When a Killer Calls
A Haunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town
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- 9,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
From John Douglas—the legendary FBI criminal
profiler, #1 New York Times bestselling author, and inspiration
for the Netflix show Mindhunter—comes
a chilling journey inside the mind and crimes of Larry Gene Bell, one of the
most dangerous serial killers Douglas confronted, and the desperate effort to
identify and catch him.
On May 31, 1985, two days before her high
school graduation, Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family
home in South Carolina. Based on the crime scene and the abductor’s repeated
and taunting calls to the family, law enforcement quickly realized they
were dealing with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal. A letter arrived
the next day entitled “Last Will & Testament,” in which Shari, knowing she
was to be murdered, wrote bravely and achingly of her love for her parents,
siblings, and boyfriend, saying that while they would miss her, she knew they
would persevere through their faith. The abduction rocked her quiet town,
triggering a massive manhunt and bringing in the FBI, which enlisted profiler
John Douglas. A few days later, a phone call told the family where they could
find Shari’s body.
Then nine-year-old Debra May Helmick was
kidnapped from her yard, confirming the harsh realization that Smith’s murder
was no random act. A serial killer was evolving, and the only way to stop him
would be to use the study of criminal behavior to anticipate his next move
before he could kill again. Douglas devised a risky and emotionally fraught
strategy to use Shari’s lookalike older sister Dawn as bait to draw out the
unknown subject. Dawn and her parents courageously agreed.
One of the most haunting investigations of
Douglas’s storied career, this case details how the
eerily accurate profile he created—alongside his carefully
crafted and stage-managed manipulation of the killer’s psychology—combined with
dedicated police work and cutting-edge forensic science to end a reign of
criminal terror. As Shari’s family took incredible personal risks to lure her
killer from the shadows, Douglas and the FBI pushed criminal profiling to its
limits, culminating in one of his most dramatic and
effective confrontations with a sadistic and remorseless killer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
FBI profiler Douglas and Olshaker (Mindhunter) tell the riveting story of how the FBI, working with local law enforcement officers, cracked the case of a particularly nasty killer. In rural South Carolina in 1985, 17-year-old Shari Smith was kidnapped from her family's driveway by a man who later raped and suffocated her. The killer called the Smith home multiple times and mailed the parents their child's last will and testament before telling them where to find her body. Two weeks later, he did the same to nine-year-old Debra May Helmick. Douglas, who was called in on the case, discovered that Larry Gene Bell, a 36-year-old electrician's assistant, fit the FBI's profile of a white male who had served in the military. The authors describe in dramatic detail how Bell was finally caught (clues included the imprint of a phone number lifted from the sheet of paper on which Shari had written her will) and the two trials that ended in death sentences, as well as the sense of terror in the small town and the incredible faith of the Smith family and their community. Peppered with other FBI profiling cases, this is required reading for those interested in the early years of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit.
