Former Marine accused in Iraqi prisoner deaths is acquitted

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Jose Nazario, charged in the 2004 killings of four detainees, was found not guilty by a Riverside jury. His case marked the first time civilians decided if an ex-serviceman committed a combat crime.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 29, 2008

A civilian jury in Riverside today acquitted a former Marine sergeant in the killing of four unarmed Iraqi prisoners in the battle for Fallouja in 2004.

Jose Nazario, 28, was found not guilty of manslaughter, assault and use of a firearm in the shooting deaths in the landmark case, the first time in the modern era that civilian jurors have been asked to decide whether a former member of the military committed a crime during combat.

The federal jury of nine women and three men deliberated for less than six hours, starting Wednesday afternoon. This morning, jurors listened again to a tape recording of a phone conversation between Nazario, who was a squad leader, and one of his men. In it, Nazario seems to admit to ordering the killings.

The recording, which was made by Sgt. Jermaine Nelson at the behest of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was the last piece of evidence presented before prosecutors rested their case. Nazario's defense attorney called no witnesses.In addition to playing the tape recording, prosecutors during the five-day trial called half a dozen Marines to describe Marine culture and how Marines are taught from boot camp on that they must not harm prisoners and noncombatants.

Prosecutors also called three former Marines who were in the battle with Nazario. One of the former Marines said he saw Nazario standing over a dead Iraqi while holding an M-16. Another said Nazario tried to persuade him to help kill the prisoners, and a third testified that he saw four dead bodies in the house where the incident occurred, in the insurgent-held Jolan neighborhood.

None testified that they saw Nazario kill the Iraqis. Prosecutors did not get testimony from two Marines who they had expected to be star witnesses.

Nelson, who placed the phone call to Nazario, and another Marine, Sgt. Ryan Weemer, each refused to take the stand against their former squad leader. U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson declined a prosecutor's request to jail the men, saying he did not believe doing so would compel them to testify.

Earlier this year, Larson had jailed Nelson and Weemer for refusing to testify before a grand jury. Both men face murder charges at Camp Pendleton in the same deaths that Nazario has been charged with in federal court.

The two Marines previously gave detailed statements about the 2004 incident, which occurred on the first day of the Marines' bloody, 10-day assault on insurgent strongholds in Fallouja, west of Baghdad.

When investigators began looking into the shootings after the Marines' statements, Nazario was no longer in the Marines and was working as a probationary police officer in Riverside. If Nazario had been in the reserves when the crimes came to light, the Marine Corps could have recalled him to active duty to, like Weemer and Nelson, face charges at a court martial, where the jurors would be military personnel.

Nazario's trial marks the first time a former member of the military has been charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, passed by Congress in 2000, to address crimes allegedly committed in combat. Nazario was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2005 after serving eight years. Only one of the nine jurors had military experience.

Defense attorney Kevin McDermott stressed to jurors in his closing argument that the prosecution offered no names or identifications for the four alleged victims. He asked the judge to dismiss the allegations on the basis that the government had failed to fulfill a legal obligation to prove that a "particular human being" had been killed.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Jerry Behnke said requiring a name or identification could prevent prosecutors from pursing other cases of alleged combat crimes. Larson said he would deal with McDermott's motion once the jury reached a verdict. Possibly the strongest evidence against Nazario was the tape recording made during the call between Nazario and Nelson on Jan. 8, 2007.

In the call, Nazario seems to admit that he ordered the killing of the four prisoners rather than taking the time to process them under the rules established by the Marine Corps. On the tape, Nelson, using a derogatory word for the Iraqis, asked Nazario who gave the order to kill the prisoners. Nazario replied: "I did."Nazario goes on to say their actions were not illegal.

"You can't play Monday-morning quarterback," he said.

In closing arguments, both sides stressed the importance of the decision for future U.S. soldiers and Marines in combat."When all is said and done, your decision is of phenomenal significance to my client and others like him," McDermott told jurors. He insisted that a guilty verdict could undercut the morale and effectiveness of U.S. troops in war zones. But Behnke said an acquittal would mean that "as a nation, we have failed."

"We are better than the people we are fighting," he said in his closing argument. "We follow the rules. We maintain the high moral ground."

