Yeah, it's not Give instruction.

[A]

Here's one for you. Double homicide. Male, female. The crime occurs in the bedroom. There's 120 stab wounds between them. Both of them have. Are off of the bed. The initial attack occurs on the bed. Now, here's an interesting behavior, what we would call. And I'll ask you, what do we call this? Because we've talked about it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

A rat has been brought to the crime scene.

[B]

Signature.

[A]

Good. The rat's been killed and laid. Laid.

[B]

The. Is wrong with people.

[A]

Laid on the body of the male. What do you think? We don't know for sure, but we have some thoughts about it.

[B]

I mean, that could be a metaphor for the person who did this. Saying that the person the rat is on top of is a rat.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Were the stab wounds equally distributed between.

[A]

The male and female More of the male.

[B]

So I would say it was probably targeted towards the male. Maybe the female was. Maybe he was expecting the person to be alone, so he got wrapped up in what he was in. It's hard to find two rats. I think so maybe, you know, probably only brought one. I'm assuming he got the rat long before he came into the house. So that was.

[A]

And it was a domesticated rat, so it wasn't a wild.

[B]

All right, Yeah. I like the idea more of him searching around with cheese in the forest, but. Okay, so Petco can solve that problem, but that's a step you have to take. You're definitely premeditating this because you're thinking about what you would want to take if there were going to be two people. Would you take two?

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Unless they're both. I mean, if they're both rats. I would say that, yeah. I would say the man was probably the main target. And there has to be some level of significance with the rat placed on top of him.

[A]

Good. I agree. I agree with you. Yeah. Now, this is kind of interesting, too. There's not a speck of blood outside. No. No transfer. No transfer of blood outside.

[B]

Is this a recent case? Like since the TV show Dexter has been out?

[A]

No, it's a little older than that.

[B]

I worry about things like, yeah, by.

[A]

The way, did you hear that Dexter, he's got a new show coming.

[B]

Yeah, they're resurrecting him.

[A]

That's it. It's Dexter Resurrected, isn't it? Isn't that the name?

[B]

I actually think that is the name.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, I don't know much about TV, except they like making money and it seems like there's no new show. So if that one was a.

[A]

It was a hit.

[B]

It was a hit.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So that one isn't solved. They haven't figured.

[A]

That one saw still unsolved. But we've maintained with that department constant contact. We meet with him at least monthly and review. You review things, talk about investigative strategies, what these interpretations may be.

[B]

I mean, I think about things. Did the guy sit there at the pet store and have to pick out which rat he thought was the appropriate rat for that person?

[A]

It wouldn't surprise me.

[B]

How long did you know?

[A]

How long do you.

[B]

So it's not, oh, we can't have the white one because this guy isn't a white rat or whatever. And that one doesn't look right. So he's sitting there selecting the rat that he's going to use. That's the, like what?

[A]

There's 15 these people going to them. It means something. It did. That's right. It's significant.

[B]

No blood transfer outside of that room.

[A]

Yeah, so. And one wonders, how does that happen? Because this, this thing was like a butcher shop. This for sure.

[B]

Yeah. If people haven't been around stabbing or a laceration type environment, it's. It, yeah, it's pretty gnarly.

[A]

It's a mess. So to imagine what. How is that possible? Most likely he had to have, in my mind, a change of clothes.

[B]

Well, if he went to get the rat first and thought about that, I feel like this person likely thought about that as well.

[A]

Exactly. Takes the time. Premeditated, very sophisticated.

[B]

Now, in a situation like that, would you say that's indicative to somebody on their first go around or somebody who has put the time in to think about things like this before?

[A]

I think it's probably somebody who's put the time in to think about it. To me, it may be suggestive also of drug gang type of activity.

[B]

Was the rat stabbed too?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Yeah. It's a message.

[B]

Well, I know I'm not sleeping tonight.

[A]

But what a message. And they were hit. They were attacked in their sleep, but it awakened them.

[B]

How did they access the house?

[A]

Had to have a key because there was no. It was not forced entry.

[B]

How would one get a key?

[A]

Yeah, it's close. Much closer than we think we think we know, but we've got some issues that we're working on right now with the investigative aspect of things.

[B]

Okay. All right. When you were doing or in your time as a profile, did you get to sit down and talk with serial killers like those first two agents did?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it was very. It's such a fascinating experience. I'll tell you about. I'll say you're serial rapist.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

This guy was good for 85 rapes in 12 different states. And what we wanted to find out was, of course, what made him first of all. But how did he pick his victims? And out of those 85 rapes, he never killed anybody. There's a certain typology. He's a personality type what we'd call a power reassurance rapist. And this particular type of individual is what I like to code as a wannabe. He wants to be desired by his victims. He fantasizes or about women in general. He wants to be attractive to them. He fantasizes about having these experiences with women who desire him, want him. And you can tell that by the way he engages in certain types of activities with These victims. How did you get into the house with 85 rapes and never get caught? Are you telling me? And I asked him. He said, I got in through unlocked doors and windows, 85 of them. I said, are you telling me that you never forced your way into a home? I didn't have to.

[B]

How did he pick the 85 people who aren't locking their doors or windows?

[A]

Goes up to the window, goes to the door.

[B]

So the women, though, he had kind of targeted them, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

God. And he. What was this Nostradamus of targeting people who didn't lock their doors?

[A]

It comes that way. And they're all single women or single women with children.

[B]

I feel like those would be the people most likely to lock their doors.

[A]

You'd think the most natural thing you would think of, right? The most commonsensical thing.

[B]

Did he. Was he capable of having a normal relationship with a woman? He was married, because I was going to ask.

[A]

And had three daughters.

[B]

You have got to be kidding me. Did she have any idea?

[A]

None.

[B]

So he had been living just a double life. How did he explain his time away?

[A]

Yeah, he was a truck driver.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

Yeah. And he brought a bicycle with him. So he would travel from different to different states to deliver his goods. Took this bicycle. And when they drive into neighborhoods and watch, he would look for, say, vehicles that would be driving into a neighborhood. What kinds of things would you. Would cue you into this? Most likely, this car belongs to a female, not a male. Definitely not a male, and definitely not a male that drives this vehicle. But definitely a female. What kinds of trinkets might you expect to see in a vehicle?

[B]

Pink license plate holder. Except for in California, it's not indication of anything. I say that as somebody who lived in California for a long time.

[A]

Yeah, I grew up there, man.

[B]

Here in Montana. It's actually a tough because I'd say anything other than a lifted truck. Even though I see a ton of women driving around lifted trucks. I'd probably be looking for a smaller sedan type car. There's gonna be your lip gloss. I mean, just the normal, everyday items that.

[A]

Things hanging from the mirror, right?

[B]

Totally.

[A]

But maybe stuffed animals.

[B]

Yeah, I guess.

[A]

Maybe a car seat in the back.

[B]

Yeah. Good indication.

[A]

Yeah. And those are the kinds of things he look for, which suggests they're vulnerable and by themselves. And one of the questions I asked him, I said, are you telling me that you never, never came across an unlocked door or window? He says, yeah, I just moved on. It was that simple of a thing for him not to Go in.

[B]

Predators aren't looking for hard targets.

[A]

No, they don't want the fight. They're not looking for a fight, most of them.

[B]

So how did he get caught?

[A]

He was caught as a result of this happened in the state of Utah and he expanded out beyond Utah and he was hitting what they referred to then as the Ogden serial rapist. So he was in an area and had many, many victims in that area. And between the DNA, they knew that they were dealing with the same guy. And then they scheduled him when he was hitting, what nights, what parts of the week, how many days or hours. Typically it was days before he would strike again. Oftentimes a week to two weeks. Well, where was he during that two weeks? Well, he was out hitting other states. And so they scheduled this thing out and he was in a particular neighborhood and had been in this area about. It was a six mile radius and they focused it in on. It was getting tighter, the circumference was getting tighter and tighter. So they set up a patrol one evening in this particular city and had several patrolmen out there waiting to get a call. They felt that there was going to be a victim. And that's exactly what happened. The rape occurred. She called the police and they converged onto that area and happened to be right in the middle where this crime analysis had taken place. They were trying to identify the location, approximate neighborhood, et cetera, and they happened to be accurate. They went into that neighborhood, converged. There was like 10, 15 cops that went in there and they found him. In fact, what he'd done. She called the cops right away and they turned the lights and siren on to that area. Well, it spooked him. So he jumped in bushes within a block.

[B]

Oh, they contained him in the area. Interesting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What's it like sitting next to somebody like that? And is he just talking about this stuff matter of factly? Just is what it is.

[A]

Matter of factly. He would explain, as he did to us, that he had no intention of hurting them. This is his perspective. He didn't use violence. What he would do is go in and use the assumed violence. Look at. He says, just do what I say, I'm not going to hurt you. So he would go in, wake them up, they're in the dead of sleep, wake them up, flashlight in their eyes, disorient them and just let them know, I'm not here to hurt you, just do what I say and everything's going to be fine or better for him. I'm not going to hurt your kids. I'm not even going to let your kids know I was here. And you'd be amazed what women will do to protect their children.

[B]

I get that. God, that is a brazen approach to that.

[A]

It is. Yeah. And so his. His thought was if they cooperated, which they did 99 of the time, that.

[B]

It was somehow not violence.

[A]

Not violence and consensual.

[B]

Oh. What?

[A]

Yeah. Amazing. Just incredible.

[B]

Yeah. Because they just invited him into the house, right?

[A]

Yeah. Hey, if you didn't want me here, you'd have locked your doors and windows. Rationalization.

[B]

That is a theory, I suppose.

[A]

It's incredible.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah. Their whole mindset's different.

[B]

Can they be convinced of that? That their mindset or is that just.

[A]

Reality with this particular guy had been in prison for 14 years. He was going to be in there the rest of his life. And with a lot of therapy. And of course you. You can't trust everything comes out of these individuals mouths. But he would tell you that he failed to connect the dots, that he rationalized and justified his behavior to avoid the guilt and the shame associated with it until he was caught.

[B]

What's the point of spending that much time giving somebody in prison for those reasons? Therapy.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. You know, you wonder, these individuals that have not been habilitated to begin with, how do you rehabilitate them in prison?

[B]

Especially if they're never going to get out?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I would go with, here's a section of rope. I'm not going to tell you what to do with this, but use your imagination.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Which is why I'm not a therapist, by the way. I don't think that's a good prescription for most clients, nor do they allow.

[A]

Me to go into prisons with sections of rope.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I would.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That is crazy.

