The majority of Al Carlisle's career was as a psychologist at the Utah State Prison from which he retired as the head of the Psychology Department in 1989. He continued to interview serial killers. He wanted to learn why good people chose to do bad things.
Dr. Carlisle performed the first psychological assessment of Ted Bundy in 1976 while he was being held for a 90 day evaluation at the Utah State Prison.
Dr. Carlisle was also a consultant for the Salt Lake Rape Crisis Center for several years and hosted workshops on serial homicide and other crime topics. He conducted extensive research on serial killers and interviewed the Hi Fi killers, Arthur Gary Bishop, Westley Allan Dodd, Keith Jesperson, Ted Bundy and many others.
His specialties include Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder).
Al Carlisle, born and raised in Utah, received a BS and MS from Utah State University and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Brigham Young University.
He is the author of four books in the Development of the Violent Mind series:
"I'm Not Guilty!" The Case of Ted Bundy
Mind of the Devil: The Cases of Arthur Gary Bishop & Westley Allan Dodd
Broken Samurai: One Marine's Journey from Hero to Hitman
The 1976 Psychological Assessment of Ted Bundy
Dr. Carlisle passed away in 2018 at the age of 81.