Biography

Dr. Rachel Toles is a clinical and forensic psychologist who works on extreme violence and serial homicide, with particular attention to the behavior that appears in a person’s history well before anyone is harmed. Her work with violent offenders began in 2007 at Century Regional Detention Facility, the women’s jail in Los Angeles County. She analyzes prominent criminal cases with clinical precision, examining what an offender intended and how the conduct escalated over the months and years leading up to the act. Her book, Inventing the Psychopath: The False Diagnosis at the Heart of True Crime, will be published by Blackstone Publishing in 2027. It argues that psychopathy is a cultural invention rather than a clinical finding, and that the explanations true crime repeats about violent people travel much faster than the evidence for them.

Dr. Toles is the incoming co-host of a long-running true crime series returning to a major cable network, with new episodes expected in late 2026 or early 2027. She is also a recurring media commentator on violent crime and offender behavior and is called on when a case draws national attention. Her analysis has appeared in The Guardian and Newsweek, on CNN, and on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Dr. Toles consults across film and television on offender psychology, behavioral realism, investigative decision-making, and character development. She works with writers, producers, and networks to build portrayals of criminal behavior that hold up to clinical scrutiny while accounting for the effects of violence on victims and their families. Her consulting credits include Dick Wolf Productions, HBO Max, Investigation Discovery, MGM+, Peacock, Apple TV, NBCUniversal, ABC News Nightline (Impact x Hulu), Oxygen, and Sony Pictures Television.

More than 250,000 people follow Dr. Toles across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms, where she discusses criminal psychology, violent behavior, individual cases, and the research behind them. As a speaker, she brings the psychology of serial homicide and extreme violence to general audiences in language that requires no background in the field, and she has sold out theaters across the United States, Canada, and Australia.
- IMDb mini biography by: Dr. Rachel Toles