A Conversation with Former FBI Profiler Julia Cowley About Delphi, Criminal Profiling, and the Golden State Killer

[00:00:00] Content Warning, this episode contains discussion of murder, including the murder of children as well as sexual violence.

[00:00:09] Julia Cowley has had the sort of career many of us might dream about.

[00:00:13] Growing up fascinated with true crime, she eventually joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where she was selected to join the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

[00:00:23] While a part of that team, she became the lead FBI profiler on the Golden State Killer case.

[00:00:30] Now retired from the Bureau, she hosts The Consult, a terrific true crime podcast where she and other retired FBI profilers share their insights on a variety of cases.

[00:00:42] We highly recommend The Consult and we'll link to it in our show notes.

[00:00:46] We were excited recently to get a chance to talk with Julia, and we asked her about her work in the Golden State Killer case,

[00:00:53] the part that criminal profiling plays in investigating cases, and the role the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit is said to have played in the Delphi case.

[00:01:03] My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:01:05] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:01:08] And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:10] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:01:16] We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:18] And this is a conversation with former FBI profiler Julia Cowley about Delphi, criminal profiling, and the Golden State Killer.

[00:02:12] I guess to start out, Julia, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:02:16] We'd love to sort of start out by talking about your background with the FBI.

[00:02:21] We saw one of your tweets.

[00:02:23] You mentioned that you joined, you know, partly because of this early love of true crime.

[00:02:27] Can you just sort of talk us through that and then how you kind of came to become an FBI agent?

[00:02:33] Sure. I was fascinated from true crime from a young age.

[00:02:37] My mother was reading Helter Skelter, and I she had told me I wasn't allowed to read it.

[00:02:43] And then I took it from her anyway and read it.

[00:02:46] And then by, you know, I was hooked, hooked after reading that.

[00:02:49] And then I would go to the bookstore and libraries and sit there and look through all the books and pick out the one I wanted to read next.

[00:02:57] And pretty soon I had read every book on the shelf.

[00:03:00] And I just knew that I wanted to somehow go into law enforcement, help solve murders.

[00:03:06] And then, um, yeah, I was good in science and chemistry.

[00:03:10] So I majored in chemistry in college and I became a forensic scientist first.

[00:03:14] And I worked in a crime lab.

[00:03:16] I was a toxicologist and then part of my assignment when I was a member of the violent crime response team.

[00:03:23] This was with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

[00:03:26] And so I would go to homicide scenes and process scenes.

[00:03:29] And then, you know, after being at TBI, one of my colleagues, then somebody was a mentor to me.

[00:03:36] He applied to the FBI and joined the FBI and I decided that that was what I wanted to do.

[00:03:41] I felt as a forensic scientist, which I really loved forensics and I loved going out to the crime scenes.

[00:03:48] But I felt like I was one small part of an investigation and I wanted to run my own investigations.

[00:03:55] And I thought I would have a better opportunity to do that in the FBI.

[00:03:58] And they were looking for women in science at the time, even back then.

[00:04:03] And so I applied and was selected.

[00:04:07] And that's how I got into the FBI.

[00:04:09] And I was able to kind of continue my forensics career.

[00:04:14] I became a member of the evidence, the FBI's evidence response team, but was assigned mostly to white collar through my first years.

[00:04:24] But what I found out, I kind of knew I really wanted to go into the behavioral analysis unit.

[00:04:31] And I was worried, you know, because I wasn't investigating violent crime as a, I guess as a regular agent that I wouldn't have an opportunity.

[00:04:40] And so I called someone at the unit and I said, what kind of experience do I need?

[00:04:44] And he told me something that I tell everybody all you need to do is be a good investigator.

[00:04:50] It doesn't really matter what your background is.

[00:04:52] Once you get here, you'll get training.

[00:04:53] And he thought I had enough violent crime experience from my work being on crime scene teams.

[00:05:00] So I stuck with public corruption and civil rights and I loved working it.

[00:05:04] And then after doing that for about 11 years, I applied to the BAU, the behavioral analysis unit, and was fortunate enough to be selected.

[00:05:15] And I mean, I can kind of explain to you.

[00:05:18] I was a select and I applied to the behavioral analysis unit, which is was the crimes against adults unit.

[00:05:26] And they're split up into different sections, which may be relevant to what we're going to talk about today.

[00:05:32] And that may be help under, you know, people understand how BAU is utilized in investigations and but everybody there, they have different specialties.

[00:05:43] Can you elaborate on that?

[00:05:45] Sure.

[00:05:46] So the BAUs are under the umbrella of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which is under the umbrella of the FBI's critical incident response group.

[00:05:59] And there's many different divisions of the FBI and all these little subsections and it is massive.

[00:06:06] So the NCAVC houses the BAUs and VICAP.

[00:06:12] And VICAP, they do analysis of crimes and linkage and they look at different, they track violent crime cases and correlate them.

[00:06:24] And they typically focus on murder and sexual assault, what else, missing persons, kidnappings, things like that.

[00:06:37] And it's really their crime analysts in that unit.

[00:06:39] And so that's part of the NCAVC.

[00:06:41] And then the rest of the NCAVC are the BAUs.

[00:06:45] And it's expanded.

[00:06:47] There are five units now.

[00:06:48] The first unit is BAU1 and it is terrorism and threats.

[00:06:54] And they work both international and domestic terrorism.

[00:06:59] BAU2 is the cyber unit.

[00:07:03] So they're looking at cyber criminals and their behaviors.

[00:07:08] BAU3 is crimes against children.

[00:07:10] BAU4 is crimes against adults, which was the unit that I was part of.

[00:07:15] And then the fifth unit is a research unit.

[00:07:19] So that is the entire NCAVC.

[00:07:24] I wanted to ask you a few more general questions about the BAU before we start going into some Delphi specifics.

[00:07:31] But I'm curious, what does a day in the life of a BAU FBI agent look like?

[00:07:40] I'm sure it's probably pretty different day by day.

[00:07:42] But if you can kind of break down the kind of work that somebody in that position would be doing, that would be awesome.

[00:07:48] Sure.

[00:07:49] And I can speak to my job and my role.

[00:07:53] I think it's similar throughout the BAUs.

[00:07:55] You just may be focused on a different violation and a different victim and a different offender.

[00:08:00] A different type of offender.

[00:08:02] But unlike being out in the field and being a regular agent, call them regular agents, it's not as active.

[00:08:11] You're not out interviewing people.

[00:08:12] You're not out doing surveillance.

[00:08:14] It's really a desk job for the most part.

[00:08:16] You're looking over cases.

[00:08:19] You're reviewing files.

[00:08:21] You're reviewing other people's work basically because we're consultants.

[00:08:25] And occasionally there will be travel involved where you will go see the scene of the crime.

[00:08:31] And certainly in major crimes or crimes where you really can't get a sense of the crime scene from photographs,

[00:08:41] you would travel and meet in any high profile case BAU agents would travel to the scenes to meet in person.

[00:08:51] Not only with the investigators, but sometimes the prosecutors.

[00:08:54] We travel to the crime scene and get all of our questions answered about the case while we're there.

[00:09:02] So that's basically what it is like sitting there looking at files, writing reports and sometimes traveling.

[00:09:12] It is not nearly as I guess tactical as you are when you're still in a field office.

[00:09:23] I was wondering is it I mean, it must be highly competitive though to join the BAU within the FBI

[00:09:28] because I think that's a lot of people's you know kind of perception of what the FBI does is essentially track down

[00:09:35] unidentified killers, serial killers, things like that.

[00:09:38] So I mean, is that how it's perceived within the Bureau?

[00:09:43] It is competitive to get into the BAU.

[00:09:45] I mean, I believe I'm sure I'm not going to be exactly right, but there are 12,000 agents

[00:09:51] and there's not too many positions depending on the unit.

[00:09:54] There's anywhere between maybe five and 12 agents per unit.

[00:09:58] So it's not that big and it does tend to be pretty competitive.

[00:10:03] So if a job opens like someone retires or leaves or transfers and a job opens,

[00:10:09] you might have anywhere from 20 to 30 agents applying for one position there.

[00:10:17] And I think what makes it not quite as competitive as people might think is that you have to move.

[00:10:23] You have to live there.

[00:10:24] You can't you know, if you're in if you're in an office, you know, let's say, let's say in Boston,

[00:10:32] you'd have to move to Virginia and work down in the Virginia area, which is where the office is.

[00:10:40] So some people don't apply just because they get settled in where they are and they don't want to have to move.

[00:10:46] But yeah, it is pretty competitive.

[00:10:48] And you know, when I joined the FBI, I while I really wanted to be a profiler,

[00:10:55] I thought someday I would love to do that.

[00:10:58] I also joined knowing that I might never get that opportunity.

[00:11:01] So I needed to love what I was doing anyway.

[00:11:05] And I did and I think even if I hadn't been selected,

[00:11:10] I was very happy with what I was doing and really happy with the office I was in, the squad I was on.

[00:11:18] And so you really you can't join the FBI thinking that, you know, you're just going to walk right into the position.

[00:11:24] But also if you don't give up and you kind of are willing to maybe sacrifice a few things and,

[00:11:33] you know, persevere, you still have a chance.

[00:11:36] And when I was in school and graduate school, we had an FBI agent come talk to one of our classes

[00:11:46] and one of the students had asked, you know, what are the chances of becoming an FBI profiler?

[00:11:50] And this is all around the time where the silence of the lambs had come out.

[00:11:55] And so that was a big, that was a big draw.

[00:11:58] People wanted to be from FBI profilers and they thought they could do that right from the FBI Academy.

[00:12:05] But one of the students had asked, you know, what are the chances of becoming a profiler if you get into the FBI?

[00:12:10] And I remember the guy went zero.

[00:12:14] And yeah, I said, that's impossible.

[00:12:17] That's not zero.

[00:12:20] Come on.

[00:12:21] So I mean, he was he was not very encouraging about it.

[00:12:26] Let's put it that way.

[00:12:27] He said, you know, don't join the FBI.

[00:12:29] If that's what you want to do, you know, you're not that's just a myth and you're not going to go in there right in the Academy.

[00:12:34] He was just really, really mad about the question.

[00:12:38] But I remember that really well.

[00:12:40] That stuck in my head.

[00:12:41] And but, you know, I, I, you know, I understood what he was saying.

[00:12:45] It's like, you're, you know, you may never get a chance because, you know, there's so many people that joined the FBI that, you know, one person told me,

[00:12:54] you know, being a FBI profiler is a dream job within a dream job.

[00:12:58] So when I thought that was pretty good description.

[00:13:01] What is the process like of preparing a profile?

[00:13:04] Like what are you looking for?

[00:13:06] So I think every case is different, but it depends on what is being asked of you.

[00:13:16] So for example, somebody might just want an interview strategy.

[00:13:19] They might want a personality assessment.

[00:13:21] They might want a prosecution strategy, a media strategy.

[00:13:26] So there's all different types of linkage analysis.

[00:13:28] You might have multiple crimes and they want to know if they're connected.

[00:13:32] They may not have forensic evidence, but are they connected behaviorally?

[00:13:36] And then you might then kind of the bread and butter of the BAU uses an unknown offender profile.

[00:13:43] And generally that's what the crimes against adults and the crimes against children's unit tend to do because they tend to work more of the homicides than the other units.

[00:13:55] In fact, the majority of the homicides fall within those two units.

[00:13:59] So profile and unknown offender.

[00:14:02] And I think everybody has a different way of approaching an analysis for me.

[00:14:10] If it's a traditional homicide or if it's a serial murder case, I really rely heavily on crime scene photographs, autopsies, lab results.

[00:14:22] Those are what I tend to focus on the most and I try to piece back together as best I can the sequence of events of the crime.

[00:14:33] What was the interaction between the offender or offenders and victim or victims?

[00:14:40] As best you can with what happened here.

[00:14:43] And that is my background, my specialty being a forensic scientist and having worked a lot of crime scenes.

[00:14:52] I think that I'm pretty good at that.

[00:14:55] So that's why I look at it that way.

[00:14:58] Somebody else might have a different process, but we do rely heavily on autopsy reports, the crime scene photographs,

[00:15:08] visiting the crime scene, getting an idea of exactly where the crime occurred.

[00:15:15] Is it a busy area? High traffic areas?

[00:15:18] Is it remote?

[00:15:19] Who has access to it?

[00:15:21] Who would know how to get there?

[00:15:23] Those types of questions.

[00:15:24] So it's really I always like to travel sometimes it just it wouldn't be necessary.

[00:15:29] I mean, we're extremely busy.

[00:15:30] You just you just didn't have enough time to travel on every case.

[00:15:34] If you had a single homicide in a house and you had a pretty good idea, maybe you've even been to that location,

[00:15:40] you know the city before you may not necessarily need to travel.

[00:15:45] Another really important part of coming up with an in a profile is victimology and learning everything that you can about that specific victim.

[00:15:59] And what I found when cases had been brought to us is that was what was lacking the most in investigations like this thorough understanding of the victim.

[00:16:12] And I think that it can be hard to ask certain questions because you don't want to sound like you're blaming the victim.

[00:16:19] And there certainly is a way to gently approach those types of questions.

[00:16:26] But there's there's a lot of just a lot of sensitive things you need to ask about those victims because what we're trying to determine is their risk level and what made them a victim at that particular time for that particular offender.

[00:16:45] And where in their lives did they have risk if any?

[00:16:49] And so that's really important.

[00:16:51] It's really to have a good understanding of the victim.

[00:16:54] So that's another thing I really would focus on.

[00:16:57] And what we do, we have these questionnaires called general assessment questionnaires and their pages of questions that focus on kind of different aspects or different areas of a person's life.

[00:17:11] And they can be used not only for a victim, they could be used for an offender trying to get you know personality assessment of an offender.

[00:17:20] If you want to try to interview that offender or have a better understanding of that offender.

[00:17:24] They can be used for interview strategies and things like that as well.

[00:17:30] So they're very helpful, but they ask questions and they're kind of broken up into different areas of the person's life.

[00:17:38] And so what you want to do as an investigator is provide those questionnaires to different people that knew that that particular victim in different capacities,

[00:17:51] whether it was a friend, a family member, a co-worker, because everybody may present differently depending on the situation they are,

[00:18:00] depending on the person they're interacting with.

[00:18:03] So you may pick up tidbits of information from even from somebody who may not even know a victim very well,

[00:18:09] but there might be something that they noticed at one point and they can answer a question.

[00:18:13] And sometimes we've gotten questionnaires back and just a few questions are answered,

[00:18:18] but they can still be very valuable.

[00:18:21] So that's how we would build on victimology and almost every single case we would work on.

[00:18:29] And I say we because we always do this as a team.

[00:18:32] One person can't do a profile or you can try, but it really is good to have somebody check you and make sure you're not getting tunnel vision.

[00:18:46] But yeah, almost every single time a case would come in, we'd send out the questionnaires saying can you get more victimology?

[00:18:55] And I just think typically that tends to be lacking in an investigation.

