01x02 - To Hunt a k*ller

[bunniefuu]

A police officer out of

Lake Charles, Louisiana

had seen the car

that matched the profile

of the Ski Mask r*pist.

He said, "I saw the car."

"I saw the guy driving it.

No doubt it's him."

I had an LTD, which had a

police interceptor motor in it,

and those things would scream.

We wanted to get this guy before

he could find another victim.

Found the car parked in a hotel.

I got the license plate.

It allowed me to start

investigating him.

This is the guy.

They scrambled an airplane.

They brought about 30 units,

and they descended

on Lake Charles.

He came out of the

house about 5:30

and drove to a convenience

store just around the street.

At 5:55, Simonis comes

walking out of the store

with a loaf of bread and

two packs of cigarettes.

We got him.

I have approximately

about 21 life sentences

plus addit an additional

2,386 and a half years to go.

The arrest of Jon Simonis,

the Ski Mask r*pist,

was really a win for the BSU.

It was also the first time I had

listened to a recent offender.

It got to be a cat-and-mouse game

with the police after a while.

I knew they were

after me back in 1980,

and, uh, from there on,

I figured all I had to do

was not to create

a definite pattern.

I learned two really

important things

out of the Simonis case.

One of course was signature.

The signature piece for him

was having witnesses there.

To induce fear

or-or, uh, surprise

and to see how they

responded to it.

And I would feed off of this,

this fear and it would

It was like a, a

source of fuel for me.

Simonis gave a lot of

very good information

on method and how he

played the police.

This was new information,

and I was just getting started.

I need that job as badly as any

man, and I will work for my money.

Those times when one needs

to be with one's family.

Certainly there was

some negative feedback.

There was still some

negative feedback.

But we've been seeing signs that

family life is making a comeback.

We're remembering that

with freedom comes personal

and parental responsibility.

She has a family as all

of this is happening

and a whole separate

career at the same time.

Yes, I certainly had other

things going on in my life.

I was the dean of the

School of Nursing,

and I headed up

the National Center

for the Prevention

and Control of r*pe.

Research was being done,

publishing, traveling

between Boston and Quantico,

and I was taking

care of the kids.

It was pretty much a blur.

- She's not gonna make a risotto.

- Right.

She doesn't have time for that.

So she could put

something in the oven,

go upstairs, bang away

on her typewriter.

That would burn or

that would get lumpy.

And my father always saying,

"Your mother treats

me like a God.

She gives me burnt offerings."

I was very, very fortunate

in having a husband

that was very

supportive of my work.

There was no question that

I would have a career.

None of us would've

had our careers

if there wasn't somebody

that supported it.

You know, nobody does it alone.

They were dearly in

love with one another.

'Cause he believes in his

wife, and he adores her.

She was a bright woman

and to waste me as a brain

was not gonna happen.

She enlightened the whole world.

Just quite proud of her.

I also remember a time when

You can't do everything,

and I didn't do everything.

There were certain

parts of our family life

that didn't get full attention.

It was hard. I admit

it was very hard

to leave them.

So we began to

travel as a family.

We took them to Quantico. They

had to work, don't forget.

I remember phone calls

coming into the

house from the FBI.

My mom saying, "I'm coming in."

Dad would be, "Okay, that's gonna

be however many flight hours."

And you'd have to figure

out how to get down there.

I have a flight

instructor certificate,

an official flight

instructor certificate,

a multi-engine

pilot certificate,

a commercial pilot certificate.

So, yes, I'm a pilot.

We'd all pile into the plane,

and Dad would fly

us to Quantico.

I've heard stories of

people with famous parents.

They think every family's like that,

and that's kinda like what we were.

This is what everybody does.

On top of all her activities,

my mom was learning how to fly.

I had to learn about flying,

and I was really good

except on the landings,

which was kind of crucial.

I would bounce it in, and you're

not supposed to bounce it in.

This is still the

early days of the BSU.

The agents were working

on a shoestring budget.

I think we must have had

six profilers by that time.

They had multiple

responsibilities.

Profiling was really a

side part of their job.

The main goal that they had

at that point was to show

that profiling wasn't

a one-off success.

It wasn't a one-hit wonder.

