Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Your Body is not a Psychopath

Really it isn't! It isn't trying to trick you! A body is a machine that works properly unless you mess up its functioning by drugging it out.

I am sure you have heard that if you don't eat enough calories, your body will hold onto the weight because it thinks you are starving to death. To date, I have never understood that belief, if there is truly any scientific evidence of this, or if this is just an effort by worried people to keep one from becoming anorexic. Note the word "anorexic"? If your body was trying to keep you from losing weight, no one would be anorexic. What the body appears to do is need less and less calories as one gets thinner and less active, so eating like a bird can keep you alive.

I have now lost ten pounds on my diet in the first fourteen days. My body hasn't kept me from losing weight, but you can see if you want to lose weight this quickly, you can't each much. Now, for the last ten pounds I need to lose, it may go more slowly, not because my body is refusing to give up the weight, but because I need even less calories at 142 and below to maintain weight than I did at 152 to maintain weight. When I get to 132, I will never be able to eat as much as I did when I was twenty pounds heavier if I want to stay at 132. You don't get to eat as much as you do when you are heavier, so you have to accept a lot smaller dinner plates.

So, check out my diet for the last two weeks and see how it worked (you will see the days I didn't get to the store to shop or was racing around and ate bits of not so healthy stuff, but, luckily, I didn't eat much else and didn't get discouraged and go crazy the next day).

ONDAY Oct 4 - 152 pounds

Bought foods and didn’t eat until I went shopping at Whole Foods late in the afternoon. I bought a salad and made a banana-blueberry ice cream (4 bananas) in the evening. Two frozen bananas in the “ice cream” and some fresh blueberries. So low calorie but what a great fulfilling dessert!

No exercise. Back injury.

TUESDAY Oct 5 – 150 pounds

Papaya/banana/kale green smoothie. Not that good. Spiced it up. Three glasses. One papaya, one banana.

Banana/strawberry ice cream – 2 frozen bananas and fresh strawberries. Always yummy! Great with blueberries, too.

2 bowls of Haeste’s savory stews made with tomatoes, celery, cucumber, squash spinach, and a T of honey. I made the curry/cilantro version. On the second bowl, I added a sliced up banana and it thickened the stew and turned it into a version of Puerto Rican Mafongo! Great find!

No exercise. Back injury.

WEDNESDAY Oct 6 – 148 pounds

One glass leftover papaya/banana/kale green smoothie.

3 dishes of “oatmeal”. Two with one mashed banana and chopped strawberries and one with one mashed banana and a sliced thinly apple. All sprinkled with cinnamon. The one with strawberries made a nice breakfast that did remind me of oatmeal with the crappy mucky part. Apple version tastes like apple cobbler or apple pie!

Five large stuffed “burritos” made with nori. Stuffed with carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, spinach, red pepper, add cilantro. Added Matouk’s hot sauce and pickled ginger. Turned out like big sushi rolls. Loved it! Very filling and made a nice, big meal that had pretty much no calories!

No exercise. Back injury.

THURSDAY Oct 7 – 147 pounds

Two glasses of canteloupe/parlsey green smoothie. Delicious and refreshing!

One salad of spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, handful of washed dulse and mango/tomato/lemon nonfat dressing. A little bland but filling. Need to find a way to make it a little more thrilling. But, almost zero calories! Added a t of honey and a t or more of Dijon mustard. Makes it a bit more interesting. I used it as a dip but still not exciting enough for that. Could be used as a dressing but I still think it needs more something. I like the mango and tomato base, though. I now have added garlic and cider vinegar and it is a bit better and then, curry, better still. I will try it on a cabbage dish.

I/2 cup lime pudding. I was aiming for key lime flavor. Didn’t quite work out! 1 cup has 1 banana, ½ pear, and ¾ of a lime, including skin. The skin didn’t work out here. I used it in a different recipe and it added zing. Here it adds too much zing and the pieces and little pieces were still intact. So, I ended up with what had the consistency and taste of applesause with lime and little annoying bits.

Had my “oatmeal” with one banana/strawberries but this time I sprinkled it with carob powder. I have never been that found of carob powder and it didn’t this dish didn’t taste anywhere as good as the one sprinkled with cinnamon.

5 more of my stuffed “burritos” with pickled ginger.

FRIDAY Oct 8 – 146.5 pounds

Bowl of “oatmeal” with 2 bananas, 1 apple and cinnamon.

I glass of cantaloupe/parsley green smoothie left over from yesterday.

No exercise. Back injury.

