Howard Teten

Howard Teten
Born Nebraska City, Nebraska
Education University of California: Berkeley
Occupation Former FBI Agent/Instructor
Years active 1962-1986

Howard Teten is a former Federal Bureau of Investigations instructor at the FBI academy. Teten went on to have a career in the FBI, and with the help of Patrick Mullany, pioneered criminal profiling, also known as offender profiling, which is a tool used by law enforcement agencies to assist them in identifying characteristics in a crime to help identify the offender. Teten and Mullany used this tool to help them solve cases where the perpetrator was not known. Teten joined the FBI in 1962 where he eventually became a teacher. From the classes that Teten and Mullany taught at the FBI academy, they helped form the Behavioral Health Science Unit and offender profiling, which is still used today.

Early life

Howard Teten was born in Nebraska City, Nebraska. Due to his father being a construction forearm, their family moved several times during his childhood. He graduated High School in Crofton, Nebraska and straight out of high school, Teten joined the Marine Corps in 1950 and was discharged in 1954.[1] Due to his extensive knowledge in photography, Teten was given the job of photographer by the Marine Corps. After the Marine Corps, Teten started working part time at a Sheriff’s Department in Orange County, California. He started his college career at a Junior college, originally studying biochemistry, but switched his major to criminalistics due to his contacts with the renowned Southern California Criminal Laboratory. He transferred to University of California at Berkeley, where he eventually earned his degree. To help support his wife, who was working as a registered nurse, Teten started working street patrol in 1958 in San Leandro, California, where he was eventually promoted to the Crime Scene Investigations (CSI) unit.[1]

FBI career

In 1962, Teten joined the FBI. His job in the FBI required him to work in a number of different locations. While working in the FBI, Teten was also going to school, hoping to earn his masters degree in social psychology. In 1969, he was transferred to the FBI headquarters in Washington DC where he began to teach. The first class that Teten taught was Applied Criminology where police officers would bring him unsolved cases and he would offer suggestions on those cases.[1] When the teaching began to be too much for just one person to do, they brought in Patrick Mullany to help Teten teach. Together, Teten and Mullany developed criminal profiling to help them solve different cases where the perpetrator was not known.[2]

In 1972, the Behavioral Science Unit was formed where Mullany and Teten taught students how offender profiling worked and how to apply it to cases in the work.[3] The first case to ever use Teten’s profiling techniques was when seven year old Susan Jaegar had gone missing from her campsite while camping with her parents. Teten and Mullany worked the profile and the FBI was able to narrow down the suspect to David Meierhofer, who fit their profile. The FBI was able to arrest Meierhofer and profiling became popular after this case.[4]

From all of Teten’s teaching, he began to have problems with his voice. He lost his voice completely and underwent surgery for a ruptured disc. After his surgery, Teten decided to make a change in his career and was promoted to unit chief of the Research and Development department in 1980 and remained there until 1986 when he decided to retire.[5]

After FBI life

Teten retired from the FBI after twenty-four years of service in 1986. After his retirement, he started his own business of consulting for companies that had contracts for the government. He worked for the International Criminal Investigative Training Aid Program, which was mostly based in Caribbean countries. Howard Teten is still alive and continues to teach and help as a volunteer with computers.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Interview of Former Special Agent of the FBI Howard D. Teten (1962-1986) for the Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Heritage Project, by Stanley Pimentel
  2. ↑ Roesch, Ronald; Zapf, Patricia A.; Hart, Stephen D. (7 October 2009).Forensic Psychology and Law. John Wiley and Sons. p. 254. ISBN 978-0-470-09623-9. Retrieved 21 February 2018
  3. ↑ Serial Killers, Part 2: The Birth of Behavioral Analysis in the FBI.” FBI, FBI, 23 Oct. 2013, www.fbi.gov/news/stories/serial-killers-part-2-the-birth-of-behavioral-analysis-in-the-fbi
  4. ↑ “Introduction: The Roots To Modern Profiling.” Forensic Research Digest, www.forensicresearchdigest.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/M_Hicks_and_Sales_-_1_Introduction_the_Roots_of_Modern_Profiling.18170811.pdf.
  5. ↑ Ramsland, Katherine. (2011). Howard Teten: an FBI Visionary. The Forensic Examiner, 20(2).
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