There was pressure

that we had to be good,

we had to be better than good.

That came down from the top.

We were very anxious

about getting it right.

We would like to look at the

cases that have been profiled

to see whether, you know,

what has actually occurred

Regardless of the success

of the Ski Mask r*pist case,

Dr. Burgess herself was still

not being fully accepted.

So, a lot of the agents

keep her at arm's distance,

and they're not quite ready

to fully listen to her.

And she feels that a little bit.

Everybody who comes

into that environment

has to prove themselves.

Everybody.

But once a man

has proven himself

and the rest of the

team says, "Alright,"

that part of the process

is done for them.

For a woman in that position,

the test is ongoing.

Fear gripped Sarpy County and

many surrounding communities.

Thirteen-year-old

Danny Joe Eberle,

went to deliver papers

early Sunday morning

about nine o'clock.

One of the search teams found what

they hoped they wouldn't find.

Father identified that

the young man was his son.

As of now, they have

no time of death.

They have no suspects

and no motive.

Sarpy County officials tonight

will only say that the

evidence in the Eberle case

has been sent to the

FBI for analysis.

Who could have done this?

I remember being very invested to see

how they were going to profile this.

Ressler flies to Nebraska.

He's offering his

expertise as a profiler

to the local law

enforcement officers.

Ressler ends up

creating a profile.

"Resident of Bellevue.

Single, lower education,

low-income blue collar job."

Passes off this profile.

He was thinking of a pedophile.

They rounded up anyone that had

a prior sexual as*ault

against a child.

They arrested a man who

was known to pay for boys

to have sex in his car with him.

Ressler flies back to Quantico

with another win for the BSU.

Case closed.

Another boy has gone missing

in Sarpy County.

Christopher Walden

disappeared Friday morning

on his way to school.

One thing authorities

did confirm today,

they definitely do not consider

Christopher Walden a runaway.

Someone does have him.

We'd like to have him

returned safely, please.

It was just devastating.

We thought it was over with.

But Ressler's profile was wrong.

From my point, I wanted

to understand the case.

When I looked at

it, first of all,

the most obvious is

the first profile

was very, very, very vague.

It's only about seven lines.

Ressler acknowledges

that there's not a lot

of information to go off of.

So, it's sort of basic.

It was just Ressler

on that first profile,

which was part of the reason it

failed 'cause profiling works best

when you have a group bouncing

ideas off of each other.

Ressler was called up to

the director of the FBI,

William Webster's office.

Webster chewed out

Ressler saying,

"You've got the green light

to do some profiling work,

"but, you know, you better

figure this out and do it right.

It's my reputation

at stake, too."

When I came in,

profiling was much more of

an art form than a science.

And that was one of

the things that made it

easy for people to criticize.

They needed help

with methodology.

We need to back up

why we do what we do,

that there is rationale and

motive and science behind it.

I felt I needed to be an actual

part of the profiling session.

That was another area

that I could contribute.

The Simonis case,

she was brought in within

the very narrow role

of being able to

interview victims.

Going into this next case,

she realized it was her chance

to have her methodology

fully accepted.

Dr. Burgess was not an agent.

She'd be handling a lot

of gruesome material,

and the agents had to

know she could handle it.

The FBI was the boys club.

To have a woman must have

been really hard for them.

It's so important for a

woman in that position

to prove herself

early and often.

Part of it was showing her

as many horrific

photos as possible.

You know, "If she can't handle

it, let's weed her out."

Being a nurse, you have to look

at very difficult situations

and certainly you

see people die.

Putting it in that perspective,

you have to neutralize

the emotional reaction

and say, what can I

learn from this data?

For the first time,

Ressler brings Dr. Burgess

into the profiling session.

I started the conversation

with victimology.

Why were they targeted?

What were the similarities?

What were the differences?

The victims were Caucasian.

The serial K*llers

that we analyzed

tended to k*ll

within the same race.

What about the stature?

Are you dealing with

a big guy like Kemper

or someone much smaller

like Montie Rissell?

Targeting of victims is

gonna be very different.

They're thin, sort

of weakly built.

First, the boy was

left by the roadside.

The second case was

a little different.

His body's found

deep into the woods.

