Meet the 2nd female criminal profiler in the history of the GBI

The 38-year-old has worked on more than a hundred cases or consultations since joining the GBI, including the unsolved homicides of Sandra Robinson in Douglas and Kirsten Davis in Vidalia. She’s just the second female criminal profiler in the history of the state agency.

Abercrombie, who has consultations booked through May, said she enjoys handling homicide and child molestation cases the most.

“I love how murder investigations are complex, and you’re putting together a puzzle, solving people’s problems for them, and you’re solving the worst of the worst problem,” Abercrombie told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution during Women’s History Month. “And I like being a problem solver.”

Unlike detectives or GBI special agents who typically work the crime scenes, interviewing suspects and witnesses and trying to determine a timeline, Abercrombie’s role is more about behavior. She studies the minds of criminals, helping to determine traits and characteristics about the type of person who might have committed the crime. Her role is similar to the FBI agents in the popular television series “Mindhunter” or “Criminal Minds.”

Living a dream

Growing up in the mountains of Blue Ridge, Abercrombie was inspired to join the GBI after being glued to the screen watching crime shows on Investigation Discovery.

As a teenager, she said she never would have imagined herself trying to get into the minds of killers. However, that changed quickly after she got an internship with the GBI while a student at Kennesaw State University.

For three years after her graduation, she worked as a Cherokee County narcotics agent. Then in 2015, she was hired by the state agency and began working in the regional field office in Cleveland.

By 2021, the GBI command staff decided to bring back the criminal profile program, which had been disbanded after 9/11 due to a shift of resources toward domestic terrorism, Abercrombie said.

She was certified earlier this year, becoming one of only two criminal profilers in Georgia. The other is her profiling partner, Logan Holland.

They complement each other well, Holland said, adding that her organizational skills and attention to detail have made him a better profiler.

“She’s very observant and has great intuition when we’re looking at these cases,“ Holland told the AJC. ”She does a good job of reading the crime scene and really digesting the offender behavior and formulating what type of offender has committed the crimes.”

Following in their footsteps

Criminal profiling has been around since the 1970s and inspired the TV series “Mindhunter,” based on the book “Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit” by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker.

During Abercrombie’s training from 2021-2025, some of the 30 textbooks she had to study were always piled high on her desk, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and written by agents who inspired her, such as Douglas. Abercrombie and Holland had to perform about 130 case consultations during that training, which involved unsolved crimes.

She also was required to complete a residency with other agencies that had criminal profilers, including the Virginia State Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and take a board exam.

After the test and a nearly four-year process, Abercrombie was at her Forsyth County home, pacing the floors, waiting for that phone call to tell her if she had passed. It finally rang on Jan. 18.

“It’s just an incredible thing,” said Abercrombie, who has since moved to coastal Georgia. “When I started my law enforcement career, I would have never imagined that I would one day get to say I’m a certified criminal profiler.”

A day in the life

On most days, you can find Abercrombie in her office or traveling in her black Chevrolet Tahoe to 15 GBI regional field offices across the state, where she meets with agents or investigators about a specific case. To prevent biases, she makes sure to know practically nothing about the cases beforehand. She only asks that the other investigators fill out paperwork that she can review to have a generic understanding of the case.

The meetings are what you might envision: a large table with papers and folders spread about, containing pictures of crime scenes and information about the victim and the autopsy. It’s the 21st century, of course, so there might be a television hooked up to a computer so everyone can see the photos or information.

The first thing they do is chat about the victim, but not about generic characteristics: sex, race or height.

“That’s not important to me,” Abercrombie said.

Credit: Jenni Girtman

Credit: Jenni Girtman

Instead, she strives to learn as much as she can about the victim’s life and behavior: What did they do every day? Who did they hang out with? Where did they work? Where did they go for fun? She even examines their finances and education level.

It’s called victimology, a branch of criminology that provides clues about the offender’s behavior by understanding the person they targeted. Abercrombie contends there was still some type of relationship established between them while they interacted, if only for a few minutes or seconds. She needs to know as much about that as she can.

“Learning about the victim can give us insight as to why they were chosen as a victim of violent crime and can shed light onto what type of offender committed the crime,” she said.

In-depth analysis

The other two steps of developing a profile, part of what she calls the “big three,” are the crime scene and autopsy analysis. Combining all three can help determine traits and characteristics about the offender’s behavior.

“It’s not just like here’s a crime scene and here’s a few photos,” Abercrombie explained.

At the scene, she sifts through everything, from examining photos and sketches to talking about measurements. She discusses the collection and testing of evidence. And she uses crime scene reconstruction and blood stain pattern analysis to help create a clear picture.

Her investigation explores how the body was disposed of, whether it was dumped, concealed or displayed, as that can help demonstrate the mindset of the suspect. She even studies whether the suspect was organized, such as taking a weapon from the scene rather than leaving it behind or using a weapon in the heat of the moment.

Then, during the autopsy portion, Abercrombie inspects the area where the body was found and how the person was killed.

The entire process can take between two hours and an entire day, she estimated.

“We help the investigator narrow down their focus on their suspect pool,“ she said. ”As in they need to be looking for this type of person based on what we see in the information they’ve provided to us.”

She works about one scene a week because she and Holland are also involved in cold case investigations. Their caseload typically centers around homicides, but the GBI also works on sexual assaults, bombings, arsons and more. She even assisted in the Laken Riley investigation in Athens, she said, without elaborating.

“She’s hard-working, very driven and has an intuitive ability to digest and assess cases,“ Holland said. ”She just has a knack for it.”

Paving the way

The Georgia native is forging a path for others as she works a job no other woman has done in the state in decades.

The trailblazer in the field was Janet Oliva, who began her work with the GBI in 1986 as a narcotics agent. She was one of the state’s leading child abuse experts and published a book titled: “Sexually Motivated Crimes: Understanding the Profile of the Sex Offender and Applying Theory to Practice.”

Abercrombie is also looking to give back and teach the next generation. Since the spring of 2023, she has spoken with students at KSU, Truett McConnell University, Shiloh High School and Lumpkin County Elementary School about how to follow in her footsteps.

The students, some of whom had forensic science books under their desks, fired off questions in front of a screen written by Abercrombie that read, “What can criminal profiling do for you?”

“Their interest and curiosity makes me excited for the future of law enforcement because I know there will be people after me to continue fighting the good fight with the same passion I have,” she said.