Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer (2024), BBC, BBCiPlayer, directed and produced by Abby Fuller.

Posted by celticman on Tue, 21 Apr 2026

When Ann Burgess left school in 1957, former General and war hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower was President of the richest and most powerful nation on earth. Before marriage, a nice white girl had three career options: teacher, secretary or nurse.

Burgess chose the latter option.

When the FBI Behavioural Science Unit (BSU) came calling in 1971, President Tricky Dicky Nixon was ‘Vietnmasing’ the Vietnam War and withdrawing American troops, and Ann Burgess was a Professor of Nursing. Her speciality was talking to and treating rape victims. She published a number of ground-breaking works. She didn’t just talk to victims, but rapists, building up a database and methodology of how rapists—such as the current American President—targeted their victims. Sex, she argued, was often secondary to control.

The BSU was the outlier in the Quantico FBI unit for a number of reasons connected to social science. But the G-Man image of shoot-them up and ask questions later was no longer working. The volume and sophistication of criminals, the growing number of unsolved cases involving serial killers and rapists across America called for paradigm change—even if it did involve bringing Professor Burgess in and asking her to code and decode criminal behaviour on an ongoing basis—she did not appear in any official photographs. Psychology and catching rapists, after all, was men’s work.

Dr. Ann Burgess, appears in all episodes and continues working. I’d love to see her interviewing the moron’s moron and current narcissist psychopath in the Whitehouse. She is the inspiration of characters in Mindhunting and Silence of the Lambs.

Notes.

Contributors point out that Burgess was the brains behind the operation, while her male colleagues took the public credit for decades.

Victim Advocacy. A recurring point is that Burgess forced the FBI to take rape victims seriously, moving the focus away from victim-blaming (she wore a mini-skirt and was asking for it) toward using the victim's story to build a profile of the predator.

The Power Trap. Burgess herself repeatedly asserts that the core of all serial violence is a compulsion to dominate, suggesting that understanding the need for power is the key to identifying the suspect.

Ted Bundy

Offences (high‑level)

Targeted young women, committed multiple murders across several U.S. states in the 1970s.

His interviews with the FBI helped shape early profiling ideas about manipulation, charm, and predatory behaviour.

Ed Kemper

Offences (high‑level)

Committed multiple murders in California in the early 1970s, including family members and strangers.

He gave unusually detailed interviews about his thinking patterns, which became foundational for behavioural analysis. Source material for FBI Unit. Baseline thinking.

Dennis Rader (BTK)

Offences (high‑level)

Committed a series of murders over several decades, often contacting police and media.

His behaviour illustrated how offenders sometimes seek control and attention.

David Berkowitz (Son of Sam)

Offences (high‑level)

Carried out a series of shootings in New York City in the 1970s.

His case helped the FBI understand how public fear and media attention can influence offender—repeat—behaviour.

John Joubert

Offences (high‑level)

Committed murders of young victims in the 1980s.

Why he appears.

Burgess worked directly on this case, applying her victim‑focused analysis. Profile correct in every count including him being a former Scout leader (who’d committed a murder he’d got away with, initially).

Wayne Williams (Atlanta child murders)

Gary Ridgway (Green River case)

Bill Cosby

Donald J.Trump

(Offences, highest level). Still at large.

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