‘James R. Fitzgerald: How Language Analysis Helped ID, Arrest and Convict the Unabomber’ Lecture at Atlantic Cape on May 1

The Atlantic Cape Community College-Rutgers University Lecture series presents “James R. Fitzgerald: How Language Analysis Helped ID, Arrest and Convict the Unabomber” at 2 p.m. on May 1 in the Walter Edge Theater of Atlantic Cape’s Mays Landing Campus, 5100 Black Horse Pike.

Fitzgerald is an American criminal profiler, forensic linguist and author. He is also a retired FBI agent and best known for his role in the Unabomber investigation, which resulted in the arrest and conviction of Ted Kaczynski.

Fitzgerald's career in law enforcement began in 1976 when he was hired as a police officer by the municipality of Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania. In 1987, after 11 years of local police work culminating in his promotion to the rank of sergeant, he was recruited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Upon graduation from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, Fitzgerald was assigned to the New York Field Division Joint Bank Robbery Task Force.

In 1995, Fitzgerald was promoted to criminal profiler at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which would later become the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU. Through myriad investigations of homicide, serial rape, extortion, kidnapping and workplace violence, Fitzgerald refined his skills in text analysis and threat assessment, specialties that were used in the Unabomber investigation.

In addition to his duties as a profiler and forensic linguist at the BAU, Fitzgerald was also responsible for developing training programs and tools to improve the threat assessment capabilities of the FBI. Among these is the Communicated Threat Assessment Database (CTAD),  an exhaustively indexed repository of data consisting of every communicated threat encountered in the course of FBI investigations.

At the lecture’s conclusion, Fitzgerald will sign his book, “A Journey to the Center of the Mind.”

The event is free and open to the public, as well as local law enforcement.

For more information, contact John Heenan, assistant professor of criminal studies at 609-343-4968 or jheenan@atlantic.edu.