Robert Kenneth Ressler was an FBI agent and author.
20 Facts About Robert Ressler
2.
Robert Ressler played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", though the term is a direct translation of the German term "Serienmorder" coined in 1930 by Berlin investigator Ernst Gennat.
3.
Robert Ressler grew up on North Marmora Avenue in Chicago, Illinois and graduated from Schurz High School, Class of 1955.
4.
Robert Ressler was the son of Joseph, who worked in security and maintenance at the Chicago Tribune, and Gertrude Ressler.
5.
At an early age Robert became interested in killers, as he followed the Tribune's articles on "The Lipstick Killer".
6.
Robert Ressler attended two years at a community college before joining the US Army and was stationed in Okinawa.
7.
Robert Ressler graduated with a bachelor's degree and started graduate work but only finished one semester before going back into the army as an officer, having completed an ROTC program at Michigan State.
8.
Robert Ressler served in the US Army from 1957 to 1962 as a provost marshal of a platoon of MPs in Aschaffenburg, as he states in his autobiography Whoever Fights Monsters.
9.
Robert Ressler was in charge of solving cases such as homicides, robberies, and arson.
10.
Robert Ressler then went back to Michigan State to finish his master's in police administration, paid for by the army, in exchange for two more years of service after graduation.
11.
Robert Ressler joined the FBI in 1970 and was recruited into the Behavioral Science Unit, which deals with drawing up psychological profiles of violent offenders, such as rapists and serial killers, who typically select victims at random.
12.
Between 1976 and 1979, Robert Ressler helped to organize the interviews of thirty-six incarcerated serial killers in order to find parallels between such criminals' backgrounds and motives.
13.
Robert Ressler was instrumental in setting up Vi-CAP.
14.
Robert Ressler worked on many cases of serial homicide such as Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Richard Chase and John Joubert, and John Wayne Gacy.
15.
Robert Ressler retired from the FBI in 1990 and authored a number of books about serial murder.
16.
Robert Ressler actively gave lectures to students and police forces on the subject of criminology and, in 1993, was brought in, in London, to assist in the investigation into the murders committed by Colin Ireland.
17.
In 1995, Robert Ressler met South African profiler Micki Pistorius at a conference in Scotland and she invited him to review her investigation of the "ABC Murders", so-called because of their location in the Johannesburg suburbs of Atteridgeville, Boksburg, and Cleveland.
18.
Robert Ressler believed that Selepe was indeed responsible for the Cleveland murders, either alone or with an accomplice, and that the Atteridgeville and Boksburg murders had been committed by the same offender, but that this killer was not involved in the Cleveland murders.
19.
Robert Ressler pointed out that the Atteridgeville-Boksburg murderer was gaining confidence with each killing and would contact the media.
20.
Robert Ressler died at his home in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, on Sunday May 5,2013, from Parkinson's disease, aged 76.