SAT OCT 9 – 146.5 pounds

Bowl of gazpacho soup and glass of white wine at restaurant

Piece of chocolate at hair salon

Salad at restaurant with dried cranberries

I bite of pizza crust

SUN OCT 10 – 146.5 pounds

1 Thai papaya salad with peanuts and one glass white wine

6 pizza bites with mustard

MON OCT 11- 146 pounds

2 salads with mango/tomato/balsamic vinegar dressing – Frederic Patanaude. This is a great dressing!

3 glasses of smoothie – watermelon, cucumber, tomato, banana, and dill. Very tasty and refreshing!

TUES OCT 12 - 147 pounds

Grr. So it is a starvation day since I went up. Had carrots and salsa and the previous days watermelon drink with kale added. Liked it much better the way I made it yesterday.

WED OCT 13 – 146 pounds

I salad with half a cup of mango/tomato/balsamic dressing

Pile of cabbage with the other half of the dressing.

One cup of Pakistani rice

Jogged on twenty minute lap around the lake and then one more lap walking with six sprints

THURS OCT 14 - 145 pounds

Banana “oatmeal” with pear and cinnamon. One banana and one pear.

Watermelon green smoothie – ½ baby watermelon, 1 banana, 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber and dill

½ cup Pakistani rice

FRI OCT 15 – 144.5

One salad with nonfat Caesar dressing

½ cup Pakistani Rice (last of the batch from Mohammad’s mom; I am so sad. She is a great cook!)

4 carrots and salsa

One glass watermelon, banana, tomato, and dill smoothie

Jogged twenty minutes around lake. Walked second lap with six sprints.

Sat Oct 16 –145

1 bean burrito

½ cup Pakistani beans (oh, yummy, more from Mohammed's mom!)

1/3 ww chapatti

No exercise

SUN OCT 17 – 145 lbs

1 papaya thai salad

I veg tartare

2 glasses white wine

½ cup Pakistani beans

¼ chapatti

No exercise

MON OCT 18 – 144 lbs

1 dark chocolate bar

½ cup Pakistani beans

¼ chapatti

No exercise

TUES OCT 19 – 142.5 lbs

1 banana

1 salad with no fat dressing

Banana/apple “oatmeal” with cinnamon

Miso soup with cabbage, spinach, and agar agar strips to thicken it (don’t do this again; it turns into gunk)

No exercise.

WED OCT 17 – 142 lbs

4 pieces of curried seitan

2 spoonfuls of eggplant salad

1 big piece of spiced tofu

(got these from the salad bar; finally went shopping at Fresh Fields so I can make my green smoothies again)

Big round disk of kelp

1 apple

1 mango

No exercise.

THURSDAY OCT 21 – 142 pounds

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Is the Chandra Levy Case really Solved?

Today the jury selection for the trial of Ingmar Guandique begins. He is the defendant who, after the Washington Post ran a series of articles skewering the Metropolitan Police Department for not solving the murder of Chandra Levy, suddenly received increased scrutiny and then was charged with the crime. He had attacked two other women in Rock Creek Park around the time Levy was killed and while he was certainly interviewed at the time about the intern, that avenue of investigation was not pursued.

But, after the articles, the case was solved. Not by DNA or any witness but because a cellmate said Guandique confessed to him. No matter that the con might be lying; after all, he was sexually assaulted by Guandique. I think the defense is going to tear that testimony to shreds.

I really have no clue what the prosecution really has that would convince a jury that Guandique is guilty. No question he is a sex predator and a violent man and maybe even a braggart as he did talk about Levy and have her picture in prison with him. But there is still no physical evidence tying him to the crime and, in truth, no good circumstantial evidence either.For that matter, there is more circumstantial evidence on ex-Congressman Gary Condit, Levy's married lover, than Guandique.

There are a couple of puzzling things about the crime that don't support Guandique as the killer. One is the isolated location Levy was found in. It was a rather odd place for her to be running and an odd place for a nonrunner, a predator, to be lurking away as it was far from any entrance to the park and was a twisty narrow little path. However, that spot was a very convenient place for a body to be dumped as there was a nice place to pull a car off the road just above the ravine where she was discovered . It was a road that was very close to Condit's condo. Secondly, Levy was supposed to have been hogtied, according to the jailhouse snitch. In all my years as a profiler, I can't remember a single case where an anger retaliatory serial killer (the quick and violent kind Guandique would be) bothered to tie up a jogger; it is easier to simply to bludgeon her or strangle her and be done with it. Besides, it is a waste of time to tie someone up if one does not need to move her to another location (say, from a condo to a car) or want to commit lengthy sadistic acts. And hogtying a woman also interfere with rape unless it is anal rape.

I have no problem with Guandique being the right guy and convicting him for Chandra Levy's death. I don't even feel a bit sorry for him to be accused of the crime. But, if it is not Ingmar Guandque, I don't want the jury convicting him and letting the real killer walk free.

