The Secret Service didn’t know about Thomas Matthew Crooks in advance–but he matches with uncanny accuracy the profiles of more than 80 people who have tried to kill presidents since 1949.
The agency knows the common traits of assassins and what it calls “near-lethal approachers”: they are overwhelmingly young and educated white men with no criminal records, a history of mental illness, and experience with weapons.
Thomas Matthew Crooks also fits another part of the assassin profile: he is already being identified with three names, resonating with killers across history like Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth and James Earl Ray. Assassins, or wannabes, get the three-name treatment almost immediately.
