Mindhunter is a Netflix thriller series about a small unit of FBI agents who revolutionized
the way law enforcement hunts for serial killers by using psychological profiles drawn up by
interviewing dozens of incarcerated killers and figuring out how their minds work.
But how real is the show?
Mindhunter centers on the early days of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, which, in the
show, is more or less made up of Agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench, with Dr. Wendy Carr and
one other agent rounding out the division.
While the show acknowledges the Behavioral Science Unit was started before Ford and Tench
began their interviews, by the time they do, they are more or less all there is.
The BSU was actually formed in 1972, when agents Howard Teten and Patrick Mullany neither
of whom are in the show began using elements of criminal psychology to teach law enforcement
groups how to analyze criminal behavior.
It was a response to the growing wave of serial killings and assaults in the 1970s.
"The question is not only why did the killer do it, but why did the killer do it this way?
We are now talking about psychology."
Their small unit, originally made up of just 10 agents, would by 1976 include agents John
E. Douglas and Robert Ressler the inspirations for Ford and Tench, respectively who would
begin compiling their central database of serial offenders, which is of course where
the show comes in.
As is often the case in adaptations, things are streamlined for the sake of simplicity.
Arguably the central character of the ensemble cast of Mindhunter is Holden Ford, the young
hostage negotiator whose radical ideas about criminal psychology more or less kick off
the whole pursuit of interviews of serial offenders.
He is largely based on real-life FBI agent John E. Douglas, whose book Mindhunter: Inside
the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, was the inspiration for the show.
He was one of the very first criminal profilers, and he has written several books on the topic.
Like Ford, Douglas is a soft-spoken Brooklyn native who worked as a hostage negotiator
and instructor at Quantico.
Like Ford, Douglas realized serial killers were not simply monsters to lock in a dungeon,
but potential wellsprings of insight and information that could lead to the capture of other serial
offenders.
"Sir, the insights afforded us during these visits may help us identify the person responsible
for the attacks in Sacramento and help prevent others."
Just as Ford uses his relationships with incarcerated killers to glean understanding about active
killers, Douglas consulted with Ted Bundy for information that led to the capture of
the Green River Killer.
Many small details on Mindhunter come from Douglas' recollections, including Charles
Manson sitting on the back of a chair to seem taller than his interviewers.
Holden Ford's partner and the second primary character on Mindhunter is the strait-laced
Bill Tench, whose more conservative demeanor presents a stark contrast to the younger,
less predictable Ford.
Tench is largely based on FBI agent Robert Ressler, the man who is generally credited
with coining the term "serial killer" in conjunction with Douglas, much as Tench and Ford are seen
developing the term on the show.
"A series of killings."
"Serial?"
"Serial murderer?"
"Serial killer?"
"That's better.
Let's see if it sticks."
Ressler came to work at the FBI after finishing his military career with a rank of major and
a Master's degree in police administration.
Shortly after joining the Bureau in 1970, Ressler was able to convince them profiling
could be a legitimate and effective tool for hunting killers, and by the middle of the
decade, he and Douglas were interviewing incarcerated killers and building a centralized database.
He developed relationships with such notorious killers as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer , and
John Wayne Gacy even gave him a personalized painting as a gift.
The entire running plot about Tench having an adopted son who is definitely going to
become a serial killer is completely fictional, however.
Rounding out the trio of protagonists is Dr. Wendy Carr, a psychology professor from Boston
who tries to rein in Ford's wilder and more unconventional notions with something at least
resembling professionalism and intellectual rigor.
"When we empathize with a psychopath, we actually negate the self.
We deny our own beliefs about decency and humanity, and that can be very dangerous."
Of the three main characters, Dr. Carr is the farthest from her real-life inspiration,
but she is nevertheless loosely based on a psychiatric forensic nurse researcher named
Ann Burgess.
According to the real Burgess, Mindhunter is pretty accurate.
"The cases are pretty much on target with what we have from data."
Burgess' role, like Dr. Carr's, was to bring methodology, research, and structure to what
Douglas and Ressler were doing.
Like Carr, Burgess is from Boston, but rather than a psychologist, she is a professor of
psychiatric health nursing.
Burgess suspects this change was to make the character's career a little more understandable,
as most people don't properly understand nursing.
Two major changes made for the show, however, are that unlike Dr. Carr, Burgess never moved
to Quantico, and Burgess is not a lesbian, a character change that was apparently a source
of some humor for her son.
While Ford, Tench, and Carr are the central characters of Mindhunter, the real star of
season one is the first subject of their interviews, Edmund Kemper, the Co-Ed Killer.
Actor Cameron Britton wore shoe lifts to make his own 6 foot 5 inch frame a little closer
to Kemper's 6 foot 9 stature.
His character is a fascinating one, as his intelligent, eloquent, and soft-spoken nature
belies the hideous truth of the despicable things he has done.
"So I got a claw hammer, and I beat her to death.
And then I put her thing off."
Many viewers were left wondering how close Mindhunter's depiction of Kemper is to the
real-life Co-Ed Killer.
The answer is, pretty close.
All of the details Kemper gives in interviews regarding his life are not only true to what
happened, they're often in the killer's exact words, taken from interviews he gave in real
life.
In contrast to Ed Kemper, whose near pathological desire to help law enforcement led him to
readily confess every detail of his horrific deeds, Ford and Tench have a much harder time
with Jerry Brudos, known alternately as the Lust Killer or the Shoe Fetish Slayer.
It's not until the agents give Brudos a pair of shoes that he opens up about his crimes,
and even then he only talks about them in oblique terms, as if he were talking about
someone else.
