The True Story of Serial Killer Expert Ann Burgess Hits Hulu

If you’ve been mourning the loss of Netflix’s Mindhunter ever since its second season ended in 2019, you’ll want to check out the upcoming Hulu true crime series Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer . Anna Torv ’s character, Wendy Carr, was inspired by the real-life researcher Dr. Anne Burgess , a psychiatric nurse and professor who worked closely with the FBI in developing the science of criminal profiling.

Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer focuses specifically on Burgess as an unsung heroine, delving into exactly how her innovative approach to investigations changed history. Keep reading for more about the series, including its release date.

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What is Mastermind: To Think Like a Kill er about?

Per Hulu’s synopsis, the documentary series will explore how Burgess “learned to think like a killer” in order to help the FBI hunt them. “With unprecedented access to the mastermind behind the development of modern serial-killer profiling, the series tells Burgess’ tenacious story and her compassion for victims which puts her at the center of solving America’s most infamous true-crime cases,” the summary promises.

The series is executive produced by Dakota and Elle Fanning , produced by Dani Sloane and directed by Abby Fuller .

Who is Ann Burgess?

Burgess worked as a forensic nurse during the 1960s and 1970s, and was enlisted by the FBI to consult on criminal cases. In response to a spike in the number of violent and sexual crimes during the period, the bureau had to rapidly evolve its approach, and Burgess played a key role in developing what we now know as criminal profiling.

In a recent interview, Burgess expressed her hope that Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer will emphasize how important her nursing background was to her work. “I’m very hopeful that nursing, especially forensic nursing or psychiatric nursing, gets a good share of understanding, because nurses have not been well portrayed [in media],” she said, per The Independent .

Burgess is also a professor at Boston College’s Connell School of Nursing, and has contributed to several influential books in the criminology field, including 1995's Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives , which she co-authored with Ressler and Douglas.

What is the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit (BSU)?

In response to a steep rise in serial killers during the 1970s, the FBI formed the Behavioral Science Unit in 1972. The unit aimed to allow agents and to “consult with criminal justice professionals worldwide on different, unusual, or bizarre cases”. The BSU expanded over the next two decades, as high-profile serial killers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy continued to make headlines nationwide.

Burgess was invited to the FBI Academy in 1978, where she shared her insights about how to talk to victims, and how to use their testimony to draw conclusions about perpetrators. “She did her work through the lens of the victim,” Steven Constantine , who co-authored a book with Burgess, told Boston College News . “Everyone else was focused on the offender, and the victim was fairly incidental in the cases. She was one of the first people who brought the idea of victimology to the BSU and got them to think about the victim as an equal part of a case. The victim could not only help solve the case, but was a real person who was affected and the agents needed to think about the impact on that person's life as well.”

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What did Ann Burgess do?

Burgess played a critical role in the formation of the Behavioral Science Unit, which pioneered the process of modern criminal profiling—that is, trying to identify an unknown suspect by analysing their behavioral characteristics and criminal patterns. In addition to these contributions, Burgess was also a pioneer in the field of victimology, studying the psychological impact of crime and advocating for wider understanding of how trauma affects victims.

During the early 1970s, FBI agents Robert Ressler and John Douglas began conducting interviews with incarcerated serial killers, in the hopes of gleaning insights into their crimes. After Burgess began teaching classes to agents at Quantico, she was enlisted to help analyze the interviews that Ressler and Douglas had recorded.

“I started listening to the tapes [of these interviews], and what I found was fascinating,” she recalls in the trailer for the series. “I was finding patterns I’d never noticed before.”

Based on these insights, Burgess and her colleagues gradually built the BSU into a lynchpin of the FBI’s approach to violent crime, working to get inside the heads of serial killers and develop more sophisticated ways to hunt them.

Which serial killer cases did Ann Burgess work on?

Burgess consulted on a number of well-known cases. Among them was Ted Bundy , one of the most prolific serial killers in American history, “the Co-Ed Killer” Edmund Kemper and Richard Speck , who famously murdered a rooming house full of nurses in Chicago. Mastermind: Think Like a Killer promises to show Burgess studies both the psyche of the attacker and the impact on their victims, “putting two halves of the same story together to catch a killer.”.

Does Ann Burgess appear in Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer ?

Yes, Burgess is interviewed extensively for the series, and is also credited as a consulting producer.

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