Shadowman: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling

 

Today's post is on Shadowman: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling by Ron Franscell. It is 292 pages long and is published by Berkley. The cover is black with a picture of man and a map underneath him. The intended reader is someone who is interested in historical true crime and the creation of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. There is some foul language, discussion of sexual violence, and violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- On June 25, 1973, a seven-old-year girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of her tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of the family members had seen or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow. 
The largest manhunt in the state's history ensued. As days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, Special Agent Pete Dunbar sough help from FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, where two agents had hatched a radical new idea: What if criminals left a psychological trail that would lead us to them? Patrick Mullany and Howard Tenten had created the Behavioral Analysis Unit to explore this new "voodoo" they called "criminal profiling."
They built the FBI's first profile of an unknown subject; The UnSub who snatched Susie Jaeger and another victim. Their deductions led to the capture of a cunning and savage serial killer. he victims' parents had closure. And police work would never be the same. 

Review- An interesting case and interesting to read about the beginning of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. The story starts with two other deaths, both ruled as accidental but of course the reader knows that someone odd is going on. Then we get into the kidnapping of Susie Jaeger. Her sister wakes up and discovers that their tent has been cut open and her younger sister, Susie is gone. Within hours the whole park and county is looking for her but there is a lot of uninhabited land in Montana. Because it is a kidnapping the local FBI agent takes the case. The case itself is very interesting, with lots of questions about how and why, the FBI agent Pete Dunbar is an interesting man who is willing to take risks to get justice. The risk is inviting the infant Behavioral Analysis Unit into the case. At the time, the BAU was not seen as very trustworthy, just some headshrinkers who wanted to play cops. But with this case BAU and profiling started to the respect and understand that it has today. The writing is good, the mystery does keep you guessing but not for long, and the ending is as happy as it can be considering this is true crime. I would recommend this book for true crime fans. 

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.