[A]

Yeah. It's amazing. They compartmentalize as well, just like we do to deal with these. These crimes.

[B]

Out of the thousand cases you said you looked at, is there anything that sticks out with you out of all those? Is there's one that lands with you more than anything else?

[A]

Yeah. For me, it was a tremendous experience. I think would have been my. I was a profiler, had been there in the unit for. I got in there at my fifth year mark. And most of the guys that I worked with had senior or my senior by 10 years.

[B]

Senior mean time at the bureau.

[A]

And age.

[B]

And age as well.

[A]

Okay. So I was fortunate to get in there. I went in with two other guys or, excuse me, two other people. One male and another female. Jana Monroe, who you'll. You'll hear her name, I think this year she has a TV show that's coming out about her experience in the bureau and as a profiler. We're very good friends and, and she's done some great things with her career. And she also has a book. I think it's already out. But anyway, we, the three of us went in together and we were about the same age. I had five years experience, Jana had six, and I think Dave Gomez had seven years experience. My background was former law enforcement, former police chief of a small town, and the fact that I had focused and emphasized as a specialization interview interrogation. So I was selected. I was also had to jump through a bunch of hoops, be considered out in the field to work these cases to function as what's referred to as a coordinator for the national center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. So we facilitated the submission of cases by law enforcement agencies back to the profiling unit. So I got there in my fifth year mark, and we spent the first year in training, basically. And if you got through the training and all the testing that went with it, because you're on probation for a year while you're back there, if you're not passing the muster, they're going to send you back out to the field, it's very difficult to get those, those positions. There was only 12 of us out of the bureau. We had at that time probably 10, 11,000 agents.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

So having been there through that first year, I'm assigned, I became assigned to Northwest territory of the United States and I start the profiling. Of course, you always have a couple guys who are monitoring everything that you're doing, looking at your work, testing you, challenging you, etc. So you've got to justify everything, every attitude, opinion that you've got about it, every analysis and assessment. So one afternoon, this is about a year and a half into the job. I'm now off of probation and I happen to be the only guy that's left in the. Of the profilers in the office. It's Friday afternoon. John Douglas is out of town. And this, this case came in from North Carolina. And so when Norman, who was a major case specialist for the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, there was three programs that we had within our unit. John Douglas was the unit chief. We had the profiling program, the Arson Bombing and services program, who were profilers of arson and bombers. And then also the vicap, or Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. That's the national database of, of unsolved homicides studied by crime analysts and majors, case specialists, trying to link Cases together that were submitted by law enforcement agencies around the country to identify commonalities among cases and hopefully common offenders and try to hook those departments together and do a multi agency investigative task force. So I'm there as a profiler when Norman comes over. He's 30 years, Metropolitan Police Department, 20 years as a detective, homicide detective. And he comes over, he says, hey Coop. He says, I got this. I've been talking to this prosecuting attorney out of North Carolina and he says he's got these two cases and he wants to know whether or not they can be linkable from a behavioral perspective. He says, I've looked at it, just different set of glasses, I've looked at it, I don't think they can be linked. But hey, wink, wink, you're the profiler. Thanks. Win's got a lot of experience. I'm thinking if you don't think they're likable, what the hell what I think, you know. So anyway, I take a look at these cases. There are two cases and I think, wow, looking at victimology, looking at these areas that I talked to you about, initial contact site and, and the crime scene disposal sites, physical injuries, sexual injuries, the information we had on an offender on, on one of the cases, and the risk level that the offender posed to himself, I felt these are linkable. There are so many commonalities between these two cases. The victimology, they're almost like twins. These girls look so much alike and had some of the physical characteristics, similarities. Both of them had minor defects, even easy to dominate, manipulate and control. They were both seen at a Country Western nightclub, same Country Western nightclub before their disappearance.

[B]

And this detective is telling you they're not linkable? Yeah, what I mean, I've been detective for like six minutes and I feel like I can link these.

[A]

