Writers Tricks of the Trade Volume 6 Issue 3 | Page 14

Life Stories (Cont’d)

year of prep school and then the academy). However, I had saved quite a bit of money while in the Navy
with the intention of going to college when I got out, and that’s exactly what I did.
I had to wait a few months, so I worked for my dad and made pretty good money providing his
bricklayers with brick and mortar all day. It was hard work, but I was young and making triple the minimum
wage, so I was doing just fine. I worked for him on weekends and summers while I was in college. With what
I’d saved and made working, it was no problem making payments for tuition and books. But at that time, the
state college I attended was on the quarter system and cost $95 per term. Or about $400 if one attended
during summer. That’s what I did, and finished in 3 years.
By a strange stroke of luck, I registered late and there were some Police Science classes available. I took
the Intro class and added several more general education classes to fill out my schedule. The first Police
Science class was interesting, so I claimed that as my major with minors in both Psychology and Sociology.
That choice turned out to be a good one about fifteen years later when the FBI was hand-picking agents in
the field to be trained as the very first group of ‘Field Profilers.’
In my senior year I took a class called Criminal Typologies, and that really piqued my interest in the ‘why’
of things relative to criminals committing various crimes. I also paid a lot of attention in my Criminology
classes and Juvenile Delinquency classes. Having done that I had a much better educational background to
be a profiler than a lot of other agents.
The Ventura Police Department in California was recruiting at 4-year colleges for people majoring in
Police Science or something related. At the time they were the only police department in the country (and
perhaps the world) which required a Bachelor’s Degree. I did the testing they wanted and did pretty well I
suppose. During a Christmas break I drove out there to be interviewed and look over the department. The
town was beautiful, about 60 miles north of L.A. and right on the coast. It seemed like a great place to live
and work. They were hiring seven officers in June of that year, which was right after I finished school. Since
my testing put me on top of the list, I got an offer before I graduated. When I was in the Navy I liked
California, so it wasn’t hard to go back. I was married by then and my wife, who was a teacher, was
pregnant. Having a job locked up was perfect timing.
I finished first in my police academy class and after 1 ½ years on patrol was promoted to detective, then
to sergeant in 2 ½ years. All record times. I began working on a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice at
California Lutheran University, completed that and worked on a second one in Public Administration at the
University of Southern California. My intent was to eventually be the police chief in Ventura or elsewhere.
While going to school at USC, I was in classes with some guys from the LA FBI office. They encouraged me to
apply to the Agency, and I tested fourth out of about 10,000 people in the USA. That got me an appointment
as a Special Agent. I spent about nine years as a cop and just over twenty as an agent.
My first book, “FBI Diary: Profiles of Evil,” is the only book that takes the reader directly into the training
we received as what we were then called—‘Psychological Profilers. I went to quite a number of in-service
classes over the course of years. We learned about some of the other solved cases around the country and
investigators from various agencies presented cases for us to brainstorm and provide leads for if possible. In
addition to that, over the course of one summer I spent three months working with the Behavioral Sciences

MAY - JUNE 2016

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WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE