Mindhunter /// Part 1 /// 868

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In late 2017, creator Joe Penhall, executive producer Charlites Theron, and director David Fincher delivered to the world the Mindhunter TV series.

It's a Netflix original based on the 1995 book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by legendary FBI agent John Douglas and co-authored by Mark Allshaker.

The show was a hit for fans of true crime.

Because much of the show comes directly from Douglas' FBI career, the Mindhunter book, and news stories from national headlining stories, much of Mindhunter is very real and in fact true crime.

By some is crime fiction.

Now, regardless,

if you have watched this show or not, we are going to be talking a lot of true crime, especially true crime stories, killers, crimes, and events from the late 1970s, as season one is said to take place in 1977 and focuses on the initial establishment of the FBI's behavioral science unit led by fictional characters Holton Ford and Bill Tench.

as they conduct early interviews with serial killers like Ed Kemper to develop criminal profiling techniques and coin the term serial killer.

Catching a criminal often requires the authorities to get inside the villain's mind to figure out how he thinks.

FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench attempt to understand and catch serial killers by studying their damaged psyches.

Along the way, the agents pioneer the development of modern serial killer profiling.

This is a deep look at the Mindhunter series, and this is True Crime Garage.

Mind Hunter Season 1, Episode 1, opens up on Brodock, Pennsylvania.

We have Holden Ford, our John Douglas character, is arriving to a hostage situation.

The officer at the scene tells Douglas that the perp, who has a gun to a woman's head, thinks that he is invisible, stole a shotgun, robbed a liquor store.

He was talking to people that are not there.

The wife said that she would leave him if he doesn't go to see a doctor.

He is supposed to be taking medication.

The perp here in this scene, Captain, is Cody Miller.

He is asking, where is my wife?

Holden Ford, again, our John Douglas character, is trying to arrange it so that this man can talk with his wife on the phone.

He insists that she be there.

Holden says, maybe I can help.

And the man, Cody Miller, puts the shotgun to his chin and blows his head off right in front of Holden, the police, Cody Miller's wife, and some onlookers and the female hostage.

Is this story real or made up for the show?

While the name Cody Miller may be made up for the show, the incident is very much real from Douglas's book, Mindhunter, inside the FBI's elite serial crime unit, where Douglas writes:

In one case, somewhat more straightforward than the Jacob Cohen extravaganza, a guy robbed a bank, then led police on a high-speed chase, ending up barricaded in a warehouse.

That was when we were called in.

Inside this warehouse, he takes off all of his clothes, then puts them back on again.

We see this in the show as well.

He seems like a real nutcase, Douglas adds.

Then he asks to have his wife brought to the scene, which they do.

In later years, when we'd done more research into this type of personality, he's talking about the perpetrator, we'd understand that you don't do that.

You don't agree to this type of demand because the person they ask to see is usually the one whom they perceive as having precipitated the problem in the first place.

Therefore, you're putting that individual in great danger and setting them up for a murder-suicide.

Fortunately, in this instance, they don't bring her inside the warehouse, but have her talk to him on the phone.

And sure enough, as soon as he hangs up, he blows his brains out with the shotgun.

So, this incident, however, did not take place in Braddock, Pennsylvania, but it actually took place in Milwaukee sometime before 1975.

I'm piecing some of this together because I know Douglas's general history and timeline.

And he was working at the field office in Milwaukee as an agent for a little more than five years during the early 70s.

Or like the natives, say, Bill Walquay.

Douglas discusses this incident on pages 85 and 86 of Mindhunter.

And the situation is, as said, it's a little bit different, but you can see how it was molded from a real-life situation that Douglas wrote about to open up the series and to kind of show you.

They have to show us Douglas or Holden Ford in a different position, which Douglas was before he gets roped into the behavioral science unit.

Well, wasn't the idea that if the gunman didn't have his clothes on, that he was invisible to the outside world?

Yes, something to that effect.

And I think, just like in real life, the perpetrator on the show takes off his clothes, says something like, do you see me?

and then puts the clothes back on.

We've all been there.

We all can see you.

The next scene is Holden Ford at his apartment in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

He's washing blood from his white button-up shirt.

This

is supposed to like signify Holden observing this very bizarre hostage situation of a very sick man who is clearly needs some strong mental help here.

I think that's where he starts putting...

thought into this of like these crimes and these perpetrators, these violent offenders can be much more complicated than just bad guy versus good guy.

One, we have to be concerned about the mental state of the person

and understanding that we don't all think the same.

We aren't all on the same level.

And

that may be why some people react the way that they do or behave the way that they do.

I also find it fascinating how when he's cleaning off the blood, it's almost a normal action for him.

So I think it also kind of shows that the deeper that law enforcement get into these situations, that they might not behave in ways that we find normal either.

