Tracker: Hunting Down Serial Killers

Tracker presents former police officer Maurice Godwin's method of psychological and geographic profiling which is revolutionizing the way police track and capture serial killers. Forget Silence of the Lambs; Hannibal Lecters and Clarice Starlings do not exist. The public believes that the FBI is protecting us from this most deadly of human predators, but the Bureau has never caught a serial killer. The profiles they turn out are based on interviews with thirty-six convicted killers, out of which only twenty-five were serial killers. Conducted in 1978, the study has since been condemned as statistically and demographically invalid. Recently courts have begun throwing out some profilers' testimony, with judges ruling that the profiles amount to little more than voodoo. In contrast, Maurice Godwin integrates demographics, environmental psychology, landscape analysis, crime site information, and other factors to create the most accurate targeting map available. In Tracker, we learn that "[Godwin's] work is based on the collection and critical analysis of over 100,000 data points and 2,000 different crime scene actions that could be used to profile the killer." Godwin explains, "Instead of relying on interviews with murderers, I studied specific pieces of behavioral information available from the crime scene or case file."