- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: I'd like to pick up where we left off yesterday.
- Emily Prentiss: No. Let's not. This is not about our case in Mexico last year or any other cases. This is about you. You want something.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: I want the BAU to be held accountable for its actions.
- Emily Prentiss: If you truly believe that we acted inappropriately or had evidence of a crime that was committed, you would have had me arrested. The fact that you haven't tells me that's not what you're after.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: No?
- Emily Prentiss: No. Your specialty is remaking units and divisions in your image; slimming them down, dividing their resources so you can maximize their efficiency. You want to make a name for yourself. Everything about your demeanor says "I want to be in charge." And you project power not because you fear you don't have it, but because you can't get enough. You want to be the Director someday. That's why we're here. To appease your ego, your ambition.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Have you always had issues with authority?
- Emily Prentiss: Better agents than you have tried to split the BAU and failed. Each time, the BAU has done its job, and done it well, and so have I. And you know what that's gotten me? Respect, support, and capital. So whatever game it is you're trying to play here, I want no part of it.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Why don't we take a break before you say something you will regret?
- Emily Prentiss: [opening quotation] "My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call." - Pat Conroy.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Now that you've had a chance to gather yourself, I would like to get back to the task at hand, because I may be ambitious, but I've read your file, Agent Prentiss. There's more of me in you than you'd like to admit. But the BAU is not infallible and I'd like to talk about your team and their role in all of this.
- Emily Prentiss: I'm the unit chief. The buck stops with me.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Sure. But Agent Rossi has just published another book. He's been spending a lot of time with his family. Perhaps he hasn't always been as focused as he could be. And Agent Reid's been busy with his teaching assignment. Academia is a more natural fit for an intellect like his. I think even he would agree with that.
- Emily Prentiss: Wait. That's what this is, a... fishing expedition?
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: My investigation has revealed a pattern of negligence within the BAU.
- Emily Prentiss: You want me to give you a fall guy? So the Bureau can avoid some bad PR and you can get a win. And you thought if you threatened my career that I'd play ball.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Rossi put himself in charge following your abduction. Reid spent months in a federal prison. Neither are good at following the rules.
- Emily Prentiss: They're indispensable.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: They are loose cannons! I am asking you to sacrifice a couple of pieces to save the whole board.
- Emily Prentiss: I stand by my team and the actions we've taken.
- [last lines]
- Emily Prentiss: I have an announcement to make. I have been suspended from active duty. I've turned in my badge and my gun.
- Penelope Garcia: What... I don't understand.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: For how long?
- Emily Prentiss: Indefinitely. Uh, JJ will continue being acting Unit Chief, but as of today, Assistant Director Linda Barnes will be personally overseeing the unit.
- David Rossi: Are we under investigation?
- Emily Prentiss: Yes, we are under investigation. And I tried, but with the suspension, I can't protect you. I'm sorry.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: So, despite having one of the highest solve rates in the Bureau, your leadership record is complicated. This business in Roswell just being the most recent example.
- Emily Prentiss: Most recent example of what?
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: A team gone rogue.
- Emily Prentiss: We've been accused of that before, and we've even testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: But you'd agree that transparency and accountability are of the utmost importance?
- Emily Prentiss: Of course.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: So the shooting death of a man in custody in a police station in Roswell...
- Emily Prentiss: Hold on. Let's just get our facts straight first. It was a suicide, not a shooting. The man in question wasn't in custody, and he was not in a police station. Mr. Downey voluntarily agreed to speak with the police about an unsusal death in the Roswell truther community.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: And he had a concealed weapon?
- Emily Prentiss: The weapon wasn't detected due to a mechanical error with the metal detector that the Roswell PD had installed. There was no indication that he or anyone else would be armed.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: However, if you had questioned this group formally in a police station, the outcome might very well have been different.
- Emily Prentiss: The truthers distrust law enforcement. They would never have cooperated if we'd brought them into a police station.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Perhaps not.
- Emily Prentiss: And ultimately, that decision allowed us to find the person responsible for the murder of a local man.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: At the cost of another. And then there's the death SSA Stephen Walker, your team member. You knew Agent Walker. You worked with him on assignment in France. You recruited him to join the BAU.
