profiling serial killers vs cold reading
Posted by stevemosby on May 31st, 2010
“But how useful is that profile, really? The police already had Calabro on their list of suspects: if you’re looking for the person who killed and mutilated someone on the roof, you don’t really need a profiler to tell you to check out the dishevelled, mentally ill guy living with his father on the fourth floor.”
from gladwell dot com – dangerous minds.
I saw Chris Carter talk (all too briefly, unfortunately) about serial killers at CrimeFest. He made the observation that it was almost impossible to predict in advance if someone would become a killer, and that analysis of their background was really only useful to explain their actions in hindsight. Not quite the same thing, I know, but it made me think of the article above. For the umpteenth time.