CREEPY BEYOND

T HEY ARE THE MONSTERS of modern mythology — the things that go bump in the night,

the gnawing fear in

the back of our brain that tells us to crawl out of a warm bed and make sure the door is locked, the window secured. They prompt us to sprint through dimly lit parking lots and cavernous garages and cast over-theshoulder glances as we walk dark, deserted streets. They are why we tell our children to shun strangers and stay close.

They represent a peculiar brand of evil that has spawned an enormous volume of literature, some of it grand but much of it unseemly or worse, reaching back centuries. The fictionalized villains of the greatest of these works, from Grendel in "Beowulf" to Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs," are mainstays of our collective folklore — icons, if you will.

The visitation of death and/or sexual violation delivered randomly, suddenly and with stunning brutality is the stuff that chills the blood and fires the imagination. It is an anomaly of the human condition: We are fascinated by and drawn to the very thing that frightens us the most.

DOBBERT We are talking here about serial killers and sexual predators. Few people know them better — what makes them tick and how and why they choose their unwitting victims — than Duane Dobbert.

Dangerous minds

Dr. Dobbert is professor of criminal forensic studies at Florida Gulf Coast University and author of the recently released book "Psychopathy, Perversion, and Lust Homicide: Recognizing the Mental Disorders that Power Serial Killers." He's also written "Halting the Sexual Predators Among Us: Preventing Attack, Rape, and Lust Homicide."

After nearly four decades studying disordered and dangerous minds, he has concluded that Americans have an enduring "love affair with mystery and crime."

"If I'm at a cocktail party and someone finds out what I do, I spend the rest of the evening answering questions," he says, stating a fact, not airing a complaint. "I'll be asked about everything from JonBenet Ramsey to Ted Bundy. People can't get enough of this stuff."

And neither, it seems, can the good doctor himself.

He earned his undergraduate degree in sociology, his M.A. in counseling and his Ph.D. in human services, with an emphasis on deviant sexual behavior and the etiology of violence.

He grew up a tough, inner-city Detroit kid who always had "a hockey stick in one hand and a baseball in the other." He knew firsthand about mano-a-mano violence and street crime; fights, encounters with gangs and the constant specter of crime, both petty and substantial, were part of his daily upbringing.

His rough-and-tumble background made him well suited for work in the criminal justice system. Now 63 years old, beneath his academic cloak he retains a bit of his don't-mess-with-me, street-smart, hockeyplayer swagger.

"I understood murder," he says. "I've got a second cousin doing an all-day bit for Murder One. I know what that's about. Breaking and entering, that's nothing. Same for robbery. No big deal. Saw a lot of it."

He worked in prisons in Michigan, counseling and evaluating inmates, consulted with law enforcement, taught and was comfortable dealing with what might be termed conventional criminality. Crimes of passion, offenses involving theft and property — these were things he knew from his own life experience.

"I actually enjoyed working with people in prisons who had committed these sorts of crimes," he says. "I understood them. I knew what motivated them."

Florida a haven for predators

What turned Dr. Dobbert's professional world upside down was when a sheriff more than 35 years ago asked him to consult on a case involving a 15-year-old boy who had raped an 18-month-old toddler. The sheriff wanted an evaluation of the youthful rapist. Suddenly, the budding criminalist was stymied.

"This, I could not understand," he recalls. "It was repugnant, so awful, so totally beyond understanding that I decided I had to study it. I decided to devote my life and my studies to learning why people do things we can barely comprehend."

It would seem that Dr. Dobbert, who has been at FGCU since 2000, chose the right place to continue and refine his research into people who commit unspeakable acts of depravity, for Florida appears, to the layman at least, to be a veritable petri dish for serial killers and sexual deviants of all stripes. Think about it. The list includes:

• Danny Rolling ("The Gainesville Ripper")

• Bobby Joe Long ("The Classified Ad Rapist")

• Ottis Toole (whose victims are believed to have included Adam Walsh, the son of missing-children crusader John Walsh)

• Gerard John Schaefer (the former police officer and teacher who may have killed more than 30 women and girls)

• Aileen Wuornos (one of the few documented female serial killers)

• Fort Myers' own Arthur "Freddy" Goode (the child molester and murderer who until his execution in 1984 was known as "the most hated man on Death Row")

• And, of course, the most famous of them all, the previously mentioned Theodore Robert Bundy.

