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A show where a Forensic Psychology Professor and a Retired FBI Profiler join together to better understand the criminal mind. The BSU, LLC uses evidence-based techniques and processes developed at the FBI's famed Behavioral Science Unit and Crisis Management Unit to improve behavioral intelligence and improve sway, influence, and decision making. Train your workforce in de-escalation through human profiling, learn the elicitation (pre-suasion), solicitation (persuasion), and consummation (post-suasion) processes to improve your marketing, sales, and customer relation skills, respectively. Improve your company's business continuity plans and test your disaster recovery processes and prepare for the next crisis through an evidence-based business impact analysis. The difference between the BSU, LLC and the other behavioral assessment firms is our 27 years experience as researchers, trainers, and OPERATORS in the FBI. We don't just give you an opinion we train you based on evidence-based processes to improve human factor soft skills.

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Check latest episodes from Inside the Criminal Mind with Retired FBI Profiler podcast

The Mind of the Serial Arsonist: John Leonard Orr and the Hero Complex

2026/10/25

Most arson investigations focus on financial greed, vandalism, or personal revenge, but serial arsonists operate under a far more dangerous psychological script: an insatiable craving for control and validation. When catastrophic fires broke out across Southern California in the 1980s, the physical evidence revealed an offender using sophisticated delay incendiary devices with a masterclass understanding of burn patterns. For the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, the signature was not the destruction of property, but the offender’s desperate need to insert himself into the emergency response. This episode explores the behavioral anatomy of the "hero syndrome," unpacking how profilers exposed Glendale Fire Captain John Leonard Orr as the very predator he was assigned to hunt.

Inside the Trafficker's Mind: How Predators Build Psychological Control

2026/10/20

How do some traffickers transform romantic relationships into systems of exploitation? This episode examines grooming, manipulation, intermittent reinforcement, and the behavioral patterns investigators may encounter in trafficking cases. We explore how analysts can develop investigative hypotheses about an offender's methods without claiming to read minds or diagnose someone from behavior alone. The episode also considers how changes in an offender's control tactics may help investigators understand escalation and risk.

Billy the Kid: An FBI-Style Behavioral Profile of America's Most Famous Young Outlaw

2026/10/18

Was Billy the Kid a calculating psychopath, a traumatized young man seeking belonging, or a violent offender shaped by the lawlessness of the American frontier? In this episode of Profiler's Dossier, we examine Henry McCarty through the methods of modern FBI-style behavioral analysis. By investigating his childhood, criminal motivations, victim selection, interpersonal relationships, and patterns of aggression, we attempt to answer a fascinating question. Was Billy the Kid inherently dangerous, or did the Lincoln County War help transform a troubled teenager into a legendary killer?

The Making of a Cartel Recruit: Profiling Vulnerability, Coercion, and Criminal Identity

2026/10/13

What psychological characteristics make an adolescent vulnerable to recruitment by a violent criminal organization? In this episode of Profiler’s Dossier, we examine how investigators distinguish opportunistic offenders, coerced participants, and increasingly committed cartel members. Through the lenses of developmental psychology, behavioral conditioning, moral disengagement, and criminal investigative analysis, we explore how recruitment relationships develop and why some individuals escalate toward serious violence while others attempt to escape. The episode also examines the limits of criminal profiling and why no single personality characteristic can reliably predict cartel involvement.

The Crew Cut Killer: Behavioral Patterns of a Suspected Serial Murderer

2026/10/12

Three murders in Northern California raised disturbing questions about a possible serial offender. Investigators connected the crimes to Taylor Morris Teaford, a violent fugitive with a history of serious offenses. This episode examines victim selection, behavioral consistency, escalation, and the limitations of criminal profiling when investigators attempt to link separate homicides. The identification of Joanne Burdick nearly six decades later provides a new opportunity to examine what the evidence can and cannot reveal about a suspected killer.

The Interview Room: Can Investigators Recognize Psychopathic Traits?

2026/10/11

Criminal investigators sometimes encounter suspects who appear charming, cooperative, or emotionally detached. This episode examines how interviewers evaluate statements, inconsistencies, and behavior without relying on popular myths about psychopathy. Discover why corroborating evidence and structured investigative techniques matter more than intuition.

Organized vs. Disorganized Killers: Does the FBI Distinction Still Hold Up?

