When a Killer Calls: A Haunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town

FBI profiler Douglas and Olshaker (Mindhunter) tell the riveting story of how the FBI, working with local law enforcement officers, cracked the case of a particularly nasty killer. In rural South Carolina in 1985, 17-year-old Shari Smith was kidnapped from her family’s driveway by a man who later raped and suffocated her. The killer called the Smith home multiple times and mailed the parents their child’s last will and testament before telling them where to find her body. Two weeks later, he did the same to nine-year-old Debra May Helmick. Douglas, who was called in on the case, discovered that Larry Gene Bell, a 36-year-old electrician’s assistant, fit the FBI’s profile of a white male who had served in the military. The authors describe in dramatic detail how Bell was finally caught (clues included the imprint of a phone number lifted from the sheet of paper on which Shari had written her will) and the two trials that ended in death sentences, as well as the sense of terror in the small town and the incredible faith of the Smith family and their community. Peppered with other FBI profiling cases, this is required reading for those interested in the early years of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. Agent: Frank Weimann, Folio Literary Management. (Feb.)