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Profiling your Weight Loss Speed

DAY 12 of my diet - `144.5 pounds - total loss so far - 7.5 pounds

Willpower and metabolism, two issues about weight loss we get half right and half wrong. One of my male Facebook friends commented that us ladies lack willpower, that the reason we are fat is that we make poor choices, not that we have addiction issues or hormone problems. I agree with him halfway. He is very correct that we get fat because we put more food in our mouths that we do not need to eat to maintain a healthy weight. It would help women to accept this fact because that way we can get to the bottom of why we keep doing that.

Simply put, if eating a one egg and a piece of toast and drinking a glass of orange juice for breakfast, having a salad for lunch with lowfat dressing, a couple pieces of fruit for a snack, and one plate of spaghetti and a piece of bread keep our weight at the same place as the day before, this is what we need to maintain our bodies. If we add four pieces of bacon with our breakfast, a piece of danish we found on a table at work, add a half a sandwich to our lunch, eat five pieces of that tasty bread (and change it to garlic bread or lather it with butter), we are going to find ourselves to have gained weight.

The part of the equation men often find hard to understand is that THEY can actually eat that second amount of food and not gain weight because they have to maintain a body that is almost twice as large as ours and has big calorie chomping muscles helping them along. They get to have twice the fun as us and not have to worry nearly as much as we do at the table. The men that are overweight tend to have problems with excessive amount of fast food, great cooks for wives, and a healthy beer habit that adds inches to their guts.

As for metabolism, we move more when we are young (at least we used to which is why we see kids getting fat). We tend to stop exercising when we get older and we get desk jobs or stay home and watch too much television on the couch. Women who stay home end up preparing food all day and living in the kitchen and we drive to the store to buy our food.

Food addiction is another one of those silly labels we give to the fact we use food for a myriad of emotional and social reasons. Food makes us happy, food is instant gratification, food amuses us when we are bored, and food is a habit. We get used to eating and eating and eating and can't figure out what to do when we are not eating and we miss our little calorie laden friends.

We DO make the choice to eat too much, but willpower is difficult when everything is conspiring against you in your society. Food and the reminders of it are everywhere. I spent some time in West Africa once and there simply wasn't that much food around, you had to walk four miles to the market, share what you cooked with everyone, and there were no snacks in sight. I lost ten pounds in three weeks without trying. It was the easiest diet in the world!

How fast will you lose? If you are a guy, much faster than a woman on the same number of calories. If you are very active, much faster than you are inactive. If you are heavier, faster than if you are lighter. How do you know you have cut back enough? You see results.

Now, on Day 12 of my diet, I still have to wrench my wheel away from the 7-11 entrance and try not to reach into my friend's popcorn at the movies (well, I ate a few of those pretzel bites she had...bad girl, bad girl). It is hard work, ladies, and I feel all of your pain!

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: It's a Crime how hard it is for Women to lose Weight

It's not fat genes that are putting us in fat jeans: it just sucks being a woman. Women have no problem maintaining their weight when they live in areas where food is somewhat scarce and they have to work in the fields or at aerobic jobs from sun-up to sundown. This is probably why in so many economically struggling societies, it is a tradition to allow the men to eat first. Maybe the males are just being bullies and the females are not considered worthy of an equal place at the table, but maybe these men who work equally as hard as the women (or have the even more physically demanding jobs) simply need the extra calories to survive.

Women don't have to worry about gaining fat under these circumstances but, if that isn't the lifestyle most of us lead, the bad news is, we don't need all that many calories to maintain a healthy weight and low body fat. While not having to slave away twelve hours a day under tough conditions is a blessing, we now have to pay the price with the extra fat layers on our bodies that we really don't need. In today's world, unless you exercise a lot, the Standard American Diet includes far more calories than most of us need.

So when we go to lose weight, we cannot understand why those pounds hang around. We think we are being pretty careful with what we eat, following a diet of only 1200 or 1500 calories a day, but the weight stays on. When we fail, we begin to believe that we are genetically doomed; we have fat genes that won't let us lose weight.

Sorry, ladies. If this were true, you would see some fat women in the photos of the Auschwitz survivors. But, the reality is, they didn't eat many calories and they got very skinny.

I am going to prove how little we women need to eat. I embarked on my new diet on October 4, 2010. On November 16, I am sailing to the Caribbean on the Queen Mary II. I have nothing to wear. Well, that is not true. I have things to wear but I can't get into any of them, including my bathing suit. So, from last week, I had six weeks to lose 17-22 pounds, not an easy task in so short a time. But, I set out and I am eight pounds down so far. Now it will get harder because the first ten are always easier to lose than the last ten when you are trying to get rid of the last twenty pounds. I started at 152 and I want to be between 130-135 (depending on any muscle gained if I actually lift weights) when I board the ship.