To me, I look at that and I see him, it's almost like he's attempting to scrub off the blood and it's...

maybe an attempt to try to forget how dramatic that night had been or to try to forget like it seems like that

that night damaged him or greatly affected him and he may be worried that it would haunt him and and therefore trying to scrub out and erase

the

blood is almost like scrubbing out and erasing the memory of that night well and it starts off the series with a bang literally the next scene is fbi headquarters at the fbi headquarters in virginia while holding is waiting in the lobby he sets his cup of coffee on an end table next to a copy of Time magazine that has a picture of David Berkowitz on the cover.

And the cover reads, David Berkowitz, son of Sam, meets his fate.

Now, you don't have to have watched the series.

You don't have to have watched Mindhunter at all to be tuning in with us this week because we're going to be talking about a lot of true crime that is all brought up throughout this series.

And a lot of these will be cases that you have heard of, maybe some cases that you're even familiar with, but there will also be some cases that you have not heard of at all.

And then, for those of you that have watched the series and wondered, well, what portions of the series are fact or based on real killers and how they may have morphed and altered some of that information to tell the story, to dramatize the Mindhunter series.

This will add a lot of clarity.

Now, one thing I did, because I'm a sick individual myself, super nerd.

Have not been diagnosed yet, still waiting on a qualified doctor.

You have been diagnosed as a super nerd, though.

I was even looking for stuff in the background, like this, like this David Berkowitz son of Sam meets his fate time magazine cover sitting on this end table at the FBI headquarters in some lobby there in one of of their buildings.

So I wanted to know more about that magazine cover, David Berkowitz and Time Magazine.

Now, Time Magazine extensively covered the case of David Berkowitz, also known as the son of Sam Killer, who terrorized New York City with a series of shootings between 1976 and 1977.

We know that he murdered six young people and wounded seven others using a.44 caliber revolver.

Times reporting captured the public fear and the media frenzy surrounding the case.

For example, the magazine noted how David Berkowitz sent letters to newspapers, including the Daily News, using the pseudonym Son of Sam and referencing demonic themes.

Time also described how the police investigation was going, how it was initially hampered by misleading eyewitness accounts and fragmented descriptions, was eventually aided by a personality profile of the likely killer, and then ultimately tracked down via a parking ticket that was issued to David Berkowitz to his car near a crime scene, this leading to his arrest in 1977.

So, the Berkowitz stuff, all very true.

However, Time magazine did document the relief and the anger that followed David Berkowitz's capture and then his subsequent confession.

He initially claimed that his killings were ordered by a demon inhabiting the body of his neighbor's dog, a story he later recanted.

Times coverage of this story included analysis of the psychological aspects of the case, describing Berkowitz as a psychopath with early signs of paranoia.

The magazine also discussed the legal implications, noting that Berkowitz was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences and that his case spurred the creation of Son of Sam laws designed to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes.

Some of Time magazine's coverage on the Son of Sam includes the following with the headline, Nation, Son of Sam returns.

This is from June 5th, 1978.

And it reads, Berkowitz rants in court.

When David Berkowitz stood before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Joseph Corso,

he admitted that he, acting as son of Sam, had terrorized New York City in a long series of killings with his.44 caliber revolver.

The former male clerk appeared so placid and reasonable that the judge agreed with a panel of psychiatrists and found him mentally competent to stand trial.

Berkowitz then pleaded guilty to the murder of Stacey Moskowitz, age 20, and to five more counts of second-degree murder.

This

flat and anticlimactic appearance in court was entirely free of the seemingly psychotic rantings that had filled Berkowitz's letters and earlier conversations with police.

They go on to say, as Berkowitz returned to court to be sentenced, it was son of Sam's turn to put in an appearance.

So almost like Berkowitz is one person and the son of Sam is another person, all trapped in the same body here.

And it goes on to say, in a packed courtroom sat Stacey Moskowitz's mother and Robert Villante, Stacy's date, the night of the murder, who was partially blind from the gunshot wounds he received.

While the spectators waited for an hour and a half, guards struggled to bring the killer into the courtroom.

He scratched and bit them, trying to rush for a window.

Finally, disheveled and handcuffed, he was pushed into the room.

His face was flushed, his eyes bulging.

Turning towards the spectators, he began a sing-song chant, Stacy was a whore, Stacy was a whore.

The spectators, angry, jumped to their feet.

You animal, you animal, screamed Mrs.

Moskowitz.

And then the other victim, Robert Volante, yells, you should get killed, you creep.

As the guards rushed the struggling David Berkowitz out of the room.

He cried, that's right, that's right.

I killed her.

I'd kill her again.

I'd kill them all again.

It was a catchy tune, but it never broke the top 100 in the United States.

But I have a question on the

profiling because did the profiling start with the behavioral science unit or did it start before then?

That's a great question.

I know we talked about the profiling when we covered Son of Sam, which was,

what,

seven, eight years ago?

It was a long time ago.

Million years ago.

Million years ago.

But I also remember we talked a little bit about this,

these outbursts that took place in the courtroom.

Why I hone in on this one is this was a particular article from Time magazine where he says, that's right, that's right.

I'd kill her again.

I'd kill them all again.

That statement was powerful then and scary then, but also powerful and scary now because David Berkowitz is up for parole, by the way.

I'm hoping at these parole hearings that somebody is sitting there bringing up that while he has found God sitting in his prison cell all these years, and while he's mild-mannered and very polite today, I've spoken to people that have spoken to David Berkowitz, a couple, and they all say he's very polite.

He's very religious.

He won't talk about his crimes.

Yeah, but BTK was very polite and very religious.

I wouldn't want him out on the streets.

Well, that's what I'm pointing out.

With BTK, it was obviously a facade.

With Berkowitz, even all these years later, it could just be that.

It could all be fake.

What I'm asking the parole board is to see the man that committed the crimes, not the man that stands before you 40 years plus later.

Yeah, I agree.

It's probably a facade, but.

You can't be religious and out murdering men, women, and children.

You can't.

Well, but

you can pretend to be religious.

You can work as an officer for the church, as BTK did, but

you're not God-fearing.

Yeah, but some people have very perverse versions of religion and how it applies to their existence.

Which makes them completely wrong.

So while the Time magazine looked cool in the waiting area at the the FBI headquarters, the Son of Sam David Berkowitz was not featured.

He was never featured on the cover of Time magazine.

While the Son of Sam case was a major news event and the subject of much media attention, obviously, Time magazine did not dedicate a cover story to him or his crimes.

The magazine focused on the broader societal issues and major news events, not on individual criminals.

But of course, because it's on TV, we can't see what's inside the magazine.

They have to put it on the cover.

But it's fascinating because if it wasn't for him,

how long would these killers go on with profiting from their crimes?

And watching these new documentaries that are coming out, the new documentary on the Delphi murders, the new documentary on Long Island Serial Killer.

You wonder if that should extend to some of the family members that are basically advocates for the killers.

And there are people advocating for some of these very,

very

evil killers.

Holden, our character, is told by his superior at the FBI that he will be teaching hostage negotiations at Quantico.

Then we see Holden standing at the podium in a classroom setting, teaching hostage negotiations to a room full of students.

Holden is telling the students about a real hostage situation that he has personally experienced.

He says to the room, This is where we find ourselves completely out of control.

A fugitive has already killed a police officer that morning in Austin.

He's taken two nine-millimeter rounds to the ass, grabbed a 10-year-old boy as a hostage.

He's holding up in a suburban neighborhood crawling with women and small children.

Now we must focus on one thing, and that thing is de-escalation.

San Antonio's chief of police arrives and starts using a bullhorn, which more than effectively intimidates our hostage taker.

This incident is also true.

However, just as with the previous story, this too took place in Milwaukee.

And this I actually found on FBI.gov.

This was a fugitive hunt by Milwaukee agents in February of 1974 that turned violent and deadly.

And they write there that after Milwaukee was notified that a murder suspect named Jacob Paul Cohen was likely living in the city, the special agent in charge and another agent were wounded when they attempted to arrest him.

After Cohen took a teenage boy hostage, he was shot and killed by a special agent marksman.

While Douglas in his book, Minehunter and the city of Milwaukee tell slightly different versions of this true crime story, it's real.

Jacob Paul Cohen murdered two Chicago police officers during a bank robbery, and he fled to

2506 North Terrace Avenue in Milwaukee.

The hostage was a 14-year-old boy, his name Danny Brady, who was shoveling snow before he was snatched up by the wanted man, Jacob Cohen.

After the incident, the boy was fine, but the suspect was dead.

He was shot and killed at the scene.

The special agent marksman was Douglas's partner at the time.

His name was Joe Del Campo.

Holden tells the class, our goal is no body bags.

That is the hostage negotiator win-win.

After this, Holden leaves the classroom, and while in the hallway, he overhears another class where the instructor is telling the class Robert Vellante and Stacey Moskowitz, our two son of Sam victims that we've already discussed, were making out in their car when David Berkowitz walked up and shot them both point blank.

Berkowitz killed six people over two summers, wounding seven more.

Why?

He asked the classroom.

Because a dog told him to do it.

And as we know,

this portion is true.

David Richard Berkowitz, born Richard David Falco, also known as the son of Sam and the.44 caliber killer, committed a series of stabbings and shootings between 1975 and 1977 in New York City, killing six people and wounding 11 others.

He was armed with his.44 special caliber bulldog revolver.

During most of his crimes, he terrorized New Yorkers with many letters, mocking the police and promising further crimes, leading to possibly the biggest manhunt in the city's history.

We know that Berkowitz was arrested on August 10th, 1977, and indicted for eight shootings.

He confessed to all of them and initially claimed to have been obeying the orders of a demon manifested in the form of a black dog named Sam, which belonged to his neighbor.

After being found mentally competent to stand trial, he pled guilty.

As we said, he is now up for possibility of parole after.

So, part of his sentence here, Captain, was he gets six concurrent life sentences in the state prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

So, he's been up for parole for a considerable amount of time.

Right.

He did admit eventually that the dog in the devil story was a hoax.

