(narrator) Nothing is more difficult than hunting the hunter of man.
(Robert Ressler) A serial killer is a predator,
but they hunt human prey.
(narrator) The FBI investigates at least 50 serial killings per year.
(Robert Ressler) They have fantasies that drive them to violence,
and they kill and kill again.
(narrator) Who becomes a victim is determined by only one thing:
The mind of the serial killer.
(Robert Ressler) A profile is a psychological portrait of a killer.
It establishes a map into the mind of the murderer.
(narrator) And that is where the hunt has to begin.
Alexandria, Virginia, on the outskirts of Washington, DC.
Two police officers revisit a series of brutal murders that occurred two decades ago.
The first case that occurred,
the body was found in a drain area.
(narrator) Detective Tom Moorehead fills in the case history for his visitor.
The second one was reported missing,
and it was six weeks before we found her.
Her automobile was found, though, right away.
(narrator) The body count kept rising.
Number three was found in a creek,
submerged in the water.
There was sexual assault on all of those.
After the autopsy, fluids were sent to the lab,
and it indicated that they had been raped.
(narrator) The details of the killings were so gruesome,
they shocked even seasoned investigators.
There were two that were stabbed,
the one that had been missing for about six weeks - she had
been stabbed somewhere around 20 times to the upper part
of her body.
The medical examiner had said that it was an indication of overkill,
which is a lot of times
they're acting in sort of a frenzy.
Five woman.
Three of them died in just one month.
At that particular point, we had no idea who it was,
so we were just wondering how would it be for the next one.
(narrator) What makes a man kill his fellow man?
There are no easy answers, but Robert Ressler has made it
his mission to find them.
The emerging profile of a profiler.
Robert Ressler began his career as a military
investigator for the U.S. Army.
He was stationed in Europe and the Far East.
In the Army, he learned how to catch criminals.
I became convinced that understanding the motives
of the killer would ultimately make me better at catching them,
so I started studying psychology and continued as a
criminal investigator.
Upon leaving the Army, Robert Ressler was looking
for a way to achieve his goal.
I wanted to work for the best,
and that was the FBI.
Here I thought I could combine my knowledge of
criminal behavior psychology.
I was especially interested in serial killers because here
I thought psychology played
a major role in why they killed and how.
(narrator) When Ressler joined the Bureau in 1970,
his interest in modern psychology was frowned upon.
The FBI was a place where hard evidence counted.
Despite the internal opposition, Ressler formulated a plan
to study the behavior of serial killers.
He called it profiling.
(Robert Ressler) I had a working lunch with the Director of the FBI
this time, William Webster.
At the end of the lunch and said, "Mr. Ressler,
I think you have a great idea.
I want you to align yourself with academics and outside
people outside the FBI of the highest quality,
and I want this program to be successful."
That gave it life.
Back in Alexandria, Virginia, the killer had stabbed his
victim first in the back, then the front,
then everywhere.
(narrator) The morgue.
This is where Robert Ressler looks for clues.
(Robert Ressler) Each time I walk into a room like that,
I'm afraid I'm going to see something worse than I've ever seen before.
I figured out very early that there are two types of
serial killers,
and that's organized and disorganized.
Just by looking at the crime scene and how the bodies are found,
I can establish a pretty good basis for a profile.
(narrator) Detective Moorehead tells Ressler that all victims
were found completely dressed.
Yet, they had all been raped before they were killed.
If they're dressed properly,
I would say that the killer has ordered them to dress
themselves.
If they're dressed improperly, then it would indicate the
killer dressed them after death.
So whether or not they were dressed by themselves or
whether or not they were dressed by the killer becomes, again,
another look into the killer's mind.
(narrator) Ressler notes this telling detail.
If the killer was able to instruct the women to dress,
this would suggest somebody who
was in control of his own senses,
enough to plan the kill,
an organized mind at work.
This is how it always begins.
Picking up the scent.
Beginning to track the serial killer.
(Robert Ressler) On a very personal level, I just wonder what is his
force that takes ahold of a person and pushes them over
the edge.
(narrator) Robert Ressler has been on the trail of this evil ever since
he was nine years old.
Catch me before I kill more.
I cannot control myself, scrolled with lipstick on
the wall by a desperate killer.
Chicago.
1946.
A city gripped by fear.
The chilling words of America's first modern serial killer
captured the imagination of the entire country.
Two women, brutally murdered, found in carefully arranged
settings.
The killer had even bandaged the mortal wounds as if ashamed
of what he had done.
(offscreen voice) It came into my head that I must have done something,
and I realized it must have been a child.
(narrator) The northwest side of Chicago.
This is where Robert Ressler grew up.
(Robert Ressler) So it's good to be back in Chicago.
Well, you know, it's been....
(narrator) He still stays in touch with his old friend,
Phillip .. l Kozlofsk..
Together they roamed the neighborhood streets when
they were boys.
It was a long, hot summer when the string of bizarre killings
known as the lipstick murders shook this city.
The boys were so intrigued, they formed their very own
detective agency.
Their mission?
To catch the Lipstick Murderer.
(Robert Ressler) The whole idea came from some movie that we had seen where
kids were detectives,
and we decided we were going to do this.
Could have been. Right, right.
It was a lot of cloak and dagger involved with this.
You know, the kind of the false beards and the dark glasses,
which, of course, no proper spy operation can be without.
(narrator) But the games soon ended when the killer struck again.
Police found body parts floating in the Chicago sewers.
They identified the victim as six-year-old Suzanne Degnan.
She had been snatched from her home, murdered,
and dismembered.
It really paralyzed the city of Chicago.
It was a frightening aspect to have a child taken from
her bedroom in the dead of night,
body parts found in sewers - of course,
this guy confessing to all.
The police arrest William Heirens,
a 17-year-old student.
He confesses everything.
The Lipstick Murderer now has a face.
The Heirens' case had a tremendous impact,
in general, on people in Chicago.
In your case, it actually led you to try to somehow gain some
insight into the mind of this person as to why he was doing it,
and then this led to, led....