I will take you along on my diet and you will be able to see for yourself just how little one must eat to lose weight when you are a female. Next time your boyfriend or husband mocks you for struggling to get the pounds off while he is losing like crazy, still eating potatoes and drinking beer, shove my diet diary in his face and ask him how long he would stay on a diet like this! Also, seeing how my diet plan works will help you decide if you need to modify your own for success.

By the way, NO DRUGS are involved in my weight loss program. A lot of times you will read how a celebrity has lost weight really quickly and she will claim she did it while eating a healthy, slightly reduced calorie diet. Bullocks. A good number of them are taking diet drugs like phenteramine to get that weight off. The stuff works fast because you race around like a energizer bunny (it is speed, folks) and you don't eat. It is also very unhealthy. The celebs don't want to admit using drugs, so they lie and we wonder why we don't have the kind of quick success they have on the "same diet." I am telling your the truth here; no drugs are along for the ride on my diet.


My diet so far: read it and weep.

MONDAY Oct 4 - 152 pounds

Bought foods and didn’t eat until I went shopping at Whole Foods late in the afternoon. I bought a salad and made a banana-blueberry ice cream (4 bananas) in the evening. Two frozen bananas in the “ice cream” and some fresh blueberries. So low calorie but what a great fulfilling dessert!

No exercise. Back injury.

TUESDAY Oct 5 – 150 pounds

Papaya/banana/kale green smoothie. Not that good. Spiced it up. Three glasses. One papaya, one banana.

Banana/strawberry ice cream – 2 frozen bananas and fresh strawberries. Always yummy! Great with blueberries, too.

2 bowls of stews made with tomatoes, celery, cucumber, squash spinach, and a T of honey. I made the curry/cilantro version. On the second bowl, I added a sliced up banana and it thickened the stew and turned it into a version of Puerto Rican Mafongo! Great find!

No exercise. Back injury.

WEDNESDAY Oct 6 – 148 pounds

One glass leftover papaya/banana/kale green smoothie.

3 dishes of “oatmeal”. Two with one mashed banana and chopped strawberries and one with one mashed banana and a sliced thinly apple. All sprinkled with cinnamon. The one with strawberries made a nice breakfast that did remind me of oatmeal with the crappy mucky part. Apple version tastes like apple cobbler or apple pie!

Five large stuffed “burritos” made with nori. Stuffed with carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, spinach, red pepper, add cilantro. Added Matouk’s hot sauce and pickled ginger. Turned out like big sushi rolls. Loved it! Very filling and made a nice, big meal that had pretty much no calories!

No exercise. Back injury.

THURSDAY Oct 7 – 147 pounds

Two glasses of canteloupe/parlsey green smoothie. Delicious and refreshing!

One salad of spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, handful of washed dulse and mango/tomato/lemon nonfat dressing. A little bland but filling. Need to find a way to make it a little more thrilling. But, almost zero calories! Added a t of honey and a t or more of Dijon mustard. Makes it a bit more interesting. I used it as a dip but still not exciting enough for that. Could be used as a dressing but I still think it needs more something. I like the mango and tomato base, though. I now have added garlic and cider vinegar and it is a bit better and then, curry, better still. I will try it on a cabbage dish.

I/2 cup lime pudding. I was aiming for key lime flavor. Didn’t quite work out! 1 cup has 1 banana, ½ pear, and ¾ of a lime, including skin. The skin didn’t work out here. I used it in a different recipe and it added zing. Here it adds too much zing and the pieces and little pieces were still intact. So, I ended up with what had the consistency and taste of applesause with lime and little annoying bits.

Had my “oatmeal” with one banana/strawberries but this time I sprinkled it with carob powder. I have never been that found of carob powder and it didn’t this dish didn’t taste anywhere as good as the one sprinkled with cinnamon.

5 more of my stuffed “burritos” with pickled ginger.

No exercise. Back injury.

FRIDAY Oct 8 – 146.5 pounds

Bowl of “oatmeal” with 2 bananas, 1 apple and cinnamon.

I glass of cantaloupe/parsley green smoothie left over from yesterday.

No exercise. Back injury.

SAT OCT 9 – 146.5 pounds

Bowl of gazpacho soup and glass of white wine at restaurant

Piece of chocolate at hair salon

Salad at restaurant with dried cranberries; nonfat dressing

I bite of pizza crust

No exercise. Back injury.

SUN OCT 10 – 146.5 pounds

1 Thai papaya salad with peanuts and one glass white wine

6 pizza bites with mustard

No exercise. Back injury.

