Profiles in Confusion

...The underlying problem is that psychological profiling makes wild guesses from terribly small amounts of information...

...Collectively, profilers covered all the bases...

...Northeastern University professor Jack Levin told the Toronto Globe and Mail that the killer was emotionless, while security Eli Lehrer is senior editor at the American Enterprise...

...Former New York City homicide detective Bo Dietl guessed that "two skinny kids" were doing the shooting and claimed victory when the police apprehended two men...

...Famed stage magician and pseudo-science de-bunker James Randi argues psychological profiling is little better than a stage act, a variant of the "cold reading" that performers like John Edward use to "commune with the dead" and "read minds" in front of an audience...

...You might develop a few leads...

...Seasoned detectives and patrol officers can follow lucky hunches, make good guesses, and sometimes even develop psychological clues that a narrower reliance on physical evidence and eyewitness testimony would have missed...

...King says that the profiling course he teaches around the country is designed simply to convey the wisdom and common sense that veteran cops eventually develop anyway...

...The most "accurate" profiles contain so little new information that they're worthless for investigative purposes...

...The more precise a profile, the more likely it is to be wrong and so to mislead police...

...There's a method and a technique to it, but a lot of it is art," says Bob King, a profiler in Utah who frequently appears on Court TV...

...With so many guesses flying around, however, a few turned out to be right...

...Immediately after Una-bomber Theodore Kaczynski released a turgid academic-style manifesto, FBI profilers discovered that he was "familiar with university life...

...But profilers, Murphy argues, are only one step more respectable than the psychics and tarot card readers police have been known to call on when truly desperate for leads...

...Candace DeLong, a California-based FBI veteran and frequent cable TV guest, swore that the sniper was "less than 25 years old" and worked alone...

...Former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt told Time magazine that the sniper was "toying with the police" and "using the media for information...

...Hoover also had great enthusiasm for the iffy science of lie detectors...

...It's not voodoo witch magic," he says, "and it's not a panacea...

...After psychologist James Brussel provided a profile that helped the Bureau catch a serial bomber in the late 1950s, longtime Bureau head J. Edgar Hoover became obsessed with reading criminals' minds...

...King trains officers to look at victims as well as offenders, search for patterns, and carefully examine the details of a crime...

...Many psychological profiles I've seen read a lot like Edward's stage patter...

...Muhammad, of course, is hardly a kid...

...Known characteristics like dress, manner, and behavior tell police officers far more...

...An AP story reported that the experts had concluded the bomber "may not have worked alone" or, alternatively, "may have been a loner...

...The FBI has had a full-scale profiling unit since the early 1970s, despite the fact that few peer-reviewed studies have found any merit in profiling, and most other police agencies have ignored the technique...

...The profilers' most confident assertions turned out to be wrong: Nearly every profiler who appeared on TV guessed that a white male was doing the shooting, since nearly all famous serial killers have been men of European descent...

...Outside of the federal government, fewer than 50 people work full-time as profilers...

...I suppose it's useful in a very, very limited sense," says former New York City police commissioner Patrick V. Murphy, who seems to have held every important job in policing...

...Eventually its name was changed to the staid Investigative Support Unit...

...The media's respect for a dubious branch of psychological science seems mostly to reflect the fascination with "profiling" of the FBI...

...Often the television sages portentously stated the obvious...

...Other profiles simply state what is in plain view for all to see...

...But conjecture rarely if ever provides enough information to catch a suspect...

...Of course there are times when theories about offenders' psychological makeup can help police at the margins...

...They are filled with catchall weasel phrases like "I would believe the suspect to be . . . " When attempting to profile the Atlanta Olympic Park bomber back in 1996, profilers had it every which way...

...By the time his family turned him in, the FBI's crack profilers had developed a rather accurate profile of the Unabomber—and anybody with a pulse could have done the same...

...Many profilers work much the same way: They make very broad guesses and then refine them as hard evidence comes in...

...In fact, honest profilers admit they hardly practice a science...

...But both Muhammad and Mal-vo are black...

...When he made attacks near Chicago, the FBI deduced that he knew the area...

...Even within the FBI—by far the leading proponent of psychological profiling—the notion that this is a "science" has become the butt of jokes...

...My predictions were not that close," confessed Levin when the New York Times asked him for a self-assessment...

...consultant Robert Ressler insisted that he shot people for thrills...

...Indeed, for all the media hype, it's hard to find a single police chief who calls psychological profiling helpful...

...In the end, all the scientific-sounding speculation offered by the bevy of professional profilers who had been pronouncing in the media for weeks had nothing to do with the alleged snipers' capture...

...Cold reading involves making a large number of vague guesses and asking spectators to provide information...

...But Muhammad is 41 and had a partner...

...BY ELI LEHRER A MYSTERIOUS PHONE CALL, a fingerprint, a composite sketch, and spent ammunition from an unsolved Alabama killing finally led the police to sniper suspects John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo...

...What began in the 1970s as the Bureau's Behavioral Sciences Unit soon was widely known as the "Bull S—t Unit...

...That's why the best police officers rely instead on community contacts, physical evidence, surveillance, tips from citizens, and street smarts—just the techniques that led to the capture of Muhammad and Malvo...

...King describes his goals modestly: "A profile is just a best, educated guess, and that's all it is...