One of the world’s most prominent serial killer profilers says trusting your gut is the best way to stay safe.
The nurse and professor is the subject of a three-part Hulu doc series Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, which began airing July 11
Burgess’ career took flight when she worked with sexual assault survivors in the 1970s. The FBI tapped her to consult with the Behavioral Science Unit, which developed the first-ever psychological profiling for serial killers. (The character of Dr. Wendy Carr in the series Mindhunter was modelled after Burgess.)
Burgess’ work has led to several arrests, and she continues to consult on high-profile cases, including the Menendez Brothers and Bill Cases.
Backed by decades of research, she has arrived at conclusions about serial killers: Their mental shifts into sociopaths typically happen around puberty, and they often have an unnatural fascination with the human body.
“A lot of this acting out starts right at puberty, right at adolescence — 12, 13, 14,” Burgess told people.com. “So we know there’s a real shift, if you will, in the biological neurological system. And it could be that certain parts of the brain get overstimulated because of trauma, the neurobiology of trauma.”
She said that similar mental patterns have been exhibited by each serial killer she had studied.
“There certainly are things they all have in common. It starts early, and it starts as a thought. It develops into what is now called a fantasy, and they spend a lot of time thinking about it, daydreaming, going over it, and then they start getting as much out of planning as the actual doing. It moves from just the thought to, ‘Maybe I should try this.’ And they do their research — a lot of research.”
Many of the serial killers she studied or spoke to practised on animals before killing humans.
“Then they would practice, A lot of them would practice with animals. I remember it was Jeffrey Dahmer said that he did it with roadkill. There’s a lot of curiosity with them that we noticed… they wanted to know what’s inside the body. I mean, it sounds really unusual, but certainly, a large number of them talked about wanting to explore what the body looked like.”
The show’s director, Abby Fuller, said absentee fathers and abusive mothers are also typical for serial killers.
“There is this misogyny that develops or this acting out against women due to these mommy issues, more or less,” Fuller said. “Oftentimes they were victimized, so it’s like there’s this idea the victim becomes a victimizer and the kind of the scene is played out, only this time they’re the one in control rather than the victim. And that’s not every case, but that was a pattern among many of them.”
Making it easier for kids to open up about emotional or sexual abuse could likely help stop some of the behaviour before it starts, Burgess said.
“Certainly, there is this emotional and psychological abuse. We don’t talk a lot about that, and it’s hard for people to open up about things that really embarrass kids, or set them apart from others, especially with young men. So I feel we have to do a lot more in that area,” said.
As for other safety tips, the doctors encouraged women to not view their reactions as overreactions. And “get a German shepherd. That’s the one thing I always say — a German shepherd.”