Robert Durst’s Letter Evidence and How Journalists Collaborate with Police

Guest Bio

James R. Fitzgerald was the Program Manager of Threat Assessment/Forensic Linguistics at the Behavioral Analysis Unit 1 of the FBI. Fitzgerald knew little about profiling or linguistics when he joined the FBI in 1987. But, while assigned to the field office in New York City, he worked cases involving stalking or threatening letters sent to Jane Pauley, Bryant Gumbel, Don Imus, Donald Trump, and Rush Limbaugh, among others.
In 1995, Fitzgerald became a profiler at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va. As part of Fitzgerald’s profiler training, he learned about analyzing communications. He later obtained a Master’s degree in linguistics from Georgetown University. (This was his second MS. His first was in Organizational Psychology at Villanova University.) As he has at his present company, The Academy Group, Fitzgerald created a linguistic-oriented database of threatening and/or suspicious letters, similar to one the Secret Service maintains.Fitzgerald now works for the Academy Group in Manassas, Va., which provides profiling services for private industry as well as a university instructor, author, and technical advisor for television programs (Criminal Minds) involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation.