Elizabeth Heiter | Getting into the Mind of a Madman with Criminal Profiling

I’m fascinated by criminal profilers, like the heroine of my Profiler series, Evelyn Baine. She can go to a crime scene where there’s no obvious motivation, no promising suspects, and no useful forensics, and still tell law enforcement officers what kind of person they’re looking for – and how to find him.

Why? Because she can get into the mind of a madman and understand why he did what he did. But there’s a lot more to profiling than just getting into the heads of killers…

Profiling the Perpetrator: The most obvious (and crucial) part of the process is to create a profile of the perpetrator. Things unique enough to that person to give law enforcement a way to weed through suspects – or draw in the killer. In my latest Profiler book, STALKED, the crime scene is particularly challenging: a teenage girl goes missing from inside her high school. The scene tells Evelyn that one of two things happened: either the perpetrator knew Haley Cooke and she felt safe leaving with him, or the perpetrator was savvy enough to avoid detection and strong enough to incapacitate her with potential witnesses nearby. The trouble the perpetrator went to for this specific victim tells Evelyn he’s either in her life or hanging around the periphery in some way. The suspect pool is instantly troubling, including Haley’s older boyfriend, her jealous best friend, her estranged father and her new step-father.

Profiling the Victim: No profile of a perpetrator is complete without also looking at the victim. In STALKED, Haley Cooke is a high-risk victim – meaning that abducting her out of her small town would put her kidnapper at high risk of being caught in the process. The other part of profiling Haley is knowing what about her might have drawn the perpetrator to her – in this case, the note left behind in Haley’s room stating, “If you’re reading this, I’m already dead” – suggests she had a secret that could destroy someone. It’s yet another sign that Haley knew the person who grabbed her.

Profiling Other Law Enforcement: As an FBI agent called in to coordinate with other law enforcement agencies – to provide a profile and then be involved in other aspects of the investigation at their discretion – Evelyn must get them to use her profile. So she has to instantly analyze how to navigate intra-agency conflict and skepticism. But when she comes to Neville, Virginia for Haley Cooke’s case, there’s something more, because there are signs someone at the police station knows more than they should about Haley’s disappearance.

Profiling the Profiler: It’s not just other law enforcement Evelyn has to consider, but also her own bias. And in the case of Haley Cooke, it’s not letting memories of another girl’s disappearance eighteen years ago – of Evelyn’s own best friend – get in the way of how she handles the profile. Except the one thing Evelyn has never been good at is managing her own boundaries, and very quickly, she finds herself drawn into Haley’s life and her secrets. Finding the right secret could mean finally tracking down Haley, but the closer she gets, the more obvious it becomes that someone will do anything to keep their secret hidden – including making Evelyn disappear too.

To find out more about the series, visit www.elizabethheiter.com and for a chance to win a Profiler prize pack, you can enter the Fresh Fiction contest.

About Elizabeth Heiter

Critically acclaimed and award-winning author ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists, and a little bit (or a lot!) of romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations, and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range. Her novels have been published in more than a dozen countries and translated into eight languages; they've also been shortlisted for the Daphne Du Maurier award, the National Readers' Choice award and the Booksellers' Best award and won the RT Reviewers' Choice award.

The heroine of Elizabeth's Profiler novels was called "one of the most amazing characters created in print" by Fresh Fiction. Her novels have received praise from Lee Child, J.T. Ellison, Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, R.L. Stine, Allison Brennan, Laura Griffin, Suzanne Brockmann, Hank Phillippi Ryan and Zoë Sharp.