Serial Killer Psychology Exposed: Inside the Real Mindhunter - Part 1

About this episode

Mark Olshaker discusses the psychology of serial killers and the FBI's profiling techniques in this episode.

Documentary filmmaker and Mindhunter co-author Mark Olshaker opens with one of the most chilling sequences in American criminal history: Ed Kemper - a 6-foot-8 serial predator who targeted hitchhiking co-eds to punish a mother who told him he'd never be loved - then drove to Nevada, called the Santa Cruz police from a payphone, and said, "It's me. I've done it. Come and get me." In this Part 1 conversation with hosts Craig Floyd, Dennis Collins, and Bill Erfurth of Heroes Behind Behind the Badge, Olshaker traces how two FBI agents armed with nothing but their badges started interviewing the worst serial predators in American history - and built a system that changed how killers are caught. He reveals what goes on inside the mind of a serial killer before, during, and after a crime — and how those prison interviews became the Emmy-nominated documentary Mind of a Serial Killer and the book that named the movement: Mindhunter . The conversation goes deep on Ed Kemper's displacement psychology, Sam Little's 90 confessed murders, and why FBI legend John Douglas once described Kemper as "rather likable." Olshaker also unpacks the crucial difference between MO and signature, and why…

People in this episode

Hosts: Craig Floyd, Dennis Collins, Bill Erfurth

Guest: Mark Olshaker

Topics covered

• serial killer psychology
• FBI profiling
• criminal history
• documentary filmmaking
• interviews with serial killers

Keywords

• serial killer
• FBI
• Ed Kemper
• Mindhunter
• criminal psychology
• interviews
• profiling
• documentary

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Mind of a Serial Killer, Mindhunter

More episodes of Heroes Behind the Badge

• Sheriff Mike Neal — The Walmart Shooting and What He Brought Home | Part 2 · June 4, 2026 · 31 min
• Sheriff Mike Neal — 16 Years of Survivor Guilt After the West Memphis Ambush | Part 1 · June 2, 2026 · 34 min
• Rafael A. Mangual - The Data Behind "Criminal [In]Justice" | Part 2 · May 21, 2026 · 39 min
• Rafael A. Mangual - Why Killers Walk While Cops Go to Prison | Part 1 · May 19, 2026 · 33 min
• Blake Boteler — The Bounty, the Arrests, and the Funeral That Never Happened | Part 2 · May 7, 2026 · 29 min
• He Spent 2 Years Undercover With the Sons of Silence (Part 1) | ATF Agent Blake Boteler · May 5, 2026 · 39 min