[00:19:03] So that's how you would start.

[00:19:05] And then in terms of trying to report it out and I'll kind of focus on maybe an unknown offender profile,

[00:19:13] like characteristics of an offender that you're looking for.

[00:19:16] So then you would talk about what's the summary of the case?

[00:19:21] What occurred? List out any autopsy results and area demographics might come into play.

[00:19:31] What's the crime problem in the particular area?

[00:19:34] And then you don't really call it a profile.

[00:19:37] It's like a criminal investigative analysis, but a lot of times I would just say here's my assessment, here are my observations.

[00:19:44] And the observations might not necessarily be part of a profile where you're talking about characteristics.

[00:19:50] You're talking about laying out what you think happened between the offender and the victim.

[00:19:57] Like, okay, this is what we think happened.

[00:19:59] And then impressions of that and what does that mean?

[00:20:05] And then maybe go into personality traits and characteristics of the offender.

[00:20:12] And that's kind of how it works.

[00:20:15] I feel like you're kind of starting over every time you get a case in.

[00:20:21] There's just no one way to do things.

[00:20:25] Every case is different.

[00:20:29] And then, anyway, that's generally how you do it.

[00:20:34] I've given an overview, but there's always the situations where,

[00:20:39] okay, we're going to do things a little differently because the case requires that this be approached in a different way.

[00:20:47] Absolutely. I was curious in terms of how a case even gets on BA use desks.

[00:20:54] Can you talk about that process?

[00:20:56] Sure. So the request, so it's a myth.

[00:21:00] The FBI doesn't just come in and take over.

[00:21:03] Maybe some people have had that experience, but we are invited into an investigation.

[00:21:09] There has to be a formal request from the requesting agency,

[00:21:13] which would be state, local or federal.

[00:21:16] And that request would come to the BAU.

[00:21:20] And then usually the boss of that unit chief would make a determination.

[00:21:27] Does this meet the criteria of a case that we would work on?

[00:21:30] And most of them do.

[00:21:32] So cases are maybe not suitable for a profile in certain situations or so that,

[00:21:40] but that would be made at the unit chief level.

[00:21:43] Every field office has what's called an NCAVC coordinator,

[00:21:48] which is the liaison, the local liaison between the local agencies,

[00:21:54] state and local agencies within their territory and the BAU's.

[00:21:59] So every field office will have an NCAVC coordinator.

[00:22:03] Some field offices, depending on the size may have multiple.

[00:22:07] And you know their job, it's an extra curricular duty within an office.

[00:22:12] And so they're all assigned different.

[00:22:15] So I was a coordinator at one point in Boston and I was still assigned to public corruption.

[00:22:19] But my, you know, my job was if a local police department had a case

[00:22:25] and reached out to the FBI looking for a profile,

[00:22:29] it would be my job to gather the materials, get them together, send them down to the BAU.

[00:22:36] So occasionally we would get at BAU, we would get calls directly.

[00:22:43] And if we get a call directly, we would always,

[00:22:47] we wouldn't necessarily refer them back to the NCAVC coordinator,

[00:22:51] but we would certainly communicate and loop in the NCAVC coordinator in those communications

[00:22:58] and bring them into it and sort of put them in the middle.

[00:23:02] You know, because BAU's are part of the headquarters division.

[00:23:07] So what we don't want to do is be doing work in a territory and that local field office has no idea.

[00:23:14] I mean, there may be very rare occasions like really top secret investigations

[00:23:19] that nobody can know about that they don't have a local field office,

[00:23:23] but in a case is like a homicide or a serial murder case or high profile case.

[00:23:30] We would absolutely let the local office know that we're involved.

[00:23:35] And that local NCAVC coordinator is welcome to be a part as much as they want to be.

[00:23:41] If they want to come to any consultations, if they want to visit the crime scene,

[00:23:45] they become part of it.

[00:23:47] And, you know, some are, I guess, more motivated to be part of that process

[00:23:54] and some are not as motivated to be part of it or they're just busy.

[00:23:58] They might be in trial and they just can't.

[00:24:01] But what we really want to do is bring them in because they have the relationships often,

[00:24:09] you know, really good relationships.

[00:24:12] Hopefully, I should say, hopefully they're a good relationship.

[00:24:15] Sometimes, you know, beyond our control, they're not always great,

[00:24:18] but they, you know, should theoretically have good relationships with the state and locals.

[00:24:26] So we want them involved.

[00:24:28] So that was, that's typically how it would work.

[00:24:32] And I can't really, I can't really think of it a case where the BAU,

[00:24:38] unless it was like some national security case that you couldn't tell anybody about

[00:24:43] why you wouldn't involve the local NCAVC coordinator in the local office in that process.

[00:24:51] That's really important.

[00:24:53] And, you know, if you're doing work and in a, you know, a territory somewhere

[00:24:59] and then they find out, I mean, that, you know, that's not, you know,

[00:25:04] that's not going to be appreciated.

[00:25:06] That's something that we call some drama.

[00:25:09] Absolutely.

[00:25:11] Yeah, you know, I mean, you know, feathers get ruffled very easily in law enforcement.

[00:25:16] People can be very, very territorial and I understand that I would be, you know,

[00:25:21] if I was, you know, as an agent in Boston,

[00:25:25] if I found out that BAU was coming up and talking to people that I already have established relationships with

[00:25:32] and I'm not aware of that, yeah, I would be a little bit perturbed by that, I think.

[00:25:38] I would sleep, you know, these are, these are relationships that I have to maintain full time

[00:25:45] and I should be involved in that.

[00:25:48] And I believe in that.

[00:25:49] And that's what, you know, we always try to do at BAU is make sure the locals,

[00:25:54] the local agents are involved.

[00:25:57] That makes a lot of sense.

[00:25:59] In the Richard Allen case, the original defense attorneys of course filed a Frank's memorandum

[00:26:05] where they assert that BAU came into the case and they actually indicate that in their view

[00:26:13] the BAU actually made a definite conclusion that someone involved with odinism was involved with the murders.

[00:26:21] And just in your experience is it typical for the BAU or would you expect the BAU to make such

[00:26:28] definite strong conclusions about crime?

[00:26:31] Typically.

[00:26:33] So, so I am aware of what was said in the Frank's motion and they obviously my attention was drawn immediately

[00:26:42] when I saw BAU was involved in that and that is a strong statement.

[00:26:47] It is just knowing how careful we are when we put things in writing and when we do an analysis.

[00:26:57] There's a lot of caveats.

[00:26:59] In fact, at the beginning of our report, there's this whole paragraph of caveats is all based on probabilities and this could change at any point in time if additional information is developed.

[00:27:10] It's just heavily caveated.

[00:27:12] So that's very strong language.

[00:27:15] Now, that tells me like one of two things.

[00:27:18] I mean it's one of two things.

[00:27:20] Maybe it's something else as well as if I think through it enough.

[00:27:23] But, you know, either there's something present and so what I want to make clear.

[00:27:28] I have not seen crime scene photographs.

[00:27:31] You know, I have not seen autopsy results.

[00:27:33] I've never worked on this investigation so I cannot speak to this in particular.

[00:27:39] I've only seen media reports and I will say you cannot do any kind of profile off media reports whatsoever.

[00:27:46] So you just can't, you know, it's impossible.

[00:27:50] So that's why I want to just make that very clear that I'm not speaking about this case.

[00:27:56] But so it tells me that they potentially there is something, you know, that BAU saw that made them believe that this was definitive.

[00:28:10] So and they did use that strong language and that's possible sometimes.

[00:28:16] There is there's sometimes you write something because you are so certain about it because there's just no other possibility.

