Meet Dr. Ann Burgess: The nurse who profiled serial killers for the FBI

Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess — American forensic and psychiatric nurse, researcher, and professor at Boston College — is renowned for pioneering criminal profiling with the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. Her interviews with notorious killers like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Ed Kemper — specifically her focus on analyzing victim selection and psychopathic patterns — revolutionized investigative approaches.

In the 1970s and ’80s, Dr. Burgess worked with the FBI to develop profiling techniques that aided in the eventual apprehensions of several serial killers, including Dennis Rader, the “BTK Strangler,” and Gary Ridgway, the “Green River Killer.”

Recently, American stand-up comedian Yoshi Obayashi visited Dr. Burgess to discuss her incredible career. On the latest episode of “Normal World,” Yoshi joined Dave Landau and the panel to share his experience visiting the woman who inspired the highly popular Netflix series “Mindhunter.”

Yoshi calls Dr. Burgess “the most remarkable person” he’s ever met — “equal if not greater” than the agents who established the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit.

He shares the hilarious anecdote of reading Dr. Burgess’ book “Rape, Crisis and Recovery,” which displays the word “Rape” in much larger print than the rest of the title, on a late-night train in New York City. His choice of material earned him some hostile glances from fellow passengers.

“I’m just kind of talking to myself,” saying things like, “Oh my god, that’s true,” and, “This is great,” but “I didn’t realize the whole time I was saying that, people were seeing me reading a book called ‘Rape,’” Yoshi laughs. “It just looked like I was learning how to rape.”

The book, however, is no laughing matter. Dr. Burgess was inspired to write it from her days serving as a nurse at Boston City Hospital in the early 1970s, when she noticed a high number of rape victims seeking care. The issue, she observed, was poorly understood by both the public and professionals, leading to the blame often being placed on the victims.

She, along with fellow nurse Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, co-founded one of the first hospital-based rape crisis counseling programs and conducted groundbreaking research, during which they interviewed hundreds of victims.

Impressed by her work, Robert Hazelwood, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, asked Burgess to present her findings on victimology and the psychological impacts of sexual violence to FBI agents in training.

Yoshi says that the room full of male agents initially dismissed Burgess.

“They were just kind of smirking and not paying any sort of respect to her,” but once it became “clear that she [knew] what she was talking about,” when she “started showing pictures” of women who had been severely beaten and raped, the agents “got really serious,” says Yoshi. “They didn’t realize how serious a problem this was.”

Dr. Burgess’ work helped agents better understand the “sexual violence” that often accompanies serial murders.

“It has a lot to do with fantasy and things like that,” says Yoshi.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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