Who was Dr. Al Carlisle? Psychiatrist's interview tapes featuring Ted Bundy and others to air on Violent Minds

Dr. Al Carlisle, a clinical psychiatrist and possibly one of the first "mind hunters," spent half a century interviewing and studying serial killers within prison walls. He interviewed the notorious Ted Bundy, whose never-before-heard tapes will now feature on Oxygen's Violent Minds: Killers On Tape. The two-part series premieres on Sunday, April 2, at 7.00 pm ET.

Carlisle was a curious psychiatrist who intended to learn about the motivations of serial killers by interviewing infamous convicts from the 70s and 80s serving time in a Utah state prison. He recorded these discussions to "discover what drives a seemingly normal person to become obsessed with murder, exhibit violent tendencies and psychopathic behaviors."

The tapes were believed to have been lost until his family unearthed them after his death in 2018. The tapes also included conversations and discussions with some of the convicts' family members and friends to get more information about how someone becomes a killer.

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Former Utah State Prison psychologist Dr. Al Carlisle analyzed the crimes and minds of serial killers

Clinical psychologist Dr. Al Carlisle performed an in-depth study on murderers, serial killers, and mass murderers as part of his groundbreaking work in criminal behavior. He was born and raised in Utah and obtained his BS and MS degrees from Utah State University before completing a clinical psychology Ph.D. at Brigham Young University.

Violent Minds: Killers On Tape will be a compilation of important tapes spanning about 650 hours of conversations between inmates and the renowned psychiatrist, who tried to understand the minds of these criminals and how they committed heinous crimes. One of these sessions was with notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.

After Bundy's initial capture in August 1975, Dr. Al Carlisle conducted an evaluation of the serial killer while working as a psychologist at the Utah State Prison at the court's request. At the time, nobody knew the terrifying extent of Bundy's crimes.

In a 2012 interview with Dr. Katherine Ramsland for Psychology Today, Carlisle revealed that he worked with Bundy for "about twenty hours on the psychological assessment." Carlisle had evidence, including the assessment and other sources, that Bundy could have been dangerous. Following the assessment, the serial killer was kept in custody, where he continued to visit with Carlisle.

Reports state that the information gathered during his sessions supported Carlisle's "theory about serial killers in general." He argued that killers might have a respectable public image while secretly harboring violent desires. Dissociative identity disorder used to be one of his specialties.

Dr. Al Carlisle retired from Utah State Prison in 1989 and went on to write multiple books, including The 1976 Psychological Assessment of Ted Bundy, in which he offers insight into the thoughts of murderers. Meanwhile, another one of his works titled I’m Not Guilty! The Case of Ted Bundy analyzes the killer’s life and crimes based on interviews with him and his friends, lovers, neighbors, investigators who worked on the case, and more.

Carlisle's other works include The Mind of the Devil: The Cases of Arthur Gary Bishop and Westley Allan Dodd and Broken Samurai: One Marine's Journey from Hero to Hitman.

Before passing away in 2018 at the age of 81, Carlisle conducted seminars on serial killings and served as an adviser for the Salt Lake City r*pe crisis.

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Violent Minds: Killers On Tape on Oxygen will further delve into the works of Dr. Al Carlisle this Sunday.