While I really do respect and value the work of people like Douglas and Ressler when it comes to assisting in the process of catching killers, I'm finding quite a few problems with the majority of profiles offered in this case.
1 -- the biggest problem of all.. profiles offered by profilers who already have a strong existing opinion on who the killers were (or were not), and the profiles exhibiting this bias.
2 -- profilers hired not by LE to help identify an unknown killer, but by heavily biased legal teams, and those profiles reflecting the bias of said fee-paying teams.
So what I'm after here is two things:
A/ Your opinion on the various profiles offered, for good or bad.
B/ Your own profile of a possible killer (and for the sake of the exercise, let's just TRY not to base those on a bias toward any one particular suspect? I'm asking what the -evidence- at the crime scene tells you.. ) which we should all, of course, take as layman's opinions rather than expert and thus graciously allow for the fact that not everyone has a degree in psych, let alone expertise in criminal behavior.
Thus, all observations are very welcome.
Anyway, here's John Douglas' profile:
http://media.commercialappeal.com/media/static/Offender_profile.pdf
Brent Turvey:
http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/b_turvey_profile.html
Pat Brown:
http://womenincrimeink.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/dont-free-west-memphis-three.html
If there's any other professional profiles out there that I've missed, please do link them!
I'll give my own opinions etc, in another post below.
1 -- the biggest problem of all.. profiles offered by profilers who already have a strong existing opinion on who the killers were (or were not), and the profiles exhibiting this bias.
2 -- profilers hired not by LE to help identify an unknown killer, but by heavily biased legal teams, and those profiles reflecting the bias of said fee-paying teams.
So what I'm after here is two things:
A/ Your opinion on the various profiles offered, for good or bad.
B/ Your own profile of a possible killer (and for the sake of the exercise, let's just TRY not to base those on a bias toward any one particular suspect? I'm asking what the -evidence- at the crime scene tells you.. ) which we should all, of course, take as layman's opinions rather than expert and thus graciously allow for the fact that not everyone has a degree in psych, let alone expertise in criminal behavior.
Thus, all observations are very welcome.
Anyway, here's John Douglas' profile:
http://media.commercialappeal.com/media/static/Offender_profile.pdf
Brent Turvey:
http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/b_turvey_profile.html
Pat Brown:
http://womenincrimeink.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/dont-free-west-memphis-three.html
If there's any other professional profiles out there that I've missed, please do link them!
I'll give my own opinions etc, in another post below.