Is it just our imagination, or does the Sunshine State really attract an inordinate number of these frightening characters?

"No, it is not your imagination," the professor says. "Florida has become the poster child for the abduction of children by strangers and for serial killers."

He has figures to bolster this assertion. Nationally, he points out, there are some 600,000 registered sex offenders (although experts believe the true number of sexual offenders, both registered and unregistered, might exceed 2 million). Of these 600,000 registered offenders, Florida is home to more than 47,000.

"We're close to having a full 10 percent (of all registered offenders) living right here in our state," he says.

Dr. Dobbert believes that pathological killers, rapists and child molesters find Florida attractive for the very reason the average tourist does: its warm, inviting climate.

It does make sense. "Many of these guys are low on funds. They can live in the bush here, something you can't do up North in the snow and the ice," he says, adding, "We caught a registered offender on Bonita Beach who had come down from Wisconsin and was living on the beach. He said he couldn't do that back home.

"Also, there are so many people here, coming and going. It's very easy to get lost here, to blend in. That's important. The last thing these people want is to stand out, to attract attention."

'Fantasy love group'

All sexual predators and serial killers have what Dr. Dobbert calls a "fantasy love group" — a collection of people, be it children of a particular age or women with certain physical characteristics, who are their ideal victims, their preference for sexual fantasy and violence.

Sexual psychopaths typically build "shrines" in their homes featuring their fantasy love group, and most of these shrines include photographs of potential victims, he explains. "If your fantasy love group, let's say, is 18-year-old females, why would want to be at the University of Michigan, where the young women are walking around for most of the year bundled in clothes?" he asks. "You'd want to be here in Florida where your fantasy group is scantily clad because of the warm weather. It fuels their fantasies, keeps them fresh. They can readily photograph their fantasies.

"Let's be honest. Young women on the beaches of Florida and California are lying around in thongs and occasionally topless. You want to see what I'm talking about, go to Fort Myers Beach on spring break. Oh my God, there are men — lots of men — taking pictures, and their intentions are not good. Believe me, some of these pictures become parts of shrines in their homes."

For some sexually disordered men, the behavior never goes past photography. For others, actions escalate. Some advance to peeping in windows and other forms of voyeurism. A certain number will go on to commit rape. And for a very few, rape —specifically serial rape — becomes the final way station along the road that ends at serial killing, Dr. Dobbert says.

Beginning in childhood

The disordered thinking of a sexual psychopath generally surfaces in childhood.

"We can absolutely see these people coming from their behavior as children," he says. Cruelty to animals and other children and acts of arson are strong indicators of brewing psychopathic behavior.

"When you see a child who burns another child with a cigarette, well, that kind of sadistic behavior should raise all sorts of red flags," he says. "It's not a case of boys being boys. It's someone exhibiting at a young age that they enjoy inflicting pain and suffering and that they have no conscience."

The study of serial killers and sexual predators is relatively new and continually evolving. Before joining the staff at FGCU nearly 10 years ago, Dr. Dobbert essentially designed his own doctoral program at Capella University in Minnesota to address his narrowly defined specialization.

In addition to his accomplishments as a scholar and author, he retains a real-world involvement in the field. He's in demand as an expert witness and is a member of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Child Abduction Response Team for Southwest Florida. The team assists local authorities in the investigation of child kidnappings.

Living within the heads of violent psychopaths is not for everyone, Dr. Dobbert says, stating what may seem to be readily obvious to most of us. What is less obvious, however, is who is drawn to this chilling discipline.

"I think the public would be surprised to know that women are attracted to this field," he says, adding that about 70 percent of his undergraduate students and roughly 90 percent of his graduate students at FGCU are female. "I think they are attracted because it is an intellectual chess game, and also because they themselves are more likely to be victims simply because of their gender. I believe they feel that the more they know, the less fear they will have.

"Men tend to have bravado and bluster, but women understand victimology."

His students will go on to become researchers, teachers, counselors, profilers and consultants to law enforcement agencies.

