Chronicle
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An Academic’s Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind BY KATHLEEN SULLIVAN STAFF WRITER
Connell School of Nursing Professor Ann Wolbert Burgess received a phone call at her Boston College office in 1978 that would alter the course of her career and lead to a seismic shift in the practice of law enforcement. The call from Roy Hazelwood of the FBI was the beginning of a decades-long collaboration between Burgess and the agency’s nascent Behavioral Science Unit (BSU). Armed with scholarly knowledge of sex crimes, victimology, and criminal psychology, as well as research skills, Burgess worked alongside the agents and helped them to identify, interview, and track down dozens of notoriously violent offenders and serial killers. Burgess’s role in the evolution of criminal profiling and its application to several serial killer investigations are detailed in the new book, A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind, written by Burgess with Steven Matthew Constantine, associate director of marketing and communications at the Connell School. While the book gives readers an insider’s view of the development of criminal profiling, it also offers an equally compelling perspective on Burgess as a trailblazing forensic and psychiatric nurse, whose story partly formed the basis for a popular TV show years later. It was research Burgess conducted with BC colleague Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, a sociologist, that put Burgess on the FBI’s radar. The pair interviewed nearly 150 victims of rape to understand the emotional and traumatic effects of sexual violence. Their study found that sexual violence was more about power and control than the act of sex—a novel concept in the early 1970s. They also coined the phrase “rape trauma syndrome” to describe the psychological aftereffects of an attack that would often outlast the physical effects. They published their research in journals, and their article, “The Rape Victim in the Emergency Ward” in the American
Journal of Nursing, caught the attention of Hazelwood. Burgess was brought to the FBI Academy in Quantico to give lectures and teach the agents about victimology and violent sex crimes. There she met agents Robert Ressler and John Douglas, who were conducting a side project interviewing 36 serial killers. As she recalled in her book, the taped interviews they shared with her were “like eavesdropping on the rawest fringes of humanity.” Burgess saw that the agents were onto an approach that could lead to a whole new way of understanding criminal behavior. “As far as I know, no one’s ever tried to figure out why serial killers kill,” she recalled telling the agents. Though Burgess found the agents’ project fascinating and the possible implications profound, she said the interviews were “poorly structured and had zero footing in any conventional school of research.” She joined forces with Ressler and Douglas, contributing her knowledge of sex crimes and applying proper research methodology to the project. A Killer by Design depicts how the team’s criminal personality study then pivoted from abstract research to an investigative tool. Burgess and the agents applied their insights into criminal behavior to an active murder investigation of young teen boys in Nebraska in 1983. The team developed a profile of the likely killer of the unsolved murders, which helped law enforcement officers apprehend the perpetrator, John Joseph Joubert IV. The case received national media attention and was reported on in the Congressional Record. Burgess said the Joubert case validated the BSU and criminal profiling, which had doubters even within the FBI. “We’d proven that there was value in understanding the criminal mind…to be able to actually use criminal profiling in an active case to hunt down a killer was the most satisfying reward of all,” wrote Burgess. “That case elevated criminal profiling to a known tool that the FBI could offer local authorities,” said Constantine, who noted that the FBI needs to be invited in by local
February 3, 2022
Connell School of Nursing Professor Ann W. Burgess with Killer by Design co-author and Connell School colleague Steven Matthew Constantine: “The public understanding of rape—once dismissed as a ‘women’s issue’—has come so far and that’s a testament to Dr. Burgess and her work,” he says. photo by lee pellegrini
law enforcement to look at a case. “It snowballed from there as more cases were solved via profiling.” Burgess, Douglas, and Ressler would write a book titled Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives. The trio’s work was the inspiration for the hit Netflix show “Mindhunter,” in which actress Anna Torv played a fictionalized version of Burgess. Burgess was often the only non-agent and only woman working with the so-called “mindhunters.” She had been told throughout her career that the graphic, violent, disturbing world of sex crimes was no place for her. Discussing a case with Hazelwood in the 1980s, she recounted, “He tried to walk some imaginary line of social decorum while talking to me about extreme acts of violence, regardless of how many times I told him to knock it off.” “Many of these original profilers had their own books, but very little of that content mentioned Dr. Burgess’s story,” said Constantine, who worked closely with Burgess on a 2018 campus event called “The Minds behind ‘Mindhunter.’” “I thought Dr. Burgess’s story was particularly interesting and needed to be shared.” Burgess “broke the glass ceiling,” continued Constantine. “She was a pioneer. Her work helped change how law enforcement thought about these cases and it changed how the legal system thought about these cases. It’s the foundation of the modern aspects on how sexual crimes are dealt with. The public understanding of rape—once dismissed as a ‘women’s issue’—has come so far and that’s a testament to Dr. Burgess and her work.”
