The first offender profile
In the article ‘Offender profiling and investigative psychology’, Canter (2004) suggests that the first offender profile was probably developed by Dr Thomas Bond in 1888. Dr Bond was a medical doctor. He developed a profile of Jack the Ripper:
[t]he murderer must have been a man of physical strength and great coolness and daring. There is no evidence he had an accomplice. He must in my opinion be a man subject to periodic attacks of homicidal and erotic mania … The murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quiet inoffensively looking man probably middle-aged and neatly and respectably dressed. Assuming the murderer be such a person as I have just described, he would be solitary and eccentric in his habits, also he is likely to be a man without regular occupation, but with some small income or pension.
Canter (2004) notes that Dr Bond’s profile of Jack the Ripper is remarkably similar to contemporary profiles of sexual murderers.
Reference
Canter, D. (2004). Offender profiling and investigative psychology. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 1(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1002/jip.7
More good reading on offender profiling
Howitt, D. (2017). Profile Analysis 1: FBI-style offender profiling. In Introduction to Forensic and Criminal Psychology (pp. 293–309). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.