Criminal profiler who has worked for the FBI on a number of high-profile cases, including the Unabomber manhunt and the Chicagoland Tylenol murders in 1982. Since her retirement, she has hosted Deadly Women and Facing Evil TV series on Investigation Discovery.
She initially worked as a psychiatric nurse in Chicago following her college graduation. She attended the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia at age 28 while raising one son as a divorcee.
She retired from the FBI in 2000, and had her debut book Special Agent: My Life on the Front Lines as a Woman in the FBI published. The New York Daily News compared her to the fictional heroine of the film Silence of the Lambs Clarice Darling, played by Jodie Foster.
Her father was a building contractor, while her mother stayed at home to raise her. She has one son named Seth.
She has frequently been a guest of San Francisco-area radio host Ronn Owens on his KGO AM station.