[00:28:22] It just has to be or that's an interpretation of, you know, that maybe the written reports is likely involved or familiar with or, you know, maybe there's some language in there and then the interpretation was, oh, they said they had the beliefs and that that happens all the time and I'll give a perfect example.

[00:28:43] It's not related to this case at all. But there was there were some threatening letters at one point being sent. This is this is actually prior to me being in the BAU I was a coordinator at the time.

[00:28:58] And there were some threatening letters and the author was using language and had written the letters to, you know, sound like that the person was perhaps African American, uneducated African American.

[00:29:21] And it was written like that in BAU during the consultation told the investigators that this is somebody who is using that language to try to pretend not pretend.

[00:29:36] I don't even think they use the word but they were using that language which could be considered a contra indicator, which means they're trying to potentially be somebody that they're not.

[00:29:48] And then investigator testified that the BAU said it was a black man who wrote the threatening letter.

[00:29:58] A judge that I find that hard to believe and of course at that point, you know, all it just it blew up.

[00:30:06] And so there can be misinterpretations of what BAU says sometimes people hear what they want to think or they or you know, it's confirmation bias.

[00:30:16] They think they have a suspect and the BAU says oh that it likely could be this or there just could be some misinterpretation of that and there is a lot of confirmation about you hear it sometimes what you want to hear we all do that we can't help it we have a.

[00:30:33] You know, we have a vision in our head and you know we only we only want to see and read and consume things that validate what we think.

[00:30:40] So that this is what happened and luckily there was a written report that that was you know had all the caveats in there that that this is likely a contra indicator somebody pretending that they're an uneducated black male.

[00:30:55] So that's how things can get misinterpreted.

[00:30:59] Occasionally, there are times where some an investigator will call like directly to the unit and they'll have a conversation.

[00:31:10] There won't be any kind of official analysis of the case and it could just be that the agent at BAU says oh yeah it does sound like this.

[00:31:21] And there's no further follow up and there's not a formal analysis that these kinds of informal conversations happen all the time.

[00:31:30] I don't know if that happened here but it could have but it happens all the time they brief you hey this is what we've got.

[00:31:37] What do you think well I think this could be this I think this could be that but you would always tell them but I know this is just off the top of my head without seeing anything we're going to have to do a formal analysis.

[00:31:49] In any time I took phone calls like that I always documented them we just have little internal memos like some so and so call we discuss these things this is what I told them.

[00:31:58] And so I always documented I don't you know I can't say everyone would document those things but that I would just make an internal memo so that I could refer back to it if I had to if they call back for requesting official analysis.

[00:32:15] That makes sense yeah it's interesting to me that we're actually in the document we're getting it third hand because it's the Franks memorandum interpreting a message a letter from an investigator who worked on the Odeon this angle Todd click

[00:32:32] was actually working with two FBI counterterrorism task force members.

[00:32:36] Who were FBI agents but state police and local police who belong to task forces.

[00:32:42] And then he's interpreting the BAUs word so yeah it definitely stood out to us is like this seems very strongly worded but certainly interesting.

[00:32:51] It is strongly worded and it may that may be the way it's worded or it could be in the interpretation but if there was a formal analysis there will be a report.

[00:33:02] And that report will be very thorough it will have like I say it will start off with all the caveats it will list I mean and of course this is how we wrote our report I wrote this is how I was taught and this is how we were doing it at the time.

[00:33:21] I can maybe it's all changed since I retired.

[00:33:24] But you know it's a very it's very thorough.

[00:33:28] And you know you would list out the date you were contacted for assistance who contacted you what agency contacted you.

[00:33:36] You'd list out any times you had a meeting this this goes into every final report and and who was present at those meetings and now occasionally if you have a huge group of people like a task force.

[00:33:50] You may not list out every single person.

[00:33:53] But generally you know consultations they might be you know have, you know, at least two agents from BAU and you might have a number of investigators and so you would list those out.

[00:34:06] Then you would describe the do a case summary and write out and describe the what the crime is what happened sort of the circumstances surrounding the commission of that crime and this is all based on what law enforcement is telling you.

[00:34:24] And what you've observed through crime scene photos and things like that so just a case summary and then like I said, section on you know autopsy if if pertinent if they're you know if this is a homicide.

[00:34:39] Any lab results that have come back you list those out because you want to make sure that in your report, you're writing out everything that you've considered is part of your analysis so investigators know like I these are all the things I consider

[00:34:53] because this is what I was given to consider in this analysis.

[00:34:58] And then you know after that, then there's the analysis and so it's really important if you make, let's say a prediction of something you describe why, why are you making that prediction and be very specific about you kind of to back up your analysis so if there is this determination

[00:35:22] or prediction that this person, I what was the terminology, respond or they practiced Nordic beliefs or is that the

[00:35:31] Let me pull up the exact wording it was that according to the summary of clicks investigation that he attached with his letter the behavioral analysis unit BAU of the FBI determined that the individuals responsible for the homicides were involved in Nordic beliefs.

[00:35:46] Right.

[00:35:47] So, list out why that the determination or the assessment is that they were involved and it has to be very specific. What makes them think that and you know that that would be a huge in this particular case I mean you and how do you know they're

[00:36:05] involved as opposed to potentially staging or the cat what's the difference you know, you know for example a lot of times they could use you can tell like a burglary is staged.

[00:36:18] So how you know how do you know this wasn't a real burglary or how do you know that they that they're just not you know, Googling something and finding okay what do you know, what would have seen look like if an odinous did it you

[00:36:31] know.

[00:36:32] So, but specifically why do you think they are, and then also if familiarity doesn't mean that they necessarily practice it or they may they may be familiar with it through media they may be familiar with it through just reading

[00:36:53] or seeing something on TV. And so, you know, again just I think that it's important to try to establish how do you know that they, you know are actually practicing it as opposed to just having a familiarity with it for in staging.

[00:37:12] So, yeah.

[00:37:16] It's it's strongly worded there they're, you know I would think there has to be something that really stands out if that's the words that were used by be a user there has to be something that made them think that if it's you know if it's in fact what they said.

[00:37:35] So many ifs at this point right and yeah we just don't know for sure. I mean, I don't have. I don't think that they're lying. I think this is what they think you know they think that this is what be a you said maybe and

[00:37:52] but did they actually say that I you know I don't know and also there's all the difference in from some of the media that I've seen.

[00:38:04] Some have interpreted that statement as okay, this was you know a ritual killing of some sort. And you know that doesn't I don't take from that statement necessarily that this was any kind of sacrifice that it may be that maybe what they're saying.

[00:38:22] But it also could be there, you know this is not going to motive this is just going to characteristics of this particular offender the motive could be something else but I think some people were interpreting it.

[00:38:34] Oh the motive is a ritualistic sacrifice based on that that sentence.

[00:38:40] So that's another thing to consider is that yeah maybe this person has these characteristics has this familiarity has this knowledge but it doesn't mean that was the reason for the murders.

[00:38:53] That's another question I think is that is out there.

[00:38:57] That's really well said and yes a lot of people did see this as the FBI endorsing a ritual murder theory.

[00:39:03] The one I read it at first to well, I don't think I actually I didn't read the Frank's motion I read the headline, and I thought what, because that's unusual that is that would be extremely unusual we don't see.

[00:39:16] I mean, I never worked a ritualistic killing.

[00:39:21] So it's so rare. It is so rare and and so I was surprised when I kind of saw.

