Criminal Profilers Who Work In The Behavior Analysis Unit Of The FBI

Criminal Minds is a show about a group of criminal profilers who work in the Behavior Analysis Unit of the FBI. Every episode the use different methods of profiling to solve different types of crimes. In this particular episode, they made their conclusions through scene profiling. The perpetrator was setting up the crime scenes with specific details, showing the profilers the crimes we’re all the work of the same person. At first glance, they noted the culprit was leaving a single red rose with every victim, upon further inspection they realized each crime was an ode to a song, the crimes appeared to play out lyrics to popular music from around the 1930’s to 50’s. For example, one victim was found to have had her head held under water of a

For example, in article “Criminal Profiling - A Viable Investigative Tool Against Violent Crime” they mention profilers use “behavioral characteristics of the offender as its basics,” which is a given with scene profiling. The perpetrator’s behavioral characteristics can stand out when there’s a notable pattern in a chain of crimes, for example, in which the general MO is repeated, while the crime scene does not necessarily have to look the same as the one before, according to the article. In the episode we can see this is what they looked at to draw conclusions, the MO. The article comments, “The identification of similar patterns is made by analyzing MO, victimology, physical evidence, suspect description, and suspect behavior exhibited before, during, and after the crime.” In the episode they analyze the things the perpetrator did before the killing, like submerging a victim’s head in a fountain, as well as afterwards, like putting a victim’s head in a hot oven, which they deduced based on marks on her face and frown lines. Though they didn’t get their profile entirely wrong, they had an idea about the motive of the crime but were off on other details based off judging the gender of the perpetrator based of the violent manner of the killings. “The Use of Criminal Profilers in the Prosecution of Serial Killers” author, Chelsea van Aken, states “it is difficult to determine the general motives that drive most or all serial killers to commit crimes because considerable diversity exists between all serial