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FBI Special Agent John Douglas, famously dubbed “Mindhunter,” earned this title from his 1995 book co-authored with Mark Olshaker. The book delves into Douglas’s role in establishing the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit, previously called the Behavioral Science Unit. Alongside his colleague Robert “Bob” Ressler, Douglas interviewed numerous serial killers to pioneer the method now known as criminal profiling.
As depicted in the Netflix series “Mindhunter,” Douglas and his team engaged with notorious serial killers like Edmund Kemper, Jerry Brudos, David Carpenter, Robert Hansen, and Wayne D. Williams. Douglas even held conversations with Charles Manson, once considered America’s most infamous prisoner.
Beyond these well-known cases, the book “Mindhunter” explores lesser-documented crimes and criminals, many of whom Douglas either pursued or interacted with. This list highlights some of the more obscure yet chilling cases from Douglas’s revolutionary memoir.
10. The Tragic Killing of Betty Jean Shade
The 1979 murder of 22-year-old Betty Jean (referred to as “Jane” in Douglas’s book) Shade is portrayed in the fifth episode of the first season of “Mindhunter.” Here’s what truly happened: On her final night, Shade had a heated argument with her live-in boyfriend, Charles “Butch” Soult, Jr. Despite her resolve to end the relationship, she chose to ride in a car with Butch, his brother Michael, and their sister Catherine. The group headed to Wopsononock Mountain near Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Hours later, Logan Township police officers Steven D. Jackson and Walter Coho were called to Skyline Drive near the mountain after a jogger discovered the brutally mutilated body of a white female, later identified as Shade. Detective Howard Horton, along with Robert Long, Edward G. Pottmeyer, and Barry Bidelspach, quickly identified Butch as the primary suspect. Douglas agreed with this assessment. It was eventually revealed that Butch and Mike Soult had raped and murdered Shade. Mike not only participated in the assault but also helped his brother dispose of her body. Butch was responsible for the killing and mutilation, while Catherine Soult assisted in transporting the corpse.
The Betty Jean Shade case marked one of Douglas’s early efforts in criminal profiling. He accurately concluded that the killer came from a dysfunctional family with a controlling mother. Douglas also correctly predicted that the killer would be “inept with women,” a description that fit Butch perfectly, as he mutilated his former girlfriend after failing to engage in sexual intercourse with her before her death.
9. George Russell Jr.
George Russell Jr. was one of the first killers to challenge Douglas’s assumptions about cross-racial sexual crimes. Before 1991, Douglas and most of the American law enforcement community believed that lust murderers targeted victims of their own race—white offenders targeting white victims or Black offenders targeting Black victims. Russell’s actions defied this pattern.
Between 1990 and 1991, Russell, an attractive Black man in his thirties, brutally murdered three white women—Mary Anne Pohlreich, Andrea Levine, and Carol Marie Beethe—by bludgeoning and strangling them. Residents of Mercer Island, Washington, described Russell as charming and someone who dated women of various races. Despite his history of minor thefts, local police struggled to believe he was capable of such horrific crimes.
On June 22, 1990, the 27-year-old Pohlreich spent her final evening drinking and dancing with friends at Papagayo’s bar. Hours later, she was discovered beaten to death in her bed, a victim of what Douglas terms a “blitz-style” assault. Beethe, 35, and Levine, 24, met similar fates. As Douglas notes in “Mindhunter,” Russell’s rapid and violent approach wasn’t unique, but his extensive post-mortem posing of victims was. One woman was left in bed with a pillow over her head and a rifle inserted into her vagina. The final victim was positioned in an even more degrading manner, suggesting Russell harbored profound misogyny and a desire to humiliate women.
8. The Murder of Francine Elveson
Francine Elveson was a small, soft-spoken woman, weighing just 90 pounds and standing five feet tall. She lived with kyphoscoliosis, a spinal curvature, and spent her days teaching children with disabilities. At night, she stayed with her parents in their Pelham Parkway apartment in The Bronx.
In October 1979, a young resident of Elveson’s building found her wallet in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors. Returning it to her family, they realized Francine had missed work that day. Worried, Mrs. Elveson and neighbors searched the building, eventually finding Francine at the top of the stairs leading to the roof. She was naked, severely beaten, and had suffered fractures to her jaw, nose, and cheeks. Her killer had strangled her with her own belt and stockings, bitten her thighs, removed her nipples, inserted objects into her vagina, and left excrement at the scene.
Douglas’s profile suggested that Elveson’s killer was familiar with the apartment building and lived nearby. He also predicted the killer would have a background of mental illness, be sporadically employed or jobless, and likely rejected from military service. These details matched Carmine Calabro, who was charged with Elveson’s murder months after her body was discovered. Calabro, who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, was eventually convicted due to dental evidence linking his teeth to the bite marks on Elveson’s body.
7. Carl Stephen Mosely
Carl Stephen Mosely, referred to as “Gregory Mosely” in “Mindhunter,” targeted vulnerable women. His first victim, 35-year-old Dorothy Louise Woods-Johnson, was a widow seeking companionship. On a Friday night in April 1991, Dorothy visited the SRO Country Club in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she met Mosely. The next day, her body was discovered outside a housing development. The autopsy revealed multiple stab wounds, signs of strangulation, and bruising on her face and throat.