[00:39:33] Oh, this is ritualistic and and you know, in through, I guess through rumors I had heard there was, you know, very some some strange things that had strange behavior exhibited at the crime scene and some unusual things and that but it didn't occur to me oh this is rich a sacrifice of some sort I just thought

[00:39:56] it could be staging it could be it could be ritualistic behavior on the part of the offender in that this is something that you know it's something extra like the the MO what you need to do to commit the crime and get it done that's your

[00:40:17] and then anything that's extra is kind of ritualistic behavior so I was saying this could be ritualistic behavior in that sense, as opposed to like a ritualistic sacrifice.

[00:40:30] But once I read the Frank's motion I saw the sentence I'm like okay I don't think that necessarily indicates that this that was the motive. It just goes more to the characteristics of the offender.

[00:40:43] It's really, really good point. And one thing I know our listeners are probably going to be like, why are they not asking Julia to profile the Delphi case.

[00:40:54] Probably screaming at us right now ask him what is what is out what's her profile of this killer. But I love what you said earlier about you can't profile based on limit information, including media reports and of course, a lot of what we have at this

[00:41:09] from the case is a Frank's memorandum that goes into detail on the crime scene, but it's not the same thing as having the case file in front of you and I'm wondering can you talk about that and why it would be sort of irresponsible for people to kind of be profiling based on

[00:41:26] limited information and anything other than you know conversations with investigators and a case file to look at.

[00:41:33] Sure, you cannot profile a case based on media reports without seeing and I don't need to see a profiler doesn't need to see every single investigative interview that's not necessary in every single case but without seeing an autopsy without seeing crime scene photos

[00:41:54] without having thorough victimology done you just can't create a profile and I have seen even really high profile cases, like my own case, which was one of them.

[00:42:10] And so I had to arrest Joe D'Angelo there been shows done on him, and I once saw an interview that had been done with another retired FBI profiler.

[00:42:22] They were profiling this particular killer the person responsible for these and it was, it was not him. It was wrong. And, and that just goes to show you that they were just taking based off media reports and the thing about that particular case is that

[00:42:41] without seeing the details of the incident reports and the reports from the victims that the survivors of those.

[00:42:51] You really didn't have an idea what really happened between the victim and that particular offender until you actually read every single thing. It was really important so people were interpreting this guy as this like tough, you know, brazen.

[00:43:09] You know, he's going to want to boast and brag about his crimes and, and that's not what we saw in the investigation when we really looked at all the details of every single file.

[00:43:23] And we reviewed, you know, probably well I was the lead so I reviewed everything so it was probably like 15,000 pages or so I think that was an estimate but and a very different person emerge than what had been

[00:43:38] portrayed by the media. And so then, Joe D'Angelo is identified through forensic genetic genealogy and brought into court.

[00:43:52] And lots of people were surprised look at him he's faking you know because the day before he was out on his motorcycle. You know he was perfectly fine is very healthy man in his 70s, my calling on that case who helped me with it we were not surprised

[00:44:08] at all by him it's exactly what we expected because we saw this behavior of his when he was committing his crimes. When he was losing control of during the commission of his crimes when he started to lose control and the victims got the upper hand in any way shape or form.

[00:44:27] He imploded he had trouble handling that and he displayed certain characteristics doesn't mean he wasn't dangerous, but he's extremely dangerous and he would often you know if he could.

[00:44:40] He would go the mini start to lose control he would escalate directly to deadly force, but it before trying to getting to be able to maintain control in situations where he couldn't escalate directly to deadly force he was exhibiting certain behaviors that indicated to us that he is you know insecure

[00:45:03] he can't handle things very well he can't handle stress well.

[00:45:09] So, when he was arrested this was the ultimate.

[00:45:15] All his control was taken away and he completely imploded and this is what we saw. And we thought we were looking at the truest version of Joe D'Angelo when he came into court that first day that's that's Joe D'Angelo that was really truly him.

[00:45:29] So, that's why I always go back to even a very high profile case like that where everybody thinks they have a lot of information about it. It's you just can't you can't do it. You can make assumptions you can speculate.

[00:45:44] To really have it do it with any kind of accuracy you really do need to see, you know, certain parts of the investigation and I'm not saying you see every single piece, but certainly certain parts and in Delphi.

[00:46:01] At the very least you would have to have reviewed the autopsy results. And when I say review you study them, you study them really close and you understand every single injury done you know what was what was an injury that could have caused death.

[00:46:23] What was not was there anything gratuitous where their defense wounds like you study it and you understand it. You look at every single photo that's taken during the autopsy, you look at the crime scene photographs.

[00:46:38] You try to determine exactly what happened and hopefully by the time you're looking at this not always the case but you're able to determine okay if there's you know, blood, you know, blood spatter somewhere whose blood is it.

[00:46:52] And is it a combination to the offender hurt themselves.

[00:46:57] You're trying to determine was a lab able in any way shape or form to link any evidence that was found at the scene to the offender or to an offender or or do they believe in any way that it was from the offender or left by the offender.

[00:47:14] There's just so much that goes into it that there's just no way you can do a profile without knowing all these things. I mean at the very, at the very least, I mean you can say, okay you have two little girls who what could they do to have someone do this to them to you know what,

[00:47:37] so you go so this offender has to be like a psychopath. So I mean that's the best you could do like this person doesn't care about human life. I mean that's about as as much as you can say about the offender and of course you know, with some evidence that was released you might be you might be able to say white male,

[00:47:57] but any, any more than that there's just not much more you can go on without seeing it so I know I mean it's really tough because people want answers they want to know what's the profile who is this I mean it's it's such a horrific and significant case and not only for this area but it's it's grip the country and it's I mean the world really

[00:48:21] I mean you just, you cannot imagine who would do something like that and people want answers they want to know they want to understand how did this happen who could do something like this and so it's very unsatisfying when you say we really can't tell you at this point.

[00:48:40] You know, you know the investigators. No, they have seen all this. So they're the only ones that really have that information and in typically and I mean this is not a fast breaking case anymore but it's still, you know, in a very active phase.

[00:49:03] And so to comment any more on that too I think in my role in my former position would be irresponsible as well.

[00:49:13] We so appreciate you because unfortunately a lot of people just don't do that and I think it, I think it's problematic because I think it muddies the waters and takes away from the real value that profiling can have as far as being a

[00:49:27] investigative tool and a way to figure things out. And it's, it's as you said it's trying to give answers to a worried public which is totally understandable but it's also it's not really giving answers it's just turns into kind of a speculative sludge rather than a profile of value.

[00:49:45] Yeah, and I think there's there's kind of two camps when it comes to profiling people think that it's just complete junk science it's not useful at all. And, and you shouldn't trust anything and there's others that think it's magic that it's a psychic or some sort it's the be all and all.

[00:50:05] In this case you do you do kind of see that a lot of people had jumped on all the BA you said this.

[00:50:13] And so it must be true.

[00:50:15] And, you know, you know, I will say the the BA you and I'm going to include myself. They can be wrong that not you were just not always accurate on a profile there's there was a study done, which I really appreciated it was done by a professor

[00:50:36] at school of University in Texas and what he had done I just came across this randomly, but it wasn't done too long ago. And what he had done is he had reviewed

[00:50:50] all nine profiles that had been done of the Golden State killer over the course of the investigation and was making kind of a determination wasn't like a competition about which was the best or anything like that although I did column and ask him.

[00:51:06] I just, I have to.

[00:51:09] I need to talk.

[00:51:11] Yeah.

[00:51:14] So, but I mean you're joking, joking aside.