Someone is watching

For a man whose life's work is devoted to such serious and disturbing subjects, Dr. Dobbert retains an air of relaxed congeniality. Sharply dressed and starched, he is the antithesis of the rumpled academic. And, yes, he is contemplating a work of fiction that will further add to the bulging catalogue of serial-killer novels.

He and his wife, Joyce, who is a Realtor, live in Naples. They have four grown children (a daughter is a forensic psychologist) and seven grandchildren.

In deference to his wife, the professor leaves his grisly research at the office. And he does not preach a gospel of fear. But he has schooled his family on the importance of being aware of their surroundings, of looking for the odd stranger whose gaze may be unsettling or lingering.

"After living with me all these years, my wife knows how to walk in a parking lot — or anywhere, for that matter," he says. "She knows what to look for. She can pick (potential predators) out of a crowd."

While he acknowledges that the chance of dying at the hands of a serial killer or having a child abducted by a stranger is slight, he stresses that to dismiss the possibility out of hand is dangerously naive.

Sick, twisted people move among us daily, he says.

And he offers this test for skeptics.

"The next day it rains — and I mean a good rain so that people don't want to be outside — take a trip to a mall and go to the food court. Stand off at a distance, and observe the men who are sitting alone around the edges, reading a newspaper or magazine. Look closely, and you'll see that many of them are not reading at all.

"They're watching, and they will be there for hours. They're not just watching the hot soccer moms. They're watching kids, children, or whoever makes up their fantasy love group.

"Do this. You'll be surprised."

So, there you have it in from the expert. Don't be paralyzed by fear and don't obsessively cling to your loved ones.

But never let loose of this fact: Someone, somewhere, at sometime, may very well be watching — and waiting.

Still skeptical? Spend an afternoon with Duane Dobbert and report back.

Teaching how to spot possible predators

>> Years of witnessing and studying violence led Dr. Duane Dobbert to seek ways to prevent children, the most vulnerable of our society, from becoming victims.

"I just couldn't stand to see another child abducted or killed," the author, consultant, expert witness and professor of criminal forensic studies at Florida Gulf Coast University says.

About five years ago, Dr. Dobbert began holding seminars on sexual predators and their behavior for law enforcement officials in a 10-county area that included Charlotte, Collier and Lee counties. From police officers and investigators, he branched out to instructing school superintendents in the same area.

Within a few months, he had a call from Jeff Stauring, director of transportation for the Collier County School District. Mr. Stauring suggested that Dr. Dobbert teach school bus drivers to spot sexual predators. The idea made perfect sense to the professor. "No matter how many law enforcement officers we can put on the road, school bus drivers are more aggregate eyes, and they have one mandate, which is the protection of the children in care," he says.

In August 2005, Dr. Dobbert trained hundreds of school bus drivers in Collier County. The next summer he spent two weeks training 5,000 drivers from Southwest Florida and across the state in identifying potential predators who might be attracted to school bus stops. Now, he conducts seminars training school bus drivers from across the nation, and has also produced a DVD entitled "School Bus Drivers: First Line of Defense against Sexual Predators."

As a next step, he hopes to have his students at FGCU look at ways to quantify the program's success.

Although bus drivers have learned what to look for and have started to identify suspicious people, there is no mechanism in place to determine whether any of those who raise suspicion are actually registered sex offenders, he explains. "After just a couple of semesters in Collier County, about 40 suspicious people were identified by drivers. The next step is to collect data telling us how many of these people have been true offenders and real threats."

School bus stops are not the only places where predators congregate. Swimming meets, youth soccer matches, women's basketball games, all draw dangerous characters. In fact, Dr. Dobbert says, any gathering that attracts large numbers of young people is likely to draw the attention of predators, also.

"You see them at these places," he says. "Men hanging on to chain link fences watching kids. Guys sitting up in the shadows watching girls play basketball… They sit alone, and they are not into the games… They try to remain inconspicuous, and many carry cameras. That's a telling sign, cameras.

"To be honest, many of them just look out of place, as if they don't belong. And they don't belong. They are not there for the reasons that others are there. They are not cheering. They are watching the participants. They are obsessed."