CATCHING SERIAL KILLERS As a student, Dr Angela Williamson wanted to be like Dana Scully from the The X Files. She’s now helping to crack cold cases for the FBI, proving no dream is too far fetched when armed with a UQ degree.
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Q graduate Dr Angela Williamson didn’t initially plan on catching serial killers. A forensics expert, Williamson (Bachelor of Science (Honours) ’98; Doctor of Philosophy ’02) manages major forensic programs for the United States (US) Department of Justice, and also works for the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program – the real-life unit that inspired the Netflix crime thriller series Mindhunter. Her work involves cracking cold cases, and in 2018 she helped to identify the most prolific serial killer in American history, Samuel Little. For Williamson, who now lives in Washington DC, it’s a world away from the cane fields of Bundaberg where she grew up. As a youngster, Williamson had her sights set on becoming a vertebrate palaeontologist. “I was always obsessed with dinosaurs,” she said. But by the time she arrived at UQ, Williamson realised she had outgrown that childhood interest. Another daydream she entertained was to be like Dana Scully, the fictional medical doctor and FBI agent in The X-Files. She changed tack, studying biology, zoology and parasitology as an undergraduate, soaking up the sun in
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the Great Court between classes. Williamson looks back fondly at her time as a student. “I just had a great time and that’s why I stayed at UQ for seven years,” she said. In 2002, Williamson completed her PhD in microbiology, working on developing vaccine candidates against parasitic infections. Around that time, modern forensic science was coming into its own, and Williamson was drawn to the idea of working in a field where she could see immediate tangible impacts. After a research fellowship at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Williamson got a forensics job in Queensland, working for three years examining evidence for sexual assault and homicide trials. A DNA sampling method she was trained in there – where a scalpel is used to scrape fabric for cells – would later come in handy. In the unsolved case of JonBenét Ramsey, an American child who died at age six, Williamson would later use the same technique to clear Ramsey’s immediate family of the murder. Williamson said many other cases were cracked using the same technique, though she is still frustrated that the Ramsey case remains unsolved. In Queensland, Williamson was also involved in testing u some evidence in the Daniel Morcombe case. Morcombe, a
