STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
OK. We're now joined by former FBI agent and FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole. She worked in the agency's Behavior (ph) Analysis Unit for more than a decade and is now the director of the forensic science program at George Mason University. Good morning, and welcome to the program.
MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
INSKEEP: From the word profiler, I get a little bit of an idea, but can you explain for people what it is that a profiler does in a situation like this?
O'TOOLE: Sure. So what a profiler does is we look at all of the information that's available on a case, and that would - in this case, it would include the videos that were released yesterday. And we begin to develop an understanding of the offender based on his or her behavior, and what that says in terms of their personality, what that says in terms of how they committed the crime that we're looking at. We look at what their pre-offense behavior may have been, what did they do before the crime to get to the home of the victim, and then what's their post-offense behavior likely to be like.
INSKEEP: OK. And so we can presume, if this is a normal investigation, that somebody from that Behavior Analysis Unit is doing something like the work you used to do, looking at that video. So let me think about this. We have this man. He walks up to the porch. His - he's armed and his face is covered, a little like a federal immigration agent, although it's more covered even than that. He's wearing gloves. His head's down. Other times, head up. Something in the mouth. Looks like a flashlight in the mouth. Walks up to the security camera. That's what I see. What do you see, and what do you read from that?
O'TOOLE: OK. So I see things a little the same, but also from a different perspective. I look at overall the behavior that he demonstrates while he's on the porch. He's not racing around. He's not jumping up and down. He doesn't - he's not looking over his shoulder. He actually seems to be casual. He appears to be somewhat comfortable on a porch to a home where he does not belong. He seems to be used to almost having been there before. I see someone that's walking around in very odd attire, at least from the waist up. He's wrapped up very tight, almost squeezed into his outfit. And the point there is, if this is the first time you've done something like this, how do you know how to dress like that? What are you preventing if you've never been in the situation before? So what have you learned from prior experiences? So I look at that behavior, and then based on working other kidnapping cases - especially ones where the offender kidnapped the person from their home - oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes the kidnapper had been inside other people's homes before doing whatever they do, just looking around or taking things, or they've actually been inside the victim's home before or on the victim's porch before. So that's why they have a comfort level with being there. It's not the first time.
INSKEEP: That is really compelling. Now, when you say he's wrapped up very tight, I'm imagining the video. I can picture what you mean. But what would he be doing? Why would someone, as you say, wrap up very tight, dress in just that way?
O'TOOLE: So to me, that's very important. When I say he's wrapped up really tight, he's got super heavy-duty gloves on that really almost limit the movement of his hands. He's got - the gloves go into the jacket...
INSKEEP: Right.
O'TOOLE: ...That he's wearing. His face is covered. He - in order to move around, it looks like he may have had, you know, flashlights on - attached to his backpack or somehow he's illuminated. So why do you dress like that for an event you've never experienced before? Or the reverse is perhaps more likely. You have gone in an - into an event like this before, so you know how to dress. And very likely, the reason for dressing like that is to minimize leaving behind any forensic evidence.
INSKEEP: Oh, interesting. Never touching anything directly with your - not just with your fingerprints, but even your skin. Not showing any skin or as little as possible. Does he have a flashlight in his mouth? Is that what we see in some of these images?
O'TOOLE: I've heard somebody say that he could have a flashlight in his mouth. It's still a little bit uncertain to me. But if that is true, most people would not be able to do that. There would be, for a lot of us, maybe a gag reaction.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
O'TOOLE: But he's - again, he seems to be comfortable with that. And if that is something that's in his mouth, again, it's - you have to ask yourself, is that something that he's learned that he has to do in order to use his hands to touch the camera, touch whatever it is he needs to to access that home?
INSKEEP: I was a little mystified, troubled - not sure the word - by the backpack. Why would he have brought a backpack full of something?
O'TOOLE: Two things become clear. There was - he did not access the backpack while we could see him on the camera. So whatever is in that backpack, he did not need in the initial part of contact with the house. However, he did bring it into the house. So that certainly suggests that whatever's inside the backpack, he anticipated that he would need it while he was inside of the house. I think it's also interesting that if he drove to that crime scene and that backpack was full of unnecessary items, he could've left it in the car because minimization is oftentimes the best way to prepare to go into a crime scene. But he still brought it there. So obviously, there - we have to consider that there were items inside that backpack that he felt he would need. Unfortunately, we don't know what they are, but they could be restraining devices. They could be masks. They could be other kinds of cloths to go around the victim. They could be handcuffs. But it was jam-packed with things. It could be ways to wrap a victim up so you can more easily remove them from the house. So - but whatever it was, it was important.
INSKEEP: We just got about 30 seconds left, but it sounds to me like you're telling me this guy seemed familiar in some way with the situation, maybe seemed familiar with the house. Seems to have given a lot of thought to what he was going to do and how he's going to dress and what he was going to bring. Might've done that before. Not that you're saying certainly, but there's some familiarity here.
O'TOOLE: That's what I'm saying. From what I've seen, there's familiarity with the act that he's engaged in, and maybe more specifically, even with the home itself.
INSKEEP: Mary Ellen O'Toole is a former FBI agent and FBI profiler, now a professor of forensic science at George Mason University. Thanks very much for your time.
O'TOOLE: You're very welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF SIGUR ROS' "VAROELDUR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