It's a clue. And so going through all these things, I thought, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call this prosecutor attorney and tell him, yeah, I think we can link these cases together. Now, this was not my state. It belonged to another profiler who happened to be in Germany and he would be back the following week. So my thought was I'll give him my opinion and I'll tell John about it when he gets back in on Monday and the profiler when he gets in from out of country. And I explained this to the, the prosecuting attorney. I'm. It's not going to be my case. I'm just giving you my opinion. He says, well, I like your opinion. It's required because I'm gonna I'm not going to be successful linking these cases together. I want to link them together to show that he committed both of them, not just one and possibly the other, and not get a conviction. The only way I'm going to convict him on both. Both is by putting these two cases together and convincing the judge and or jury that the same offender committed both homicides. So I told him what I thought. He says, well, it's fantastic. I said. He says, what about this other profile? So she's going to have the same opinion. Very good. Well, thank you very much for your time. So Monday comes along. John comes back the opposite. I tell him right away, he's our supervisor, the unit chief. I tell him right away, listen, this is what happened to me Friday evening before I left. He says, man, fascinating case. He says, what did you tell him? Now, I'd been off probation for six months. I said, well, I gave you my opinion. I can link them. I think they can be linked by this, this, this and this. Good. Says, I agree. I agree with you. I said, but so and so is going to be coming in from out of town. It's his area, and I'll tell him about it and he can call the prosecuting attorney back. He says, who gave him his opinion? Was it this agent? Was it this profile? Yeah. Was it this profiler? No, no, I. I gave him my opinion. He says, well, guess whose case it is. It's your case. I said, wait a second, John, don't do this. Look, I'm the junior guy in here that's going to piss a lot of people off. I'm the junior guy, and I'm the only guy at this point in time. I would have been the second guy to have testified of linking cases together as an expert witness for the FBI. John Douglas is the only other guy that had done it at that time. I'm intimidated, to say the least. He says, you're going to do fine. Just do what you told what you said you were going to do. I agree with you. You're going to do great, John. There's too much hanging on this thing. I was afraid I was going to. If I wasn't successful, it's going to cause all kinds of problems for the unit, for me personally, for the Bureau. Bad, bad news, right? So anyway, I ended up with that case. And make a long story short, 1991. This goes back a long ways. 1991 and 2. I testified against this guy twice, having outlined what he had done, why he selected, went through those different facets and Filters. I told you about why he selected the victims, what he did to the victims, why he did it. And he's sitting there in the courtroom and I'm, I'm having a kind of like an out of body experience explaining as if I'm him, why he did what he did, what he did to them, what he did afterwards, why he left them the way they did, etc. And there was a connection I had with this guy, at least that was my experience, eye to eye. I connected with him and told him everything I know that I told him everything that he didn't thought and there was a sense of understanding that I experienced with him. And this is that I think this vicarious experience by immersing yourself into this stuff. And I'm wondering what's he thinking right now? You know, how does, how do I know, how do I know why he did what he did, etc. And so that was the first case. He ends up getting convicted of the first case and gets the first death penalty. A year later. I testify against him on a second one and as I'm coming into the courtroom, we walk by each other and he's being, he's handcuffed of course, and being brought in by a deputy. And after I testified against him on the second case and he got convicted of the second case and received a second death penalty, the deputy came up to me afterwards and said, I just want you to know that when he saw you come in, he made the reference, there's the sob. It's going to make him. I think I did this one too. And that's probably, you know, one of the best compliments I ever received from an individual who under that set of circumstances, I was the voice for those victims. Not just for him, but the voice for the victims. And I think that's, that's our primary client is the victim, primarily secondary is the victim's family. Third, I'd say is law enforcement. We're here to help and do everything we possibly can to help and present these cases as ultimately solved, to provide some kind of information that's going to help you progress the case along. And when we talk about the stress and the difficulties we have and dealing with those stressors, the thoughts of those successes help me deal with that stress and make all these things worthwhile and working these kinds of cases. So it's a real privilege and honor to speak in behalf of the victims.

[B]

Are there ever women serial killers? Yes, I feel like we outnumber them pretty substantially.

[A]

You think? Yeah, I would say like one out of. Oh, man. I hate to give you a number on it, but I can only give you a few names that I'm aware of. Eileen Warnos is one. Or ones that I can think of. Eileen Warnos killed seven.

[B]

Michael over there, typing away, looking for female serial killers. Yeah, you just. You don't hear about them that much.

[A]

No, I feel like.

[B]

Is that just a different psychology, a different set of motivations, experiences? What's the difference there between men and women?

[A]

Well, men and men who are clearly.

[B]

Idiots, but we start there, have a.

[A]

Desire to act out these things. Typically, that's where their violence is manifest. They're acting out that aggression. These. Those thoughts, feelings, and emotions in various ways. Women are much more calculated, in my experience. A violent male, whether he's committing a crime or whether he's just acting out aggressively under a certain set of circumstances with a friend of his, you know, get into it, it's over, it's done, and let's walk on, let's get out of here. So they can express and decombust that. That level of. Of anger and rage. Females, oftentimes, particularly serial females, they are much more calculated, planning, and methodical in the way in which we have seen them act these things out. Oftentimes they're caregivers. Hospitals, for example.

[B]

Oh, the angels of death, if you were to ask them.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And certainly we have males in that category as well. But females, we've also seen what we refer to as the black widow, the woman who's been married to a number of different men over a period of time. And each one of them have, until the fifth one finally realized that they have died suspiciously, you know, over time. There seems to be poisoning involved a lot of their victims.

[B]

The old antifreeze in the coffee, if you will.

[A]

Exactly, exactly.

[B]

Are they harder to profile? Women?

[A]

Yes, damn it, yes. Sorry.

[B]

Why do they have to be smarter than us?

[A]

I know. They're more calculated. They use their brain, you know.

[B]

Well, yeah, that is probably the key difference between.

[A]

Believe it or not. You know, we say women are more emotional. Guys are more emotional in the way in which they.

[B]

Acting emotions. Yeah, yeah. Uncontrollable emotions, for sure.

[A]

Women have. Have the. The. It's the long haul. You know, it's amazing to me how a woman, a wife, can poison a husband over an extended period of time.

[B]

Watching them deteriorate and not change course.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Michael, I have to know. Google, who is the most famous female serial killer? Okay, we must know.

[A]

It's probably Eileen Warnos, probably out of Florida.

[B]

Was she one of the angel of Death ladies?

[A]

No, no, she. Yeah, she. Is that it? That's what it says, yeah.

[B]

What'd she do, Michael?

[A]

Highway prostitute, was considered to be one.

