Return to story

Secret agent man

July 16, 2002 1:00 am

YOUTH CORRESPONDENT

AFTER YEARS of interviewing criminals and promoting the merits of criminal profiling, FBI agent John Douglas finally met up with a breakthrough--the Atlanta child-killer case.

"It received national and international publicity and was really the turning point," he says.

In 1979, black children started disappearing one by one in Atlanta; police would find their bodies dumped in various parts of the city days later. Because all the victims were black, the press and many experts believed they were dealing with a white bigot. But Douglas knew better.

If this were a hate crime, the bodies would be strung up in highly visible areas to make a statement. But in this case, the bodies were dumped haphazardly.

Second, the criminal probably wasn't white. The murders had a sexual nuance to them, and, from experience, Douglas had learned that sexual killers almost never kill outside their race.

The resulting profile of the murderer was a single black male in his mid- to late-20s. He would be sexually attracted to the boys he killed and, like many criminals, own a police-type dog.

As the investigation proceeded and the media began publicizing examination of hair and fiber evidence, Douglas predicted that the killer would start dumping bodies in the river. After all, that was the best way to get rid of hair and fiber.

"There is something to intuition and gut feeling," he notes. "You kind of have to be a right-brained person."

It turned out that the prediction was right on. Weeks later, a local policeman on surveillance duty was doing final checks when he heard a loud splash. The maker of that splash, Wayne B. Williams, fit Douglas' profile exactly.

A reporter for the Dayton Daily News, Lou Grieco, once said, "Douglas seems to have the true gift of instinct."

Looking at Atlanta, it's not hard to see why.

With Atlanta under his belt, Douglas gained an active role in high-profile cases. Police, prosecutors and the press began to believe that there really was something to criminal profiling.

"It wasn't rocket science," Douglas insists. "It was 'What bothers me?' or 'What are my vulnerabilities?' I try to walk in the criminal's shoes and visualize what the victim was going through at the time, what language she--if it's a 'she'--was hearing and how the criminal looked to her. Sometimes I sleep on it and have a pad of paper and a pen on the nightstand. Like you do with a dream."

But hunting down criminals takes its toll, even on the most energetic of hunters.

"This isn't the type of work you can talk about to your family," Douglas admits wearily. "Back in the '80s, I was exercising to the point of exhaustion, trying to numb myself so I could go to sleep at night. I almost learned too late that I had to try to maintain a balance, otherwise I'd go crazy."

In 1983, Douglas almost died from viral encephalitis brought on by immense work-related stress. Although he made a full recovery after five months of rehabilitation, the experience left him susceptible to developing blood clots.

"After '83, I've had near-death experiences in '87, '94 and '98," he says. "But I'm a maniac. One week out of the hospital in '98, I go up in the attic and start pulling on my rowing machine."

Ask Douglas what supernatural force compelled him to do so and he replies, "I can't stand being sick."

Even now, Douglas hasn't relaxed his stride. After leaving the FBI in 1995, he practically began a new career--that of a writer.

"I thought [writing] was a way for me to accelerate my learning," he says.

Douglas' very first book "Mindhunter," an insider account of criminal profiling, reached the No. 1 spot on The New York Times best-seller list and spent 13 weeks there in total. To date, Douglas has written 11 books, including a novel, crime classification manual and three career-guide books.

Many of them are assigned reading at prestigious colleges and universities, including Harvard.

Says Patricia Cornwell, a best-selling mystery writer, "John Douglas is the FBI's pioneer and master of investigative profiling, and one of the most exciting figures in law enforcement I've had the privilege of knowing."

These days are no less consuming for the profiler. Between lecturing at college campuses and speaking to law enforcement, Douglas is working on three books, one of them a sequel to his first novel "Broken Wings." Although retired from the FBI, he still does pro bono, or free, work for victims' families and has set up trust funds for their benefit.

"It's so rewarding to have families write letters to you," Douglas says. "I probably have the same passion for this work as when I started and can handle it better today. I can't tell you how many teens want to do what I do."

ZAAHIRA WYNE is a rising first-year student at the University of Virginia.