There were two sets footprints

in, only one set coming back out.

I realized that the

k*ller marched the boy in

because he couldn't

carry him in.

You're looking for a small man

that's probably not very muscular.

He couldn't have been that

much bigger than the victims.

She had an

evidence-based approach

to the relationship going on

between victim and perpetrator.

They go with this person

seemingly willingly,

which implies that

they know this person.

He would be working with boys.

He might be a teacher.

Probably through an activity

like being a soccer coach

or involvement in

the Boy Scouts.

There was something

about rope and binding

that was important to him.

The link there we

felt was sexual.

The bondage element is something

that the agents had seen

before from offenders

who fetishized over

detective magazines,

which portrayed

bondage and m*rder.

And all of that is

what turns them on

and gets them worked up to

go out and find a victim.

Once we had the profile,

we tried to see if we

could use the media

to be on the lookout.

If you see a mysterious

car following a kid around.

Anything suspicious, must call.

We need everybody

to help solve this.

The suspect is described

as a white male,

18 to 25 years old.

Five foot, eight inches,

160 pounds, dark hair.

They rounded up seven suspects.

It seemed like they

were the wrong people.

They didn't fit the profile.

Parents were panicked because

school was gonna be out.

They had a k*ller on the loose.

It frightens me. I

have a 10-year-old son.

If they can get a child out

here on our busiest street,

they can get them anywhere.

And I'd just rather

be safe than sorry.

I sent my daughter to my

parents in Des Moines.

I mean, this is our corner, not even

our neighborhood, our corner right here.

Will you feel safe playing

out in the streets now?

- No.

- No.

They were still searching

for who it could be.

They had no idea.

All signs were pointing to

there will be more victims

and this will escalate quickly.

Nothing happens in

December to January,

but I learned very early,

they cannot stop themselves.

He's gonna strike again.

One particular day

a teacher was out

getting things ready

and this car pulls up,

looks to be suspicious.

He was sitting there

looking into the window,

and I was trying to

memorize the license number.

Five one five four.

I'll never forget it.

At that point, he said,

"Get into the building

or I'm going to k*ll you."

With all my might, I just

pushed him and ran past him.

She was able to get inside

and to call the police.

Police tracked the

license plate number.

It was a rental vehicle

for John Joubert,

a radar technician on

the local Air Force base.

They found out where his

real car was being repaired,

looked in the window,

saw the very rope

that had been used

on the Eberle boy.

They get an immediate warrant

to search Joubert's barracks.

And there they found all

of this paraphernalia

that linked John Joubert

to these two crimes,

including a detective magazine

that had been dog-eared to the

abduction of a newspaper boy.

A young white male

with a weak build.

21-year-old Joubert's

physical appearance

checked all the boxes of

the profile perfectly.

Why Eberle?

He was alone.

Why make him take

off his clothing?

The only reason I could

ever come up with was

to see the wounds and to

make him more vulnerable.

So he was more vulnerable

without his clothing?

Wouldn't you be?

It was interesting to

talk with John Joubert.

It showed that we were very

accurate on the profile.

It matched absolutely

everything,

even that he might

be a scout leader.

So you were the assistant

Boy Scout master?

Assistant scoutmaster, yes.

We didn't know at that time

that he had k*lled more

and they got another

confession from him.

Ricky Stetson, an unsolved case.

You now had three young boys,

and I think that had a lot to

do with his own upbringing.

We had the opportunity

to talk with the mother.

She had been almost choked

to death by the husband,

and she told us John

had witnessed it.

He admitted to seeing

himself in these young boys.

He knew that those years

of his life were traumatic.

Dr. Burgess realized

these serial K*llers

had a horrific thing happen

to them when they were little.

And they would take that

and they would almost try

and erase that by

turning it into a fantasy

where they were the person

in control of the situation,

they were the offender

but this bad experience, they

could never completely erase.

So, that would be the drive

to go commit a second crime,

a third crime, a fourth crime.

Just is chilling to think

of how close he came

to having another victim.

He was out looking

for a victim that day

that the teacher found him.

What did you think when they

handed down the death sentence?

Well, I wasn't all

that surprised.

It was still, you know, "This is

ridiculous." One of those things.