Berkowitz has been denied parole several times, and his next hearing is scheduled for May of 2026, which will be here faster than we know it.

But don't you think it's more complicated than that?

Because we assume he made up this tall tale, but is it possible that part of the tale is true, but he's telling us what he thinks we want to hear?

No, I think that when you have a city, a whole city, especially a city as large as New York City, saying before the guy is identified and caught that whoever's doing this must be a madman, must be completely crazy.

And maybe on some level, Berkowitz did think he was crazy.

Sometimes these serial killers don't understand themselves and

are not able to have a great comprehension

of why they do what they do.

Berkowitz, I don't think he, I mean, I don't think he believed that story because later he tells us that that was a hoax.

And what we do know is that working with his attorneys, he they were working on a an insanity defense.

They wanted to get an insanity defense.

This was a very violent man.

And I'm look, I apologize because we are very mental health forward on this show, and we do recognize the importance of identifying that and working on that on all levels, right?

No matter

what our place in this world is, it's something to be concerned with and something to work on.

But so I kind of hate to say this next part, but with some of these guys, they're so violent that I don't really care where they end up.

And really, in the hardest place for him to escape is where he belongs.

I mean, he's incredibly violent.

I don't, I can't recall exactly how much of this we discussed when we covered it, but he was a serial arsonist before he became became a serial killer.

And he got so much pleasure out of murdering these people that he didn't know, pulling a,

he wanted to be somebody important.

He wasn't important.

He was nobody.

And

really, that's part of the reason why he taunted police and the public was he wanted to be known.

He wanted to go around and hear the term son of Sam, the 44

caliber killer.

He wanted to hear that because they were talking about him.

Right.

And so he wanted to be something important.

He wasn't important.

So he murdered other people to become important in his mind.

If that makes him crazy, then I agree.

Well, you have to be sensitive to mental health issues, but you also have to be sensitive.

We have to protect the public.

Exactly.

This guy would shoot two people in a car and then later return to that area and masturbate.

That's how disgusting and gross and violent this individual was.

So if, I mean, if that makes him crazy, I agree, but I also think he ended up exactly where he should be.

Now,

he was sick.

I mean, he even used lubrication.

Now, we have standing by a vehicle.

This is just outside of one of the FBI buildings.

We have Holden Ford.

He's asking that instructor that was teaching the class, right, about and talking about Berkowitz.

And he says to the instructor, How, you know, he, the instructor's clearly been doing this for a while, but Berkowitz is a recently apprehended killer.

And so he asked the instructor if he was teaching this stuff before Berkowitz, and the instructor replies, yes, a version of it.

The headlines sort of fell in my lap.

So the character, I believe his name is Peter Rathman.

Holden asks Peter Rathman, what got you started?

And he replies, Starkweather, Whitman, Manson.

And of course, Son of Sam kind of epitomizes now is his response.

Of course, we know that all of those other people mentioned are all real killers.

We have Charles Raymond Starkweather,

he was an American spree killer who murdered 11 people in Nebraska and Wyoming between November 1957 and January 1958.

He was 19 years old.

Starkweather was executed in the electric chair at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln, Nebraska at 12:04 a.m.

on June 25th, 1959.

That's how things work back then.

He was executed a year,

less than a year and a half after

the murders.

He committed these murders.

Starkweather gave no last words.

Fans of legendary songwriter Bruce Springsteen may know this killer well.

We discussed Starkweather briefly in our coverage of the I-5 killer.

Also mentioned there, Charles Joseph Whitman, somebody that the captain knows well from doing an episode.

The captain, along with Justin Evans from the Generation Y podcast, covered the case in True Crime Garage episode 229, this back in August of 2018.

One of the best episodes of True Crime Garage, some say.

Justin would tell you that.

Charles Whitman was a mass murderer and marine veteran who became known as the Texas Tower Sniper on August 1st, 1966.

Whitman used knives to kill his mother and his wife in their homes.

Then he went to the University of Texas and with multiple firearms, he began indiscriminately shooting at people below.

He fatally shot three people inside

UT's Austin's main building and then accessed the 28th floor observation deck on the building's clock tower.

There he fired at random people for 96 minutes, killing an additional 11 people and wounding 31 others before he was shot dead by the Austin Police Department.

Whitman killed a total of 17 people.

The 17th victim died 35 years later, this from injuries sustained during that attack.

Austin has some

very

infamous, shocking crimes.

Yes.

And Columbus, Ohio has shocking missing person cases.

Yeah, you'll see that

when we hop around the country and we do these different cases, there are some states that stand out.

And Florida, Texas, and Arkansas certainly fall into that category.

And here where we live in Ohio falls on that list at some point as well.

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TV's number one drama, High Potential, returns with star Caitlin Olson as the crime-solving single mom with an IQ of 160.

Every week, Morgan uses her unconventional style and brilliance to crack LAPD's most perplexing cases.

It's the perfect blend of humor and mystery.

She's breaking the mold without breaking a nail.

High potential premieres Tuesday at 10-9 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

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All right, good people.

We are back.

