The Mad Bomber of New York (37 page)

On April 18, 1957, before a crowded Brooklyn courtroom, Judge Leibowitz delivered his opinion as to the competency of George Metesky to stand trial. With the proceedings summoned to order with a rap of the gavel, the assistant district attorney rose and stated as a preliminary matter that his office wished to withdraw any objection to the confirmation of the Bellevue psychiatric report. Leibowitz recognized the action as a signal of unanimity in the decision he was about to convey.

Clamoring news reporters eager to gain their particular angle on the headline of the day furiously scribbled notes upon rustling yellow tablets, and as the judge began to speak, an audible hum of anticipation filled the gallery. “The decision of this Court,” began Leibowitz in a quiet yet assured tone, “is based solely on the report of the Bellevue Hospital psychiatrists and the evidence adduced upon the hearings concerning Metesky's mental state at the present time.”

He breathed deeply and set his eyes upon the prepared text of the decision.

The court finds as follows:

(1) Metesky is now and has been for many years suffering from the mental illness of schizophrenia of the paranoid type. This disease is progressive and deteriorating in character.

(2) Although Metesky has some superficial awareness of the charges made against him, he nonetheless does not properly comprehend the gravity of the offenses and their true significance.

(3) Metesky is incapable of properly conferring with his lawyer on a lawyer and client basis in the preparation of his defense. Thus by reason of his insanity, he is incapable of making his defense.

Pursuant, therefore, . . . the Court is constrained to commit Metesky to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminal Insane, there to remain until he is no longer in such a state of insanity as to be incapable of understanding the charge made against him and making his defense thereto . . .

Judge Leibowitz remained fully aware that, notwithstanding his decision, the New York County Court of General Sessions retained jurisdiction over Metesky and could at any time opt to remove him from Matteawan and put him on trial for his crimes. He accordingly asserted an emotional, albeit indirect, plea to Judge Mullen and District Attorney Hogan, in the hope that Metesky's desperate circumstances would dissuade them from further action in the matter.

“The law does not concern itself, in this proceeding, with the prognosis by the physicians concerning Metesky's tubercular condition,” observed Leibowitz. He raised his eyes from the text of his prepared remarks and peered silently into the transfixed assembly as if to emphasize the heartfelt import of his words. “However,” he continued, “one would be less than human not to be sympathetically moved by the pitiful condition of this hopelessly incurable man—incurable both mentally and physically. The physicians have told the Court that his days on earth are numbered.”

XXII
THE BIRTH OF CRIMINAL PROFILING

D
R.
J
AMES
B
RUSSEL AND HIS NOVEL FORM OF CRIME PSYCHIATRY HAD
begun a meteoric rise to mythical status from nearly the moment of Metesky's arrest. Though his psychological profile of the Mad Bomber played little if any direct role in the actual apprehension of the man, the approach had been widely publicized and heavily touted as a successful and innovative new tool available to law enforcement. In February 1957,
Newsweek
magazine described Brussel's image of the Bomber as “amazingly accurate” in a piece titled “Proven Profile,” and shortly after Metesky's arrest, the
New York Times
stated that the authorities “had not done badly in getting a theoretical portrait of the man they were seeking.” Brussel himself quickly became a public sensation. He granted a deluge of interview requests from nationally syndicated radio, television, and newspapers outlets, and in each instance was quick to point out that George Metesky did, in fact, fit the description that he had so aptly provided to police prior to the arrest. Brussel reveled in the notoriety, offering incisive opinions regarding the origin of Metesky's disorder, and, though he had never actually met and examined the man, he had little hesitation in labeling his condition a “textbook case of paranoia.”

As for the police department itself, the validity and usefulness of Dr. Brussel's profile depended wholly upon who was asked. Captain Howard Finney and those of a similar mind-set in the technical divisions and scientific laboratories of the department regarded Dr. Brussel's work in high esteem, while the rank and file “boots-on-the-ground” bomb squad detectives had little use for what they viewed as the arrogant and theoretical world of psychiatry. Detective William Schmitt, one of the skeptical plainclothes officers present on the afternoon of Brussel's famous postulation, maintained that the “word picture” that miraculously developed before his eyes “could fit anyone in the world.” He had little regard for Brussel or the other “scientific types,” who weren't involved in the day-to-day dangers of crime fighting and he doubted whether any unproven psychiatric method could ever assist in the apprehension of unknown criminals.

It is perhaps difficult to assess the accuracy and usefulness of Dr. Brussel's profile in the Mad Bomber case. Attributes and predictions regarding the Bomber had been offered and publicized by so many different police technicians, psychiatrists, and newspapers that the actual content of Brussel's specific profile is rather allusive. Brussel himself had been accused of placing a somewhat sanitized version of the profile in his memoir, omitting, it was argued, certain predictions that would later prove to be inaccurate. Indeed, some of the publicized character portraits of the Bomber at the time suggested that he would have a facial scar and others opined that he was of German extraction, and though Brussel would later be criticized for these inaccuracies, there is little evidence that his actual profile contained either of those items. In point of fact the only publicized accounts of the profile during the search for the Mad Bomber and just beyond that specifically named Dr. Brussel as the author made no mention of a facial scar or of the culprit being of German descent.