- Emily Prentiss: He was an exemplary agent.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: SSA Walker was the first agent to die in the field in the BAU's storied history.
- David Rossi: Hey. Just, uh, checking in to see how you're doing.
- Emily Prentiss: It's tough to remain calm when someone's trying to get under your skin.
- David Rossi: This isn't an annual review?
- Emily Prentiss: Ostensibly, yes, but Barnes has been through every command decision I've made since taking over as Unit Chief and thrown them back at me, including Stephen's death.
- David Rossi: She's trying to rattle you.
- Emily Prentiss: Yeah. She's after something. I just don't know what.
- David Rossi: You know we've got your back, right?
- Emily Prentiss: I do.
- David Rossi: So how can we help?
- Emily Prentiss: Solve this case. Show Barnes we can color within the lines.
- David Rossi: Okay. Well, hang in there. When I get back, drinks are on me.
- Emily Prentiss: [with a laugh] Deal.
- David Rossi: And Emily, don't let her push you around. You've earned that seat.
- Jennifer Jareau: [closing quotation] "All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born." - William Faulkner.
- Jennifer Jareau: Emily?
- Emily Prentiss: Hey, I was hoping we were gonna get the night off, but we've just pulled another case. I know it's been a long week, but I need you back here. Are you still in...
- Jennifer Jareau: Emily, something's going on.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: I want to reiterate that this conversation is on the record. Today is February 1, 2018. This is Assistant Director Linda Barnes sitting with Unit Chief Emily Prentiss. Now, Agent Prentiss, do you know why you're here today?
- Emily Prentiss: I do not.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Agent Jareau didn't call you?
- Emily Prentiss: No.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: [turning off her recorder] We're not off to a very good start, are we? I've asked you one question and you've lied to me. Shall we try that again?
- [turning the recorder back on]
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Did Agent Jareau call you?
- Emily Prentiss: No, Agent Jareau did not call me. I called her to let her know we had another case. She informed me that she had spoken with you, but she did not disclose what was said.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: As I'm sure you're aware, it is the one-year anniversary of Agent Reid's arrest in Mexico following a high-speed chase with the local authorities. Your team traveled down to conduct your own investigation into the incident and, per your case report, transfer him to a federal facility in the U.S. I went through your findings and subsequent months-long investigation. The thing is, once I started to dig, I couldn't stop. What I found, Agent Prentiss, was that with you at the helm, team loyalty is more important than Bureau policy.
- Emily Prentiss: That's not a fair assessment.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: As your team has expanded, so have the cases you've agreed to investigate. Mistakes have been made. So that's what we're here to discuss: the state of the Behavioral Analysis Unit under the leadership of Emily Prentiss.
- Emily Prentiss: We gave a full report on our year-long investigation to apprehend Mr. Scratch. Stephen Walker's work was essential to our case.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Your team drove into an ambush.
- Emily Prentiss: No. We spent months on the offensive luring Scratch out of hiding, and it worked. Agent Walker's death was a tragedy, but it wasn't...
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Anyone's fault? Preventable? I spoke with Agent Walker's widow, and you're lucky she's not suing the Bureau for negligence. What we have here, Agent Prentiss, is a series of questionable decisions.
- Emily Prentiss: You're not out in the field. It's not black and white. These are snap decisions.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Okay. Let's go back to the case that triggered this review. I spoke with an Officer Casteneda in Matamoros, Mexico. Do you remember him?
- Emily Prentiss: I do.
- [flashback sequence]
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: He says you deleted a voice memo in which Agent Reid allegedly confessed to the murder of Nadie Ramos. That's not just tampering with evidence. That's obstruction of justice. Charges that could end your career.
- Emily Prentiss: I'd like to take a break.
- Jennifer Jareau: Okay, two more of the initial ten victims have been identified. Twenty-eight year old dentist Tyler Roberts and teen runaway Heather Pineda. According to missing person reports and the timeline the M.E. sent over, they're most likely victims number four and five.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: This guy's victimology is all over the place. I mean, he's bouncing back and forth between the vulnerable and working professionals.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: These may all be victims of opportunity, but there's a measure of compassion to these kills. It doesn't feel random.
- Matt Simmons: Yeah, he doesn't want them to suffer. It's almost like he's putting them to sleep.