Although he had risen to the position of squad leader in the Marine Corps, Nazario had never been in combat until the Fallouja assault began in the early hours of Nov. 9, 2004.

UK: City Council Attempts to Impose Ramadan BS on Non Muslim Members

* If you let a stranger into your house, he is a guest. When you let in his brother and his entire family in they will take over your house. The left wing lunatics have not only opened the front door, they’ve opened all the doors and the windows too! This is only the start of a lot worse to come. Someone had better nip this in the bud…and fast…
Muslim council leaders have sparked outrage after trying to ban all councillors eating in meetings until sunset during the holy month of Ramadan.
Politicians have hit out after the move to impose hardline Islamic rules on non-Muslim colleagues throughout September.
The bombshell has been dropped by Labour chiefs of the notoriously loony Tower Hamlets Council in east London. ....

13-Minute Video Heart of NumbersUSA

From: Anne Manetas, Deputy Director, NumbersUSA
Date: 28AUG08 11:30 a.m.

13-Minute Video Heart of NumbersUSA

WATCH THIS VIDEO As we prepare for the expected Congressional battles over immigration numbers this fall, its a good time to take stock of the urgency of our cause and the tools we have available to help fight for lower immigration numbers. This video captures the essence of NumbersUSA and is a must-see for anyone who wants to fully understand the basic information behind our work. Or, you can cut and paste this link into your browser:http://www.numbersusa.com/content/resources/video/recommended/immigration-numbers.htmlThere is, perhaps, no better way to quickly understand the essence of NumbersUSA than to watch this video. If you havent already seen it, you must watch. If you have, I recommend taking another look or forwarding it on to your friends and family. For more information and feedback on the video, please see my recent blog entry: http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/bealea/august-25-2008/13-minute-video-heart-numbersusa.html.ANNE
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Michelle Obama Signals Husband's Support for Amnesty

During a speech yesterday before a Hispanic caucus at the Democratic National Convention in Denver Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, signaled that if elected her husband would attempt to grant amnesty to every illegal alien in the United States.
Obama stated that "we would have an immigration policy that brings 12 million people out of the shadows" and that "Hispanics should not have to live in fear of raids by immigration agents."

Michelle Obama went on to say that "Hispanics are often the first to suffer in an economic downturn and the last to benefit during a recovery." While it is understandable that Obama is trying to court Hispanic voters, her remarks on Hispanic employment appear incorrect.

The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor puts the Hispanic unemployment rate at 7.6% and the African American unemployment rate at 10.9%. The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau places Hispanic poverty rate at 21.5% and the African American poverty rate at 24.5%. When one examines this and other data, it is clear that African Americans are the more economically vulnerable group. ....

Preparing the military for defeat

by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D.

After the Vietnam War, respect for the military sank to an all-time low. In one survey, sanitation workers were the only profession Americans thought less of - and some considered that an insult to sanitation workers. Defense spending plummeted. The armed services "hollowed out," lacking the budgets to sustain modernization, training and readiness.

By the end of the 1980s, however, after the Reagan-era military build-up, the military polled as the most admired institution in the nation. Even today, despite the political debates over the Long War on Terrorism, the armed forces remain highly respected. For that reason, many Pentagon experts believe that after Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress and the White House won't abandon the military they way they did before. They won't put readiness at risk again, right?

Wrong.

There are already plenty of troubling signs. The Navy is talking about tying up ships because they don't have enough sailors. The Army has artillery and engineer battalions that haven't practiced firing cannons or breaching a minefield in a long time. The Air Force might well have just lost its service secretary and chief of staff, not because of their alleged failure to exercise leadership but because they chaffed at accepting unrealistic budget projections.

Washington officials probably will use the same excuses they did after Vietnam to justify reneging on their obligation to "provide for the common defense." They will argue that they can spend less on defense because they're so smart. They know exactly what the future holds, what the threats will be, how to handle them - and, miraculously, the cost of this defense will be exactly the paltry amount of money they're willing to spend.

