The Cases That Haunt Us

Violent. Provocative. Shocking.
Call them what you will…but don't call them open and shut.
Did Lizzie Borden murder her own father and stepmother? Was Jack the Ripper actually the Duke of Clarence? Who killed JonBenet Ramsey? America's foremost expert on criminal profiling and twenty-five-year FBI veteran John Douglas, along with author and filmmaker Mark Olshaker, explores those tantalizing questions and more in this mesmerizing work of detection. With uniquely gripping analysis, the authors reexamine and reinterpret the accepted facts, evidence, and victimology of the most notorious murder cases in the history of crime, including the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the Zodiac Killer, and the Whitechapel murders. Utilizing techniques developed by Douglas himself, they give detailed profiles and reveal chief suspects in pursuit of what really happened in each case. The Cases That Haunt Us not only offers convincing and controversial conclusions, it deconstructs the evidence and widely held beliefs surrounding each case and rebuilds them — with fascinating, surprising, and haunting results.
Amazon.com ReviewConfident in his opinions and systematic in his examination of high-profile whodunits, FBI veteran John Douglas proves his worth once again as one of the world's best psychological detectives. You may think you've read all there is about Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, and the Lindbergh kidnapping, but Douglas has a few surprise conclusions in his modern analysis of these gripping crimes. By applying criminal personality profiling techniques he developed while stalking more current killers, Douglas provides a fresh, sage outlook on some disturbing history. He also sheds new light on San Francisco's Zodiac Killer, the Black Dahlia murder, Bambi Bembenek, the Boston Strangler, and the continuing mystery of who killed 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey. Douglas sometimes reveals his chief suspect; other times he simply narrows down who the killer is not. In the JonBenét mystery (in which Douglas was hired by the Ramseys to find the killer), he presents a convincing case for why he believes the girl's parents are not guilty of murder. Douglas is founder of the FBI's Serial Killer Profiling Unit. His method of solving a crime by entering the mind of the killer inspired Thomas Harris's book The Silence of the Lambs. In this dissection of our most sensational crimes, Douglas proves that reality can be more horrifying than fiction. --Jodi Mailander Farrell
From Publishers WeeklyFBI veteran Douglas is best known as the inventor of criminal profiling as an investigative tool, and in this superbly written and narratively taut new work, he teams up again with Olshaker, his coauthor on the bestselling Mindhunter, to look at eight murder cases that have transfixed the popular imagination. By systematically applying the most advanced techniques of criminology to the information available, he provides new insights and suppositions, even into cases as well trod as that of Jack the Ripper, in some cases identifying who the murderer is, in other cases only who it is not. The cases involve Lizzie Borden, the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the Zodiac killer (who went on a murder rampage throughout the San Francisco Bay area about 30 years ago), the Black Dahlia Murder, Bambi Bembenek, the Boston Strangler, and the still unresolved murder of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey on Christmas 1996 (Douglas has served as a consultant and an expert witness for the grand jury in this case). In the Ramsey case, although he cannot identify the killer of JonBenet, Douglas is adamant that the parents, John and Patricia Ramsey, did not commit the crime. He profiles the killer as a young man or teen with a personal and specific grudge against John Ramsey. Agent, Jay Acton.