Shears Mates Tall Cans in the Air.

Tall cans in the air.

We love it.

We love it.

We love it.

We love it.

We love the Tall Cans in the Air.

We don't love these killers.

The other killer mentioned here is Charles Manson, born Charles Maddox.

He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

We were just talking about.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Another one.

That's okay.

We can cut this part out of the show.

Yeah, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, of course, he was a cult leader and musician to some degree who led the Manson family, a cult based in California in the late 60s and early 70s.

Some cult members committed a series of at least nine murders at four locations in July and August of 1969.

Yeah, I've heard his music, but I, you know, I prefer Dylan.

In 1971, Manson was, it would be weird if you, if you

went that in reverse, right?

In 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, including the film actress Sharon Tate.

Manson died in prison on November 19th, 2017.

While True Crime Garage, our fantastic show, The Only People Pumping Out True Crime Out of a Garage, has never covered Charles Manson.

I did discuss him and follower Tex Watkins with John Douglas himself in our TCG John Douglas the Mindhunter episode, episode 302 from May of 2019.

I personally have spoken with former Manson family member Diane Lake.

And I think that conversation ended up on off the record.

That would be back in the Stitcher premium days.

One thing that I thought interesting here, while it doesn't really mean anything at all, when Holden's talking to Peter Rathman, the three killers that he rattles off, Starkweather, Whitman, and Manson, all their names are Charles.

They're all Charles.

Yeah, that's probably on purpose.

So a bit of a theme there with some of the

mid-century killers there.

Next, we have, we go to the bar, captain, where Holden meets this young woman.

Her name is Debbie.

This is going to become his love interest.

I love this scene because it shows the two very different personalities between Holden Ford, kind of buttoned up, stuffy FBI agent, and Debbie, who's equally smart, maybe even more intelligent than Holden Ford, but

she's willing to cut loose, right?

She's willing to be a little more college student.

And she tells Holden that he dresses like a Mormon.

And Holden tells Debbie that his dad bought him the suit that he was wearing, but he had to buy his own sneakers.

While there is a picture.

You want to talk about things in the background?

While there is a picture of young John Douglas visiting his folks' home from the Bureau in his book, Mindhunter.

We have a caption below that picture saying, posing with my badge in one of the new suits that my father bought me.

Douglas says when he started at the FBI, he didn't have any civilian dress-up clothes.

So my father bought me three regulation dark suits, a blue, black, and a brown.

He also bought him white shirts and two pairs of wingtips, one black and one brown.

So the suit statement rings true, but we'll need further research.

Further research is needed to confirm that John Douglas buys his own sneakers.

You can send him that email.

Yeah,

I'll ask him.

Hey, John, question for you.

Do you buy your own sneakers?

A little interesting detail here as well.

Debbie explains that she is at the bar to watch a band from Detroit.

And then she asks Holden if he has ever been to Detroit, and he says, yes, I was an agent there for a couple of years.

When asked, where is he from?

Holden says, all over, but I was born in Brooklyn.

This is all true.

John Douglas was born in Brooklyn, New York City in 1945.

At some point, his folks moved out to Long Island.

Douglas was in the

veterinary program at...

Montana State University for about two years, but in 1966, he began a four-year enlistment in the United States Air Force.

While in the military, Douglass finished his bachelor's degree at Eastern New Mexico University.

So

at some point in one of the episodes, he says, when asked where he's from, he says New York or Brooklyn, but it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Well, you can see why it's a mixed bag because he's in Montana for a while.

In his early life, he's in New Mexico for a while.

He's in Long Island.

But we do know that Douglas joined the FBI and his first field office assignment was, in fact, in Detroit, Michigan.

Douglas was assigned to the Reactive Crimes Unit.

The Reactive Crimes Unit stuff is absolutely fascinating, which meant that basically meant reacting to crimes that were already committed.

How do we react to those?

So mostly this is bank robberies and extortion.

Then we see Debbie and Holden, they go to the movies.

They see Dog Day Afternoon starring Al Pacino.

The feature chronicles the 1972 robbery and hostage situation at a Chase Manhattan branch in Brooklyn.

The movie came out in September of 1975 with a budget of $3.8 million.

Dog Day Afternoon took in between $50 and $56 million at the box.

Holden then shows this movie to his students at Quantico later.

Afterward, his supervisor suggests that he talk to someone from the FBI's behavioral science unit.

Following this in the cafeteria, we are introduced to Bill Tench.

Bill Tench is a fictionalized version of Robert Ressler.

Robert Kenneth Ressler was an American FBI agent and author.

He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with

coining the term serial killer.

Robert Ressler grew up in North Marmara Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.

At an early age, he became interested in killers as he followed the Chicago Tribune's articles on the lipstick killer.

His fascination with serial killers would later be bolstered by John Wayne Gacy, who had actually grown up in the same neighborhood as Robert Ressler and was in the Boy Scouts with him.

Wow.

Robert Ressler was in the U.S.

Army.

At one time, he served as a marshal of a platoon of military police.