[00:51:18] You know he he went through and it wasn't just about what you know what was agribusiness and it was it was difficult because some of its comparing apples and oranges because not everybody had the same predictions in terms of what they were predicting so he was looking at what the predictions were

[00:51:34] and what was accurate what was you know inaccurate what was indeterminate and then was there anything useful by it was that you know does it provide any use any investigative use to to the agencies that had requested these profiles and the most you know the most accurate was like 75%

[00:51:57] and you know and I think I think in his study he talks about looking at some profiles done in the UK and the most accurate like 72%

[00:52:06] you're all there's always something you're going to be wrong particularly if you're trying to be extremely thorough and you're making, you know you're trying to answer certain questions I always go into a case thinking, you know this is what they're asking me for but what do I also think needs to be answered so like, you know,

[00:52:23] you know, do I need to link other cases do I need to try to determine if there's more than one offender, because people think sometimes there's two of them I mean I try to figure out.

[00:52:34] I really want to provide something of use and answer some questions for them.

[00:52:39] So, but it but it just goes to show that we're not always right and we don't I mean I don't expect to be right I want to be right and, and even when I have been wrong in my analysis and I will say, most of the time, you know the the analysis you know that I've seen and the resulting like once the offenders

[00:53:01] are not necessarily identified and and identified and the profiles are usually fairly accurate but there's always a miss somewhere, and you, you always have a, I don't want to call it an excuse, but you have a reason why that that was, you know, maybe why you were

[00:53:22] you know, for example, in I keep going back to the Golden State killer because I this study was done.

[00:53:30] But one of the things and I kind of knew anecdotally just by talking to investigators and knowing who Joe D'Angelo was I knew I knew what I got wrong and it was about militia the military, and you know based on his crimes the crimes that were presented

[00:53:47] to me as potential crimes committed by this offender, you know my kind of my thought was he was younger than he was and one of the many investigators thought that perhaps he was moving around California because he was in the military and he was moving

[00:54:06] closer to military bases. And you know there there was some backing to this because during his crimes he made a lot of references to being in the military, and he dressed in a very military way when some of the victims described him and his his clothing

[00:54:23] and stuff and he was also very tactical at what he did and very good at what he did and very proficient. So I thought one of the questions I needed to answer was, was he in the military.

[00:54:35] I thought he because I thought he was too young what I didn't know was that there was a whole series of burglaries that happened before, even before the ones that I was given.

[00:54:48] And so he started earlier so I think I would have had a better age range so I thought he was just too young to have been in the military and it turned out that you know he was older than I thought he had been in the military at one point

[00:55:03] several years prior to the offenses that I analyzed. And he was not in the military at the time of the offense and one of the reasons another reason why I didn't think he'd be in the military not only because of his age was because he took such great steps to protect his identity.

[00:55:21] And I didn't think that he would provide a detail of his life that could potentially lead to identifying him, because if he had been in the military, they would be able to go check the bases and cross reference names and of course he wasn't in the military at the time so that that was the area where I was inaccurate

[00:55:42] and I understand why I was so not an excuse but certainly that's why it was what that part was inaccurate. Now, what turned out to be extremely useful for the investigation was that I linked a series of burglaries to the entire series of rapes and murders and those burglaries provided another data point for the genetic genealogy that they were doing.

[00:56:12] And investigators reported that you know they would have got there eventually but that extra kind of knowledge of having those crimes got them to his identity a lot faster so so my report was actually operationally useful.

[00:56:29] So I was surprised because sometimes it's not sometimes they're just very interesting and like oh wow that's really interesting we have a really good understanding of the offender and of the crime, but it doesn't it didn't necessarily provide anything of use in terms of you know, solving the crimes.

[00:56:46] And that's another thing I'll say is profiling does not solve crimes it does not, it does not identify offenders. It may help prioritize offenders it may give you a better understanding it may provide you information to conduct a well informed interview of an offender but we don't identify offenders.

[00:57:06] So important to note that you can't just go into a courtroom and say we profiled them and everyone's like alright.

[00:57:13] Yeah, and kind of how it works on TV but yeah everybody wants to hear the profile and I always feel like people are disappointed you know we have a podcast I do with three other retired profilers and I know people are always hoping that just just tell us who did it.

[00:57:33] On the unsolved ones and I'm like we just can't and you know personally we may all think yeah we know who did it or we feel you know but we would.

[00:57:43] We just I have known I've seen so many times where even we create a profile and this happened in a case that I did in Oklahoma will leak Oklahoma which in some ways was very similar to Delphi just on the surface it was two girls ages 11 and 13 and they were shot and killed.

[00:58:02] On a rural rural road in Oklahoma and will leak on a beautiful Sunday afternoon there's no sexual assault or anything like that it's in terms of you know it is it is not similar to Delphi what similar is kind of it's a small area.

[00:58:20] It's out in the you know the rural area and the ages of the victims and the fact that there were two of them so that was kind of a similarity when I did the profile for the case in Oklahoma.

[00:58:35] There was a individual in terms of personality traits and characteristics and some you know some information about the location of where this person lived in relation to the crime scene and that was all part of my profile.

[00:58:50] It seemed like this guy could be the offender it really did I personally thought I bet this guy did it.

[00:58:59] But I didn't say that because I said you know he's got to be prioritized until you can rule him out, but I also realized that that profile could match somebody else and sure enough they did identify somebody a few months later and it was somebody else and he he was very similar to this other person.

[00:59:21] In every way but it wasn't him.

[00:59:24] And so that's why you know you have to be really careful you just can't identify can't say this person did it and so I'm I always think I know that I know the person I know the offender has these personality traits and characteristics based on what I've seen,

[00:59:41] but I also know that maybe more than one person will fit these personality traits and characteristics and it's really the investigation that's going to solve the crime is going to be, you know, interviews forensic evidence timelines witnesses, all of that

[00:59:56] that's what's really going to solve it.

[00:59:58] So,

[01:00:00] I think that's so well said and responsible that you and we're going to we're going to plug your podcast at the end because I really want people to listen because I think this is the real deal of profiling and how it is a valuable help to investigations and should not be just seen as like a media thing.

[01:00:15] I do want to ask you because I know.

[01:00:17] Sure.

[01:00:18] I'm fascinated with this. Can you talk us through your involvement with the Golden State killer case how you came on board, the kind of work you were doing and then like take us up till the Angelo's arrest.

[01:00:29] So, well, I'll take you back to 2004. So I was on, I was on maternity leave with my son and I was watching a documentary on A&E in the middle of the day.

[01:00:44] And I saw the show on what was the East Area Rapist original Night Stalker which which was the moniker used for this offender back then.

[01:00:56] And the show was discussing not only his crimes but the fact that they had the serial rapes that occurred in Sacramento had been linked to homicides that occurred in the southern part of the state through DNA and that had been done in 2001.

[01:01:16] And on that show, Detective Larry Pool, he's with the Orange County Sheriff's Department and he had a case within his jurisdiction. The Golden State killer, he was in like 15 different jurisdictions so it covered the whole span of the state.

[01:01:35] And he was interviewed and I became very fascinated with the case and did read everything that I could online. And then fast forward to, I think 2011.

[01:01:49] And my boss called me into the office and said, Have you ever heard of the East Area? And by this time he had not been given the moniker Golden State killer. We didn't know about that until Michelle McNamara's book came out and she, well actually she had dubbed him that in an article she had written for L.A.

[01:02:06] magazine so he was called the Golden State killer several years later. So, but he said Have you ever heard of the East Area rapist and I said yes I have I'll take it. I knew what case it was immediately and I couldn't believe how do you not know what this is and it is a strange it's strange how how much that case flew under the radar it really wasn't until Michelle McNamara's

[01:02:30] book that really shined a spotlight on how prolific this offender was. I don't think people quite understood unless they were, you know, kind of true crime nerds are within law enforcement they didn't even realize this offender was out there that these crimes were all connected.

[01:02:48] So, so I took the case and then you know similar to what I described earlier in in in this interview. I started just reading through every single incident report I started with the sexual assaults in Sacramento reading through all of them.

[01:03:08] And then of course the homicides and then a big part of that was linking the burglaries that had occurred prior to the serial rapes that they occurred in Vicelia California which is about four hours from Sacramento.

[01:03:24] So, yeah I just reviewed that and then I went out to a task force meeting and what they had done. And the reason why they had come to the FBI is they had decided all the jurisdictions decided to get together and form a work working group and share all their information because there wasn't a lot of communication between the different jurisdictions so

[01:03:47] the NC ABCs of ICAP unit created like an online portal where all the investigators could review every single report and they uploaded it all in there.

[01:03:58] And I don't know if every investigator reviewed every single thing, but some of them did. I certainly did. But I went out there and we, we all went around the room and introduced ourselves and they got to Larry pool who I had seen so many years earlier

[01:04:16] on A&E and he introduced himself and I felt kind of intimidated and I mean not intimidated because I don't think I really get intimidated but I felt pressure like this person, this detective has been on this case all these years.

[01:04:33] He was the longest serving detective at that time on the case and continued to be until it was solved. And I just, I just felt pressure and I've just realized how much it meant not only to him but to the other detectives that had been on the cases so long but he introduced himself and he looked over at me and he said I'll be very interested to see what the FBI has to say.

[01:04:58] That's if they'll tell me what they think.

[01:05:01] Or, or if no that's if they'll share their opinion with me. And you know just kind of looking at me I thought oh no. He's had, he, I don't think he's had a good experience or he has a perception of the FBI and I just remember getting when I introduced myself and I looked over at Larry and I said I'll tell you what I think I'm not afraid to tell you what I think.

[01:05:23] And so I ended up giving a very preliminary profile that day. And he, he come up to me and and I really felt like he embraced it. There were many investigators that in this, this happens a lot that just didn't think that it, you know, that this was this offender that the

[01:05:47] characteristics that I was starting to develop was this offender and, and so that so that was kind of my first introduction and then went back and my partner. I mean, there are several people in the unit that worked on this with me and we kind of started to formulate a profile but my close partner on this Bob drew.

[01:06:09] He and I ended up going back out to the working group meeting. I think it was probably like another six months later. I don't remember the timeframe, but we ultimately delivered kind of our final profile on the case verbally.

[01:06:23] And then of course, like I said we followed up with a very thorough written report that goes to that went out to like all the agencies so that they could have that and you know I don't know. I think some of them read it and digested it and and in others probably just never saw it or just threw it in a file somewhere.

[01:06:44] You know, it just, you know some people really like the behavior part of it and find that fascinating and others just don't they're really focused on the investigative part of it or the forensics part of it.

[01:07:00] But other people just really and certainly there were certain people particularly detective pool who really embraced the profile and I think, you know felt like he had a really good understanding of who the offender was after that so that was kind of my whole process but I think one of the things that I like to point out about there's

[01:07:24] I mean I say two things about Joe D'Angelo that I found really interesting when I was reviewing the files is that if I had gotten into I was probably had gone through 15 the first 15 sexual assault cases from Sacramento and I realized that he hadn't that he had not committed any sexual assault until after he engaged in

[01:07:49] significant ransacking of the home prior so he would enter the homes and spend sometimes several hours in the homes with the victims. He started out with just see female victims and then he started to break into the homes that they had a male, a female and male couple and so and that kind of became, you know, a signature of his, but I did realize he wasn't sexually assaulting anybody until he got into the home.

[01:08:19] He was very, he was very loud about it.

[01:08:23] Made it very obvious what he was doing. Sometimes he stole things and some things were not of much value.

[01:08:33] And so I thought that was really significant the ransacking was part of his ritual it was what he needed to do in order to get gratification out of these crimes that was really important to him.

[01:08:48] And so when I was looking at the Vysalia crimes which did not have any sexual assault victims they there, there was a murder in that series of burglaries but no sexual assaults but what I was looking at.

[01:09:00] And these, these incident reports of these burglaries were very short because they were just considered nuisance like they were.

[01:09:07] The offender was going in the middle of the day when people weren't home he was ransacking their homes and, and sometimes you know vandalizing some things and you know he'd steal like one earring from a pair so it just some illogical behavior, but there were some things that stood out that I thought these are sexual burglaries

[01:09:26] these are sexually motivated burglaries and I know some people may think that that doesn't really make sense but there was evidence you know that he might be masturbating at these scenes.

[01:09:37] You know he the Easter A rapist always use lotion as a lubricant he would it would always be something he would use and usually it was, you know, belonging to the victim was a product that they already had in their home but he would use that and there was

[01:09:55] indications that he was using lotion there were lotions and fingerprints at one of the scenes. There was you know he scored lotion down the hallway on the carpet and another scene I thought okay this offender is, you know using lotion and some so I thought perhaps he might even be masturbating

[01:10:13] I think there's a lot of other similarities these these little things these that would jump out not in every report but I'd be like oh so I think this is related. So I think those are a couple of the things that, you know really stood out to me about him that this ransacking was

[01:10:31] really his ritualistic behavior.

[01:10:35] How did it feel when he finally got arrested I mean that must have been like a big well.

[01:10:41] You know kind of another myth about FBI is that like we're there where you know arresting and we're doing the interviews and you know I.

[01:10:52] I knew something I mean just you know once I once you do the profile you if if this is a if you have a very active investigation.

[01:11:01] You may be providing analysis consistently, you know like they're calling you all the time and I did talk to a few of the detectives like they might get a suspect and I like what do you think of this guy and I, I you know I'd be like it is yeah burglary in his history.

[01:11:18] No, you know you they'd run some things by but yeah I wasn't this wasn't like such an active investigation that we had constant communication so I wasn't really up to speed on like all the investigative things but I did notice some that I knew

[01:11:34] something was going on.

[01:11:36] But I you know I wasn't part of the arrest or anything and I actually found out on Twitter.

[01:11:42] With everybody else. Yeah, well you know you know who is Pat Nozwal.

[01:11:50] Yeah, yeah I found I saw a tweet from him well actually my husband saw the tweet from Pat and I follow him to but in he sent it to me and I just had this feeling.

[01:12:01] This is true this has to be true they arrested and I knew I knew that there was activity going on in the case, but because I'm no I'm not a part of the investigation.

[01:12:11] I was a consultant and so I'm not privy to that information and I know they were keeping it very quiet. So, so I knew like I know it's I know he's a comedian and how would he know anything but I'm this is right and so then

[01:12:27] I went into work and I had.

[01:12:32] I just I didn't want to bother any detectives like I didn't I knew they're in the middle of like so it wasn't my job so I asked our media coordinator to call the media coordinator out in Sacramento and find out and so we confirmed it that way.

[01:12:46] And then eventually, after attempts to interview him I talked to a couple detectives after that and

[01:12:56] so I got the whole scoop on everything and and I think you know my my first reaction was.

[01:13:05] I don't know there's certainly a sense of exhilaration and then I immediately went to what must it be like for the survivors.

[01:13:17] I just can't imagine what that feeling is like to have an answer or the survivors of the victims families.

[01:13:27] And then, and then of course, I guess selfishly I'm like, well it was my profile right.

[01:13:37] I waited a couple weeks to call anybody and start asking those questions.

[01:13:42] So can you tell me tell me everything about him and without you know I really wanted to know I wanted to know what was accurate and what wasn't.

