The University of Northern Iowa’s Criminology Club will hear from a former F-B-I “profiler” tonight. Stephen Mardigian spent 31 years at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and retired as a profiler and supervisory special agent. Mardigian studied violent crime scenes to learn about the personalities of serial killers to track down and catch them. He says T-V shows and films like “Profiler” or “Hannibal” aren’t too far off the mark, but often “they roll too much fiction into reality” to spice it up for the audience. Mardigian has seen up-close examples of the worst things humans can do to other humans, but he says he learned to deal with the atrocities and violence. He tries to lay aside the horrific scenes as an E-M-T on an ambulance crew would do to get the job done. Mardigian is now vice president and violent crime consultant for the Academy Group, a private forensic behavioral science firm in Virginia. The firm was consulted in the creation of the spin-off “X-Files” program called “Millennium” about a former F-B-I profiler who worked at a firm called the Millennium Group. Mardigian’s lecture is free and open to the public. He’s due to speak at six p-m at U-N-I’s Maucker Union Expansion, with a Q-and-A session afterwards.
