Time to get into Ann Burgess' head. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re discussing the trailblazing career of forensic nurse, university professor, and criminal mind expert, Ann Wolbert Burgess.
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00:00We're often asked, well, why bring out something now that there's been so much attention to?
00:05And I think there are several answers to that question.
00:08Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're discussing the trailblazing career of forensic nurse,
00:13university professor, and criminal mind expert Anne Wolbert Burgess.
00:17I started listening to the tapes, and what I found was fascinating.
00:22Early Life and Career
00:24Anne C. Wolbert Burgess, born on October 2, 1936, was destined to enter the medical field.
00:30Growing up, the Massachusetts native had hands-on experience
00:34aiding one of her doctor uncles deliver babies.
00:36When it was time for college,
00:37she enrolled in Boston University's nursing program and earned her Bachelor of Science degree.
00:42A nurse fully realizes that in the business of saving a life or relieving pain and suffering,
00:48even the most minute detail can take on the importance of a life or death matter.
00:53After graduating from the University of Maryland with a master's,
00:56she returned to BU to complete her doctorate in nursing science.
00:59As Burgess did her clinical work at Spring Grove State Hospital in Maryland,
01:03her interest in human behavior only grew.
01:06My interest in understanding what motivated these abnormal behaviors
01:10was often dismissed as either a phase or a novelty,
01:15or worst of all, cute, by men in charge.
01:19Academia and Research
01:21Anne Burgess became an assistant professor at Boston College's
01:24William F. Connell School of Nursing in 1969.
01:27As she continued working with victims of violent crimes,
01:30she met sociologist Linda Lytle-Holmstrom,
01:32whom she credits with fully introducing her to the world of academic research.
01:36She knew that rape was going to be a big problem.
01:40Nobody else seemed to know it except the women and what Linda was finding out.
01:45But she invited me to be part of the study that she wanted to look at.
01:48The two women conducted a study focused on the prolonged physical
01:52and psychological trauma of sexual assault victims,
01:54who were stigmatized and often faced judgment instead of justice.
01:58Their goal was to shed light on the importance of victims,
02:01especially in the male-dominated fields of law enforcement
02:04and the criminal justice system.
02:06Of course, I wasn't the type to make things easy on myself.
02:10In addition to the cultural hurdles I faced,
02:13I also had to contend with the reality that psychiatric nursing
02:18was a largely unknown concept at that time.
02:21Burgess and Holmstrom organized a hospital-based crisis counseling program
02:25at Boston City Hospital, one of the first of its kind.
02:28Here, they analyzed 146 victims across a wide age range
02:32and determined that offenders sought power and control
02:35rather than sexual gratification.
02:37Because everybody initially thinks, oh, the person is crazy.
02:41Well, crazy woman.
02:43And for what they did, that might be appropriate,
02:46but it's certainly not mentally that they're crazy.
02:49In the early to mid-1970s,
02:51they published their revolutionary findings in the American Journal of Nursing.
02:55This challenged the cultural perception of sexual assault
02:58and heavily influenced the assessment and treatment of victims.
03:02Other important piece at that particular time
03:05was that the women's movement was putting a lot of pressure
03:09on Congress and so forth
03:15to do something about the problem.
03:16Because this was during the women's movement,
03:19their study gained recognition in other fields.
03:21Over in California, a female police officer who also worked as a nurse
03:26brought it to the attention of Special Agent Roy Hazelwood,
03:28which sparked an interest from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
03:32And told Roy to see if he could get hold of me.
03:36Said, there's a nurse on the East Coast.
03:38Why don't you see if she'll come down and talk to your agents?
03:41And that's really how I got invited down.
03:44Mind-hunting with the FBI.
03:46The 1970s saw a rise in sexual crimes with little to no apprehension of offenders.
03:52And the FBI knew they needed to implement new training
03:55of their agents and law enforcement offices.
03:58They were also putting pressure on all of the instructors
04:02at the Behavioral Science Unit that they needed to do their own research.
04:05In 1978, Burgess received a surprising call from Roy Hazelwood,
04:10who then-director William Webster asked to invite her
04:12to give lectures at their academy in Quantico, Virginia.
04:15She taught their agents about victimology,
04:17particularly women who endured violent crimes.
04:20He pushed us because we never would have gone in that direction,
04:23I'm telling you, had it not been for Ann or BC.
04:25Meanwhile, in the offices of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, or BSU,
04:30they were already working on a criminal personality study.
04:33Special Agents John Douglas and Robert Ressler did road school,
04:37traveling to local police departments and educating them in criminal psychology.
