Candice DeLong

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, DeLong is the daughter of a building contractor father and a homemaker mother. Growing up, DeLong stated that her father had told her to choose a practical career. Before entering the field of criminal profiling, DeLong worked as a psychiatric nurse at Northwestern University Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. However, by the time she was 28 years old, she was a divorcee with a young son. Wanting a new career, DeLong went to Quantico, Virginia, in 1980 to attend the FBI training academy. She was one of only seven female recruits. DeLong worked in the FBI's Chicago office after graduating from Quantico. DeLong stated that she used humor to ease tensions while working. She claimed that her three career goals were as follows: "to be involved with a high-profile national criminal, I wanted to apprehend a serial killer, and I wanted to rescue a kidnap victim alive."

In 1982, DeLong became involved in the investigation of the Chicago Tylenol murders, in which seven people died from potassium cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. Although no one was ever charged in the poisonings, the incident led to new packaging for over-the-counter medication and federal anti-tampering laws. Regarding the incident, DeLong stated that "You can thank the Tylenol killer for the fact that it now takes a blow torch to get into a bottle of Tylenol."

In 1995, DeLong was one of the three handpicked FBI agents to mastermind the manhunt for the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Kaczynski had sent 16 bombs over a 17-year period to target areas, killing three people. After his 1995 capture in Lincoln, Montana, DeLong wrote that "he only cared about two things — his little quarter-acre of property and killing people."