All About FBI Profiles!

I had a talk with an FBI profiler and learned a ton which I'll share with you.

I’m back! As (almost) always, it’s in response to Jens Söring. He’s promised us a series of 14 (!) new videos about his case. Apparently none of them will be with Daniela Hillers, who just wrote a 540-page book pleading Söring’s case. I wonder what’s going on there? The interviews will apparently be with familiar members of Team Söring 1.0, so I suspect we won’t learn much new. On the other hand, Söring supporters here and elsewhere keep hinting they’re about to release damaging information about my sinister machinations, but they’ve been teasing this for almost five years now and have provided nothing. I’m eager to see what they’ll come up with, and whether it will be “actionable”, as we lawyers say.

Söring just released the first video, an English-language interview (with German subtitles) with Chuck Reid, who investigated the Haysom murders from April 1985 to early 1986. Reid was not present during Söring’s London confessions and didn’t testify at Soering’s trial. I may have a few remarks about the interview later, but for now I wanted to share something of broader interest: What evidence is there that an FBI profile was created in the Soering case? Both Söring and Reid simply accept as given that one exists, and that both the FBI and Bedford County must therefore be covering it up.

I decided to go straight to an expert: Julia Cowley, retired FBI profiler and co-host of the excellent true-crime podcast The Consult. Along with other genuine FBI profilers, Cowley analyzes famous criminal cases minutely from the perspective of an investigator trying to piece together reasonable inferences about the perpetrator from the circumstances of a crime and the relationships of the people involved. It’s detailed, thorough, objective, and fascinating — strongly recommended!

Cowley was kind enough to talk to me for about an hour about FBI profiling in general, and the evidence about the possible existence / non-existence of a profile in the case of Jens Söring. Here are the highlights:

Key Points

• Ed Sulzbach was in fact a member of the founding generation of FBI profilers in the Behavioral Sciences Unit, and was thus an FBI profiler at the time of the Haysom murders.

• In the early decades, FBI offender profiles were hit-and-miss in terms of quality. The profession was new, the empirical grounding still thin, and profilers sometimes drew highly specific inferences justified more by hunches than facts. In their series on the “The Oak Grove Cemetery Murders”, for instance, the Consult profilers indeed criticizes a profile from 1992 on these grounds. Profiling, however, has matured considerably since that time.

• FBI profiles are not public documents, but the FBI will usually release non-sensitive profiles about closed cases when requested to do so under the Freedom of Information Act. When that happens, the document will likely contain many redactions intended to protect privacy and sources and methods. The FBI will sometimes seek excuses to resist complying with FOIA requests, but Stan Lapekas, as a former FBI officer, likely knew all the special phrases needed to get around these obstacles and provoke a full release.

• The fact that the FBI does not have a copy of the profile is an indicator no profile was created, but it’s not conclusive, since the profile may have been filed under another case number or otherwise misplaced.

• A stronger inference comes from the fact that the FBI file on the Haysom case contained very little information. It takes months of close cooperation to create a formal offender profile, and this usually generates a large paper trail: requests and receipts for transfer of crime scene photos, evidence, and witness statements; requests for additional information and clarification; field reports; research memos, etc. Much of this is subject to release (with necessary redactions) under FOIA if the case is closed and non-sensitive, as is the case here. The fact that there is basically none of this in the Haysom FBI file is a strong indicator no profile exists.

• An even stronger inference comes from the fact that no local law enforcement agencies have a copy of the profile. Completed profiles are, of course, shared with local law enforcement agencies, since that’s basically the whole point. The report may be sent to multiple agencies and people. Even if the FBI misplaced the profile, Bedford County certainly would have it. In my experience, they would also likely have been open about the fact that they asked the FBI to provide a profile — this proves that they’re taking the case seriously and bringing in the big guns, thus responding to the community’s intense desire to see the crime solved.

• Ricky Gardner noted that Bedford County never requested a profile because the process of doing so required you to fill out a questionnaire so detailed it would take “three college professors” to do it. In 1985 and also today, it was not mandatory, but it was preferred, for local law enforcement to fill out what’s called a ViCAP questionnaire, short for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. You can download the current version of this questionnaire here. As you can see, the questionnaire is 39 pages long. The reason for the detail is clear: The more you know about the circumstances of the crime, the more information you can plug into databases to search for patterns. Cowley said that it was common for local law enforcement agencies not to fill out the questionnaire, and that profilers would instead work from the direct sources — assuming, that is, that they were ever asked to create a profile in the first place.

Conclusion

Cowley was happy to give her conclusion, with the obvious caveat that she hasn’t studied the affair in-depth and was relying on what I told her (including that an anonymous Telex from early in the investigation did claim that a profile had been created). She said she would conclude, based on the evidence, that no profile was ever created, based on (1) Bedford County’s insistence, then and now, that it never requested an FBI profile; (2) the absence of a paper trail regarding the months-long collaborative process of preparing a profile; (3) the FBI’s practice of releasing profiles upon request when the case is closed, and the fact that a former FBI agent formulated the request; and (4) The absence of a profile in Bedford County’s files.

So, to sum up — these are now my own conclusions — there was never an FBI offender profile in the Söring case. The only evidence in favor is the brief comment in an anonymous Telex. Bedford County District Attorney Jim Updike noted in a June 18, 1985 letter that Ed Sulzbach had visited the crime scene and “stated” his conclusions, but does not mention a profile. The evidence against the profile’s existence is as follows: Söring’s supporters have made heroic efforts to find one, and have come up empty. The FBI denies it has a profile. Bedford County denies it has a profile. The only person entitled to formally request a profile , Ricky Gardner, has denied submitting such a request. Terry Wright, who worked at the FBI and had first-hand knowledge of their policies and practices, denied a report was created.

So, to sum up, we can state with near-certainty that no FBI report was ever created. Team Söring clearly bears the burden of proving one did exist, and they have failed. Ergo, no report exists. My offer of €1000 to anyone who can furnish me with a copy of the FBI offender profile in the Haysom murders still stands, but I’m not putting any money aside to pay it off.

This blog will likely come back to life — sporadically — as Söering releases new videos. So thanks for reading, and stay tuned!