ShadowMan: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling

In this riveting book, Franscell (Alice & Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story) details the crimes that led to the first psychological profile created by the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. In 1973 the FBI was called to the small town of Manhattan, MT. The disappearance of seven-year-old Susie Jaeger, punctuated by mysterious phone calls from her kidnapper, spurred the largest manhunt in Montana history and uncovered connections to the disappearance of a young woman named Sandra Smallegan, also from Manhattan. The search for the perpetrator led investigators to call on FBI agents Patrick Mullany and Howard Teten, who were exploring the then new and radical concept of criminal profiling using behavioral analysis. Franscell’s narrative is gripping, and he balances the complexities of these crimes with explorations of how Mullany and Teten used their criminal profile to search for the killer responsible for the deaths of Jaeger and Smallegan (their remains were uncovered soon after Jaeger’s disappearance). Readers interested in further exploring criminal profiling might enjoy John Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI’s Original Mindhunter.