You thought they'd

never go this far?

Right.

Says, "John Joubert is most

deserving of the death penalty."

Yes, they say that.

The arrest and conviction

of John Joubert

was a huge victory for the

Behavioral Science Unit.

The whole team was elated.

We were up against

a lot of skepticism.

They have proved the

success of profiling.

They have got buy-in from

William Webster himself.

The profile was so right

that it got written up in

the Congressional Record.

All of that made the

FBI look really good.

We didn't have to stay in the

basement anymore. That was a big move.

There was a lot

of media coverage.

It certainly captured

national attention.

There was a magazine piece,

and it's this great shot

of all these men in suits

standing around a desk

and it is rage-making.

Dr. Burgess had done really

important incredible work,

and yet the men in that

photo did not see fit

to ask her to join them.

It was sexist, but

that's their business.

You know, it wasn't

like, I wasn't there to,

in any way criticize them

or, or to say something.

Tha-that was not my style.

I had too much to do to-to

get caught up in that.

It was a very careful separation

of what was talked

about during the day

and what was the personal

time with the family.

You can get PTSD

from some of this,

and it is hard to separate out,

but you have to

do that to be able

to focus yourself

on something else.

Her work concerned

us as children.

I think from her perspective,

the less we knew the better.

But when we did find out

about things, it was scary.

There was a time where I went

out to see her in, in action.

She was doing a seminar nearby.

This is a 1979 m*rder

of Mary Frances Stoner.

And she gets up and

she starts talking.

She's got the slides.

A rug was thrown over her so

she couldn't see anything,

and the three men r*ped her.

My mom was involved

with very awful people.

There were times you'd be sitting

there thinking to yourself,

what else is there that

we don't know about?

And she was hogtied

where her hands were behind her

and to her feet.

So when we got these dribs

and drabs of information,

they were bad.

They were concerning.

We would worry that they'd

go after my mom, of course.

Well, there were

scary people, yes.

There's no question about it.

There was one particular time

I started to get letters

and threats against me.

Allen, my husband said, um,

"Maybe you should get a g*n."

We bought a handgun for me.

I asked my mom, I'm like,

why do you need that?

And she's like, "Well,

I, I feel threatened."

She didn't outwardly

exhibit any fear,

but for her to bring

up the topic to me

signaled she was afraid.

And it's not just me,

but you always worry

about your family.

You'd like to think you're safe,

and boy you're not.

It's a very difficult

position to be in.

But I decided I was just going to

stand up and just keep on going.

It's one thing to be

a female FBI agent

back in the '80s.

It's an entirely different thing

to be submerged in the analysis

of violent crimes.

For years, I think

there was this aura.

"Women need to be protected.

"We shouldn't talk about these

kinds of things with women.

I mean, it's just too horrible."

And here was Ann Burgess

full speed ahead.

She really forged a

path for the rest of us.

I joined the bureau

when I was 30 years old.

It was 1980.

There were only seven

women in my academy class.

I read everything I could find

that Ann Burgess had

anything to do with,

and then the day

came when I was told

my assignment was

to work with her.

Yeah, so the first one

is Melissa Ackerman.

I had been an agent six years

when Melissa Ackerman

was kidnapped.

Dozens of police, firefighters,

and volunteers were

on the search today.

Melissa was riding her bicycle

with a young girlfriend yesterday.

A young unkempt man tried

to abduct both of them.

It's not supposed to

happen in a small town.

Just keep working, keep

following up everything.

It's-it's discouraging,

but we gotta keep going.

It's a call that you

never want to get.

Seemed almost like slow-motion

and wishing and hoping

that it was not real.

I had to walk down to City Hall

to make the phone

call to the FBI.

It was a tremendous relief

to know that we weren't

in this by ourself.

When I went to Somonauk

to work on the case,

there was a level of anxiety

and fear that was pretty high.

It was palpable.

And I had never worked

a kidnapping case,

especially a

witnessed kidnapping.

Missy's friend

Opal was with her,

and he tried to

kidnap both of them,

but she was able to

get away from him.

8-year-old girl.

Anything that she said

was really important

and could give us

more information

into the offender

we were looking for.

It's not easy getting

someone to talk to you,

and Opal wasn't talking.

You always had doubts

on a case like that.

You really wonder if there

must have been something more

you could have said.

It's a case you never forget.

Rainy days?

Mm-hmm.

Her way of dealing with

these horrific events

was by opening up

herself even more,

by taking on some of their pain.

I think that was

critical for Opal

and the help that she provided.

I-I-I don't know if

anybody can measure that.

She started out slow

and non-threatening

and took time to gain her trust.

I could have just gone in and

said, "What do you remember?

What can you tell me?"

But we had a

traumatized child here.

The task was to

be able to utilize

something that would not

traumatize her further.

'Cause you were gonna ask her to go

back through a very distressing time.

The drawings tell the story

from the child's standpoint.

I think Ann's patience

and understanding

that Opal was a victim

in Missy's crime as well,

created a connection and a

bond between Ann and Opal

that allowed Opal to share

her experience of the crime

in a way that could become

useful for investigators.

She was so sad.

And so forlorn.

So it made her feel that

she was giving me something

that might help Missy.

LaSalle County deputy

was just out patrolling

about 20 miles from Somonauk,

an area that had been searched.

You get these hunches and

you say, "Well, maybe here."

And he was able to

see two little feet

under a heavy rock.

I felt awful.

Uh, you, you don't

hear news like that

without, uh, feeling,

feeling it at an

emotional level.

The key to the case was Opal

being able to give

information to law enforcement

and then taking that information

and spreading it

throughout the county.

The FBI this evening is charging

a 28-year-old Aurora

man with the kidnap

and m*rder of 8-year-old

Melissa Ackerman.

Police used Opal's

description of the car

that Missy had been abducted in

to make their arrest.

They had a lot of

information on Brian Dugan.

We learned how he had

victimized between 1974 and 1985

at least a dozen girls,

women, raping seven,

k*lling three of them.

Brian Dugan admitted k*lling

Jeanine Nicarico back in 1983.

DNA evidence suggested Dugan

was indeed the m*rder*r.

Donna Schnorr, who was a nurse

and was the oldest victim, 27.

And of course,

little Missy, age 7.

Ann and I did not discuss

the emotional toll

that working a

case like that has

on investigators

that have children.

We didn't discuss the pain,

and we didn't discuss the fear.

It was unspoken.

Over the years, I've

known many people

who've been exposed to

these horrendous things,

and, um, almost uniformly

what they'll talk

about in private

is that it isn't really possible

to take all of these things

and completely and

totally dissociate them.

Every once in a while,

we pause and realize

what it is we're

really looking at.

Someone's child was

living an innocent life,

and then the family has

to look at an empty seat

at the table forever.

Brian Dugan was asked,

"Why do you think you did it?

What compels you to r*pe

and k*ll little girls?"

And he started crying.

He said, "I don't know.

I don't know why I

do the things I do."

I remember when I

was a little boy,

I was in the backyard,

and my mom came home.

I look over and we

make eye contact,

and I start thinking to

myself, I'm like, "Oh, my gosh,

I must have did

something wrong."

And before I could get through the

whole list of things, she's upon me,

and she kisses me

on the forehead,

right smack in the

middle of my forehead.

And I'm like, "Mom, what

was, what was that for?"

And she's like, "Oh, I

talked to a man today."

"He's a very bad man.

"And I had to ask him,

why did you do the bad

things that you did?"

And he said to her that

the reason he was so bad

was because his mom never

kissed him on the forehead.

You don't forget these cases,

but you, you learn from it.

And you only hope that

it in some way helps

and you've learned something

that can help in the next case.

Our whole goal is, "How can

we learn about it faster

so that we can prevent them?"

Every week, there are reports

of more K*llers.

Police are hunting

a mass m*rder*r.

There are reports

of more victims.

Detectives have already

dug up two bodies.

Three other young girls

were m*rder*d as well.

String of disappearance

and r*pes and murders.

We were falling behind.

The so-called Happy Face k*ller.

- The Green River k*ller.

- BTK k*ller.

I felt the pressure

to do something.

It wasn't the aspect

of k*lling them,

it was the aspect

and I r*ped her.

But it gave me an idea.