The second victim, 38-year-old Deborah Jane Henley, also spent her final evening at the SRO Country Club. When Deborah didn’t return home, her parents contacted the sheriff. Later that day, a farmer found her nude body in a cornfield. Like Dorothy, Deborah had bruises on her throat and face. The cases were cracked open by an anonymous tip linking Mosely to a borrowed car on the night of Deborah’s murder. Police soon discovered Mosely’s prior conviction: in 1989, he had abducted and sexually assaulted Laura Fletcher, resulting in charges for assault with a deadly weapon and second-degree rape.
Douglas’s students, Larry Ankrom and Greg Cooper, profiled Mosely as a sexual sadist with an “inadequate personality.” They also identified his obsession with control and cruelty. Mosely not only mutilated his victims before killing them but also stabbed each woman twelve times and assaulted them both vaginally and anally.
6. Larry Gene Bell
Larry Gene Bell was a quiet yet menacing killer who took pleasure in tormenting his victims. His crimes were so heinous that Douglas dedicated an entire chapter to him in “Mindhunter.” In the summer of 1985, Bell instilled fear across South Carolina, particularly among families with blonde-haired daughters.
Around 3:38 p.m. on May 31, 1985, high school senior Shari Faye Smith vanished. Her father, Robert, discovered her car in the driveway with the engine still running and immediately contacted the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. This triggered the largest manhunt in Columbia, South Carolina’s history, which turned into a kidnapping case when the abductor called the Smith family, stating: “Shari Faye was kidnapped from her mailbox at gunpoint. She was terrified.”
The torment continued with more taunting calls. One such call led Sheriff Jim Metts to Shari Faye’s body, discovered 18 miles from her home in Saluda County. The advanced decomposition made it impossible to determine the exact cause of death, but the medical examiner confirmed she had died on the day of her abduction.
Following Shari Faye’s murder, 9-year-old Debra May Helmick was abducted near her family’s trailer on Old Percival Road in Richland County, South Carolina. Helmick was killed almost immediately, and the killer again contacted the Smith family, directing them to her body. Douglas, FBI agents, and Sheriff Metts urged Dawn Smith, Shari Faye’s sister, to keep engaging the killer during his calls. Eventually, the calls were traced to Huntsville, Alabama, and linked to a phone at the Sheppard residence, 15 miles from the Smith home. While the Sheppards were cleared, suspicion fell on their house sitter, Larry Gene Bell.
Before Bell was identified, Douglas theorized that Shari Faye’s killer would be a white male in his late twenties to early thirties. He also predicted the killer had married young but divorced, lived with his parents, had a short military career ending in discharge, and was addicted to pornography. Larry Gene Bell fit this profile perfectly—a divorced loner who worked odd construction jobs, spent less than a year in the Marines before being discharged due to a knee injury, and was found with a “Hustler” magazine during the initial search of his room in the Sheppard home.
Bell never admitted to the murders. He was executed in the electric chair on October 4, 1996. To this day, Bell remains a prime suspect in the 1984 disappearance of Sandee Elaine Cornett, the girlfriend of a co-worker, and the July 1975 disappearance of Denise Newsom Porch, who was last seen near Bell’s residence at the time.
5. James R. Odom & James C. Lawson
James Russell Odom and James Clayton Lawson met in a mental institution in the mid-1970s, both incarcerated for rape at California’s Atascadero State Mental Hospital. During their time together, they discussed their twisted ambitions. Lawson fantasized about abducting women, mutilating their bodies by removing their breasts and ovaries, and inserting knives into their vaginas—everything except engaging in sexual acts. Odom, on the other hand, was solely fixated on rape.
Shortly after their release, the two men took Lawson’s father’s 1974 Ford Comet and embarked on a horrific spree. On August 29, 1975, the nude body of a 25-year-old mother of two was discovered near Columbia, South Carolina. Her breasts and genitals had been removed, and evidence suggested the killers had consumed parts of her flesh.
The case of Odom and Lawson, which concluded in 1976 with Odom sentenced to life plus forty years and Lawson executed in the electric chair on May 18, 1976, became a cornerstone study for Douglas. In a 1980 article co-authored by Douglas and Robert Hazelwood, the case was used to illustrate how sexual fantasies drive the actions of lust murderers.
4. Joseph Christopher
On September 22, 1980, 14-year-old Glenn Dunn was discovered dead in a supermarket parking lot. The next day, 32-year-old Harold Green was shot while dining at a fast-food restaurant. Later that same day, 30-year-old Emmanuel Thomas was killed outside his home. On September 24, another victim, Joseph McCoy, was shot near Niagara Falls.
The murderer, dubbed the .22-Caliber Killer due to the weapon used, was described by eyewitnesses as a young white male. Douglas theorized the killer was a “mission-oriented, assassin-style” individual driven by racism, as all victims were Black men. This theory gained traction when, on October 9, a man matching the description attacked 37-year-old Collin Cole in a Buffalo hospital, shouting “I hate niggers” before fleeing. After months of investigation, the killer was identified as 25-year-old Joseph Christopher, a US Army private.
Douglas and other investigators also linked Christopher to the “Midtown Slasher,” who stabbed four Black men and one Hispanic man to death in Manhattan over 13 hours on December 22, 1980. Douglas had earlier predicted the .22-Caliber Killer would be a serviceman—rational and organized but unable to adhere to military discipline. This fit Christopher, who committed the murders while on leave from Fort Benning.
3. Steven Brian Pennell
Delaware is primarily known as America’s “First State” for being the first to ratify the US Constitution. However, between 1987 and 1988, the state gained notoriety for a far darker reason.
During that period, a serial killer prowled US Route 40 in New Castle County, Delaware, abducting and murdering women. The first victim, 23-year-old Shirley Anne Ellis, a former prostitute, was found partially nude and bound with black tape. Her killer had struck her head multiple times with a hammer, tortured her with tools, and strangled her. Following Ellis, several other women either disappeared or were found dead, including 32-year-old Catherine A. DiMauro, 22-year-old Michele A. Gordon, 26-year-old Kathleen Anne Meyer, and 27-year-old Margaret Lynn Finner.
After consulting on the case, Douglas described the killer as a white male with a family, likely a blue-collar worker skilled with tools. He also believed the killer was familiar with Route 40 and patrolled the area nightly with a “rape kit” in his work van. The suspect, 31-year-old Steven Brian Pennell, an electrician and married father, fit this profile. Pennell, who enjoyed dominating women, matched Douglas’s description of a “macho” archetype.
Pennell, Delaware’s only documented serial killer, was executed by lethal injection on March 14, 1992.
2. Wayne Nance
Doug and Kris Wells, who became friends with Douglas, are among the rare individuals to transition from being serial killer victims to stopping a serial killer themselves. This extraordinary event unfolded on September 3, 1986.
Returning home after midnight, Doug and Kris Wells noticed an unfamiliar pickup truck parked outside their Missoula, Montana residence. Doug discovered a man sleeping inside the truck. Moments later, the man asked Doug for a flashlight. Before Doug could fetch it, the man drew a gun and forced Kris to tie Doug up. The intruder then separated them, taking Kris to a bedroom and tying Doug to a basement pole, where he was beaten and stabbed with an 8-inch knife. Miraculously, Doug freed himself, grabbed a loaded rifle, and confronted the assailant upstairs. He shot the man once, but when the attacker fought back, Doug struck him repeatedly in the head. After being shot in the leg by the intruder’s .22-caliber pistol, Doug wrestled the gun away and fatally shot the man in the head. The attacker died the next day at St. Patrick’s Hospital.
The intruder was identified as Wayne Nance, a Missoula native born in 1955. Nance knew Kris Wells because she managed Conlin’s Furniture, where he worked as a delivery driver. Nance had developed an obsession with Kris and may have planned her murder during one of his workdays.
Since the attack on the Wells family and the release of “Mindhunter,” Douglas and Montana law enforcement have repeatedly asserted that Nance was likely a serial killer responsible for at least five deaths between 1974 and 1986. His suspected and confirmed victims include Donna Pounds (1974), Devonna Nelson (1980), Marcella Cheri “Marci” Bachmann (1984), the unidentified woman known as “Christy Crystal Creek” (1985), and Michael and Teresa Shook (1985).
1. William Henry Hance
William Hance, a serial killer featured in the third episode of the second season of “Mindhunter,” was infamously known as the Stocking Strangler in Georgia. Despite being convicted on strong evidence, his 1994 execution has been criticized by some as a “legal lynching” due to his diminished mental capacity.
Starting in 1978, the Stocking Strangler broke into the homes of six elderly women in or near Columbus, Georgia, strangling them to death. All victims were white, and forensic evidence pointed to a Black male as the perpetrator. Around the same time, Columbus police received a letter on US Army stationery signed by a group calling themselves the “Forces of Evil.” The letter claimed that, in retaliation for the Stocking Strangler’s crimes, they had abducted and killed a Black prostitute named Gail Jackson.
Douglas, already involved in a major serial killer case in Atlanta, believed the “Forces of Evil” letter was a diversion created by the Stocking Strangler himself. FBI profiler Robert Ressler, a former Army MP, theorized the killer was a Black male and an enlisted soldier stationed at Fort Benning, likely serving in the artillery or military police.
After the FBI’s criminal profile circulated at Fort Benning, 26-year-old Specialist William Hance, an artillery unit member, was arrested. He confessed to the murders of Gail Jackson, Irene Thirkield, and Army private Karen Hickman, whose body was found at Fort Benning in 1977.
A year prior to the publication of “Mindhunter,” Hance gained national attention due to allegations of racism. Several jurors from his second sentencing trial claimed that racial slurs were used against Hance and the sole Black juror. Despite these accusations and Hance’s IQ being recorded at 76—placing him on the borderline of intellectual disability—his execution proceeded as scheduled.
