The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter QUOTES

1 " This is often the way crimes get solved- through a side door. The clue that led to New York’s “son of Sam” killings was a parking ticket David Berkowitz was issued for parking his Ford Galaxie too close to a fire hydrant near the site of his final murder "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

2 " My focus is on understanding why people commit violent and predatory acts, not to help them become better, more law-abiding citizens, but to aid in catching them, prosecuting them, and putting them away "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

3 " Within just about every serial predator, there are two warring elements: A feeling of grandiosity, specialness, and entitlement, together with deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness and a sense that they have not gotten the breaks in life that they should "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

4 " I familiarize myself with every detail of their crimes and loathe what they did. At the same time, I may feel tremendous empathy and sorrow for what they went through in their young lives that contributed to their adult behavior "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

5 " Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives into conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

6 " No matter how careful their planning, for most violent and predatory criminals, since crime is essentially an irrational act in any society that prohibits it, there is often a point in which logic and reason breaks down. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

7 " Very little research was available relative to interviewing prison inmates, and what there was pertained specifically to convictions, probation and parole, and rehabilitation. However, the record seemed to indicate that violent and narcissistic inmates, on the whole, were incorrigible—meaning they were not able to be controlled, improved, or reformed. By talking to them, we hoped to learn if this was indeed the case. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

8 " My one cardinal rule of prison interviews is never to go into the encounter unprepared. I also made a practice of not going in with notes, because that could create an artificial distance or filter between the subject and me when the time came to really bore in and search for the deepest layer of his psyche. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

9 " Lesson learned: Everyone is a potential suspect, and don’t let looks or behavior fool you. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

10 " The term serial killer designates a predator who murders repeatedly and with a certain general periodicity. And after each crime, there is a “cooling-off” period. If the killer stops without being caught, it is almost always for one of three reasons: He has died; he has been arrested for an unrelated crime and is in prison; or he hasn’t actually stopped, but has merely moved to another area and law enforcement has not connected his new crimes with the older ones. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

11 " When you conduct as many interviews as I and my colleagues have, you pretty much know in advance certain things the offender is going to tell you. There are almost always similarities in the pattern. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

12 " In our research, there is a strong correlation between domineering mothers and men who grow up to be predators. Though the vast majority of those with such mothers do not grow up to be offenders, of those who do, the domineering mother constitutes a significant influencing factor. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

13 " As I told the New Jersey Parole Board in the McGowan case, my cardinal rule is that to understand an artist, you have to view his art. Likewise, with a predator, to understand him, you have to understand his “art,” because that’s what it is to him. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

14 " As a result, nearly all serial killers believe their crimes are justified, or at least explainable. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

15 " But I always start from the same premise, one that I taught throughout my years with the FBI: Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

16 " Within just about every serial predator, there are two warring elements: a feeling of grandiosity, specialness, and entitlement, together with deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness and a sense that they have not gotten the breaks in life that they should. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

17 " Everything about these interviews was orchestrated. I wanted to face the door and have him face the wall. There were two reasons for this. I didn’t want him distracted, and since I didn’t yet know him well, I wasn’t sure how he’d react, so I wanted a clear view of the window and the guard behind it. The type of offender I interview often determines my seating decisions. When I interview assassins, for instance, I usually have to have them facing the window or door because they tend to be paranoid and will be distracted if they can’t psychologically escape when stressed by the interview. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

18 " The interplay between the agent and the violent offender needed to be informal and not overtly structured. What we were looking for was not so much the facts of the case, which were already established, but the motivation, the pre- and post-offense behavior, the victim selection process, and then the big question of why, without being too assertive, directed, or leading—the opposite of what we’d try to do in a suspect interrogation. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

19 " Most predatory killers, particularly the sadistic ones (those whose primary emotional satisfaction comes from inflicting physical and/or emotional pain and making others suffer helplessly), need to depersonalize their victims, to be able to treat them like objects. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter

20 " Because let’s be honest: The fascination with “true crime” is actually fascination with what writers and philosophers call the human condition. We all want to know and understand the basis of human behavior and motivation, why we do the things we do. And with crime, we are seeing the human condition writ large and at the extremes, both for the perpetrator and for the victim. In a very real sense, the television audience was after the same thing I was: a wider and deeper understanding of the criminal mind. "

― John E. Douglas , The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter