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Premiering back in 2017, Mindhunter on Netflix remains one of the best shows dealing with serial killers and the relentless process of catching them. The official synopsis of the show, as mentioned by Rotten Tomatoes, reads,
“Catching a criminal often requires the authorities to get inside the villain's mind to figure out how he thinks. That's the job of FBI agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench. They attempt to understand and catch serial killers by studying their damaged psyches. Along the way, the agents pioneer the development of modern serial-killer profiling.”
The synopsis further mentions,
“The crime drama has a strong pedigree behind the camera, with Oscar-nominated director David Fincher and Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron among the show's executive producers.”
As is clear from the premise, much of Mindhunter was based on real events. The timeline of the show focuses on a period when serial killer profiling was still a very new thing and the two FBI agents, Bill and Holden, who took up the responsibility of developing the process, were based on real FBI agents.
Despite taking certain creative liberties with the storytelling, much of Mindhunter remains true, both in terms of the serial killers and the officers who talked to them to understand their minds better.
Mindhunter is largely based on true events
Based on Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, the Netflix series based the key characters on real people. For instance, Holden Ford, played by Jonathan Groff, the FBI agent who went from one jail to the other to interview dangerous serial killers to understand them better, was largely based on John E. Douglas himself.
In real life, Douglas also carried out interviews of killers like John Wayne, Charles Manson, Edmund Kemper etc, which greatly reshaped the way murder investigations were conducted back in the day.
Holden’s partner, Bill Tench, played by Holt McCallany, has also taken inspiration from real characters, though the similarities are not as direct as those between Douglas and Holden. Tench has been modeled upon Robert K. Ressler, who joined the FBI in 1970. He was part of the Behavioral Sciences Unit and it was he who coined the term "serial killer."
Like Douglas, Ressler also interviewed serial killers to get a glimpse into their minds so they could understand the crimes and try to prevent them before they were committed. Another important character, Dr. Wendy Carr, played by Anna Torv, has been modeled on Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess.
Like the other two, Burgess worked in the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit. As Dr. Wendy Carr was a psychologist, Burgess’ background was also in psychiatry, and she helped with the development of the techniques that helped to elevate the process of serial killer profiling.
Besides the key characters, the serial killers featured in Mindhunter were also inspired by real ones. Infamous serial killers like John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, Edmund Kemper, Charles Manson, and Richard Speck were featured on the show, which further made the series grounded in reality.
Mindhunter can be streamed on Netflix.
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