- Luke Alvez: Or putting them out of their misery.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: This unsub has been back and forth across the city at all hours of the day, so he's clearly using some kind of vehicle to hunt.
- Jennifer Jareau: Well, he's most likely unemployed.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: We may not understand his ritual, but we know he feels an overwhelming need to complete it; enough to risk going back to the area despite a heavy police presence. These cemeteries are important to him, if not for personal reasons, then for what they represent.
- Jennifer Jareau: So, did he lose someone? Is that what triggered all of this?
- Luke Alvez: We should increase patrols in and around the graveyard and within a two-mile radius, and if they are important to him, he'll probably revisit.
- Jennifer Jareau: And ketamine is available on the street, but it's pricey, so, uh, we should also check in to vet offices, medical providers, see if any of them have had any recent break-ins.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: All right, the victim's name is Carl Kevork, and he escaped the crash with only minor injuries. The EMTs who transported him to the hospital said he had been heavily drugged, most likely ketamine, like the others.
- Matt Simmons: Carl's a big guy. The unsub must have gotten the dosage wrong.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: Well, Carl doesn't remember much. I mean, he recalls running down an alley, seeing a van, getting inside.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: We profiled he'd be unemployed. It looks like our unsub's been living out of this van for a while.
- Penelope Garcia: I tracked the van via VIN number; say that three times fast. The vehicle was stolen from Houston, Texas eight years ago. After that, I got nada.
- Matt Simmons: Well, there's no telling if or how many times it's changed hands since.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: Can you get the police report and track down the original owner?
- Penelope Garcia: Can do.
- Matt Simmons: Hey, Garcia, anything from Prentiss?
- Penelope Garcia: My crazy covert sources say that she was done with Barnes a few hours ago, but Emily's light is still on in her office, and I can't tell if that's a good thing or it's bad.
- Matt Simmons: Well, she's probably just catching up on paperwork.
- Penelope Garcia: Right. Totally. That's what I was telling myself, too. Yeah, okay. I'll hit you back when I have more.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: Hey, guys, given our geo-profile, I think I have a pretty good guess as to where our unsub has been holding his victims.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: Medico della peste. Jeremy Paulson and Carl Kevork both described themselves as feeling ill before they were abducted.
- Matt Simmons: You think that's why he targeted them?
- Dr. Spencer Reid: And it's his job to take care of them before they contaminate others. He's ridding the streets of the infected.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: Medieval medical practitioners believed that chickens could absorb illness. They would rub the birds all over the bodies of the diseased in an attempt to rid them of their sickness.
- Jennifer Jareau: See, uh, this is a venetian bird mask. During the 17th century, doctors would stuff these with herbs and spices and wear them to protect against infection.
- Chief Thomas Wheeler: From the plague.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: That, along with the burning of the bodies and the burial ground, Tremé Cemetery number two, and the fact that it was originally built to house victims who died from cholera and smallpox, tells us that this unsub believes himself to be a modern-day plague doctor.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: A vigilante or angel of death whose job it is to stop sick people from spreading disease.
- David Rossi: Our unsub wants to eradicate not just the sick, but the sickness within them.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: In fact, it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that humorism, the belief that illness was caused by an imbalance of the fluids in the body, was discredited. Before that, it was believed that there were four humors in the body: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm, all of which were susceptible to miasma, or bad air, that carried disease.
- David Rossi: Our unsub's fixation on these ancient medical practices speaks to a very specific kind of stressor.
- Jennifer Jareau: It indicates a distrust in modern medicine. He or a loved one may have suffered a loss brought on by illness or disease.
- David Rossi: Or he may blame modern medicine for failing to save a loved one.
- Jennifer Jareau: Our unsub was living on the fringes of society. His van was not just his means of transport, it was his whole life. And now that he's lost it, there's no telling what he'll do next.
- Jennifer Jareau: Okay, so let's think about this. He has no means of transportation, and he has nowhere to take his victims, so our unsub is starting over again. So, what does he do now? Does he steal another van?
- Luke Alvez: No. Too risky.
- Matt Simmons: This is a guy going through the stages of grief. So maybe anger's next.
- Jennifer Jareau: Well, he could start to lash out, focus his rage.