[B]

Of America's most prolific female serial killers in history.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She killing the Johns?

[A]

Yep. Well, they would pick her up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One, sorry to say, happened to be a former police chief.

[B]

People are people.

[A]

Yep, exactly. So she would pick them up and purposefully her. Her focus was to kill him, to rob them and kill him. So it wasn't one of these things where there had to be sex involved or anything like that. It wasn't that kind of a psychological thing for her, but she was quite the character. There's a movie made about it. I try to remember the name of it, but. Charlene Theron. Is that her name? The actress? Oh, yes, she played. Played and got an Academy Award for it.

[B]

Why is the name of this eluding me?

[A]

She did a fantastic job.

[B]

Is this the one where, I mean, Charlize Theron is resoundingly beautiful woman? Is this where she. She went the other direction with it.

[A]

Gained a bunch of weight. Oh, man.

[B]

What's that movie called, Michael?

[A]

Monster.

[B]

Monster.

[A]

That's it. Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I did not know that was about her. Yeah, I know what I'm turning on at 9 o' clock tonight when it's bedtime.

[A]

Just don't show your wife.

[B]

I was forced. I'll just. She'll go into the bedroom. I'll turn it up louder. Yeah, it's. Tell me about the book.

[A]

The book is. Contains several cases of that we have worked with law enforcement agencies around the country. The Cold Case foundation, how a book, a group of experts and. Or a team of experts solved homicides and missing persons cases. So we talk about a number of different cases that we've worked together with law enforcement agencies, one of which is the one I mentioned to you out of here in 45 years old at the time that we. We helped work that case and help solve it and various other cases. And the message we want to get out is this service is available to law enforcement agencies around the country that we provide experts at every level, every field that you can imagine that may be able to contribute to helping you solve your case at no cost. It's all volunteer labor. All these folks that provide these services certainly, obviously don't charge for their labor, but they're experts, they're expert witnesses in court as well and have years and years and years of experience and are only willing happily to provide this level of support to Law enforcement agencies and we'll work with agencies from any department or rather any jurisdiction. We don't take a case, we don't assume the case as our own. We're here only as consultants and to provide whatever support that we can for them. We've helped pay for forensic tests for some agencies that couldn't afford it. So the monies that we're able to to generate come 100 of it is passed through to law enforcement agencies and victims families.

[B]

How do you guys generate money? Obviously the book can be an example of that. But do you take donations?

[A]

We take donations, absolutely. Take donations as a result of PayPal as an example, or straight donations that come in. We have donations that come into us from organizations, estates. Most of the money that we have outside of donations come as a result of training that we provide to law enforcement agencies. We've been working with Bureau of Indian affairs and the tribal police police for about the last five or six years. You've heard of the lady justice program first started, started under Trump's first term, trying to address the unsolved homicides of indig female, indigenous, of which a ton.

[B]

We live in where we are right now, we're bordered north, south and west by reservations.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's unbelievable. It's terrible. There's about at least they're thinking 12 to 1500 unsolved cases, indigenous population, females of homicides and missing persons cases that we've been working with them. We provide consultation services we have to them, but mostly training. We've trained their new agents that have been assigned as investigators for those cases. We've been working with them for about five years now.

[B]

Does profiling work regardless of country given cultural differences?

[A]

Yeah, it's a great, great question. You wonder, is there a difference between one?

[B]

Well, just standards and norms and cultures.

[A]

And it affects people. Certainly it influences them. But when we're. We're talking about violence and people acting out in very bizarre, unique ways, they're very similar because the way in which you and I, me and somebody in Africa or South America or Germany expresses thoughts, feelings and emotions, anger, rage, curiosity at a crime scene or a sense of feeling sorry for what they've done, remorse, those base feelings are expressed very similarly because we're all human beings and we act those things out very, very commonly. So, yeah, I would say no, there's not a lot of difference. There's difference maybe in some of their attitudes and opinions about nationalities and their own identities in terms of their nationality. But when it comes to committing crimes and the Types of crimes. We're talking about violent crimes, violent sexual crimes. It's all very similar.

[B]

Yeah. I think we're far less unique than we would like to tell ourselves.

[A]

Yeah, man.

[B]

What, you know, given how much you've looked into that world and the thousands of cases, what advice do you have for the average person to just enhance their safety?

[A]

Yeah. I'll tell you, it's pretty simple. Think of one of the first things that we look at is victimology. How did this person become a victim under this set of circumstances, environment and situation by this particular type of offender? And then we look at a person's lifestyle based upon what's happening in the moment that the crime is being committed, in terms of environment, situation and circumstances. And what's their lifestyle like? Low, medium or high risk. So we stretch out a continuum. Low, medium, high risk. What's happening in their own life? What do they do that could contribute themselves to becoming a victim of that type of a crime? And then we look at what's going on in the moment when the crime is being committed or just proximate to the crime is being committed and engage themselves on a continuum as to whether or not they're low, medium or high risk. And of course, what we're. What we're suggesting to them is stay in low risk.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Once you get to medium risk, immediately take action and bring yourself back down to that low risk category. Once you hit high risk, now you're looking at forfeiting, if you will, to some extent, your power and influence of becoming a victim of a crime to somebody else. You're forfeiting it over to somebody else, a predator who's looking for an opportunity or prey. As an example, let's take a prostitute, gang banger, a hitchhiker. Are they engaging in activities? They're going to put them in a low, medium or high risk.

