Mind Games with Monsters

As the ghastly photographs are passed around the table, a police officer states the gruesome facts of each case: a 67-year-old white woman found tied up in her bathroom, her face beaten; a black woman, 55, lying in the hallway of her home, her head bashed in, apparently by a hammer; an 83-year-old white woman discovered on her bed, possibly smothered, her lower body nude . . . In all, 12 middle-aged and elderly women killed between 1985 and 1988, all of whom dwelled within a 2.6-sq-km (1-sq.-mi.) urban area.

Over two days, FBI agent Judson Ray guides and prods discussion with questions and comments: "Why so many loops in the rope? You don't need that many to control an old woman . . . Why is she in the bathroom? It's a closed- in space -- is he after security, or is he secretive? And why is a pillow in there -- to muffle her or to make her comfortable for sex? . . . Were the cuts on the body made before or after she died? Did she die on him, and he's mad at her? . . . Are any of these cases related? . . . What kind of person are we looking for?"

Watching the FBI's behavioral-science unit actually at work is a far cry from seeing it depicted in the current hit thriller The Silence of the Lambs. In the film, agent trainee Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster, matches wits and quips with toothsome terror Hannibal ("the Cannibal") Lecter and chases down molting madman Buffalo Bill, right into his creepy lair. In real life, behavioral-science agents remain largely deskbound at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., hunkered down in a windowless converted bomb shelter 18 m (60 ft.) below ground. But the film is right on target in one major respect: few people are as adept at entering the mind games of society's monsters as are the members of the unit.

That ability comes from experience. This year the unit, known more formally as the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, will assist law- enforcement officials on more than 1,000 cases. These are not typical assaults but the most savage, perverse or bizarre offenses, ranging from serial killings, rapes and child abductions to arson, bombings and product tampering. "We see the worst of the worst," says agent Kenneth Lanning.

The unit also draws on formal research. In the past decade it has interviewed scores of incarcerated sexual killers, serial rapists, sexual sadists and child molesters, analyzing and classifying their behavior so that future cases might be cracked more swiftly. Such research has led Lanning to conclude, for instance, that there are two distinct categories (and seven subtypes) of child molesters. "About 90% are what we call situational molesters," he says. "They have no real sexual preference for children and have relatively few victims apiece. They may turn to a youngster because an adult woman isn't available." The remaining 10%, he says, have a true sexual preference for children, and each may have victimized hundreds of youngsters. To catch an offender, Lanning stresses, "it's important to know which you're dealing with. They have different patterns of behavior."