He was in charge of solving cases such as homicides, robberies, and arson.

He studied criminology and police administration at Michigan State University.

Later, he was reassigned as the commander of the Criminal Investigation Division, better known as CID.

He ended his career with the Army as a major and moved on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Wrestler joined the FBI in the same year as Douglas in 1970.

I found this quite interesting.

And was recruited into the Behavioral Science Unit, which deals with drawing up psychological profiles of violent offenders, such as rapists and serial killers who select victims at random.

While Mindhunter on the show

presents a significant difference in age between partners Holden Ford and Bill Tench.

There's There only an eight-year difference in age between Douglas and Robert Ressler, and as said, they joined the FBI in the same year.

Yeah, but I think,

and it might not be true to real life, but I think in the show,

not a huge age difference, but they're living different lives.

One's single, one's married, one seems to be more stoic, one seems to be more

erratic with their behavior.

But I also find this series so fascinating fascinating because, like you said, coining a phrase serial killer, but they had terms before that, they just came up with better terms, like they used to say sequence killer, and then which they came according to the show, they came up with as well, and then at some point it

evolves into serial killer.

It's in this scene, Hair Captain, that we see Bill Tench smoke cigarette number one.

This is during a lunch scene.

During this scene, Holden tells Tench that he is 29 years old.

According to a previous scene, we are to believe that this is all taking place in 1977, as far as the story's timeline goes.

But we know in real life, Douglas was actually 32 in 1977.

So if Holden is 29, Tench should be 37.

But as I had said previous, it's my belief that

Tench appears to be much older than Holden Ford, where we have,

I think Tench looks to be somebody in his early to mid-40s.

But in fairness, he also

smokes a pack of cigarettes during every scene.

And we do know that the Douglas character tells Tench that he's 29 years old in that scene.

So Tench talks with Holden about his traveling road school.

That's what they call it.

They're hitting police departments departments across the country, teaching them, as he puts it, they want to know what we know.

So the next day, he's kind of recruiting him for this road school.

The FBI going about and teaching these local police departments about different crime trends and suspects and some of the psychological aspects to crimes and the perpetrators of such.

The next day, they go off to Fairfield, Iowa.

I couldn't help but notice in the car as they're driving, the song Hold the Line by Toto comes on the radio.

This song was actually not released until 1978, by the way.

Somebody screwed up.

Well, I do think that while most of the information out there says that season one takes place in 1977, I think that it would probably be more accurate to say that it starts off in 1977.

It's kind of ambiguous.

Yes.

During the car ride, we see Bill Tension joining cigarette number two.

Upon arrival, the local media seems to be alert that persons from the FBI are visiting their local law enforcement.

The news wants to know if they are there to assist in the Ada Jeffries investigation.

The reporters say, quote, the woman found behind the church, end quote.

Another speaks up and says the woman and her little boy.

Tench informs them that they are instructors and that they, and then they make their way into the sheriff's office.

While discussing motives with the officers, Bill Tench is smoking cigarette number three.

So they're trying to teach these officers about motives.

Afterward, the agents are chilling by the pool at the hotel.

This is during their downtime.

Tench is drinking a beer and working his way through cigarette number four.

Back,

and then they go back to the lesson lesson the following day.

Holden shows the officers a slide of Charles Manson's Ventura, California booking photo.

He is telling them about Manson's life and how he was, quote, here we have a child who is unwanted, unloved, regularly beaten, and repeatedly institutionalized.

Of course, all of this about Manson is true.

The officers mistake Holden's information.

So

he's not asking the police for sympathy for Manson.

He is discussing what he believes made Manson.

He is saying that we need to do better to understand the criminal during which Tench has cigarette number five.

So now they go to a restaurant after this road school day.

And we have Inspector McGraw sits down with Holden and Tench and informs them about the unsolved Ada Jeffries murder.

He tells them that the landlady found the bodies.

They had been dead for four days.

Both were bound and sodomized with a broom handle.

They attended the Methodist church.

They were devout.

Ada was found cuffed and lynched to the bed.

The killer made the boy watch.

Tench says that it's a lust murder, but much

less about sex or rape, but getting gratification from the annihilation of someone.

McGraw says that there was semen found on a throw cushion, type O blood.

Holden says the killer may have a problem with sex, to which McGraw says that would be a good bet.

Yeah, I'm

look.

We all know I love this series, and it starts from the first episode to the theme music.

But I think the theme music really captures the essence.

This is dark.

I'd say the tone, visual, the visual tone is almost gray.

But I also like that they don't stray away from the gruesome details, but they never have anything go too low or too high.

It's kind of middle of the road.

But I think that shows the realness of the series and obviously the realness and the

severity of these crimes.

I'm glad that you point that out because the longer you watch it, or for me anyway,

you become so immersed in the whole series that that kind of gets lost on me at some point.

Not to mention I'm focusing in on these really minor details in the background, but you're right.