Such "smart spending" was what the Pentagon offered after Vietnam. Rather than rebuild the military and match the Soviets' conventional power, President Carter's Pentagon opted for an "offset" strategy. They would replace boots on the ground with smart weapons to offset Soviet numbers. This would be more effective - and coincidently cheaper. As Yale scholar Paul Bracken put it, "They got away with it because President Carter didn't want to buy anything. He was very interested in innovation as long as it didn't require purchasing military equipment."

Some old Carter hands even have the temerity to argue the offset strategy helped win the Cold War. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many of the technologies they promoted never matured, or were fully deployed only after the Cold War ended. Indeed, Council on Foreign Relations defense analyst Stephen Biddle cogently argues much of the success of rebuilding of U.S. conventional forces had to do with the robust training and doctrine instituted in the 1980s, part of the Reagan-era effort along with growing the forces and buying new equipment that resulted in the war-winning Desert Storm military.

There are already signs, however, that the old Carter arguments are coming back. Very smart people will argue that Washington can gut budgets; ignore the need to buy next generation platforms; and short-change training and maintenance because they know exactly what to cut. Of course, first they will cut the things they don't want - politically incorrect systems such as missile defense, space-based weapons, and modernized nuclear forces. Then they will wish away the wars they don't want to prepare for - insurgencies and conventional conflicts with regional powers. Finally, they will assume that America's enemies will be blinded by their brilliance and not prepare for exactly the kinds of wars Washington does not fund the military to fight. They will wind up preparing the military for defeat.

The one initiative brilliant budget-cutters will not undertake is to provide robust, sustained funding of the armed services that will pay for current operations; maintain a trained and ready military for a range of missions; and modernize forces for the future. But that's exactly what needs to be done to keep the nation safe, free and prosperous in the 21st century.

James Jay Carafano is a senior research fellow for national security at The Heritage Foundation and the author of the book "G.I. Ingenuity."

First appeared in Modesto Bee

Finally, someone says: No new mosques!

Italy is fighting a rapidly increasing Muslim presence by introducing a bill to block construction of Islamic mosques and prohibit minarets, or prayer watchtowers, and loudspeaker chants.

Italy's Northern League, a political movement that is part of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's governing coalition, introduced the legislation. According to a Financial Times report, Northern League Chief of Deputies Roberto Cota will present the bill to parliament next week.

The proposal will also require mosques to be at least one kilometer away from nearby churches, and sermons must be conducted in Italian rather than Arabic. ....

Italy is estimated to be the home of 1.2 million Muslims and 258 registered mosques, and Islam is the second largest religion in the country. Many Italians have become concerned about what they believe to be an overwhelming Islamic presence.

Illegals shock, suffocate, slit throats in U.S.

A showdown over drug money between suspected Mexican illegal aliens in Alabama ended with four men in prison and four shipped back to Mexico in body bags.

Three suspected illegal aliens from Mexico and another man have been arrested and charged with capital murder for electrocuting, stabbing, suffocating and beating five men to death in a murder-for-hire.

The four suspects were paid between $400,000 and $450,000 to torture the victims with electric shock and slit their throats in an Alabama apartment, police said Tuesday. The murders have been tied to a drug cartel that transports cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, the Birmingham News reported.

Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry said he believed the murders could have been revenge slayings after the victims embezzled money from a drug cartel.

"It revolves around money, and that money revolves around drugs," he said.

Curry said there might have been other targets on the hit list who escaped before police arrived. ....

The drug-related murders came on the heels of recent reports of tightened U.S. security along the Southern border as cartels send murderers-for-hire into the U.S. Last week, Texas and New Mexico authorities reported a hit list identifying 15 to 20 targets in the two states alone. ....

Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to 2006 statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens – more than the U.S. death toll of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. That's more than 30,000 Americans killed by illegal aliens since Sept. 11, 2001.

OBAMA BACKS AWAY FROM PLEDGE FOR AN “UNDIVIDED” JERUSALEM: Calls his own AIPAC speech a “mistake”

Sen. Barack Obama made a surprise visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem this morning, before leaving Israel for Germany. It was another good photo op for the junior Senator from Illinois. Nevertheless, many in Israel are feeling stunned by the Senator’s statements in recent days backing away from a pledge he made in June supporting an “undivided” Jerusalem. Last night on ABC News, the Senator actually called his clear and powerful defense of Jerusalem — delivered just last month at a conference of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — a “mistake.”

