Brown was born in New Jersey and moved with her family to Virginia at age nine. She has lived in Maryland since 1982. In 1981, she graduated with a liberal arts degree from the University of the State of New York. In 2007, she received a master's degree in criminal justice from Boston University.
Career
In 1996, Brown founded The Sexual Homicide Exchange. In 2000, she opened The Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency. Brown wrote about her criminological approach in 2010 in The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths with co-author Bob Andelman. In 2008 she wrote about the psychology of predators in Killing for Sport: Inside the Minds of Serial Killers. She is a co-founder of and a regular contributor to Women in Crime Ink, described by The Wall Street Journal as "a blog worth reading." Brown has provided crime commentary, profiling, and forensic analysis on national and international TV and radio. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NBC and CBS and has been a guest on "Today", "The Early Show", "Nancy Grace", Jane Velez-Mitchell, HLN "Prime News", "America's Most Wanted", and "Coat to Coast AM". In October 2006, she appeared on The Montel Williams Show to discuss women who unknowingly date wanted criminals. In 2010, she discussed with News Blaze the Flint, Michigan, serial-killer suspect Elias Abuelazam. In three episodes, she profiled crimes on the weekly Court TV crime show I, Detective She was the host of Discovery Channel's 2004 documentary The Mysterious Death of Cleopatra. She consulted and appeared as a profiler on "Jack the Ripper" for The Mystery Files. Brown was a writer for The Crime Library, and a content contributor for the 2005 home DVD edition of Profiler: Season Two and the 2006 DVD release of Quentin Tarantino's crime classic Reservoir Dogs. In May 2010, Ann Curry with NBC's Today Show interviewed Brown about her book, The Profiler. Brown has been outspoken in her opinions about the 2007 disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old British girl who was holidaying in Portugal with her parents. In a 2017 interview, Brown rejected the popular notion that McCann was abducted from the family's rented accommodation, arguing that she instead died within the apartment and the truth was "covered up". Brown said, "The evidence supports the theory of an accident occurring through neglect and possible medication. It's my belief the body was moved to a desolate location and will never be found... There are other children missing in the UK who aren't getting this attention that the should have been spent on."
Books
Killing for Sport: Inside the Minds of Serial Killers ;,
The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths, Brown with Bob Andelman,
