(This interview is reprinted from the Forensic Files of the Batman (Simon and Shcuster iBooks, 2004) by Doug Moench. It is presented for your entertainment and not to profit in any way).
CASE FILE: #0023
DATE: Year one, Month four, Day Five
Annotated Transcript of Police Interrogation
More than ever, I am now convinced that the “behavioral science of psychological profiling” is vastly overrated and overvalued, as demonstrated by the following verbatim exchange between police profiler and true madman.
Developed by the FBI at Quantico, profiling has achieved a mythical status it does not deserve. While of limited use in some cases and under certain circumstances, the process is almost entirely speculative, little more than educated fortune-telling and similarly based on statistical smoke and mirrors. But the myth dies hard. Volumes are written about the “stunningly accurate” predictions about unknown serial killers, including their natures, habits, and even future actions, but such accurate profiles are actually quite rare. Far more common are all-wet predictions hung out to dry with little notice and no mention.
Moreover, even the most “successful” profile tends to be heavily weighted with vague and essentially useless probability (“likely a white male in his 20s or 30s” who “probably owns or has access to a vehicle” and who “feels comfortable operating in the area”), as well as a rife with the jaw-dropping obvious (“probably afflicted with antisocial tendencies” who “feels no remorse for his criminal acts” and who “will likely commit such acts again in the future”), while utterly lacking any meaningful specificity. The most thoroughly detailed profile typically narrows the list of possible suspects to mere millions. Such so-called analysis, in fact, tells us no more than is clearly seen on the face of it.
I am not alone in my skepticism. Aware that perpetrators are almost always caught by more conventional means, most street cops simply ignore profile bulletins. Some laugh at them. Pop-culture fiction and true-crime bestsellers aside, even other FBI agents view profiling as a “misuse of vital resources” better devoted to the hard forensic sciences. One described the celebrity status of fellow agents in the Behavioral Division as “a sick joke”.
When the “serial killer” in question is actually a multiple murderer like the Joker, with a mindset as unpredictably bizarre as his, any interrogation inevitably offers as much profile contrasting as comparing. The Joker might well be unique. And yet, as the very definition of “homicidal maniac,” he surely shares certain traits and modes of behavior with other deranged killers. While it is still early in the Batman’s career, I have yet to encounter a more dangerous individual and cannot imagine that I ever will. Understanding his mind and learning from his example is therefore crucial. And even a misguided interrogation contains valuable insights, if only the Joker’s responses to obtuse or irregular questions.
Hence the following transcript, with profiler’s name redacted and appropriate notes interpolated, although I do not myself pretend to have all the answers or fully understand the twisted evil of this nightmare clown.
Profiler: State your name for the record, please
Joker: I’d rather tattoo it on your forehead. Etched by hand with a blunt dirty needle dipped in dayglo acid [Laughter] Yowtch, that stings!
Profiler: Your name please. We can’t begin this talk without it.
Joker: Then shut up.
Profiler: Your name.
Joker: Call me Pagliacchi. [Giggling] But hold the drama and kill the tears.
Profiler: All right, we’ll let it go for now. You’ve waived your right to counsel and consented to this interview, is that correct? You have no objection talking?
Joker: I’d rather act than talk, but theses restraints… [Prolonged shrieking howling and violent thrashing]… well, they are rather restraining, aren’t they?
Profiler: Any further such outbursts, I must warn you, will not be tolerated.
Joker: And they’ll be stopped how? By restraining me? [Laughter]
Profiler: Can you tell me what happened to your face? Whit it’s so white?
Joker: I confess, I’m a night owl. The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.
Profiler: We’re discussing something more severe than the lack of tan. And it seems to affect all of your skin, not just your face.
Joker: Wanna verify, big boy? [Wild giggles]
Profiler: Just answer the question, if you will.
Joker: Chalk it up to a bleach job involving a tumble incident with a vat of chemical. Here’s me: Whoops, sploosh, yahhh! [Insane Laughter]
Profiler: And I suppose that’s also the explanation for your, uh, peculiar facial contortion?
Joker: What peculiar facial contortion would that be?
Profiler: The rictus…the exaggerated grin. It seems to be frozen in place.
It is, suggesting permanent nerve damage. It may be that his skin has been more than bleached. It might have been seared, and I wonder if the Joker exists in a state of chronic pain.
Joker: I’d like to think the chipper smile suits me. Happy is he whose work is his pleasure.
Profiler: Work?
Joker: You don’t think that slaughtering in mass quantities is easy, do you?
Profiler: So taking lives makes you happy? Makes you smile?
Joker: We’ve already established I need no catalyst for the built-in toothy mirth look. [Chuckles]
Profiler: Let’s talk about your mother…
Joker: So after I killed her, I left her for dead, so what? It’s not like I ate her, tempting sweetheart though she be. [Maniacal laughter]
This, like so many of his other responses, was a lie, or at least his idea of a joke. Apparently believed by the profiler, however, it led to some five minutes of dead-end questioning, here omitted along with a brief and meaningless discussion of the Joker’s father. Both subjects are potentially valuable avenues, but only if explored by a more skilled interrogator.
