Book warns that your gut is not an FBI profiler - "Dangerous Instincts"

[BridgeTheGap]

The man sitting in front of Mary Ellen O’Toole was, she says, a well-mannered guy. “He was low-key. He was nice. He didn’t swear.” He was very proud of his work, which he described in polite, pleasant tones.

His name was Gary Ridgway. His other name was the Green River Killer. His work was killing at least 49 women in Washington state throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He did it all while maintaining marriages, parenting and churchgoing, and he seemed very much the word neighbors often use to describe men who turn out to have headless torsos in their freezers.
Which is to say, he seemed very, very nice.

The niceness paradox. O’Toole worked as a profiler for the FBI for 30 years, based in Quantico, Va. She interviewed the Unabomber. She worked on the Polly Klaas abduction, the Red Lake school shooting and the investigation of David Parker Ray, the Toy-Box Killer who tortured women in a high-tech homemade dungeon.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20111031/FEATURES06/310310025/Book-warns-your-gut-not-an-FBI-profiler?odyssey=nav|head

[bemildred]

1. You only catch the dumb ones if you go by appearances.

I would think that was obvious, but apparently I am wrong.

[cliffordu]

2. My girlfriend is an Xray tech at a hospital near the state pen.

She says the ones that really give her the creeps are the ones that are the most polite, engaging and friendly.

She says they are invariably the most dangerous based on their criminal histories.

[applegrove]

3. Ain't that the truth.