Micki Pistorius

Micki Pistorius (born 19 March 1961) is a South African forensic or investigative psychologist and author. She was the first woman in her profession and the first profiler in South Africa, working on many high-profile cases involving serial killers for the South African Police Service in the 1990s.

She is known for her autobiography, Catch Me a Killer (2000), on which a television series of the same name was based, released in 2024.

Early life and undergraduate education Pistorius grew up in Pretoria. She studied German in school, and graduated with a BA, majoring in psychology and languages at the University of Pretoria. She studied French at university.

Career Journalism After graduating with a BA, she worked in the Gordon Institute of Business of Science as research assistant in industrial psychology. For a period of time she also worked as a publications officer. Pistorius began working in public relations, which included writing press releases, before moving into journalism. She started a career as a journalist, which began with writing for a local newspaper in Europe. The newspaper was entitled ‘Die Translaver’ . She moved on to working as a radio news journalist at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in Pretoria, which also involved some work in television.

After moving to Cape Town, she wrote for a women's magazine before being appointed to a managerial position in publications at the World Wide Fund for Nature in Stellenbosch. After leaving that job, she moved back to Pretoria and worked in public relations at Pretoria Zoo. She started lecturing in psychology, earning a reputation for eccentricity.

Pistorius joined the South African Police Service (SAPS) in 1994, where she founded and headed the Investigative Psychology Unit (IPU) also known as the Investigative Psychology Section (IPS), she developed her theory linking Freudian psychosexual development with serial killing. and Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode.

In 2000, she resigned from the police with the rank equivalent to senior superintendent, She has a degree in criminology and psychology from the North-West University and a diploma in criminal justice and forensic auditing from the University of Johannesburg, and was the only trained profiler employed by the SAPS. Myburgh was still in the IPS, having been promoted to Lieutenant colonel. She is the longest-serving member of the unit, and possibly the longest-serving law-enforcement profiler.

Gérard Labuschagne, who had a PhD in clinical psychology and had formerly worked in a psychiatric hospital doing forensic assessments before joining the unit, took over from her as head of the unit, but said that he had much to learn from then Captains Elmarie Myburgh and Lynne Evans in IPU. He wrote a book, The Profiler Diaries (2020), about some of the cases he worked on.

Writing A UK publisher invited her to write an autobiography, which became her international bestselling book Catch Me a Killer (2000), after Penguin South Africa bought the manuscript and published it.

While working for the private firm, Pistorius wrote Strangers in the Street: Historical overview of SA serial killers (2002) again published by Penguin SA, which then commissioned her to write Fatal Females (2004), which described the crimes of 51 female perpetrators. In the same year, she published an historical novel, Sorg. Profiling serial killers and other crimes followed in 2005. The Afrikaans translation of Catch Me a Killer, Skimme in die Skadu, was published in 2006. called Catch Me a Killer and based on her autobiography of the same name, was released by Showmax in early 2024. Lead writer on the series was Amy Jephta, and Charlotte Hope stars as Pistorius. The series was co-produced by the German production company Night Train Media, along with CMak (UK) and M-Net (SA). Pistorius was a consultant on the series, and also provided emotional support to Hope during filming.

Later activities Pistorius opened a private practice as psychologist and consultant and wrote a few in-house pieces before making another turn in her career. Her in-house pieces highlighted many psychological topics such as stress management, child disciple, neuro-psychology, and communication styles. In 2010 she enrolled for an honours degree in Biblical archaeology. She completed the degree within a year after researching and submitting 15 articles. she was still consulting for South African government agencies. and the first profiler in South Africa.

She is recognised as one of the world's foremost psychological profilers by people such as FBI profiler Robert Ressler, She has also said that she has empathy for serial killers, who she says are "not monsters; they are human beings with tortured souls. I will never condone what they do, but I can understand them." where she practises general and neuropsychology, occasionally consults for the legal profession as a forensic psychologist, and presents courses to companies on coaching managers and executives about emotional intelligence for managers, workplace security, and emotional safety at work. She has also lectured at the Open University of Mauritius and Middlesex University Mauritius, and in 2023 delivered a presentation on forensic psychology at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

She has a passion for archaeology, and says that she has found peace on Mauritius.

Selected works Catch me a killer (Penguin, 2000) Strangers on the street (Penguin, 2002) Fatal Females (Penguin, 2004) Profiling Serial Killers and other crimes in South Africa (Penguin, 2005) Skimme in Die Skadu (Penguin, 2006) Sorg (Penguin, 2012) (historical novel)