- Luke Alvez: Especially if he finds himself near a hospital or a pharmacy. Anywhere there's sick people.
- Jennifer Jareau: Okay, uh, let's put a warning out to hospitals and clinics to be on the lookout for any suspicious persons loitering in the area, see if they can post extra security at all entrances and exits.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: So the burning was postmortem, like the others?
- M.E. Dr. Aristeo Caruso: Yes, but C.O.D. was a stab wound to the back.
- David Rossi: Well, just as we predicted, this is our guy. He's gone widly off pattern. Burned the clinic, attacked the doctor here. He's devolving.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: Well, maybe he finally figured out that killing sick people won't stop the spread of disease.
- David Rossi: The clinic was probably a stark reminder of the failure of modern medicine.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: It shows an evolution of thought, and he's gone from putting the blameless out of their misery to punishing those in the medical profession.
- David Rossi: Yeah, he's no longer on a mission of mercy, that's for sure. This could very quickly become about finding that person that he thinks is responsible for the loss he suffered.
- Jennifer Jareau: I just keep sitting here, hoping for a revelation.
- Matt Simmons: Oh, this guy's elusive. We found his home, secondary location, means of transport, but not his name. He feels invisible.
- Jennifer Jareau: But it couldn't have always been the case, you know? At some point, this guy, he had friends and family.
- [a thought strikes her]
- Jennifer Jareau: He lost someone important to him.
- Matt Simmons: So what are you thinking?
- Jennifer Jareau: This timeline. We need to go back to where it all started for our unsub, with his first victim, Hunter Dillon.
- Jennifer Jareau: We thought our unsub was on a mission to cleanse the streets, but it's way more complicated than that. This whole ritual of his is an act of mercy in his mind. It didn't just come out of thin air.
- Matt Simmons: I think he's been thinking about it, preparing for it in some way.
- Jennifer Jareau: Exactly. But we haven't found anything connecting our unsub to the first body, Hunter Dillon. What if Hunter wasn't his first victim?
- Luke Alvez: That would mean there's another victim out there we haven't identified.
- Jennifer Jareau: Okay, so our unsub started by putting people out of their misery, saving them from their sickness. What if the woman he lost, who was sick, didn't just die, but she was his first kill?
- Dr. Spencer Reid: Then everything he's done since would be about reliving that moment, justifying that action.
- Luke Alvez: These murders would be about easing his own guilt.
- Matt Simmons: There's plenty of evidence of this woman in the van. Just no DNA and no prints.
- Jennifer Jareau: Okay, what about her belongings?
- Dr. Spencer Reid: We have clothes and blankets.
- Luke Alvez: A small jewelry box.
- Matt Simmons: Uh, some toiletries.
- Jennifer Jareau: And this bouquet. Why would someone keep dead, rotting flowers?
- Dr. Spencer Reid: It could be of personal significance, an emotional attachment that overrides his compulsion for cleanliness.
- Jennifer Jareau: Okay, did the CSUs find any prints or DNA on the plastic wrapping?
- Luke Alvez: No, but the wrapping did have a label that led to a flower shop. The CSUs followed up but came up empty-handed.
- Matt Simmons: That's because they're not Penelope.
- [dialing his phone]
- Matt Simmons: Garcia, we need your help.
- Penelope Garcia: Bring it.
- Penelope Garcia: Talk to me, my pretties.
- David Rossi: What can you tell us about Tanesa and Kevon Winters?
- Penelope Garcia: Okay. Tanesa Winters. She died three weeks ago. She's survived by her son Kevon. It looks like he was born in New Orleans. Uh, he spent some time in Houston, but he returned at some point because I've got a local college transcript and a notice from a collection agency. Kevon dropped out of school, thousands of dollars in debt. That's when the trail goes cold.
- Jennifer Jareau: We also need information on this flophouse. It was condemned about ten years ago. It's on 44th and Fig.
- Penelope Garcia: Uh, I can tell you it's not there anymore. It's now a coffee shop. Let me take a deep dive here and see what secret secrets I can find.
- David Rossi: We believe Tanesa Winters lived there for a short time.