Consider the following string of statements: ....

Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack: Nuclear attack great risk

(Government Executive) “A new report by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack warns that a nuclear attack aimed at crippling the nation’s technological backbone could be greater today …” reports Government Executive. “‘The electromagnetic pulse generated by a high-altitude nuclear explosion is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences,’ the commission found.… Such an attack could be launched from a freighter off the coast of the United States, using a short- or medium-range missile loaded with a nuclear warhead.” [View article] [View report (7MB PDF)]

Russia: NKorea should continue nuclear shutdown

The Associated Press
MOSCOW—Russia says it regrets North Korea's decision to halt nuclear disablement.

North Korea said Tuesday it stopped disabling its Yongbyon nuclear complex this month and will consider restoring the plutonium-producing facility because the U.S. failed, as promised, to remove it from a list of states that sponsor of terrorism.

The move threatens an agreement among the Koreas, the U.S., Japan, Russia and China for the North to abandon its nuclear weapons in return for energy aid and political concessions.

Russia's Foreign Ministry says in a statement Wednesday that the move evokes "disappointment and concern" and urges Pyongyang to reconsider.

Removing North Korea from the terrorism list is one of the key U.S. concessions in the deal.

(Compiler's note: Good observations by a friend ....

This news release is from the US Geological Survey ....

While I am neither a geologist nor an oilman, I recognize the term “technically recoverable oil” may not equate to “proven reserves”, but I encourage you to take the time to go to the USGS website and go through the several excellent Powerpoint briefings that will show you the magnitude of this Formation. I also know that it may take time to get all the things done that must be accomplished to get this oil out of the ground. What I would like to see is for this Country to remove its head from a place the sun doesn’t shine and work together to bring this huge field and others into production or greater production quickly. Some of you remember the oil crisis in the early 1970’s. I received orders from the West Coast to the East Coast, and went to extremes to have fuel for my cross-country automobile trip. Our national response to that was short-lived, and we reverted to partisan bickering, amplified by well-meaning environmentalists. All of our elected representatives keep talking about working on a ‘comprehensive energy policy’. That is simply their term to hide their pet projects in a HUGE bill that would mean more government, but not necessarily more energy. I have sent my concerns to and received written responses from both of my senators here in Virginia. They both have very articulate staffs who wove their responses around their positive efforts to solve the energy issues with a ‘comprehensive energy policy’. My assessment of their responses is that Washington is the problem! America has abundant supplies of traditional energy and fine technical minds to offer alternative solutions. Turn the free market loose! Drill, drill, drill! )

News Release

April 10, 2008 Clarice Nassif Ransom 703-648-4299 cransom@usgs.gov David Ozman 720-244-4543 dozman@usgs.gov

---

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale formation."

The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.

USGS worked with the North Dakota Geological Survey, a number of petroleum industry companies and independents, universities and other experts to develop a geological understanding of the Bakken Formation. These groups provided critical information and feedback on geological and engineering concepts important to building the geologic and production models used in the assessment.

Five continuous assessment units (AU) were identified and assessed in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana - the Elm Coulee-Billings Nose AU, the Central Basin-Poplar Dome AU, the Nesson-Little Knife Structural AU, the Eastern Expulsion Threshold AU, and the Northwest Expulsion Threshold AU.

At the time of the assessment, a limited number of wells have produced oil from three of the assessments units in Central Basin-Poplar Dome, Eastern Expulsion Threshold, and Northwest Expulsion Threshold. The Elm Coulee oil field in Montana, discovered in 2000, has produced about 65 million barrels of the 105 million barrels of oil recovered from the Bakken Formation.

Results of the assessment can be found at http://energy.usgs.gov.

For a podcast interview with scientists about the Bakken Formation, listen to episode 38 of CoreCast at http://www.usgs.gov/corecast/.

Congress Is a Perfect Target for McCain

(Compiler's note: This article is here because of the impact that these events WILL have on our national security. rca)

By KARL ROVE
August 28, 2008; Page A13

Democrats and Republicans have scripted their conventions as tightly as possible. But after delegates return home with buttons, badges and banners, the curtain will rise on a more unruly drama: the fall session of Congress. And it could affect the November election more than the conventions.

The House and Senate return to Washington Monday, Sept. 8. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hope it will be a short session, ending on Sept. 26. That will allow members to go home and campaign, not to return until after Election Day. Good luck.

Congress hasn't yet passed any one of the 12 appropriations bills needed to fund the government when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. And Congress isn't likely to pass them through both houses and get them to the president before leaving town.

The goal here for Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi is to delay passing a budget until the next president is inaugurated. If the Democrats get their wish and sweep the November elections, Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony will mark the opening of the spending floodgates.

Before they get there, however, this Congress must first pass stopgap legislation that will pay the federal government's bills for the next few months. Usually, that is done with a "continuing resolution," a bill that simply funds the government at its current level for a short period of time.

But a continuing resolution is fraught with political problems for Democrats. Members, desperate for their election-year pork-barrel spending, could band together and threaten to withhold support if their earmarks are not inserted into spending bills. If that happens, say goodbye to Democratic claims of fiscal responsibility.

Another problem is oil. There is a congressional ban on drilling on the outer continental shelf that will expire on Oct. 1, if it isn't first reauthorized. Typically, the ban is reauthorized as part of the Interior Department appropriations bill. But this year the president says he will veto that bill if the House and Senate don't allow an up-or-down vote on drilling there.

That sets up a political showdown. Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid could try stuffing the ban into the continuing resolution. But that runs the risk of a government shutdown over spending and increasing domestic energy supplies -- a fight that is sure to focus public attention just weeks before the election.

Adding fuel to this fire is Sen. Charles Schumer, the Democrat in charge of increasing his party's majority in the Senate. He said recently that "the drilling issue has peaked," and is therefore less inclined to support a compromise to open the outer continental shelf. Normally politically acute, Mr. Schumer is either bluffing or out of touch with public opinion, which seems to favor Republicans on the issue nearly everywhere.

Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid could offer a drilling expansion bill that doesn't do much to open new territory, but which would include billions in new spending and would impose a "windfall profits" tax. But voters would sniff out such a phony ploy to do something about $4 gas.

Democrats will be eager to discuss a second stimulus package in the coming session. But will highlighting the economy's trouble and attacking the president do them any good if they can't pass something while running Congress?

There's also widespread disagreement about what a second stimulus package might include. The small pack of centrists in the party, the "Blue Dog" Democrats, could insist on spending offsets or tax increases for any additional stimulus.

Not everything about the economy can be counted on to break for Democrats. Markets clearly believe that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will use his new authority to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If he does, it will raise thorny questions of whether management should step aside, and whether shareholders should lose their investment. That debate will force Congress to decide how to balance the needs of the 2.47% of homeowners in foreclosure with those of everyone else.

If Fannie and Freddie are bailed out, expect the auto companies to muscle Congress for money. Michigan is up for grabs this year, so they intend to push for as much as $40 billion in loans to cover their losses.

The end result of all of these messy fights is that a Congress -- which hit a record low 14% approval rating in a July Gallup Poll before its members left on summer vacation -- may become even more unpopular.

Inevitably, John McCain and Barack Obama will be drawn into these fights. And, although both are sitting senators, the advantage may go to Mr. McCain. Democrats control Congress, so they are accountable. Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi are two of the worst advertisements for Congress imaginable. And Mr. McCain has an impressive record of political reform he can invoke, whereas Mr. Obama, who has yet to complete his first term in the Senate, has no accomplishments to point to that demonstrate that he is an agent of change.

The 110th Congress is an excellent target for Mr. McCain. He ought to take careful aim at it and commence firing.

Mr. Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

The Real Story on FBI Profiling

By: Ronald Kessler

Article Font Size

When The Washington Post ran the first national story about FBI profiling in 1984, no one outside of law enforcement recognized the term.

Since I wrote that story, “profiling” has taken on a pejorative meaning: To “profile” is to single out someone for law enforcement attention because of race or ethnicity.

In fact, that is neither good profiling nor good law enforcement. To get the latest on how profiling really works, I interviewed Mark A. Hilts, who heads the FBI’s unit that develops profiles to help solve crimes against adults.....

