If you've ever heard of the Vidocq Society, then you'll be pretty excited about an event coming to the Kansas City Regional Police Academy on July 20. If you haven't heard of it, I suspect you'll still find it very interesting. The group is profiled in the book, The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases by Michael Capuzzo. The book was published last fall and has been on multiple best-seller lists since.
The insipration for the book, Richard Walter, will be at the Police Academy (6885 N.E. Pleasant Valley Road) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 20 in an event co-sponsored by KCPD and Rainy Day Books. Walter is one of the three co-founders of the Vidocq Society and something of a genius in the realm of criminal psychology. As Michael Capuzzo puts it, "Richard Walter's nickname at ... Scotland Yard is 'Living Sherlock Holmes.'" He developed a number of psychological classifications for violent crime and interviewed 22,000 felons as a psychologist in Michigan's prison system. He's been called the "Father of Criminal Profiling."
This NPR story excerpts an interview with Walter and part of The Murder Room, and is just a taste of what you'll hear July 20. Tickets are $35 and will include a signed copy of the book. To get tickets, contact Angela McCune at 816-413-3500 or e-mail angela.mccune@kcpd.org.
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