Burgess’s expertise led to her providing expert testimony in court and being interviewed for true crime podcasts. Her course, Forensic Mental Health, is considered one of the most popular courses on campus. She is proud of the advancements in the field of forensic nursing, particularly in the establishment of sexual assault nurse examiners who play a critical role in collecting evidence from victims. Her entire career as a nurse and her research on sexual, violent crimes have been about putting the priority on victims, she said—giving victims a voice, destroying myths around rape, and improving the medical, legal, and investigating communities’ interactions with victims. Burgess continues to work on behalf of victims. She and psychiatric nursing colleagues from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland have formed the “Super Sleuth Club,” meeting monthly via Zoom to try to solve cold cases. They are joined by Greg Cooper, a former FBI profiler who heads the Cold Case Foundation, and other former BSU agents. Only a little over half of such cases are solved, which means “thousands of cases have never been solved,” according to Burgess, who said that the Super Sleuth Club heard from a woman connected to one of the cold cases they are investigating. The woman was only nine years old when her mother was killed; the murder remains unsolved. “She was just so grateful that someone is still paying attention to her mother,” said Burgess. “I always wanted to speak for the victim who didn’t survive, because nobody spoke for them.”
Donald Brown to Speak at MLK Scholarship Banquet Educational consultant Donald Brown, who served as director of Boston College’s Office of AHANA Student Programs for 27 years and led efforts to support first-generation, underrepresented students, will be the keynote speaker at the 40th Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Banquet, which takes place on February 22 at 5:30 p.m. in the Yawkey Center Murray Function Room. During the banquet, University President William P. Leahy, S.J., will announce the winner of the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship, which recognizes a Boston College junior who has demonstrated superior academic achievement, extracurricular leadership, community service, and involvement with the African American community and African American issues. This year’s scholarship candidates are
Lubens Benjamin, Tamara Hyppolite, Kudzai Kapurura, Michael Martins, and E’Sachi Smalls. Brown is founder and president of Brown and Associates Education and Diversity Counseling, which aids in developing and facilitating diversity dialogues as part of strategies aimed at preparing young people for the challenges of the 21st century. He also developed Christian Soldiers Inc., an innovative education program that aims to improve the quality of life for young people by focusing on their academic, social, cultural, and spiritual growth and development. In 1978, Brown came to BC as director of what was then the Office of Minority Student Programs. He changed the office’s name to incorporate “AHANA,” an acronym for “African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Native
American” created by BC undergraduates Valerie Lewis-Mosley ’79 and Alfred Feliciano ’81 as an inclusive alternative to the term “minority.” (The office is now part of the Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center.) Brown is credited with championing initiatives such as the Options Through Education Transitional Summer Program (OTE), the Thea Bowman Scholars Program, the Benjamin E. Mays Mentoring Program, and the Jaime Escalante Tutorial Program. Interviewed by the Boston College Chronicle in 2004—the 25th anniversary of the “AHANA” acronym, which was adopted by other higher education institutions and programs, and eventually trademarked by BC— Brown said, “Dr. Martin Luther King talked to us about the need for people of good will
coming together, and the need to launch coalitions. What Alfred and Valerie talked about back then was the need for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and progressive whites coming together. That’s what undergirds this AHANA concept.” In 2007, the University established the Dr. Donald Brown Award, presented annually to a senior who, throughout his or her undergraduate career, has made extraordinary contributions to the BC community in ways that have benefited AHANA students in the areas of leadership, service, and academic development. February 15 is the deadline to register for the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Banquet. Send email to mlkjr@bc.edu. —University Communications
