May 31, 1985, two days before her high school graduation, Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family home in South Carolina. Based on the crime scene and the abductor's repeated and taunting phone calls to the family, law enforcement quickly
realized they were dealing with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal. The abduction rocked her quiet town, triggering a massive manhunt and bringing in FBI profiler John Douglas. A few days later, a phone call told the family where they could find Shari's body. But when nine-year-old Debra May Helmick was kidnapped from her yard, it confirmed investigators' fears that Smith's murder was no random act. A serial killer was evolving, and the only way to stop him was to deploy a strategy to manipulate his psyche using the study of criminal behavior to anticipate his next move before he could kill again.
One of the most haunting investigations of Douglas's storied career, this case details how the eerily accurate profile he created combined with the bravery of Shari's family, dedicated police work, and cutting-edge forensic science to catch serial killer Larry Gene Bell. As Shari's family took incredible personal risks to lure Bell from the shadows, Douglas and the FBi pushed criminal profiling to its limits, culminating in one of his most dramatic and effective confrontations with a sadistic and remorseless killer.
JOHN DOUGLAS is a former FBI special agent, the Bureau's criminal profiling pioneer, and a bestselling author who has spent more than three decades hunting, analyzing, and confronting America's most disturbing criminals. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area,
MARK OLSHAKER is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, jour-nalist, and author of twelve nonfiction books and five novels. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area.