[B]

I'm going to go high.

[A]

Yeah. Good job. Yeah. And so what we've found is that the higher risk an individual is in their lifestyle and in what's happening within the environment, situation and circumstances that the crime has occurred, the higher risk they are, the higher the probability that they have become victims of opportunity and that the victim and the offender are strangers. So let's go back down now to the opposite end of the spectrum or the continuum. Let's say you have a housewife, married with four children. They range 18 to 7 years old, 8 years old, and in the middle of the night she gets a phone call. Pick a place like Provo, Utah. Low crime rate, low violent Crimes. She gets a phone call from her mother who lives in St. George, Utah and she says, sorry to tell you honey, that your, your dad has had a heart attack and it's serious and if you want to see him before the doctors expect that he's going to pass, you need to get out here sooner as possible. So here she finds herself in a situation. Her husband's out of town on work, she's got an 18 year old son, three other children with him, that's four kids all together. She's going to decides under this very emotional set of circumstances, she's going to leave the younger ones in the protection and custody of the 18 year old. She's going to pack a bag, get in that car and get out to see her father as quickly as she possibly can. And she does. She's in a hurry. She's not thinking about all the things that could happen. And let's say between Provo and St. George, she's out somewhere around Cove Fort, Utah and she has a flat tire. She pulls over the side of the road. So she's got some things that she can do. First of all, does she know how to change a flat tire? And let's now say she's never changed flat tire. She's by herself. How about her phone? Can she call for help? She does have her phone, but she's in a dead dead zone now. What can she do? She can wait hopefully for a highway patrolman that's going to come by, help her out. So what's happening to her risk level with all these choices and decisions she's made innocently, ignorantly. Yeah, haphazardly.

[B]

It doesn't change the fact it's going up.

[A]

That's right. And if a highway patrolman drops by, boy, she's right down there. And low risk. But what if Robert Ben Rhodes drops by serial killer, truck driver? What if Ted Bundy drops by? Now he owns her opportunity. So you can have a low risk victim who moves into a high risk set of environment situation circumstances just by the choices that they've made along the way. Typically though, however, a low risk victim, the lower risk the victim's lifestyle is. She would be a low risk risk victim. The lower risk her lifestyle, higher the probability that if she dies as a result of a violent crime, the victim and the offender know each other at some level and that she's been targeted. So we start with that and then we focus down on that funnel, all the way down to interesting suspect.

[B]

What a fascinating line of work it has been. How'd you decide to leave the bureau?

[A]

That's an interesting question. I loved what I did. And in fact, I was running the. At the time, I was running the behavioral science unit. John Douglas had retired. I was his relief supervisor at the time. I was also running the VICAP program, that violent criminal apprehension program, and teaching at the FBI National Academy. Loved my career. There were some changes that were being made. A new director had come in, and he was restructuring, reorganizing everything at the behest of some individuals that we became aware of. And I was not happy about it, to be honest. Didn't think it was good for the unit. Didn't think it was good planning for the future. And I was going to resist that effort because I didn't think it was good for the situation that we were in. And just at that time, during that period of time, I get a phone call from my former police chief, Provo, Utah. He says, I'm retiring. Are you interested? I said, well, you know, when I was there, all I ever wanted to do before I left Provo and then I went to become a police chief of the small town Delta. I always wanted to be the police chief of Provo, so I wanted to come back eventually. So the timing was right for me. I thought, I've got nothing to lose. I'll go ahead and go on out for the interview. So there were, I think, 12 people that applied, and I was offered the position. I made the choice in three weeks to pack up and make my move and then started the Cold Case Foundation. I did spend a couple years after chief, being a chief in Provo. Spent a couple years with the Homeland Security, the Department of Homeland Security. And I think I mentioned to you earlier I had functioned as a law enforcement representative looking after all the public safety issues for the airports here in Montana, which they're airtight. Yeah, airtight everywhere around the world. Exactly. I'll tell you a quick story, how this comes full circle. It's included in the book. So, as I mentioned, I was a police chief of a small town, little town. There were six guys. When I got there, I was. I was the chief, like six cops.

[B]

Or six people in the town.

[A]

Six cops. Yeah. No. And we're going through a boom bus situation. So I thought it was going to be. Be a good opportunity for me. You know, here I had a master's degree. I'd been a cop all the five years. And I'll apply for it because I want to be a police chief. I don't want to hang around, do all these other stuff. So I thought, I'm going to go ahead and go for it. So I was offered the job. There was only two law enforcement agencies in the county. One was the sheriff's department and then the Delta police department. And because it was a boom bust, we had this influx of construction workers that moved in for the intermountain power project. That really changed the nature of what had happened, what was going on in Delta, Higher crime in certain areas, domestic situations, drugs, alcohol, et cetera. So we were required to grow as a result of that. And we grew to 12 people. Six to 12.

[B]

I mean, it's 100%.