To be sure, several of the characteristics uncontrovertibly formulated by Dr. Brussel fell short of accuracy. His profile had predicted that the Bomber would be a high school graduate, between forty and fifty years of age, living in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and suffering from heart disease. Though each of these items was close to the descriptive mark, Metesky was in actuality a high school dropout, age fifty-three at the time of his arrest, living in Waterbury, and suffering from tuberculosis. And regarding Brussel's astounding prediction that the Bomber would be attired in a buttoned double-breasted suit at time of apprehension, his critics would point out that Metesky was, in fact, wearing pajamas when police knocked at his door—at midnight. In summarizing the criticism of Dr. Brussel's conclusions, Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his 2007
New Yorker
essay “Dangerous Minds,” “A profile isn't a test, where you pass if you get most of the answers right. It's a portrait, and all the details have to cohere in some way if the image is to be helpful.”

Despite the critical commentary, as a whole, Dr. Brussel's Mad Bomber profile was viewed as a remarkable success and was greeted with broad praise. His work on the case was recognized as the first formal application of psychiatric principles to crime scene investigation in the United States, and would gain wide acceptance as an innovative milestone in the creation of a new crime-fighting medium. In some circles Dr. Brussel would come to be known quite simply as the founding father of criminal profiling.

In the years following the arrest of the Bomber, Brussel would be called upon by various law enforcement agencies to duplicate his astounding profiling method. In April 1964 the assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, who was at the time caught in the throes of an exasperatingly fruitless Boston Strangler investigation, sought out and met with the New York psychiatrist and nervously asked, “I hope you can do your Mad Bomber trick for us here, Dr. Brussel.” Participating in a committee of mental health professionals who were actively engaged in the investigation, Brussel would take the minority position that the Strangler was in fact a sole perpetrator, an opinion that would be borne out as fact with the ultimate arrest of Albert DeSalvo.

In 1968 Brussel reached the pinnacle of his notoriety with the publication of his memoir,
Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist.
In the book, he highlighted his work on various high-profile cases, including that of the Mad Bomber, the Boston Strangler, and several others that had confounded police for years, and he expounded upon his “private blend of science, intuition, and hope” that would become the basis of modern criminal profiling. Portions of the book were syndicated in newspapers throughout the country, and soon others were taking notice of Dr. Brussel's innovative methods.
Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist
would shine the light of awareness and credibility upon this new combination of psychology and law enforcement and become, according to one former acting director of the FBI, “the first crude manual in criminal profiling for police use.”

In March 1969, Dr. Brussel's book received an avalanche of publicity from an unexpected source.
Casebook
had been out for less than a year when Sirhan Sirhan was placed on trial in Los Angeles for the murder of Robert Kennedy. As the courtroom drama unfolded, daily reports of the testimony dominated media outlets and detailed accounts of the prosecution and defense themes were revealed and analyzed by laymen and law enforcement at every level. As part of the defense strategy that Sirhan was functioning under a diminished mental capacity at the time of the murder, a California psychiatrist named Martin M. Schorr was called upon to interview and examine Sirhan and offer a professional opinion based upon his findings. Schorr testified that Sirhan suffered from paranoid schizophrenia stemming, in part, from his relationship with his father, and the defense offered as evidence a report that Schorr had prepared in support of his conclusions. Portions of Schorr's report, however, contained extensive and verbatim quotes from
Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist
regarding Brussel's similar analysis of the Mad Bomber. The problem was that Schorr adapted Brussel's language to his own analysis of Sirhan but used no quotation marks and made no effort to attribute his statements to the true author. “I am not the best writer in the world,” testified Dr. Schorr in a grueling cross-examination. “He tells his story in vivid, illustrative language. It's an exciting kind of writing and he is an exciting author.” Needless to say, Schorr's overall testimony was discredited by his attempt to elucidate his own report with the unauthorized words of another. Though Brussel contemplated legal action for plagiarism, Schorr's blunder would provide
Casebook
with the literary approbation that few other sources could.

The technique of modern criminal profiling would undergo its evolutionary development in an FBI Academy lecture course titled “Applied Criminology” that was taught and developed beginning in 1970 by Special Agent Howard Teten. A good-natured and intellectually oriented criminologist who would come to be known as “the Gentle Titan” among his colleagues for both his physical and professional stature, Teten had developed his own method of crime scene analysis in the early 1960s as an officer at the San Leandro Police Department in California. Upon joining the FBI and ultimately becoming an academy training instructor, Teten was provided the opportunity to refine his theories and soon began testing his approach on a variety of solved and eventually unsolved cases. As word of Teten's work and mounting successes spread, his course was expanded and soon he took on a partner, a special agent from New York named Pat Mullany, whose credentials included an advanced degree in psychology as well as classroom experience. Teten himself would later acquire several advanced degrees and complete the coursework for a PhD in criminal justice, but in the early 1970s the team taught and applied their newly developed profiling concepts to FBI agents and law enforcement officers across the country. When the FBI opened its new academy in Quantico, Virginia, in 1972, Teten and Mullany were invited as instructors to the groundbreaking Behavioral Science Unit (BSU), which was dedicated to bringing the science of psychology to the study of criminal behavior, and their national reputation for breathing life into unsolved cases steadily grew.

In 1973 Teten became aware of Dr. Brussel's memoirs and, recognizing his pioneering contribution to the discipline of profiling, sought him out in an effort to compare and contrast methodologies. In a series of meetings in Brussel's Manhattan apartment the two men cordially and intellectually debated the focal points of both approaches and examined the pros and cons of each. Teten would later write:

He was a wonderful old gentleman and certainly experienced in his brand of profiling . . . I was so impressed I asked if he would teach me his technique. I said that I would be happy to pay whatever he charged. His reply was that neither I nor the FBI could afford his charges, and since it was against his policy to offer reduced rates, he would have to donate his time. I . . . learned a great deal, but I disagreed with some of the assumptions contained in his approach.