Robert Ressler facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Robert Ressler
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Ressler in 1986
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Robert Kenneth Ressler
February 15, 1937 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
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| Died | May 5, 2013 (aged 76) |
| Alma mater | Michigan State University |
| Occupation | FBI agent, author |
| Known for | Criminal profiling |
| Military career | |
| Branch | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1957–1962 |
| Rank | Major |
Robert Kenneth Ressler (February 15, 1937 – May 5, 2013) was an American FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s. After retiring from the FBI, he authored a number of books on criminals, and often gave lectures on criminology.
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Early life
Robert Ressler grew up on North Marmora Avenue in Chicago, Illinois and graduated from Schurz High School, Class of 1955. He was the son of Joseph, who worked in security and maintenance at the Chicago Tribune, and Gertrude Ressler. Ressler attended two years at a community college before joining the U.S. Army and was stationed in Okinawa. After two years in the army Ressler decided to enroll in the School of Criminology and Police Administration at Michigan State University. He graduated with a bachelor's degree and started graduate work but only finished one semester before going back into the army as an officer, having also completed an ROTC program at Michigan State.
Military career
Ressler served in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1962 as a provost marshal of a platoon of MPs in Aschaffenburg, as he states in his autobiography Whoever Fights Monsters. He was in charge of solving cases such as homicides, robberies, and arson. After four years in Germany, Ressler decided to leave the position and was reassigned as the Commander of a Criminal Investigation Division (CID) at Fort Sheridan. He then went back to Michigan State to finish his master's in police administration, paid for by the army, in exchange for two more years of service after graduation. After he received his degree, he served a year in Thailand and a year in Fort Sheridan, where he ended his career with the army as a major, and moved on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
FBI career
Ressler joined the FBI in 1970 and was recruited into the Behavioral Science Unit, which deals with drawing up psychological profiles of violent offenders.
Ressler and retired Detective Pierce Brooks of the LAPD were instrumental in setting up Vi-CAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program). This consists of a centralized computer database of information on unsolved homicides. Vi-CAP would help individual police forces determine if they were hunting for the same perpetrator so that they could share and correlate information with one another, increasing their chances of identifying a suspect.
Later life and death
Ressler retired from the FBI in 1990 and authored a number of books about crime. He actively gave lectures to students and police forces on the subject of criminology.
Ressler died at his home in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, on Sunday May 5, 2013, from Parkinson's disease, aged 76.
Model for fictional characters
A screenplay adapted from his colleague John E. Douglas' book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit was picked up by Netflix. Mindhunter stars Holt McCallany, who plays the character Special Agent Bill Tench, a lead character based on Ressler. In 2021, Ressler was portrayed by Jake Hays in Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman. In 2024, Ressler was portrayed by Sean Cameron Michael in South Africa's Catch Me a Killer (TV series).
Selected books
- Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (with Tom Shachtman) (1992)
- Justice Is Served (with Tom Shachtman) (1994)
- I Have Lived in the Monster (with Tom Shachtman) (1998)
See also
- Crime Classification Manual
- FBI method of profiling
- Forensic psychology
- Investigative psychology
- Offender profiling