MON OCT 11- 146 pounds

2 salads with mango/tomato/balsamic vinegar dressing – Frederic Patanaude. This is a great dressing!

3 glasses of smoothie – watermelon, cucumber, tomato, banana, and dill. Very tasty and refreshing!

No exercise. Back injury.

TUES OCT 12 - 147 pounds

Grr. So it is a starvation day since I went up. Had carrots and salsa and the previous days watermelon drink with kale added. Liked it much better the way I made it yesterday.

No exercise. Back injury.

WED OCT 13 – 146 pounds

I salad with half a cup of mango/tomato/balsamic dressing

Pile of cabbage with the other half of the dressing.

One cup of Pakistani rice

Jogged on twenty minute lap around the lake and then one more lap walking with six sprints

THURS OCT 14 - 145 pounds

Banana “oatmeal” with pear and cinnamon. One banana and one pear.

3 Watermelon green smoothies – ½ baby watermelon, 1 banana, 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber and dill

1 cup Pakistani rice

No exercise. Too tired and it rained all day.

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Idiot Pedestrian Rights Laws are Downright Dangerous

When I was eight years old, my mother would let me walk to town alone. I had to cross a very busy street with traffic that moved a pretty good clip. My mother, being the sort that believed in training her children, had spent many a good teaching moment on the side of the street, showing me when it was safe to cross and when it wasn't. And, she firmly told me, if you have to wait twenty minutes to cross, if you have to whip your head back and forth and back and forth until you get whiplash, you will do that until you see no car in either direction. I followed her instructions because she taught me my body was no match for a steel machine. If I didn't want to die, I would practice safe pedestrian crossing.

My son recently spent a year in India and it took a bit of time before he learned how to cross the road there. In India, you have to wait until there is time for you to cross into the space between "lanes" *(these don't really exist) and you have to do this incrementally until your reach the other side. It is quite a terrifying experience, but if you move and stop properly as you make your way across the street, you will survive. You learn to do this correctly because if you don't, you will be run over by a motorized rickshaw, car, motorbike, bus, truck, camel, or elephant. Check out this video to learn how to make it to the "other side" in India.

In NYC, jaywalking is routine, but jaywalkers know that they better move their asses post haste and they best make sure they don't get in the way of a taxi. They pay attention and walk quickly.

Pedestrians who understand that a modern road is for cars and that cars are bigger than them, survive. Traffic also moves along well because there isn't a pedestrian crossing every few yards and two-footed idiots strolling casually across the street.

But, now, I live in the State of Stupidity also known as Maryland where laws are being passed to "help" people cross the street. It seems to be some modern guilt trip that walking makes one better citizens and those bad people in cars better defer to them or else. Streets are for pedestrians, too, and they are going to have the government's assistance to help them across the street like little old ladies or blind people. Only this time, this kind of help is going to get them killed.

My neighborhood has turned into Frogger Alley. Crosswalks have been tossed into the middle of blocks (so the pedestrians don't have to take those extra steps to a corner) and cars are required by law to yield to anyone in the crosswalk. Sounds like a kindly thing until one realizes how incredibly dangerous this is. Because pedestrians believe they now have the right of way, they just walk straight out into the road, fully expecting traffic to stop. And traffic does stop, IF they see them.

I have almost run over a few people already since this moronic law was passed.

Scenario One: A truck is in the left hand lane with his turn signal on and blocking my view of the crosswalk in front of him. But, he is not turning left there; he is stopped for a pedestrian. Driving in the next lane, I am suddenly confronted with a pedestrian who steps out from behind the truck into the middle of my lane. I almost run him over. He screams at me, "Watch where you are driving!" Well, I was watching where I was driving. I was on a thirty-five mph road with nothing in front of me.

Scenario Two: One doesn't even know the crosswalk is there! One is tooling along at dusk and, suddenly, some college student bolts into the road in front of the car. Screech! That was a close one.

Scenario Three: A pedestrian dressed in black comes out of the bushes and walks straight for the other side of the road. If one runs him over, one gets nailed with manslaughter.

Scenario Four: With a clear road ahead, one is distracted for a moment, lost in thought or turning the radio dial. Bam! Pedestrian under car because the pedestrian no longer bothers to even look and see if the car is slowing and stopping because it is supposed to.

Hey, look, I am all for courtesy. But, today, a driver got angry at me because I didn't want to step into the crosswalk and walk across the street with traffic coming at me from both sides. I don't trust those drivers to see me and I don't expect them to. Finally, all the traffic did stop but everyone was mad at me because I held them up instead of just racing across the road.

Isn't it easier and safer to just wait until it is safe to cross the street and then do so? That's what my mother taught me.