2026/10/06

For decades, criminal profiling has taught investigators and students to distinguish between organized and disorganized killers based on what offenders leave behind at crime scenes. An organized offender supposedly plans carefully, controls the victim, conceals evidence, and appears socially competent, while a disorganized offender acts impulsively and leaves behind a chaotic scene. The distinction became one of the most recognizable ideas associated with early FBI behavioral profiling and was popularized through books, documentaries, and fictional portrayals of profilers. But later research challenged whether real offenders actually divide neatly into these two categories. In this episode, we examine where the organized-disorganized model came from, what it can still contribute to an investigation, and why modern behavioral analysis requires considerably more caution.

How Does a Profiler Read a Crime Scene? Behavior Versus Physical Evidence

2026/10/04

crime scene contains more than fingerprints, DNA, and physical objects—it may also preserve traces of human decision-making. Profilers examine patterns of behavior to develop cautious hypotheses about an offender’s choices, priorities, and relationship to the victim. But behavioral evidence is fundamentally different from physical evidence, and understanding that distinction is essential to understanding what profiling can—and cannot—do.

Why Serial Killers Choose Certain Places: The Geography of Predatory Crime

2026/10/01

Serial predators rarely choose locations completely at random. Where they hunt, encounter victims, commit crimes, and dispose of bodies can reflect familiarity, opportunity, transportation routes, victim availability, and the offender’s desire to avoid detection. This episode explores geographic profiling and how investigators use patterns across multiple crime scenes to better understand an offender’s activity area.

Twenty-Eight Fires and One Map: Finding an Arsonist’s Neighborhood

2026/09/27

For months, someone was setting fires at occupied homes in Burnaby, British Columbia, leaving investigators with dozens of incidents but no identified suspect. With conventional investigative methods failing to produce a breakthrough, police turned to behavioral and geographic profiling to narrow the search. A map eventually pointed investigators toward a particular area, but the decisive lead came from someone in the community who recognized what investigators were describing. The case demonstrates an important lesson in criminal profiling: a profile rarely solves a crime by itself—it helps detectives decide where, and sometimes at whom, to look more closely.

The Railway Killer: What Could a Psychologist See That Detectives Needed?

2026/09/23

In 1980s Britain, investigators faced a disturbing series of sexual assaults and murders associated with railway stations across London and southeast England. Instead of asking only who the offender might be, psychological analysis introduced another question: What can the locations, sequence, and behavior of the crimes tell us about how this offender lives? The investigation of John Duffy became an important early demonstration of how behavioral and geographical analysis could support police decision-making without replacing traditional detective work.

When the Crime Scene Is Empty: What Behavior Reveals When Evidence Vanishes

2026/09/20

In June 1973, seven-year-old Susan Jaeger vanished from her family’s tent at a Montana campground, leaving investigators with remarkably little physical evidence and no obvious suspect. The case became an important episode in the FBI’s emerging use of behavioral analysis, associated with early Behavioral Science Unit figures Howard Teten and Patrick Mullany. This episode asks a deceptively difficult question: What can behavior tell investigators when the crime scene tells them almost nothing?

The Mask on Evelyn Street

2026/09/15

Between 2014 and 2024 a masked man hunted women in a tight pocket of Tucker, Georgia—first in a garage on Christmas Eve, then at an apartment a mile away, then in a bound drive from machine to machine. The attacks sat in separate files until a July homicide arrest put a name on the DNA. The geography never wandered. The face never appeared. That combination is the whole case.

There Is No Job Called “FBI Profiler.” There Is a Long Queue Behind That Door.

2026/09/13

You do not apply to the Behavioral Analysis Unit out of college. You become an FBI special agent, survive Quantico, work real cases for years, then compete for a small desk at NCAVC. The steps are public. The odds are not. Television skipped the decade in the middle.

Inside the Basement: How the FBI Learned to Listen to Monsters

2026/09/09

Long before behavioral profiling was a fixture of crime fiction, two FBI agents began slipping tape recorders into maximum-security interview rooms to study violent repeat offenders. By listening closely to the recurring fantasies and rituals behind unsolved horrors, they mapped out how violence begins long before a physical crime takes place. Here is how John Douglas and Robert Ressler helped build modern behavioral analysis—and where popular dramatizations like Mindhunter meet gritty reality.