Now the FBI has 28 such agents housed in an unmarked office building near Quantico in Stafford, Va. And television shows like CBS’ “Criminal Minds” and “CSI” routinely feature profilers helping to catch bad guys.

“There are certainly racial profiling issues, connotations from police traffic stops, which has never had anything to do with what we do,” Hilts tells me in one of the few interviews he has given since becoming chief of the profiling unit in 2003. “We look at a crime that has been committed, looking at characteristics of that crime, and interpreting the behavior that we see in that crime. We help to guide the law enforcement investigators towards the resolution of that crime.”

Hallmarks of the Profiler

Whatever they do, criminals and non-criminals act in particular ways. Some writers, for instance, use computers, others pen and paper. Some write in the morning, some at night. Each writer has a distinct style, with variations in grammar, sentence structure, and voice.

In the same way, criminals carry out their crimes in their own characteristic ways. Their actions, rather than their words, betray who they are. By reading those signs, profilers can often determine from the crime scene the kind of person who committed the crime and the fantasies that propelled him, in effect reading the perpetrator’s signature.

In some respects, profiling is simply good detective work.

Profilers look at every aspect of the crime, including interviews, photographs, investigative reports, autopsy reports, and laboratory reports. What sets profiling apart from good police work is that the conclusions are based on patterns that emerge by matching the characteristics of thousands of crime scenes found in similar cases with the characteristics of the actual perpetrators who are later apprehended.

Besides forensics and information gleaned from witnesses and other interviews, profilers look at motivation.

“Why was this particular victim the target of this crime at this particular time?” Hilts says. “We kind of get into the mind of the offender. And not in any kind of psychic manner, but just through understanding criminals and why they commit the crimes they do. How does the criminal gain control of his victim? How does he manipulate the victim? How does he maintain control? How does he select his victim in the first place?”

With a profile, investigators can narrow a search and begin focusing on one or two individuals. At times, profiles are so uncannily accurate as to seem clairvoyant. When police found the mutilated torsos of two teenagers floating in a river, they identified them as a boy and girl who had been missing. The profile the FBI drew up said the killer was a male in his 40s who knew the children.

He probably led a macho lifestyle, wore western boots, often hunted and fished, and drove a four-wheel vehicle. He was self-employed, divorced several times, and had a minor criminal record.

With the profile, the police focused on the children’s stepfather, who fit the description perfectly but had not previously been a suspect. They were able to develop enough additional information from witnesses to convict him of murders the following year.

No Stone Unturned

The FBI had found that a murderer careful enough to dispose of a body in a river is usually more sophisticated and often an older person. If the body is dumped in a remote area, the killer is probably an outdoors person with knowledge of the area. When the slashes on the victim’s body are vicious and directed at the sex organs, the assailant often knows the person.

If there is no sign of forced entry and the assailant stayed around at the crime scene to have a snack after killing the victim, the assailant probably lived in the neighborhood and knew the victim. In contrast, killers who don’t feel comfortable in an apartment leave immediately.

Thus, based on a few elementary facts, the FBI can draw a profile of the killer as an older man who likes the outdoors, is familiar with the area where the body was left, knows the victim, and lived in the neighborhood.

Using such analysis, the FBI over the years has helped solve thousands of cases so that serial murderers and serial rapists could not strike again.

To supplement their knowledge, FBI profilers interviewed offenders in prison. They began with assassins — Sirhan Sirhan, Sarah Jane Moore, and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme.

At one point, Bob Ressler was interviewing Edmund E. Kemper III, who had killed his mother, grandparents, and six other people. Kemper was serving multiple life sentences in California. Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer played by Anthony Hopkins in “The Silence of the Lambs,” was actually a composite of serial killers like Kemper, who removed people's heads and saved them as trophies; Edward Gein, who decorated his home with human skin; and Richard T. Chase, who ate the organs of his victims.

Harrowing Interviews

As outlined in my book “The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI,” when he was finished talking with Kemper in his cell just off death row, Ressler rang a buzzer to summon a guard to let him out. When the guard didn’t come, the 295-pound prisoner told Ressler to “relax.” He said the guards were changing shifts and delivering meals.