Brudos' entire recounted history on Mindhunter is accurate, from his fascination with women's
footwear beginning with finding a pair of high heels in a junkyard at age five to his
outwardly normal domestic life hiding his darker fetishes and grisly desires.
"It's tricky when you're married.
You either have to deny yourself or keep a private space."
As recounted in the show, Brudos' first victim was a young encyclopedia saleswoman that he
lured in by pretending to be interested in buying a set of books.
Brudos would go on to collect trophies from his other victims, including clothing and
body parts, and he would photograph their bodies and dress in their clothes.
Another interesting detail from the show occurs when Brudos fixes Ford's broken tape recorder.
Brudos worked as an electronics technician before his spree began.
One of the more memorable killers in season one is Richard Speck.
He's notable for being a disgusting creep who brags about the sexual nature of his crimes
and throws a bird into a fan.
But it's the way Ford initially gushes at the prospect of meeting him, along with his
conduct during their interview, that's especially memorable.
"It's like meeting a movie star."
The real Speck was notorious for killing eight nursing students in Chicago in 1966.
He left one surviving victim, who was able to identify him by the "Born to Raise Hell"
tattoo that Ford makes special mention of.
"The tattoo is kind of legendary."
The details of his crime, including how he forced his way into the apartment with a gun
before brutalizing the women and somewhat ironically forgetting about the one who had
answered the door, are all accurately recounted on the show.
The nature of Speck's crimes was different from many other killers and helped draw the
distinction between serial killers and spree killers.
"Who else you talking to?"
"Like I said, people who've been convicted of similar violent crimes."
"I'm not like them."
One of the most notorious killers of all time doesn't make an onscreen appearance on Mindhunter
until season two, partly because his infamous reign of terror ended just prior to the events
of season one.
That killer is David Berkowitz, better known as the Son of Sam.
Berkowitz caused panic in New York City by shooting six people in 1976 and 1977.
He sent cryptic letters to the police in which he claimed to be acting under the orders of
his neighbor's labrador retriever, which was possessed by a demon.
But on Mindhunter, Berkowitz admits the demon angle was all just a story to get attention.
"They all bought it, David, didn't they?
Even the shrinks."
The real-life Berkowitz did admit to exaggerating many of his claims, and John Douglas contends
he was never fooled by the whole Son of Sam thing.
Additionally, Douglas and Ressler did actually consult Berkowitz over the BTK letters, just
as Ford and Tench do on the show, as Berkowitz had also sent letters during his spree.
Throughout season one, Mindhunter would often cut to seemingly unrelated scenes featuring
an ADT salesman who eventually is shown to exhibit some pretty disturbing behavior.
While his name is never said and he doesn't interact with any of the main characters,
serial killer enthusiasts undoubtedly recognize this figure as the infamous Dennis Rader,
aka the BTK killer.
"BTK."
"He's a new animal.
Lots of interesting contradictions."
The real Rader was a seemingly average family man, working for a home security company in
Wichita, Kansas, while also being an active church member and Boy Scout leader.
This was, of course, a cover for his disturbing secret life, in which he carried out killings
involving bondage and women's clothing.
It was because of his killing methods that he gave himself the name BTK, for bind, torture,
kill.
But even though the BSU started investigating Rader in season two, the real BTK wasn't captured
until 2005.
The backbone of Mindhunter's second season is the hunt for the so-called "Atlanta Child
Killer," who is eventually alleged to be Wayne Williams.
If anything, Mindhunter actually undersells the scope of Williams' crimes.
Between 1979 and 1981, dozens of black children and two young men were kidnapped and killed,
their bodies dumped in various places around Atlanta.
This reign of terror threw the city into a frenzy, and the families of the victims demanded
justice and the apprehension of the killer, or killers, as many believed.
Despite the belief within the community that it was likely a member of the Ku Klux Klan,
John Douglas argued the killer was probably black, as he would have been less likely to
be noticed in black neighborhoods, and because serial killers rarely cross racial lines.
"African-American?"
"Drives a police-type vehicle.
Lives with parents or a close relative.
Owns a dog."
A curfew was imposed in the city for children under 17, after which young adults began disappearing
instead.
Wayne Williams' capture happened in real life pretty much exactly as it did on the show.
After a story in the Atlanta newspapers revealed fibers and dog hair had been found on some
of the bodies, the killer changed his methods.
Investigators were then able to narrow the focus of their search.
After four weeks of waiting, a group of officers on stakeout heard a loud splash in the early
morning of April 22, 1981, and a station wagon driven by 22-year-old Williams attempted to
flee the scene.
Two days later, police found the body of a young man downstream from the site.
Williams was questioned, and fibers and dog hair in his home were matched to those found
on the bodies of some of the victims.
The Wayne Williams case was the first major public effort by John Douglas to prove the
efficacy of the methods being developed by the BSU.
In addition to his profile of a young black man proving correct, he also successfully
advised prosecutors to keep Williams on the stand as long as possible and to goad him
about his failures.
It provoked a hostile reaction on the stand that ultimately led to his conviction.
However, Douglas was officially censured by the FBI for publicly stating Williams was
the likely perpetrator of a large number of the killings, not unlike Agent Ford finding
himself in hot water for similar statements.
Just as depicted on Mindhunter, Williams was only convicted of killing two adults he was
never even charged with the deaths of any children.
"In all investigations, you reach a point when you've done all you can.
So for now, we're suspending all 29 investigations, having arrested our prime suspect."
Unlike most of the killers interviewed by Douglas and Ressler, Williams never confessed
to any of his crimes and, in fact, denies responsibility.
In 2019, the mayor of Atlanta reopened the child killer cases in order to use modern
technology to finally determine a definite killer and provide closure for the families
of the victims.
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