The Origins of Criminal Profiling and the Mad Bomber Case

Key Insight

Between November 1940 and 1955, a series of bomb attacks terrorized New York City, targeting Consolidated Edison. Bombs were found in various locations including a windowsill, the street, Grand Central Terminal, a phone booth, and Radio City Music Hall, with one exploding in a phone booth and another in Radio City Music Hall, causing shrapnel injuries. Sixteen letters, written in block capitals and signed 'F.P.', were sent between 1941 and 1946, many repeating the phrase 'dastardly deeds'. Facing police frustration, Inspector Howard Finney of the NYPD sought help from psychiatrist James Brussel in late 1956.

Brussel deduced the bomber was clinically paranoid, middle-aged (bombing since 1940), orderly, cautious, and likely foreign-born due to precise but stilted language, use of 'the Con Edison', and archaic phrases like 'dastardly deeds'. He noted misshapen 'W's in the letters resembling breasts and interpreted the bomb placement in slashed seats as symbolic of sexual acts, concluding the bomber was unmarried, a loner, living with a mother figure, and stuck in the Oedipal stage. Brussel further speculated the bomber was Eastern European, based on the bomb-knife combination, and possibly from southeastern Connecticut, inferred from Westchester County postmarks.

In a legendary moment, Brussel predicted the bomber would be wearing a buttoned double-breasted suit when caught. A month later, George Metesky, whose name was formerly Milauskas, was arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut. Metesky lived with two older sisters, was unmarried, meticulously neat, attended Mass regularly, and had worked for Con Edison from 1929 to 1931, claiming a job injury. When arrested, he was indeed wearing a buttoned double-breasted suit. However, later analysis revealed Brussel's actual predictions were largely inaccurate and fabricated for his memoirs; the real breakthrough came from Con Edison employee Alice Kelly, who found Metesky's complaint letter containing a threat matching the bomber's.