04:41As a side project, they began conducting interviews
04:44with convicted murderers behind bars, including Edmund Kemper,
04:47a.k.a. the co-ed killer.
04:50Do you mean that violence in the movies drove you to kill those women?
04:53No, my point is in reality it doesn't work the way you expect.
04:58In 1980, Burgess joined them and brought not only her expertise and perspective,
05:02but also helped them develop a methodology and organize their data.
05:06They interviewed and studied 36 serial killers,
05:09finding patterns of abnormal behavior,
05:11and categorizing them as organized and disorganized.
05:14Then contrast, compare, and publish.
05:17Publish.
05:18You can't just circulate your findings within the FBI.
05:21Other departments, including higher-ups in the Bureau,
05:23paid little attention to profiling,
05:25something Burgess also faced in her sexual assault study.
05:28But the BSU still received dozens of inquiries from local investigators
05:33who needed help with solving difficult cases.
05:35Once the word was out that there might be cases that match,
05:39in fact, that's what they were really calling it,
05:41is looking for patterns and looking for matches.
05:44And so they began to get all these cases,
05:46and they had to set limits on what they could take and so forth.
05:51One such case came in 1983,
05:54involving the abductions and murders of two young boys in Nebraska.
05:57Their profile helped apprehend serial killer John Joseph Joubert IV
06:01and later connected him to an earlier unsolved murder in Maine.
06:05They even found some earlier, not murders,
06:08but they found some earlier minor criminal activity
06:13that was really what you would call his kind of preparation.
06:16Burgess, Douglas, and Ressler also published 1988's
06:20Sexual Homicide, Patterns and Motives,
06:22followed by 1992's Crime Classification Manual,
06:25a standard system for investigating and classifying violent crime.
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06:45In the Media
06:46In her decades-long career,
06:48Anne Burgess has consulted on several high-profile and lesser-known cases.
06:52In the 1990s, she appeared as an expert witness for the defense
06:56in trials for the Menendez brothers
06:58and analyzed Henry Wallace's mind by request from his defense team.
07:02However, she maintained a life outside of the spotlight.
07:05The work is not done.
07:06That there still are many, many victims and many, many offenders,
07:10and there needs to be some more attention to this to decrease.
07:15Our goal is to decrease victimization.
07:18Now in her 80s, Burgess continues to consult on cases,
07:21work on her own research projects,
07:23give interviews about victimology and crime,
07:25and teach courses such as forensic mental health.
07:28She's been the recipient of multiple awards,
07:31including the Living Legend Award from the American Academy of Nursing.
07:35I think that Anne is so deserving of this award
07:38because of her sustained contribution over decades to the field.
07:42Her former colleagues John Douglas and Robert Ressler
07:45authored several books about their most notorious cases,
07:48and it was the 1995 book,
07:50Mindhunter,
07:51inside the FBI's elite serial crime unit by Douglas and Mark Olshaker
07:55that inspired the Netflix series Mindhunter.
07:57The character of Dr. Wendy Carr,
07:59played by Anna Torv,
08:01was loosely modeled after Burgess,
08:02though Carr was a psychologist and academic rather than a psychiatric nurse.
08:07Although your project is obviously in the nascent stages,
08:09it already feels like a clear successor to The Mask of Sanity,
08:13which as you know is quite a compliment.
08:15Can you repeat that, The Mask?
08:16When Mindhunter premiered in 2017,
08:19Burgess gained attention due to the popularity of the series,
08:22but her story was still largely untold.
08:25She detailed her illustrious career in nursing and criminal psychology,
08:29as well as the fascinating origins of profiling itself in A Killer by Design,
08:33Murderers,
08:34Mindhunters,
08:35and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind.
08:37One of the things that developed in terms of crime stories
08:42has been a rather fascination of people to the topic of crime stories.
08:47The 2021 book,
08:48co-authored by Boston College colleague Stephen Matthew Constantine,
08:52inspired Hulu's mastermind To Think Like a Killer,
08:54executive produced by sisters Elle and Dakota Fanning.
08:58Burgess served as a consulting producer on the three-part docuseries,
09:01which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2024,
09:05and will hit the streamer on July 11th.
09:07There was this aura,
09:09women need to be protected,
09:11and here was Ann Burgess, full speed ahead.
09:14Will you be checking out Mastermind to Think Like a Killer?
09:17Let us know in the comments below.
09:18For me it was a huge breakthrough.
09:21When the word got out,
09:22the program started to really expand.
09:25We were just besieged with cases.