FBI behavioral profilers concluded that Susie Jaeger was likely murdered within two days of her abduction, despite the kidnapper maintaining for a year that she was alive.
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At 30:20 · chapter starts 30:00
Attending routine FBI training at Quantico in the spring of 1974, Agent Dunbar wanders into a session run by agents with psychology backgrounds who are developing a then-radical idea: that a crime scene encodes information about who committed it. With nothing to lose, Dunbar asks them to look at Sandy and Susie's cases. The resulting profile is eerily precise — a white man in his 20s, local, military background, unmarried, physically fit, a loner who likely kept souvenirs from his victims and would insert himself into the investigation. But local investigators are skeptical; polygraphs are the known science, and Meirhofer passed one. The profilers push further: they predict the killer will call the Jaeger family again, and they think it will be on a significant date. Agents prepare Marietta for the one-year anniversary.
FBI agents with psychology backgrounds sketched a profile of the killer: white male in his 20s, local, military experience, loner, likely kept souvenirs, and would insert himself into the investigation. They also predicted he would call again on a significant date. Every box pointed to David Meirhofer.
FBI behavioral profilers predicted the killer would call the Jaeger family again on a significant date, specifically warning of a call around the one-year anniversary of Susie's abduction.
On the one-year anniversary of Susie's abduction, Marietta Jaeger kept the kidnapper on the phone for a full hour, negotiating and pleading for her daughter's return.
On the exact one-year anniversary of Susie's kidnapping, the killer called Marietta. She kept him on the phone for a full hour — sobbing, negotiating, calling his bluffs — even telling him no court would force a child to testify against him. It was a masterclass in keeping calm under the most unimaginable pressure.
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