- Penelope Garcia: Yeah, she did. The tenants there filed a civil suit. It looks like Tanesa was the primary plaintiff. Uh, they sued for negligence and bodily harm. That building sustained a lot of damage after the flooding caused by Katrina.
- David Rossi: And let me guess. It was never properly cleaned or vented.
- Penelope Garcia: It was not. Uh, Tanesa became very ill due to black mold. The residents repeatedly asked for the building to be inspected, and the landlord and the insurance companies ignored them.
- Jennifer Jareau: That's it. That's the unsub's stressor. That's the root of all of this.
- David Rossi: Whatever happened to the landlord who owned the building?
- Penelope Garcia: Walter Trudeau paid out a modest settlement and went on to become a local business mogul. He owns a lot of property in the area.
- David Rossi: If the unsub is now directing his anger to those he holds responsible for failing to help his mother, Walter Trudeau will be on that list.
- Jennifer Jareau: Yeah, we need to warn him. Penelope, can you get ahold of Mr. Trudeau and let him know that we'd like to speak with him? And send us...
- Penelope Garcia: His home and work address? It's like I do this for a living. And... oh! Flag on the play. Sports reference. Uh, Trudeau spends a lot of time at a bar he owns. I'm sending you the address now.
- David Rossi: Garcia, before you go, find out what you can about Tanesa Winters' death, specifically the cause.
- Penelope Garcia: Copy that. Here it comes.
- Kevon Winters: Don't come any further. Stop.
- Jennifer Jareau: I'm SSA Jennifer Jareau.
- Kevon Winters: Where's Trudeau?
- Jennifer Jareau: Kevon, I... I understand you lost your mother recently. I'm... I'm so sorry. My... my husband lost his dad to Katrina.
- Kevon Winters: The storm didn't take my mother. It was Trudeau. That building wasn't safe, and he knew. They all knew! The doctors, the insurance companies, but it was Trudeau. He hid it from us. He lied. And if he would have done what he was supposed to do, my mother would have never gotten sick. She'd still be here!
- Jennifer Jareau: You're... you're right. Trudeau didn't do the right thing. He didn't, but you... you can, okay? You can let this innocent man go.
- Kevon Winters: No, no, no, no! He has to face me!
- David Rossi: Not bad for the first time steering the ship. Prentiss would be proud. Have you heard from Emily?
- Jennifer Jareau: No. I, uh, I texted her to let her know we were on our way back, but...
- David Rossi: I'll be glad when this is all over.
- Jennifer Jareau: Yeah.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: My apologies for the cloak and dagger routine with the e-mail. I needed a reason to bring you in that would ensure a certain confidentiality.
- Jennifer Jareau: What do mean Agent Prentiss has been placed on administrative leave?
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: I've been looking over your work, and I think you're doing an excellent job. Why do you think the brass didn't give you a shot at Unit Chief when Agent Hotchner elected to leave?
- Jennifer Jareau: Prentiss was the natural choice. She had seniority.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: You're aware this month marks the one year anniversary of Agent Reid's arrest in Mexico?
- Jennifer Jareau: I was aware that was coming up, yes.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: When something like this happens, it's standard operating procedure for the Director to initiate an internal audit. I've been asked to go over the BAU's case load to make sure that you're following protocol.
- Jennifer Jareau: We work by the book, always.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: Then this should be a fairly painless process.
- Jennifer Jareau: Of course.
- Assistant Director Linda Barnes: As team leader, Agent Prentiss will need to give a full account of the BAU's actions. That's why, effective immediately, you will be the acting head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Pending further review, you and your team will remain on active duty. Agent Jareau, as a courtesy, I chose to inform you first. I'll be speaking with Agent Prentiss in the morning, so I'd appreciate it if you'd keep this between us until you hear from me.
- Emily Prentiss: Thank you all for getting back here so quickly. I got a call from Chief Wheeler at the New Orleans Police Department. They've requested our help. Garcia, go ahead.
- Penelope Garcia: The Big Easy has its own big bad operating in its midst. Earlier today, police uncovered a mass grave inside a vandalized crypt.
- Emily Prentiss: Tremé Cemetery. Ten bodies in total were discovered by the groundskeeper this afternoon.
