Featured Image Credit: (Hulu)
Topics: Disney Plus, TV, True Crime, Crime
Brenna Cooper
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see inside the mind of a serial killer?
What drives human beings to commit horrific acts of violence will always be something alien to the majority of people. Nonetheless, the psychology of humanity's most twisted individuals has long been a source of fascination for popular media and true crime fanatics alike.
Getting inside the mind of a killer is also the most efficient way to apprehend one, with a new three-part series revealing the woman whose methods changed crime scene investigation forever.
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Check out the trailer below:
Available soon on Disney+ in the UK and currently available to watch on Hulu in the US, Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer is a gripping new true crime series which follows the story of Dr. Ann Burgess - a pioneer in the field of FBI's Behavioural Science Unit.
The show, produced by famous sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning, details how psychiatric nurse and professor Ann was able to theorise that if police wanted to have a better understanding of how criminals operated, they would have to first think like one.
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America in the 1970s and 80s was not a safe place to be. With killers such as Son of Sam and the Zodiac Killer on the loose across the country, the FBI was left scratching their heads on how to prevent further bloodshed.
Enter D. Burgess, an 'outsider' to the male-dominated world who had a theory on how to transform the method in which these monsters are tracked down and caught.
With a background of helping victims of traumatic violence, Burgess had a unique set of skills for law enforcement in the states.
She began to listen to tapes of interviews with famous serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Ed Kemper and more.
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"I started listening to the tapes and what I found was fascinating," Burgess, now 87, recalls in the documentary. "I was finding patterns that I'd never noticed before."
The series also examines the impact of Burgess being the first woman to work at the FBI at a time where women were seen as something to be 'protected', adding that the agency was not 'ready' for the change.
Burgess' work would later prove pivotal in cracking cases such as the Menéndez brothers, Jon B. Simonis (aka the Ski Mask Rapist) and Brian Dugan.
So how does a serial killer think? Speaking in an interview with The Guardian about her work, Burgess explained that a lot of her work led her back to childhood, as well as experiencing dark fantasies about rape and murder.
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"What we essentially found is it started young with some kind of experience," she said.
"We were very interested in childhood issues."