This week we welcome James R. Fitzgerald, an American criminal profiler and forensic linguist. James is a retired FBI agent and is best known for his role in the UNABOM investigation, which resulted in the arrest and conviction of Ted Kaczynski. He designed and developed the FBI’s Communicated Threat Assessment Database (CTAD), a first-of-its-kind, fully searchable repository for all threatening and criminally oriented communications. And for his magnum opus, James authored three books in a memoir series, A Journey to the Center of the Mind. 

 

In this episode, we uncover The Dirt on James ‘Fitz.’ 

1. Profiler or linguist, which came first?

2. Exploring the complex world of sociolinguistics. 

3. How James decoded the Unabomber letters on a flight to the West Coast. 

4. The impact of digital communications on his field.

5. And does James take his water with ice or room temp?