I try to imagine what the victim would have been saying at the time of the attack. I try to think how [the offender] would have been reacting. I even visualize the expression on his face. . . . I can see the style of hair, maybe the kind of clothing this guy would be wearing. [Los Angeles Times, 8 December 1995] Show less «

[on interviewing criminals:] I'd let the guy talk, let him project the blame onto someone else, even the victims. Then I'd challenge him. I'd say, 'I know your case. I looked at the crime-scene photos. You cannibalized that woman.' What they like is when you tell them about themselves. Then they open up. [October 1997] Show less «

You examine a crime scene with all its particular attributes in order to develop a general physical and psychological description of the person who committed the crime -- a profile. Then, in logical terms, you build a set of suspects who fall within the profile. Then, you move logically back to the particular. You try to find the specific criminal within that group. [Houston Chronicle, 13 October 1996] Show less «

I have conducted interviews with serial killers where I've felt that had this person been raised in the right environment, they wouldn't have turned out the way they did. However, I don't excuse behavior once they have perpetrated a violent crime. I know from my research that they basically have no remorse for what they have done, that they do know right from wrong, and that at the time that they committed the crime they were making choices. My empathy is for the victims of these violent offenders who we seem to forget as years go by. ... I often feel the perpetrators are not punished strongly enough. I discount the notion of rehabilitation for any of them. Show less «

[on fictional characters based on him:] What they've done is misinterpret my books. If I watch Profiler (1996), it drives me crazy when she [Ally Walker, as Waters] gets this look on her face, and she has these flashbacks and starts seeing blood and gore. [Salon.com, 8 July 1999] Show less «

[recalling how his obsession with finding the Green River Killer almost killed him] I didn't have a support system. I came back, I took out Inca Protection insurance, and life insurance, I went out to Seattle before I left, I told my family about my life insurance. 'You shouldn't go, what's wrong with you? You don't look right'. I'm getting headaches, I just don't feel right, but they're depending on me to go out there. I go before the task force, and that night I tell them 'Don't bother me, I'm not going out tomorrow, I'm getting the flu'. I collapse in my hotel room, they find me two days later with a lesion on my brain, I had viral encephalitis, related to the stress just burnt me out. Brain swelled, split the brain, left side paralysis, 220 heartbeat, 105-107 body temperature, my eyes were dilated, my whole system shut down. I'm in this coma now, and they take me to the hospital, but I'm aware, I'm aware something's going on around me. And they're starting to, I feel pain, and they're putting tubes in every body orifice in me, and I feel pain, and the last thing was the life support system, and they're forcing it down my throat. And I think I'm in hell; I think all these guys I've been after, they got me now, I'm being tortured, and now I'm being choked to death, I can't breathe. Show less «