[A]

Is that amazing? That's what I called it. So when the bureau called me, because I had already applied to the FBI, as I mentioned to you, and they put that hiring freeze on, I still had to go out and work, right? So they called me and said, are you still interested? Yeah, of course I was. So they came back and I asked them, am I going to have to retest and go through all this process again? No, no, no. Everything, it's fine. We just want to come out and re interview you because it's been three years. So the applicant coordinator comes out with three or four other agents. And I'm. I'm really proud to show them what we've done out here, you know, two and a half years having a brand new city building, all These guys compared 100% growth, you know. Anyway, offered the position and I worked very closely with the sheriff out there, fantastic guy. And they had some very bizarre cases. So I left, go to the bureau. The sheriff ends up eventually going to the FBI national academy, visits me when I happen to be out there as a profiler at the academy and we visit. He leaves, comes back. I spend my 10 years in the FBI and I make this change. I come back to Provo now and while I was teaching as a profiler in the FBI National Academy, I went to one of the foremost profilers in the area of serial rapists. And I said, roy, his name was Roy Hazelwood. I said, roy, look, they've asked me to teach profiling and I need some examples of, of cases that I can use. He says, I got the perfect case for you that you can use to teach other police officers. The Robert Ben Rhodes case. He's a serial truck driver, serial killer, truck driver. And so I use that, I use that as an example in all, all the courses I taught, I don't know, hundreds of courses back there. And I bring it back with me. Of course, I've got a whole curriculum teaching profiling to law enforcement. So when I come back to Provo, I get this request from the Utah Police Chiefs association to come out and give a presentation in Salt in St. George at the conference. Give a presentation on what you did back there. Well, happy to do that. One of the cases I had focused on was the Robert Ben Rhodes case. I thought, you know, he was arrested and this young girl he was known to have picked up, a 14 year old girl and her boyfriend out of San Antonio, Texas, kills the boy immediately, in our opinion. Don't know for sure, but we believe he did. And he keeps that 14 year old girl for up to 10 days.

[B]

Jesus.

[A]

Your imagination can run wild with you. He did it all. What they end up getting him on was abduction. They can't prove that he's responsible for her death even though they find her remains in a abandoned barn out of Illinois. And, but they couldn't prove that he killed her. Only prove as a result of what happens here when he gets arrested. He happens to be in Arizona, parks his truck in Arizona. Highway patrolman, I'm kind of jumping around here, sorry. Comes out to see what's going on in this truck. He finds this girl in the back of the sleeper berth and she's chained up, she's got whip marks on her, she's got handcuffs, ankle cuffs. And Robert Ben Rhodes comes around the front of the truck and he approaches the highway patrolman who says, hey, it's not what it looks like, etc. Etc. Make a long story short, you can read about it in the book or you can get a book on it called Road Prey. He tells the highway patrolman, hey, she wanted this. He asked me to do this. I just gave her a ride. She was hitchhiking, etc. Yeah, she was hitchhiking. He picked her up and he kept her as a sex slave for the three days. And so the highway patrolman keeps him and they charge him with abduction and then they get a, a search warrant for his place. He has a separate place from where his, he also is married, but he's got a separate place that his wife doesn't know about, an apartment. And they go in and do a search warrant on that apartment. They find all these photographs and young women's clothing. And these photographs are photographs of a young girl. It ends up being Regina Walters, 14 years old, who in the photographs are wearing some of, she's wearing some of these clothing. This clothing. So we know, me, we meaning law enforcement, know that he had her. Well, and the next Time they find her, and he's got all these photographs in the sleeper berth, chained up in various modes and postures, etcetera, and sexually sadistic activities. And then eventually her body's found. So they link him back to her as a result of that and get him for abduction. So very upsetting case, distressful case. But it taught the unique behaviors of what a serial killer does and all of their aspects of their life, which is interestingly very similar to types of activities that hunters will go through in terms of preparing to go out for the hunt. These guys do the same thing in preparing to go out for the hunt, just like a hunter will do for whatever they're interested in. So what ends up happening is, you know, I've got an attitude about this guy, and he's not. He's not never cooperated with anybody. He's never confessed to any of his crimes. So here we go. Now I'm coming full circle back as the police chief in Provo. I've been asked to give this presentation out there in St. George, Utah. So I'm giving the presentation and I'm going through this case, showing the photographs, and I show the map, his truck log, his travel log, and in 1990, 91, we see that this guy has been through Utah. Sheriff Phillips, who I worked with 13 years before, raises his hand at the back of the room. He says, hey. Says those photographs, man, that those areas that Regina is in, that he's taking photographs of her outside in the wild, look familiar to me. They look like our area, Millard County. He says, show me again where, when he was in Utah. But back up the map flashing through that. He says, I've got an unsolved case. Dead female, shot in the back of the head, stripped and left to decompose. 1990. Rhodes was there 1990. How can I get a hold of people who have some information on him? We put him in connection with all these cops that worked these cases over the years and detectives that were involved in it and FBI agents In that apartment, he's been keeping clothing, right, that belonged to Regina Walters as one, but others as well. There's a rag in there that had some blood on it. They did a DNA test on the blood, and don't you know that it gets linked no way to the homicide there in Millard County. Now, here's a side note for you. So before I went out to give the presentation, I thought, you know, I'm going to call, get a hold of Robert Ben Rhodes and see if he'll talk to Me, so I can take that information, if he's willing to give it to me, about certain cases and what his thought process was, et cetera, as we like to do with these serial offenders, talk to him, interview him, and take it into the presentation. So I make arrangements to call this guy on the phone, he's in Illinois, in prison, and make the arrangements to bring him into a room that he's escorted into. I'm on the phone waiting. He, he's escorted in, gets the phone, introduces himself, I introduce myself, tell him what I want to do, explain to him who I am, what my background is. I'd like to ask you some questions about the Regina Walters case. Regina Walters. And he went off and called her every disgusting, deplorable name in the book, tried to blame her homicide on her boyfriend, etc. Anyway, it got to the point where I just had enough. And I thought, I'm not going to get anywhere with this guy now and not ever. So I'm just going to let him know what I think about it. So I said, let me just tell you something. I'm going to commit my life to do something that's going to make your life more miserable than it already is. If I can do it, whatever that be, I've committed myself to it. But little did I know that I was just going to give this presentation there in St. George and solve that case in Millard county where they arrested him as a result, for that case brought out, they're going to charge him first degree homicide and go after the death penalty, which the guy deserves. Unfortunately, they decided because of other cases that he agreed to confess to, that he would just agree to life in prison. But at least the voice again, you gave a voice to the victim. You solved another crime. But it's just one of those experiences where it's something as simple as passing information along. Now, there happened to be a connection, and it was only because I was. I'd been showing his. His case for years. I, I can't imagine. I, I must have given that presentation two, 300 times, easy. Did I ever think that by sharing the information about that case would have solved the case in the county that I worked in as a police chief 13 years before? No, not at all. But it, it's those kinds of things that create this nexus between the ability that we have in law enforcement to communicate what we refer to as the four Cs, communicate with each other, cooperate, coordinate and collaborate. If we'll do those things together. It's unmatched on how Many cases that we can be part and parcel to solving if we continue to work together. Highlighting those principles.

