This episode of the New Explorers follows FBI agents as they try to catch a serial murderer. Using psychological profiling, the agents try to put together personality traits that might match the suspect's, and hopefully lead them to the killer before he strikes again. Profile in Terror would be useful for classes in Science and Criminal Justice. It is appropriate for middle school and high school.

Profile in Terror

• asocial
• dominate
• effeminate
• embellish
• integral
• interrogation
• levitate
• manipulating
• menial
• meticulous
• netherworld
• psychotic
• taunting
• transient
• trauma
• uncanny
• venue
• victimology
• visualize
• vivacious

1. The FBI uses psychological profiling to help track down suspects. What is psychological profiling?

2. How do FBI agents put together a psychological profile? What skills are necessary to do this?

3. Describe the "mental portrait" of Shari Faye Smith's killer.

4. The place where a crime was committed can give clues to a suspect's profile. How is the scene of a crime a "witness" to the crime?

5. Shari Faye Smith's killer tormented her family with phone calls after he murdered her. Why did he do this?

6. What did the body disposal site reveal about the killer?

7. The FBI needed the killer to keep calling the Smith's in order to try to track him down.

8. How did the FBI trap the killer into calling the Smiths?

9. How did the FBI find the killer?

10. Why do some people commit crimes such as these murders?

1. Choose one of history's famous killers and create a "mental portrait" for him or her.