by Marilyn Bardsley
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| Book Cover: The Unknown Darkness |
Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a frequent contributor to the Crime Library and our forensics expert, and former FBI profiler, Gregg McCrary, have recently published a fascinating book about his most interesting cases. The Unknown Darkness is a must read for those who are interested in the investigative and forensic aspects of major murder cases.
McCrary and Ramsland take the reader through all the steps and logic that go into complex investigations and the meticulous logic that goes into creating a criminal profile.
McCrary was deeply involved in the now-famous Paul Bernardo-Karla Homolka case from its very earliest phase. Toronto police were dealing with a young serial rapist and had asked the FBI's Behavior Science Unit for a profile. McCrary, three years into his work as an
FBI profiler, began to study the seven sexual assaults associated with this serial rapist who was operating primarily in the upscale Scarborough suburb of Toronto.
The first step was to get a good sense of the Scarborough community. McCrary visited the places where the assaults took place and decided that the rapist was very familiar with that community and probably lived there. However, considering how expensive the neighborhood was, the young rapist was probably not able to buy or rent property there on his own. He most likely lived, McCrary believed, with his family.
Another important step was the victimology. The victims were young white females who lived in the Scarborough community. All of them lived low-risk lifestyles, but there was nothing to link them to any particular suspect.
Even more important was the analysis of the "core behavior" the rapist exhibited during the assaults: he was verbally profane and abusive; used excessive and increasing brutality as the attacks continued; and approached his victims from behind so that his victims did not see him.
From the behavior he exhibited, which demonstrated a rage against women, McCrary classified the rapist as an "anger-retaliatory" type who enjoyed degrading and humiliating women.
What concerned McCrary most was the increase in violence of each subsequent attack. He believed that it was just a matter of time before the Scarborough rapist became a sexually sadistic killer.
Talk about seeing the future. Paul Bernardo did just what McCrary predicted. He graduated from the Scarborough Rapist into the notoriously sadistic killer of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.
McCrary is an obvious genius in investigative science and the creation of a profile. The Unknown Darkness looks closely at his work on some very important cases: The Buddhist Temple Massacre, one of the most popular stories among Crime Library readers, the Arthur Shawcross serial murder case, the bizarre case of Jack Unterweger, and the perennial favorite, the Dr. Sam Sheppard case.
While there are other profiling books out there, Ramsland's experience with the techniques of narrative nonfiction helps to set this book apart by taking readers right into the crimes and crime scenes so they can experience a profiler's feelings and perceptions and also see the actual steps he took to make the crucial crime-solving decisions.
This is a book to buy.
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