That delivery is obviously meant to be dark and cold, and it has that dark and cold feeling throughout, which is what us lay people kind of think of when we think of serial killers or people that are capable of this level of

violence or deviancy that the dark and cold nature of that.

Then Inspector McGraw also informs the agents that they don't have any suspects, no fingerprints, no shoe prints, and not a single hair.

Holden explains that there is some premeditation here, that the killer brought gloves.

He then ponders out loud, is this about the woman or the child?

Holden, when pressed by the inspector, admits that he does not know what any of the specifics of the unsolved case means and that we are in the dark.

Now, Ada Jeffries, many have wondered, is this another real-life case?

And if so, was it solved?

So I couldn't find anything out of Fairfield, Iowa with an outstanding case of Ada Jeffries and her son's murder.

But I did find some speculation online about this from a couple of blog posters.

So the first one reads, I think it may have been BTK's first and had found out how hard it is to get clean, keep a clean murder scene when blood's involved.

Or maybe the blood part turned him off, which is why he may have not been so brutal afterwards in his killings.

And if he did go back, which is what I assume the killer, the kill aroused him, so he went back and that's when he could finally finally get his climax.

The poster says, I don't know.

Just a thought, really, but I think the mess of the blood is where he learned it's hard to cover up, clean up the crime scene.

Interesting thought, I think,

that this was a fictionalized version of BTK's first kill.

It wasn't, but that certainly makes sense why someone would suspect that, as the show does

not clearly inform us very well about BTK Dennis Rader, a real-life serial killer.

In fact, one of the most infamous and recognizable serial killers to this date.

Now, we do have a Reddit poster.

This is Time Protection 9775 posted this about the Ada Jeffries case.

This poster says, I've always suspected that the Ada Jeffries case was loosely based on the Priscilla Lee Stroll murder.

The incidents seem pretty similar, although in the show, Ada's son was also murdered.

In reality, Stroll's son wasn't home at the time of the attack, and he was actually the one who found her body.

So looking into this case, if it's a real case or if it's not, or if it has been solved, we have this from the SFGate.com.

A 48-year-old Fairfield man committed suicide after cold case investigators used DNA evidence to link him to the sexual assault and killing of his childhood friend's mother.

So he was 17 when this murder occurred.

This article is 30 years after the murder.

The suspect was Robert Hathaway, who hanged himself and alluded to the 1983 slaying of 40-year-old Priscilla Stroll in a suicide note, acknowledging that he, quote, took the coward way out, end quote.

His death happened four days after Fairfield detectives interviewed him about the killing and took a DNA sample from him.

This was a court-ordered DNA sample.

The case began August 31st, 1983, when the victim's son, 15-year-old Kyle Strasner or Strassner, left his home on the 900 block of Buchanan Street in Fairfield to

spend time with friends.

He returned about 9.45 p.m.

and found his mother naked on the floor.

The boy climbed through an unlocked window, confirmed that his mother was dead, and ran to a neighbor's house for help.

Officers determined that Stroll had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death.

Without going too far into details, it was very extremely violent, just like the case that they're talking about on Mine Hunters.

Right.

Fingerprints and DNA found on the victim's body did not match anyone back in 1983.

But after this guy who was questioned and

made to give a dna sample after he commits suicide the fairfield detectives

so so what led them to him was they they ran the fingerprints again and eventually it comes up with a match to this suspect then they go to his home they serve the warrant authorizing them to collect the dna sample He denies any involvement in the murder.

And then after the suicide, the State Department of Justice lab matched the DNA sample collected from him to the DNA from the sling.

So

it was solved, just not in the manner that we would hope for.

Well, back to the first post when they're talking about, well, maybe this is a killing from BTK and maybe he learned something from it.

So you have organized killers and disorganized, but I also find it fascinating that some of these killers almost take notes and

change change their behavior.

They're trying to commit the perfect crime or they're trying to or they're trying to alter their actions so they're less likely to get caught.

But then it seems like some of these other killers, they get

sloppier and lazier as they go.

So I know we have a category for organized and disorganized.

We have a category for ones that pay more attention to detail as they go and killers that get lazier as they go.

Well, and sometimes they can do both as well.

Like it's really

the people that become serial killers, one thing, you know, we always talk about, well, how can you identify them?

What are their similarities?

What do they have in common?

Well, one of the things that they have in common is that they have these fantasies that are all wrapped up in that where sex and violence and murder a lot of times are all wrapped up into the same fantasy.

And so they play out this fantasy in their minds.

They think about it during the day.

They think about it throughout their lives.

At some point, some of these people decide to act on it.

And what they're attempting to do is live out that

sexual fantasy.

The thing is, though, they just have to find some other people to play the roles of persons involved in that fantasy.

What typically will happen is, I mean, there's a lot could happen, but two things that are fairly common.

One,

they go out, they abduct somebody, they kill them, and they attempt to live out that fantasy, but it's not as good as the fantasy.

So now they have to go back out and try to perfect it.

Perfect it, meaning getting closer and closer to that fantasy, trying to get to it where it's like a script and it plays out from top to bottom exactly how they've scripted it out in their minds over the years.

The other thing that can happen is sometimes the first kill or one of the early kills is the best, meaning it's closest to that fantasy.

Things go wrong.

I know this sounds like a lot of dumb statements here, but it's difficult to kill people.

They're not going to go willingly.

They're not going to play along willingly.

And so a lot of things can go wrong.

There's a lot of variables

in the commission of these types of sexual homicides that

you can only plan for so much.

So sometimes one of the earlier kills or the first kill will be closest to that fantasy, and then things go off,

and

they're always chasing that dragon, trying to get back to back to the first one or the one that was like that initial sexual high.

Yeah, that takes us through episode one.

Episode two opens up in Wichita, Kansas at the ADT office.

So ADT is a security company for both homes and businesses.

Here we have the ADT serviceman.

See, he's actually referred to as the ADT serviceman when you see the credits.

We believe, of course, and the captain and I have seen both series one and two,

and it's quite obvious that the ADT serviceman is Dennis Rader or also better known as BTK.

Well, don't tell me what happens.

I didn't finish season two yet.

There you go.

So in this scene, the ADT serviceman is giving the other serviceman the business.

The man is searching for more electrical tape.

Yeah.

And Dennis Raider BTK says that he would like the cardboard core for the empty role before he is willing to replace it with a new one.

What a douche, Burger.

Yeah, super douche.

Super douche.

But, of course, we know that this is

true,

or at least some aspect of it, some form of it is true.

Because

when

Raider is eventually identified and apprehended, we start learning all these things about his personal and work life.

And they had it, they actually had a nickname for him.

That wasn't Doucheburger.

No, Deutschburger would have been more spot on, but I think they were trying to be

fly a little under the radar here.

And I can't remember.

I can't recall that his, I think he was called the blue book man

because he went, he did everything by the book.

Right.

He wasn't at work, and you know how some of us may try to buddy up with a couple people, or we find some people that we really identify with and like, and maybe we have some kind of outside relationship with them.

That's not him.

No, he's he's there to do everything by the book.

He's also there to rise through the ranks and become in charge.

And he, he likes that,

he obviously likes having that control and power over others, especially in a very structured setting.

There might be some psychology to the idea of, well, if I act this way, nobody's going to get too close with me.

Nobody's going to want to be my friend.

And so instead of putting myself out there and possibly being rejected, I act this way.

Therefore, I know the reason why nobody here likes me.

Then we go to a plane touching down in San Francisco.

Here we see Bill Tench crush out a cigarette on the plane.

That is cigarette number six for those keeping score, and clearly we are.

Holden is trying to convince Bill that while they are in San Francisco, they should visit Charles Manson at Vacaville.

Holden says Manson is 30 miles away at Vacaville.

During this episode, they are also in and out of Sacramento, which is 30 miles from Vacaville.

Then they are off to Santa Cruz on their road school stop at the Santa Cruz Police Department.

Bill tells the students in California each year, 35% of murders go unsolved.

And he says that's more unsolved murders than any other state.

He adds that it has to do with

geography, the woods, the mountains, ravines, and the water, and so on.

That percentage sounds right.

In fact, according to Project Cold case from 1965 to 2019, there were around 128,787 murders in California alone.

Over the years, roughly 79,967 of those murders were solved or saw a conclusion, leaving more than 48,000 unsolved murders in the state of California.

Here, this is where Holden first learns about serial killer Edmund Kemper,

also known as the co-ed killer.

The officer tells Holden to talk to Kemper because he likes to talk to cops.

The officer tells Holden that Kemper is, quote, like six foot nine, 285 pounds.

Holden says king size.

The officer replies super king size.

The officer tells Holden that Kemper killed co-eds, cut off their heads, and had sex with the corpses.

Then he killed his mother.

cuts off her head and has sex with the head and her mouth.

The officer informs Holden that Kemper was in a mental institution up until then, up until the killings started.

This for killing his grandparents, but somehow managed to convince everyone that he was rehabilitated enough to get out.

It's very surprising that this was never advertised as a family show.

Exactly.

Now, folks that listen to our episodes, our True Crime Garage episodes 261 and 262, know that that information is all true regarding the giant killer.

Yeah.

Kemper was convicted of murdering seven women and one girl between 1972 and April, sorry, May 1972 and April of 1973.

Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had murdered his paternal grandparents, and Kemper was nicknamed the co-ed killer as most of his non-familial victims were female college students hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, California.

Most of his murders included necrophilia, decapitation, dismemberment, and possibly cannibalism.

But in the first interview, doesn't he tell Holden that he tried to be a police officer, but they claimed he was too tall?

He does.

He does.

And I believe that is in my notes for either later this episode or episode three.

Always ruining things.

That's all right.

Well, these are as said.

At least I'm consistent.

As said, most of these are true stories.

So it's unfortunately dark parts of history, but

it's not anything new to anybody

that's following true crime, especially these cases, especially the state of California.

I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage.

So much more to get to until tomorrow.

Be good, be kind, and don't litter.

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