Is Holden Ford Real? What you need to know about the FBI's "Mindhunter" agent

Douglas has spent more than 25 years working with the FBI, talking with some of the most infamous serial killers of all time. And long before I had inspired one of the best TV series ever to hit Netflix (sorry if I'm biased), her interviews have helped advance the field of criminal profiling and psychology forever.

So who exactly was John E. Douglas?

Douglas joined the FBI while he was only 25 years old to work on violent crimes and was part of the SWAT team. He later became an instructor in Hostage Negotiation and Criminal Psychology at the FBI National Academy., according to a profile of him in the Powell Tribune.

It was only when he began to be sent all over the country to give courses in criminal psychology that he had the idea of ​​interviewing serial killers them. themselves, in order to truly understand how their minds work.

During his career, Douglas has interviewed some of the most notorious serial killers in history.

In the first year of his project, Douglas interviewed 59 serial killers. The following year, that number doubled and by 1995, Douglas had received more than 1,000 (!) Criminal Profile Requests. He spoke with Charles Manson, Edmund Kemper and Ted Bundy, to name a few.

His visits to Bundy also helped Douglas create the criminal profile that would eventually lead to the apprehension of the Green River Killer in Washington. The Guardian.

Soon, Douglas began to notice trends in the stories told by the serial killers.

Most of the people he spoke to belonged to "a kind of dysfunctional family," he told Powell Tribune in 1999. Anyone who grew up in an abusive family will not become a serial killer of course (and thanks to God), but it was – with a history of animal cruelty and fires – something that Douglas heard often.

(For your information, these two childhood behaviors, combined with bedwetting, have been dubbed the MacDonald triad, which was once thought to predict serial killers, but this theory has no evidence to support it. .)

Look at all the others Hunter of spirit characters based on real people:

Douglas wrote the book Hunter of spirit after his retirement from the FBI in 1995.

Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's elite serial crime unit

As everyone could imagine, being a criminal profiler is a pretty painful job.

After a successful career at the FBI, he has contributed to investigations on Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber), Robert Hansen (Butcher Baker) and the case of intoxication by Tylenol …and recovering from a viral encephalitis attack that almost killed him, Douglas leaves the office in the 90s Powell Tribune.

"It causes stress in the family," Douglas said Vulture A few years later, in May 2019. "Suppose your child falls off a bicycle and hurts his arm, you go home and it's a big problem.But you saw, earlier in the day, a young child brutally murdered, meet as if you were hardened. "

Since he hung up his FBI jacket, Douglas has since continued to consult cases …including the murder of Jon-Benet Ramsey– and wrote several books about his experiences at the FBI.

Douglas admits he has used his profiling skills in daily interactions.

Given the time he spent on the clock, Douglas did not leave his skills at the FBI at the door (blame you?). In his recent interview with Vulture, he said, he was accused of profiling people in public, which has already caused a confrontation with a man who took pictures of children in public without their knowledge. Her skills would also have left some of her daughter's buddies a little stressed.

"It was crazy," he said about a particular interaction. "But in reality, everyone has a profile, we rate people according to their appearance, their clothing or non-verbal, but you can be wrong in your assessment of this. conversation and ask questions. "

Hunter of spirit Douglas is not his first foray into Hollywood.

If you were to name your favorite criminal profiler in pop culture (aside from Holden Ford, of course), it's more than likely that Douglas's career inspired the character.

Roles in Thesilenceofthelambs, Hannibal, and Criminal minds are all based on interviews conducted by Douglas and his team with violent offenders in prison. (This man is a icon.) And given the recent boom in pop culture of real crime, you can bet with confidence Hunter of spirit It will not be Douglas' latest collaboration with the big screen or the big screen.

For my part, I can not wait to see where he (or a renamed version of him, rather) appears next.