[B]

Has there ever been a case.

[A]

Where.

[B]

The serial killer was actually a profiler?

[A]

No, not that I'm aware of.

[B]

Because that's a pretty good TV show.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Also, it'd be a really good place to learn.

[A]

Let's hope that never happens.

[B]

I mean, if it depends on the long game. People who want to know what the authorities know. Like hiding in plain.

[A]

Exactly. Scary.

[B]

Don't you dare try to write that movie, Michael.

[A]

Scary thought, Michael. Write it down. Oh, I am.

[B]

It might be worth running a profile on him, to be honest. What do you want to leave people with? We've been at it for two and a half hours.

[A]

Whoa. You're gonna show this whole thing?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Really?

[B]

I don't do any editing. We just.

[A]

Wow. Fantastic.

[B]

Well, first, how can people support the Cold Case Foundation? That's probably the best way.

[A]

That'd be great. First of all, people can donate to the organization. They can volunteer, they can buy the book, and they can submit cases. Law enforcement agencies can submit cases to us so we can assist them in providing these services at no cost to them. We have been partnering with law enforcement agencies for 13 years now and participated in solving many of those cases. It's not just because of what we do. It's because of what we can bring together in terms of resources. When you have that opportunity to bring together a brainchild of various disciplines, experience, training, and education, you create a whole new mindset, if you will, to be able to analyze a case and provide thoughts and insights to an agency that's been looking at it for years and years and years over and over again to get some new perspectives on it. And, you know, when. When you get that opportunity to look at other people's experiences and training where they've specialized in these areas that have been somewhat foreign to them, it's amazing what can happen. And we just want to be part of that to help them.

[B]

What's the best website or place that they could. Donator fund?

[A]

Cold Case Foundation.org?

[B]

Not bad. As far as website goes.

[A]

It all.

[B]

Anything else you want to close it out with?

[A]

No. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

It means a lot to me. It means a lot to the organization. And I just want to put a shout out to you and your associates and all the good work that you've done and represent for the United States of America in your military service and also your brother's in some kind of arms, I suppose, to some Extent, as law enforcement, for sure, are part and parcel in some areas. And for the good work that's being done by people around the country, imagine what the country would be like without law enforcement agencies.

[B]

I actually can, because I've been to many countries where it doesn't exist.

[A]

And you can talk about those things. Right. I mean, people don't believe me, though.

[B]

They don't believe me. No, that would never happen.

[A]

Doesn't happen. Okay. Imagine. Yeah. It wouldn't take long for society to fall apart.

[B]

I forget the quote, who it's associated to, but I believe it's nine meals from chaos.

[A]

There you go. Wouldn't take long at all.

[B]

No, no, it would not.

[A]

No. But you know, I commend you and you are a hero to many young men.

[B]

The census is going through.

[A]

I'm telling you. I'm telling you. I mean, I. Some people say, well, I want to be a profiler. Okay, well, you can be a profiler if you do what I did to become a profiler. I want to be a Navy seal. Oh, yeah? Do you? Well, this is what it's going to take.

[B]

They're taking applications.

[A]

That's right. This is what it's going to take.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the experiences that you've had.

[B]

But I'm trying to talk Michael into it.

[A]

I think he's smarter than.

[B]

We both agree. He wouldn't make it, but I'm trying to get him to ruin his life.

[A]

Right.

[B]

On that note, let's get you guys back out and enjoying the hottest day of the year so far in Montana with the smoke that's just pouring in from Canada.

[A]

Well, thanks again and love to come back anytime you want.

[B]

Perfect. We'll do another one for sure. And you got to sign the book. That's one thing we got to do.

[A]

Absolutely. Cool. Got it. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host, you seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to libsynads. Com, that's l I b s y n ads com today.