For more on the subject, read this article on mid-block pedestrian crossings.

Build an underpass, build an overpass, build walking paths, or, if it is necessary, add a light or a stop sign with a proper crosswalk at the corner. But, for God's sake and the sake of all pedestrians and drivers, get rid of those stupid mid-block death traps.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Enough of van der Sloot! What about Baby Gabriel?

"I am SICK of hearing about Joran van der Sloot! Why aren't we talking about Kyron Horman, the missing Oregon seven-year-old?" (Actually, his case IS back in the news now that the stepmother has become a Person of Interest). I hear this kind of sentiment quite often. When we were talking about Casey Anthony day in and day out, people asked why we weren't talking about Baby Gabriel anymore. Or when the Haleigh Cummings case was a constant topic after a majority of the players were busted for selling drugs, I heard, "Why aren't we talking about Kayleah Wilson?" I will explain exactly why.

Bombshell tonight! Breaking News!

Joran van der Sloot's mother calls him a sicko! Monday, the judge is going to interrogate van der Sloot. Van der Sloot changes his story again! (okay, I made that last headline up, but give it another 24 hours and it will probably be true).


Haleigh Cumming's case. Umm.....nothing really new. The scumbags are sitting around in jail. Two weeks ago Misty Croslin got a new trial date and last week Donna Brock plead guilty. Yawn.

Kayleah Wilson case. Police are still investigating. Okay.

Baby Gabriel Johnson case. Three weeks ago doctors said Elizabeth Johnson, baby Gabriel's poor excuse for a mother, is not competent to stand trial. Boy, did she pull one over on them. Gabriel, still missing.

And there you go. It is about "news." The simple fact is, people want to hear what is new and newsworthy. If there is nothing new about a case, it is difficult to put it in in a show because there is simply is nothing new to say. Now, admittedly, sometimes "breaking news" and "bombshell tonight" is a bit of an overstatement, the news is so thin you kind of smirk when the "explosive" information is given. But, hey, there still has to be something, something to work with, something to discuss, at least a slightly different angle. So, when they can't even come up with the tiniest thing about a case that is new, the show is going to move on to a case that is more active. When something breaks, believe me, that "cold" case will be back. There are many missing persons and unsolved murders around the country but there is simply nothing new to report on those cases, only an update that, yes, they are still missing or dead and no new evidence has come to light. Such noninformation isn't exciting news and so it is rarely reported as news.

I wish we could push cold cases one after the other, seeking more information and never letting the victims be forgotten. But if national television shows did that all the time, they would completely lose their audiences, the shows would fold, and no cases at all would be brought to light. At least we DO learn a bit about quite a few cases out there and some, long forgotten cases are occasionally showcased, if even for a minute or two. Television can only do so much; we in our own communities must push for justice for our local murdered citizens. Call your papers, call your local news, call your councilmen. Don't let your murdered neighbors be forgotten or allow the community to forget that a dangerous killer is still roaming your town.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: About The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial KIllers and Psychopaths

Since my new book, The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths (co-written with Bob Andelman) has hit the stands, I have been fielding many questions about my entrance into profiling, my profiling work and the cases in the book. But, today, I am going to respond to some interesting comments made on Amazon.

As I expected would occur when The Profiler came out, I would have some great reviews and some not so great reviews. I am lucky to have people who are wonderful supporters of me and my work, but there are others who simply despise me, for whatever reasons. Since I am very outspoken about my beliefs about profiling, criminals, and crime, I can expect to get a number of detractors. Some people I just rub the wrong way and that is life. Some people rub me the wrong way too but they have folks who think they are great! It takes all kinds of us to make the world go round.

As I read through my Amazon reviews, I saw some legitimate criticisms and some bizarre criticisms and some folks that didn't understand something about me and the book. So, I am going to try to clear at least a few of these things up.


1) Although Pat's Brown's renter was weird, there was obviously not enough to warrant an investigation by the police

Actually, the police reopened the case six years later and brought the renter in, interrogated him, polygraphed him, DNA'd him, and investigated him. He is still the Number One suspect and he lives one mile down the road from me.

2) Pat makes wild guesses, follows her "gut."

I find this criticism amusing because one of the big points I make in the book is that too much profiling HAS been guesswork and gut feelings. I promote the scientific method and for each determination I make, I support my conclusions with physical and behavioral evidence.

3) Pat may have a degree in Criminal Justice, but she is not a psychologist or scientific researcher in human factors. I have to believe in her mind her TV appearances and radio show appearances have qualified her as a premier profiler.

