David McGuire
Criminal Investigation 4/3/2013

THE MIND HUNTER BOOK REPORT

In the book Mind Hunter, author, John Douglas introduces how the FBI provides learning, education and techniques throughout Local, State and Federal police. John Douglas was a former FBI agent from the FBI at Quantico, VA. Douglas tells about how he and a team of FBI officers formed the Investigative Support Unit. Douglas explains the steps and techniques used in profiling an offender, by putting himself inside the mind of a killer and victim. Douglas has interviews with famous serial killers in prison. Douglas learned a lot about what was going on inside the killer’s mind, with clues he left at a crime scene. In the book Douglas describes
Sometimes they would visit the victims out of remorse just because they felt bad. Majority of the time killers would just do this because it was just in the behavior. One of the cases that I found interesting was the “Son of Sam” aka. David Berkowitz In this case the Son of Sam was responsible for setting over 2,000 fires in the Brooklyn, Queens’s area. He would set abandoned buildings on fire along with random trash cans and different structures. He would master bate while watching the building begin to burn then again when the fire department arrived. Berkowitz documented these events in a diary. He resembled an assassin personality, a loner who indulges in excessive journal entries. He killed six people and injured seven others, which went on for over a year. He used a .44 caliber revolver each time. When he killed his “lover lane” victims he would approach the female’s side of the car and shoot them first. This told the investigators that his hatred and anger was directed towards woman. The multiple shots showed this anger. The Son of Sam would go back to his crime scenes and relive the kill sometimes rolling around in the dirt where he killed his victim. The Son of Sam sent letter’s to the police and news stations. One of those letters read “I am deeply hurt by you calling me a women hater, I am not but I am a monster”. Son of Sam had become a national celebrity. Berkowitz would visit the crime scenes