Profiler: How do you feel when you kill?
Joker: Amused and fulfilled, like shooting mimes on a moonlit beach. Long walks on moonlit beaches, by the way are some of my favorite things, along with puppies dogs with broken necks and hot fudge sundaes laced with strychnine. And before you ask, my favorite color is purple.
Profiler: So you’re amused by the act of murder?
Joker: Like shooting bluefish in a shallow barrel. Or loud mimes on an empty beach. [Laughter] And don’t forget fulfilled.
Profiler: Do you feel the need to kill? A compulsion?
Joker: Actually a passing whim’ll do.
Also apparently true, but in the Joker’s mind, there may be little or no difference between compulsion and whim. Just as he hides behind the “mask” of his leering white face, a façade of twisted humor may conceal much deeper and darker urges. Like a jack-in-the-box, his violence springs forth in the guise of a garish clown. And because the dark box containing his violence is a psyche impossible to recognize or understand, its explosion is always unexpected. But unlike a jack-in-the-box—which first shocks and then draws laughter as relief—the Joker craves laughter first, then kills it with shocks of horror.
Profiler: You’ve been charged with murdering nine people…
Joker: Is that all?
Profiler: …and wounded seven more.
Joker: Gotta get out on that shooting range, sharpen the old aim. [Laughter] Pretty bad when they’re still squirming after the fifth shot, but pass the ammo anyway.
Profiler: The people you killed or injured shared little in common. Different physical types, different ages, weights, races, both gender and all were strangers. How did you select your victims?
Joker: Other than having transparent windows, that’s the standing issue, isn’t it?
Profiler: Standing?
Joker: If they can stand, they can fall. I ask nothing more of future meat. [Insane cackling] With freshness thus assured, what hunter could resist?
Profiler: Then you’re a hunter? You think of yourself as a predator?
Here the questioner again falls into the rhetorical trap, as he does repeatedly, demonstrating his ability to see only what he’s looking for. He may well be the Joker’s straight man. Time and again, instead of objectively assessing his subject, he tries to fit the Joker into the familiar pattern of previous profiles, as if seeking some master key to unlock the pathology of every killer. But despite any and all similarities, every killer is unique. And in the case of the Joker, that truism is taken to an almost surreal extreme.
Joker: I think of myself as the clown prince of merry mayhem and murderous mirth, the scary trickster who makes you shriek. So what’s your excuse?
Profiler: Your complete lack of remorse and empathy is noted. In fact, it’s a given. Do you think you feel superior to other people?
Joker: Feeling is thinking, a waste of time, and killing time is always more productive.
Profiler: But is that why you’re able to kill people? Because they seem inferior to you, not really people at all, but more like animals, like prey?
Joker: I ain’t about to get religion at this point, bub, so just pray yourself.
Profiler: If you could drop the act for a minute, just between you and me, I want to ask you a serious question.
The modern jester persona may well be a pose, but the Joker’s dementia is not an act. He is fully and genuinely insane.
Joker: I don’t do serious.
Profiler: Would you describe yourself as a narcissistic personality?
Joker: I get the best cell in Arkham, don’t I?
Profiler: To which you will soon return. So how do you feel about that?
Joker: I could use a break. [Soft laughter] At least for a while, and then comes the other kind of break.
Profiler: How did you feel about been apprehended for the second time?
Joker: He cheated! [Shrieking] I don’t know how, but he always cheats.
Here the Joker becomes enraged, his previous tone of lunatic clowning instantly gone.
Profiler: You’re talking about Detective Bullock?
Joker: You know damn well who I’m talking about! Gordon’s secret weapon—and they call ME batty!
Profiler: If you’re referring to this so called “Bat-man”, you’re the third one to do so in the last month. And it’s no joke, in my opinion. In fact, I sense a fascinating sociological phenomenon here, one with real momentum. Do you think the entire underworld could be in the grip of some strange mass hysteria?
Joker: You got that right, but nobody’s laughing. I can’t even get the boyos to crack a smile these days. They’re all too afraid of their own shadows. I’ll probably have to cut out his heart and serve it up on a platter before good times roll again.
Profiler: You’re NOT joking. You actually believe in this Bat-man, don’t you? Even you.
Joker: A swift kick on the head works wonders in the convert department
Profiler: But “a gargoyle coming to life” – a giant bat swooping down the night sky? Surely that’s just a myth, a figment of criminal imagination
Joker: Looked upward lately?
Profiler: You’re right, that Bat image beamed into the clouds probably started the whole thing. But that’s just some advertising gimmick. Or maybe the newspapers are behind it, looking to build circulation by concocting better stories.
Joker: And maybe the coppers are behind it. [Sly disgust] Maybe Gordon.
Profiler: If so, wouldn’t it make more sense to see the light—maybe I shouldn’t say this—as just a ploy on the part of the police department, some form of psychological warfare?
Joker: More like his logo, an upside-down spotlight cueing the main attraction, big Bat’s act.