[01:13:54] That information takes a while because you're you're trying to determine and get all the background information and but you know a couple of key things turned out to be accurate so I was I was relieved is particularly the linkage of I sell you because there were several people that were completely against that.

[01:14:20] And so I called them all know I told you though no.

[01:14:28] I did do that but in good you know it just in my nice way but yeah you got it well I mean maybe maybe they will kind of see that maybe sometimes things can be linked and shouldn't be dismissed.

[01:14:41] Yeah, I was you know you can never say things 100% I never said it 100% I just said this this offender is likely the same offender these are the reasons why and I had multiple reasons and multiple examples.

[01:14:55] And what the what the problem was I think the one thing that always gave me pause and I think what gave a lot of the investigators pause was the composite sketches or the in the descriptions didn't match at all and of course I kept going back to well how the.

[01:15:14] Composites are in I witness identification is notoriously bad so I kept going back to that but then they really were sometimes the description is quite different.

[01:15:27] But then I would just go back to the behavior and I just couldn't get past how similar the behavior was and so I felt pretty confident.

[01:15:38] It was the same person and they quickly were able to determine that it was and so I was relieved about that because I think that was probably the biggest sticking point and disagreement that I faced.

[01:15:54] So, which had been a disagreement from the very beginning you know.

[01:15:59] This is this has been amazing Julia like thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your time with us like I really we've really enjoyed talking to you I guess.

[01:16:08] I mean we've kept you already 20 minutes over the hour.

[01:16:11] Oh I didn't even realize.

[01:16:13] Yeah, I mean you can I love what I love what I do so.

[01:16:19] You can really tell and I just where can people listen to your show tell us about the show.

[01:16:25] Okay, where can people find it.

[01:16:27] Yeah so our show is called the consult real FBI profilers and we're on you know you can listen to us to us anywhere on all the we're not on YouTube yet but maybe someday.

[01:16:42] So, and I do the show I'm the host, but I do the show with three other retired profilers that I worked with when we were in the unit together.

[01:16:53] And we have mostly talked about cases that we've already profiled and some of them are solved a few of them are unsolved.

[01:17:05] But we're branching out into some cases that we haven't yet profiled and we're, we're looking at cases where we feel there's enough information to do an accurate profile like we have enough information and we'll continue to do cases that we've already profiled both

[01:17:22] solved and unsolved.

[01:17:24] But I, we recently covered and that episode just came out the first episode the abduction of Jodi Hughes and true it.

[01:17:35] And she was a news anchor in Mason City, Iowa and she was kidnapped as she was coming out of her apartment building rushing to work on June 27 1995 early morning hours and you know there there's, there's no autopsy there's

[01:17:50] no body, you know we have access to crime scene photos those are all you know it's pretty clear on the pictures that media took you could see and plenty of victimology.

[01:18:04] And so I just found working on that case very meaningful because you just you have a missing person and I like the missing person cases I know that they can be unsatisfying for the listener that really

[01:18:19] seems to have an answer. But I feel like some of these cases that are so old that remain unsolved that we just need it. The most important thing is to keep them alive in the news keep them in the media.

[01:18:34] At this point, there should be no whole back information just put it all out there everything that we know, keep it alive because technology advances relationships change. This offenders not getting any younger.

[01:18:49] There might this might be a last time to try to catch this person. And so I just thought you know I feel like it was really important and meaningful to cover that case so.

[01:19:02] Yeah, but unfortunately we don't have an answer. We do we do a profile of the unknown offender however so and what we hope is that maybe someone will recognize the characteristics and that in somebody and because we do feel like some of the

[01:19:24] characteristics we described would be recognizable and people that know the offender and it's quite possible at the time somebody's not you know just knew I feel like my, you know, my husband did this or my, you know, my

[01:19:40] brother or I just feel like he could be responsible and they you know don't come forward but maybe now after all these years they will.

[01:19:48] Yeah, absolutely. And we were just we just commend you I mean the way you guys do this is so responsible and just like just really I love it how it gives people it's like the real FBI profilers like this is how.

[01:19:59] Yeah, it might not be as exciting as people would like I think we have a little niche area that same way we're like we're like we try to do investigative journalism in different interviews and I think sometimes like we're just like well that's not really how it works and

[01:20:15] we're like oh but that would be cool and I know I had I had somebody a good friend that I do trust, but he said you need to be more controversial.

[01:20:30] Hold the line Julie. No, I know he's like you know or in or any set he did also say you should because I you know publicly I or privately I will give more I would give strong opinions about something and you know I could be wrong you know but I have stronger

[01:20:48] opinions and this person was like you need to have the strong opinion people like that and I said yeah but I feel that that's irresponsible because sometimes my strong opinions are wrong.

[01:21:00] And I don't want to mislead anything I don't want to you know and it's not necessary.

[01:21:06] You know like I said we you know we would have our personal opinions but professionally that those personal opinions about somebody could be completely wrong and leave you know just keep your mouth shut.

[01:21:19] Our listeners I do think like our I think there's a growing group in true crime who do appreciate the new ones and do appreciate the kind of like tone down let's be realistic let's give fact based analysis rather than the hot takes or you know the sound bites and I think

[01:21:36] there's I think people have gotten that for years and I think there's a growing contingent people who feel like maybe that's not super responsible maybe we do want something that's more even keeled and and so that your show is for them so we would

[01:21:49] have a strong people to listen and is there anything we didn't ask you about before we let you go I feel like we could talk to you all day about.

[01:21:57] I can't think of anything I think we've covered I when I you know when I've thought about what I was coming on your show for today I feel like I've covered everything that I thought that I feel that I can cover.

[01:22:14] So I'm you know I'm I apologize to your listeners that I cannot tell you.

[01:22:20] Who committed this crime.

[01:22:24] I just I just you know I can't you know that's just not what profiling does so and and not having access to the materials either so.

[01:22:34] Now if we had access to the materials we could come up with a profile I think and it sounds like that might have been done in this case to what it's how formal it was I don't think we know.

[01:22:47] But if it's formal there there will be a report and that report by it should be it's discoverable so if, and it would be disseminated it in to you know from the BAU to the law enforcement agency that requested the assistance.

[01:23:03] Absolutely.

[01:23:05] So maybe one day, maybe yeah it'll it'll it'll be all blacked out.

[01:23:11] Mostly.

[01:23:14] I've seen these reports go out that have been requested through FOIA and like the entire analysis is blacked out it's all redacted it's really funny.

[01:23:27] Thanks FBI. Yeah, all you have you have the caveat and then the rest is blacked out.

[01:23:35] It's pretty much what they look like yeah typical FBI.

[01:23:39] And like now that I'm retired like darn.

[01:23:42] I want to see that.

[01:23:44] No, I mean we won't we never will. I mean you know if they the FBI profile is rarely testify.

[01:23:52] And you know we that's just something we don't usually do and we try to avoid doing just because of the nature of the work and typically stuff that we've provided it to be testified to by detectives and so we don't testify much so that's the only time information ever comes out you know about what.

[01:24:12] So, through testimony.

[01:24:15] Right hopefully we'll see some of that at this trial but thank you so much Julia we really.

[01:24:19] You're welcome.

[01:24:21] Yeah, this is fine.

[01:24:23] Yeah, thank you for having me and best of luck to you and your show as well.

[01:24:28] We'd like to thank Julia for taking the time to speak with us and share her insights and experiences.

[01:24:33] Again, we highly recommend her own podcast the consult and we will link to it in our show notes.

[01:24:40] Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet.

[01:24:43] If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover please email us at murder sheet at gmail.com.

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