John Douglas

John Edward Douglas (born June 18, 1945) is an American retired FBI special agent who pioneered modern criminal profiling. Raised in Hempstead, New York after being born in Brooklyn, he initially pursued veterinary studies before joining the United States Air Force in 1966, where he completed his bachelor’s degree at Eastern New Mexico University. After meeting FBI agent Frank Haines, Douglas entered the Bureau in 1970, serving first in Detroit as a sniper and hostage negotiator before moving to the Behavioral Science Unit in 1977. There he created and managed the FBI’s Criminal Profiling Program—later known as the Behavioral Analysis Unit—and eventually became unit chief of the Investigative Support Unit within the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. His work involved traveling nationwide to teach agents and police officers, interviewing notorious serial killers such as David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson and Edmund Kemper, and translating those insights into seminal texts like Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives and the Crime Classification Manual. Douglas’s profiles were instrumental in high‑profile cases, including the Atlanta Child Murders, the capture of Robert Hansen, and the investigation of the Shreveport killings linked to Nathaniel Code. After 25 years of service, he retired in 1995 but has remained active as a consultant, expert witness, and prolific author, co‑writing best‑sellers such as Mindhunter and The Anatomy of Motive. In recent years he has shared his expertise through public speaking, a MasterClass partnership, and the popular Netflix series Mindhunter, where the character Holden Ford is directly based on him.

Beyond his law‑enforcement career, Douglas earned a master’s degree in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin (1977) and a doctorate in education from Nova University (1989). He has authored numerous non‑fiction works, true‑crime novels, and instructional guides that continue to shape the fields of forensic psychology and investigative policing. His legacy endures in both academic circles and mainstream media, cementing his reputation as one of the most influential criminal profilers of the modern era.