Candice DeLong (born July 16, 1950) is a former FBI criminal profiler and criminologist. DeLong was the lead profiler in San Francisco, California, and worked on the Unabomber case. Currently, she hosts the Investigation Discovery programs Deadly Women and Facing Evil with Candice DeLong. She has often been compared to the protagonist of the movie The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling.
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."