Profiler: And yet the record here is clear. You were arrested by Homicide Detective Harvey Bullock.
Joker: That clumsy oaf couldn’t arrest his own fetid breath! Bats GAVE me to the Bull! He turned me over to the cops, but he cheated!
Profiler: All right how did he cheat!
Joker: You tell me and we’ll both know. There’s no way he should have found me so soon! [Snarling] You said it yourself! I only bagged nine, a lousy single night’s work! I was barely setting up for Shooting Gallery Two, letting the next night fall and watching the light come on in all the faraway windows, showing my longshot targets all around, and then he crashes down through the roof like hell busting loose before I can even score my first shot. So you tell me how his boots found the right roof because I don’t know. It’s like he’s in league with the darkness!
Or in this case with light and more specifically the finely focused beam of a laser used to determine bullet trajectory.
The entire murder spree had taken less than three hours, from half-past nine to shortly after midnight, with all the victims shot by high-powered rifle through their closed windows. Since the recovered rounds were all the same make and caliber, they were almost certainly fired through the same weapon, making ballistics comparison a formality that could wait. Finding and stopping the shooter was more pressing.
The victims were scattered, their punctured windows ranged near and far, and located on upper floors as well as lower. The bullet holes held the answer, and much can be gauged by the naked eye alone, including the shot’s approximate angle, after closely examining the characteristics of a single hole through a single window. The beam from a portable laser projected from within the room, outward through the hole and along that angle, then traces the bullet’s probable trajectory with a fair degree of accuracy. Such a laser beam, if not stopped by a building or some other obstacle, can reach all the way across the city. The beam, in fact, becomes an illuminated ghost of the bullet’s passage, with the shooter’s position located at some point along the beam, most likely at the end.
Furthermore, a beam aligned through the window hole from a second fixed reference point— the bullet’s terminus deeper in the room—traces the trajectory with perfect precision. Final impact with a victim, however, will yield only an approximation of the bullet’s terminus, the victim having fallen or slumped.
These sniper shootings, fortunately, were committed from a considerable distance, with one or more misses preceding the fatal or wounding shot at a number of the scenes. This meant that each missed shot left a second fixed reference point, a final impact in wall, ceiling, floor, or furniture. A laser beam projected from the bullet’s final impact through its window of entry hole would thus point straight to the shooter’s position.
After selecting and visiting two scenes with missed shots and multiple holes in glass, wood and plaster, I needed no further confirmation. Every beam projected from the first two sites lined up perfectly, converging on the same location from multiple angles and two different directions. And with every beam stopped by the same structure, they revealed the sniper’s firing position with pinpoint precision and the position revealed the sniper’s identity. The killing spree bullets had been fired from the storage attic of the funhouse in Gotham’s abandoned amusement park, where the Joker had indulged his latest idea of fun.
Profiler: Listen to yourself. “In league with darknesss.” You’re describing the bogeyman.
Joker: I told you, I’m describing someone a lot more batty than me. Who else could have stopped me? Why am I shackled in here instead of out plugging more windows?
Profiler: Good police work. Detective Bullock’s report mentions a portable laser used to—
Joker: Don’t make me laugh. [Venomously]
Profiler: All right, however it went down, you were arrested and here we are. Trying to get to the bottom of what happened before you were arrested. Can you just give me a sense of why you did it?
Joker: Surely you jest.
Profiler: But how did you come up with the idea? Was it something you planned for a long time or did it come on suddenly? Was it spontaneous? And what was the point of it? Were you trying to terrorize the city? Was it a political in some way? Ideological? Or would you say you’re simply consumed with unreasoning hatred for just anyone and everyone, driven by urges having no other outlet?
Joker: All of the above, except most of it.
Profiler: Would you say your urges have certain triggers?
Joker: No, but my guns certainly do.
Profiler: And why do you use guns? Because they fill you with a sense of power?
Joker: Because they fill meat with holes [Insane laughter]
Profiler: That’s the best you can come up with? The best explanation for your appalling actions? A sick joke?
Joker: If you’re so smart, trump me, baby!
The only predictable aspect of the Joker’s criminally insane psyche is its inherent unpredictability. Given the chance, he will kill and kill again, but how, why, when and whom he will kill cannot be anticipated. His reasons and methods are not random but are so quixotic and impulsive they might as well be. The overriding insight provided by this profiling attempt, therefore, is that the Joker cannot be profiled.
Profiler: I’m just trying to understand you. What you’ve done is wrong and this is the second time you’ve done it. Abhorrent multiple murder. Think about that, about all the truly despicable things you’ve done, all the heartache you’ve caused. And believe me when I say I want to help you stop, but you have to make SOME sense, okay? You have to toss me a bone here and there and we’re running out of time. Now, before you’re remanded back to Arkham as an incurable sociopath, isn’t there anything important you’d like to say?
Joker: Nice tie, great shade of cop blue. Want me to tighten it until your face matches? Maybe pull your tongue out and staple it to—
Profiler: All right, the interview’s over. I give up.
And I never will. Case closed—but only for now. Note to self: Explore improvements to Arkham security.
