WHO Done It? And WHY?

Writers who track John Douglas, the FBI's legendary "mindhunter," recognize those words from his own writing.

This former chief of the FBI's Investigative Support Unit is revered by many crime writers as THE pioneer of modern behavioral profiling of violent criminals.

In a crime novel the negative force must be strong enough to wage a good fight with the good guy.

The legendary editor Ruth Cavin told us often that you can fix plots, but your characters have to hold their own.

After the first time I heard John Douglas speak at MWA-NY, I became fixated by his ideas. I read all his books – Mindhunter, Unabomber, Journey Into Darkness, Obsession, The Anatomy of Motive, Sexual Homicide, The Cases That Haunt Us, including his own fiction, Broken Wings and Man Down.

He explained that the law enforcement community moved from sole reliance on the "Bible" – the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – into the CCM, the Crime Classification Manual that Douglas, with his colleagues Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess and Robert K. Ressler, developed. A catalog of crime behavior that showed investigators not only that X type behavior was a form of mental illness, but how dangerous it might be!

Douglas and his associates developed a method of profiling criminals that has been the foundation of many criminology professionals, not only at the FBI Behavioral Science Investigative Support Units, but to police departments and prosecutors worldwide.

As a profiler and interviewer of countless notorious criminals, Douglas' landmark studies have guided numerous crime writers.

John Edward Douglas was born in Brooklyn and served in the U.S. Air Force. Well-educated, with a doctorate, he served at FBI as a SWAT Team sniper, a hostage negotiator and taught hostage negotiation and applied crimnal psychology at Quantico.

As a consultant worldwide, he was the model for Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris' novels Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, as well as consultant for the films.

Countless crime writers have learned from John Douglas about the inner working of personalities whose main goals in life are to kill and to hurt.

To manipulate, dominate and control.

Few of us have walked into danger freely as Douglas has, "through an open yard where violent prisoners roamed freely, a scene that reminded me of Dante's Inferno. Where the most violent criminals might try to kill us for the prestige for having murdered an FBI agent."

Douglas believes that most violent offenders came from dysfunctional backgrounds. That most psychopaths "seemed so charming, so ordinary." That behavior reflects personality. That many violent criminals are "ego driven." That behavior is consistent. Even in its inconsistency, it's consistent.

That criminals find "overwhelming emotional satisfaction in manipulating, dominating, controlling and exerting life-or-death power over another person."

That "with the exception of a very few truly insane (and generally delusional) individuals, these people choose to do what they do."

Douglas is a valid guide for any writer who wants to dig deeper into the motives of his/her villains.

In his own words, he gives one path a writer might want to try: "As I had so many times before, I put myself into the mind of the killer." (Journey Into Darkness, p. 15.)

We crime writers can also remember the words of Raymond Chandler for our heroes… "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." (The Simple Act of Murder)

Thelma Straw

Digging Up the Ancestors

1885: Dedicating the Rebecca Nurse Memorial

I got a call from a previously unknown second cousin on the Gallison side the other day requesting information about my dad's forebears. I couldn't help her very much. I have a lot more information about my mother's side of the family than my father's side, because they paid attention to that stuff. I'm sure I told you about Rebecca Nurse, my 9th great-grandmother, who was dragged out of her sickbed and convicted of being a witch on the say-so of those wretched little girls. Rebecca Nurse had many children, and they all had many children, and so there are a lot of us descended from her. But Rebecca Nurse is neither here nor there a far as the Gallisons go. No relation. Anyway nobody seems to know who the Gallisons really were.

My dad, who never let the truth stand in the way of a good story, used to tell us they were descended from the inventor of the Guillotine. We all knew that was a bald-faced lie. But the other family traditions–that I had a great-great grandmother named Marie LaChance, that the earliest known Gallison was named David–even that he was named Gallison–these were all false as well. I discovered the true facts by signing up for Ancestry.com for an international membership in order to access the Canadian census records, spurred on by the questions my newfound cousin raised. None of that crowd called themselves Gallison until they crossed the border into Maine and settled in Vanceboro.

In the old country, which is to say Canada, they called themselves Galishan, and told the census taker they were Welsh, even though my grandfather was christened with a French name. That is, I guess he was christened. They also told the Canadian census taker they were Baptists, but I feel their hearts weren't in it; I think they were "Home Baptists." There was no Marie LaChance. Thomas Alexander Galishan's father was called William, not David. In Vanceboro they told the census taker they all came from Ireland. I'm beginning to suspect they were crypto-French, maybe going clear back to the days when the British were deporting all the French people in Acadia to the swamps of Louisiana. Hey, I could have been a Cajun, if my forebears weren't so good at hiding out.

Or not. Fact is, the Galishans are lost in the mists of history, at least for now. It doesn't help that they were perfectly willing to tell tall tales to the census takers.

But the ancestors on the other side, the ones who settled Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, are well known and have been closely examined by scholars, genealogists, and descendants who wanted to get into the Sons and Daughters of the Revolution. Next week I'll tell you some of the things I found out about them. Their lives were much harder than mine, poor things, and a good half of them were barking mad. Bordens. Yes. I am a blood relative of Lizzie.

Kate Gallison