In the book, I address the educational requirements criminal profilers should have. Many people think a criminal profiler should be a psychiatrist or psychologist and others think criminal profilers should be forensic scientists. But, in reality, much of what one learns in graduate level college programs in these fields does not apply to profiling. And, if one studies just one of these fields, then one lacks the needed understanding from the other fields. Criminal profiling draws from psychology, forensics, and investigations and then adds in crime scene reconstruction and profiling methodology. In order to meet these needs, I have developed the first criminal profiling certificate program in the country and I am developing The Pat Brown School of Criminal Profiling.

It IS true that being on television does not make one a profiler; it makes one a commentator. I don't profile on television; I discuss crime and the criminal mind and what might have happened based on what the media is telling us.

4) "Offender profiling is a method of identifying the perpetrator of a crime based on an analysis of the nature of the offense and the manner in which it was committed. Various aspects of the criminal's personality makeup are determined from his or her choices before, during, and after the crime.[1] This information is combined with other relevant details and physical evidence, and then compared with the characteristics of known personality types and mental abnormalities to develop a practical working description of the offender." Pat doesn't profile; she just does detective work.

I understand where this person is coming from. It may well seem that I am just doing what detectives do; that I don't "profile" because I don't do what is known as "offender profiling." And I don't do offender profiling because I do not believe in it. This kind of profiling is very generalized and when profilers look at a series of linked crimes, they often apply a whole slew of characteristics from one subgroup of offenders to that particular offender. I have never found these "profiles" to be of much value; they are based on statistics and somewhat questionable research conclusions and they use for catching criminals has not been proven. I DO describe something about the kind of person who committed a crime, what his motive is, and what behaviors he exhibited in the crime and what I expect him to exhibit outside of the crime scene. but based on the evidence at that specific crime scene or scenes and while there are some general groups offenders fall into, I believe in being more specific about the perpetrator in each crime. I base my description of him on evidence and I do not use confusing academic labels and general characteristics (based on everyone in the supposed group he falls in to).

My style of profiling is deductive profiling requires a thorough crime reconstruction and analysis of all the evidence before one can start addressing the offender's characteristics. And although the offender may fall in some broad category, I will not make any inferences about him based on that offender group alone.

5) Pat Brown is a homemaker who read some books.

Wow! Am I still 34 years old? Cool! Actually, 20 years ago I read the 400 books that helped me understand the field. This was just the beginning of my education, training, and practice of profiling. This comment that makes me the saddest of all that I have read that is negative. It is so hard for women, even in this country and day and age, to move up in certain professions and it is all the more difficult if they are over forty. I am hoping to inspire women and open doors for them. Sometimes women are their own worst enemy when they attack the relatively few women who made some progress in very male professions. We should stick together and cheer each other on, shouldn't we?

6) If Pat Brown can profile, then all these cases should have been prosecuted.

Oh, don't I wish! But when a profiler is brought in years later, most of the time the evidence is gone. This is why the profiler needs to be part of the original investigative team. If the profiler is there when the crime is fresh, an excellent analysis can send the detectives in the correct direction where they can find the evidence and preserve it.

6) Pat Brown is paranoid, narcissistic, psychopathic, and creepy.

Oh, dear, maybe that is why I understand psychopaths so well; it takes one to know one?

The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths wasn't written to impress folks or to defend my work. It is meant to bring the truth to people about killers that are living among us, how the system is struggling, how justice is getting waylaid, how profiling really should be done, and how profiling can make a difference in solving cases if only the police would use it when the case is still very young. I hope one day, someone will pick the book up off a dusty used bookstore shelf, read it, and think, "Wow! Can you believe that they once waited for years to bring a profiler in?" I hope one day the country will have a profiler in every major police department and profilers available to help all the smaller police agencies.

If I wake up one day to that world, I will know my efforts have been worth it.


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: TIME'S UP for Domestic Abuse

We hear the term, "Domestic Abuse," thrown around quite a bit and it is worth taking a look at what it really means in our own lives. Is it physical, mental, or both? When does one spouse's treatment of the other cross the line from just imperfect humans struggling in a relationship to one partner mistreating the other? After all, we know that marriage can be "work" and issues have to be dealt with and ironed out. We are going to disagree, even argue and be mad at each other, and, sometimes, we are not going to actually be able to kiss and make-up before bedtime. When should one start to worry that there is something really wrong with our marriage partnership?

I would say it is when the "partnership" becomes a boss and employee relationship and the boss is someone we would like to fire. While everyone wants power and control in life, a spouse must be willing to share that power and control with their partner, work together to achieve a balance where both parties are satisfied with the equation. Doing so is not a problem for those who love their spouse and want to see their spouse happy and want to achieve a positive and pleasing family life. Working together is an expectation for a committed couple and being good role models for the children is a natural desire for caring parents.

