The Forensic Psychology Online Blog

Elizabeth Short's name became well-known back in 1947, but not for her aspirations of becoming an actress and model; she was brutally murdered and her body cut in half at the waist and left in an empty lot in Los Angeles, California. The identity of her killer has...

What actually goes into building a criminal profile? What information needs to be gathered from a crime, or crimes, in order to build the most accurate and helpful profile possible? Are the most accurate profiles built from serial crimes because there are more...

While channel-surfing last night, I came across a show on the Bio Channel about Joran van der Sloot, the young man who is currently serving twenty-eight years in a Peruvian prison for murdering Stephany Flores Ramirez in May of 2010. He also remains the chief suspect...

The term “psychological autopsy” is exactly what it sounds like: a psychological profile to determine the mental state of someone who is already deceased. There are many reasons why a psychological profile may be conducted, with the most common one being to determine...

With nearly unlimited media coverage on every possible subject everywhere we turn these days, we literally find out about major news events as they are happening. The same holds true for our fascination and knowledge of crime and serial killers. Thanks to the media,...

Considered another tool in the tool bag of criminal profilers, geographic profiling is defined by the National Institute of Justice as “a technique that can help identify the likely area where a serial offender resides, or other place (e.g. work, girlfriend's place)...

Jeffrey Dahmer shocked, disgusted, fascinated, and baffled the nation when he was arrested in 1991 for heinous crimes that included the murder, dismemberment, rape, and cannibalism of 17 boys and young men. He was ultimately tried, convicted, and sentenced to fifteen...

Prison psychology, as the name implies, deals with the psychology of inmates within the prison system. This is a separate branch of specialization within the field of psychology because of the host of different issues a life of incarceration brings. Michael Decaire,...

Seventeen-year-old Austin Reed Sigg was recently arrested, and has also confessed, to the abduction and murder of Jessica Ridgeway, as well as the assault and attempted abduction of a 22-year-old jogger. Police also say they have “overwhelming DNA evidence” against...

With TV shows like “Criminal Minds”, “Law & Order”, :CSI”, and “The First 48”, as well as entire channels such as Investigation Discovery devoted to nothing but true crime documentaries, we as a society are becoming more and more knowledgeable as to the inner...