But the profilers of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, at least as depicted on Criminal Minds, are rarely wrong, and when they are, they usually figure out their error quickly. The series begins with a difficult case, in the episode titled “Extreme Aggressor” (101). While the team is trying to find the killer known as the Seattle Strangler, the facts of the case lead the profilers in what seem to be two separate directions. In reality, there are two unsubs, which accounts for the confusion in the initial analysis. Timothy Vogel and Richard Slessman met in prison, where Vogel was a guard and Slessman was an inmate. Vogel, powerful and dominant, protected the weaker Slessman, who came to believe that he owed Vogel his life. Team killers are too well known in real life. The crimes of Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, for instance, are brought up again in “A Real Rain” (117) and “Lo-Fi” (320) as examples of this terrible strategy. BITTAKER HAD BEEN SENT to the California Men ’s Colony at San Luis Obispo for assault with a deadly weapon, and Norris was there for rape.