When one spouse becomes the master, putting his or her needs and desires above the spouse's, doesn't care how his/her mate feels, ignores the impact of this imbalance on the children, this is abuse - whether it is in the form of emotional manipulation of physical domination.

Ideally, one should wait a reasonable period of time before having children to see if one's mate is one's best friend, that you work out fair solutions to problems, that your beloved really loves you, and you are happy together. You need a couple of years, if not more, to find out whether you have just signed up for a partnership or a prison term. If your marriage sucks, having children in it will make it suck more and, worse, it will trap you for years and years as now you have a family you don't want to destroy.

But, let's suppose you have already blown it and you are stuck in a nightmare; you are being mentally or physically tortured with regularity and you fear your mate instead of feeling safe in their company. It's time to make the decision to leave. Susan Milano-Murphy, one of my fellow bloggers at Women in Crime Ink knows well when someone should make a break for it and titles her new book on escaping abuse, TIME'S UP: A Guide on How to Leave an Abusive and Stalking Relationship.

If you are not frightened of your mate, you can simply state you want a separation, make plans to live in different residences, and, if you feel there is any hope through counseling, give your spouse a chance to make a change if he/she really wants to do so. If you think past behavior is pretty much a predictor of future behavior, then you are probably right (because it usually is), and you need to make the best choices you can for the well-being of the children.

But, if you are in a physically dangerous situation, if your spouse has been violent or threatening or coldly psychopathologicaly scary, you will want to get Susan's book, TIME'S UP! This book doesn't merely discuss when you should leave or why you should leave, it tells you HOW you should leave. The book has step-by-step instructions how to covertly make a plan, set-up a safe escape, deal with financial issues, and the paperwork. Susan even takes you line-by-line through the process, the forms, the legal issues...she takes you by the hand, and, believe me, when you are being terrorized and you are an basket case, you don't need vague ideas, you need specific instructions. TIME'S UP can save your life and your sanity. If you need to get out, get this book before you make a mistake that could be fatal. It is money well spent.

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Ronald Cummings is "Only Disappointed" the Bitch got his Child Stole

Gotta love defense lawyers! Ronald Cumming's defense lawyer, Terry Shoemaker, has just come out with two mind-boggling statements. One is that the police told Ronald, "If you divorce Misty, we'll find something out. She'll crack" and "If Misty got in trouble, in jail, we could probably get her to crack." I guess Ronald's mother was right that he "only dealt drugs to get close to Misty after the divorce, in order to learn what happened to Haleigh."

Let's see now; Ronald married Misty to get "his enemy near" him because that would get him information. Then he divorces because the police told him to, because that would get him information. Then he deals drugs with her and helps them set up a sting to get her arrested because that will get him information. I don't think I have ever seen such a complex ongoing plan. Ronald is also an amazing actor to be able to play the loving husband, then divorce her because he failed in his mission, then take up with her again to get her busted selling drugs, and pretend to be the felon while waiting for her to crack. This is the real world folks, not a fictional crime drama.

And now, we have a new incredible comment of Ronald's via his lawyer. Apparently, Ron is not mad at Misty, "only disappointed" that she couldn't confide in him for an entire year, forcing him and his family to suffer needlessly. He hopes the reason she withheld the truth was that she was "threatened" or "forced" to keep quiet.

I am finding his kindly attitude hard toward Misty hard to swallow (as I always have find it abnormal). Disappointed? You can be disappointed someone didn't give you a job, disappointed your child didn't get good grades in school, disappointed that your mate doesn't want to go away for the weekend. You are usually mad as hell when you find out your spouse cheated on you, a drunk driver killed your son, or your druggie girlfriend "got your daughter stole."

Not Ronnie. Even though he swore he'd kill the person who took his kid, he isn't even mad when he finds out his girlfriend/wife/girlfriend was involved in his child's disappearance and lied to him over and over and over again.

Maybe it is true that he has been doing an undercover job for the police trying to get Misty to slip up. Or, maybe, he knows she finally has slipped up and he is sending her a message through his lawyer. He needs her continued cooperation to save his own butt so he can't be too nasty. He is letting her know that he is "disappointed" (you gave up the information you shouldn't have) and he hopes that she was forced or threatened (you better just have slipped up under pressure and you better not be about to roll over on me).

Seems more like the defense lawyer is working overtime to paint Ronald as a victim and sympathetic figure. He is giving too much information which leads me to believe he is working on a defense in a murder case, not a drug dealing case.

Maybe I am wrong and we will find out the Ronald Cummings really did spend the year helping the police nail Misty. If this turns out to be the case, Ron can play himself in the movie because he is one hell of an actor and I will pay the $12 to be there on opening night.