- Penelope Garcia: Yeah. The bodies were buried and burned inside the secluded tomb that had been pried open. They are believed to have been placed there in the last few weeks. The tomb was off-limits due to some maintenance being done.
- David Rossi: Looks like local PD is still working on IDing the victims.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: Has a cause of death been determined?
- Penelope Garcia: No, but the coroner did reveal this one super-icky detail: all of the bodies had been drained of their blood.
- Emily Prentiss: Let's make sure to check on that first thing.
- Jennifer Jareau: Tremé Cemetery's an active site. It's famous. It's the oldest cemetery in the city.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: Home to Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen of New Orleans, known for her powers of clairvoyance, healing, and intimidation. Legend has it that she once helped free a man accused of murder by praying for 72 hours straight with three hot peppers in her mouth.
- Luke Alvez: Voodoo queen. I mean, is that what this is? Some kind of ritualistic killing?
- Matt Simmons: I see these Xs here. They're used to denote the grave of a powerful voodoo practitioner.
- Jennifer Jareau: Markings like this aren't uncommon in these parts. These look like they've been here for a while.
- David Rossi: Could be the reason our unsub chose this particular crypt to do his bidding.
- Emily Prentiss: New Orleans PD wants us there ASAP. There is one more thing. I won't be coming along. JJ will be acting as Unit Chief in my absence. I have a meeting with Assistant Director Barnes tomorrow morning. It's short notice, but as far as I understand, it's just a standard administrative review, so I'm sure everything will be fine.
- Jennifer Jareau: Okay. Um, wheels up in thirty.
- Luke Alvez: First Barnes pulls you in for a late-night meeting, then Prentiss. I mean, it feels like something's going on.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: Yeah, and why all the urgency? I mean, couldn't it have waited 'till we all got back?
- David Rossi: Something must have triggered an internal review.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: It's me. It's been almost a year since my arrest in Mexico.
- Jennifer Jareau: It's just an annual review. Standard operating procedure.
- Luke Alvez: Matt, you worked with Barnes on your last assignment. How much trouble are we in?
- Matt Simmons: I mean, I hate to say it, but this is the exact same thing that she did with the IRT before disbanding the unit. She started with the head of the team, then she worked her way down. She tried to pit us against each other.
- David Rossi: Barnes' reputation precedes her. She's climbed the ranks well.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: Well, clearly she's good at her job.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: We're better.
- Jennifer Jareau: And we haven't done anything wrong. We can't worry about this right now because we have a case. People need our help.
- Chief Thomas Wheeler: Five of the ten victims have been identified. These three, Jason Chambers, Lindsay Montoya, and Gary Keulchy, were homeless. And these two, Sonequa Fox and Daniel Rikers, were working professionals.
- Jennifer Jareau: And Mr. Rikers and Ms. Fox were both reported missing a week and a half ago.
- Chief Thomas Wheeler: That's correct. They both left their homes in mid-city and never returned.
- Matt Simmons: And the three homeless victims were last seen in a shelter near the French Quarter?
- Chief Thomas Wheeler: Yes. We periodically check the night roll calls when we find a body. They were most likely panhandling in the area.
- David Rossi: Our unsub crossed racial and gender lines.
- Luke Alvez: And he's mobile.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: You know, realistically, it's likely each victim was abducted, killed, and disposed of individually.
- Jennifer Jareau: We need to see what the M.E. can tell us about the timeline of the murders.
- Dr. Tara Lewis: And we'd expect an unsub like this to start with high-risk victims like the homeless and then move on to low-risk victims like Sonequa and Daniel, but until we ID the remaining victims, it's really hard to draw any conclusions.
- Luke Alvez: So he'd need somewhere to hold them and do his bloodletting business before bringing them back to the crypt.
- Dr. Spencer Reid: I've already started a geo-profile, but the more we can learn about the victims' last moments, the more accurate it'll be.
- Chief Thomas Wheeler: Found another burned body. This time in a crypt in Tremé Cemetery number two.
- Jennifer Jareau: Just one?
- Chief Thomas Wheeler: Yeah. And the crypt wasn't nearly as secluded.
- David Rossi: We've disrupted his routine. Another tomb, but now he's improvising.
- Matt Simmons: Unsub was confident he wouldn't be caught. This would take a lot of effort.
- Jennifer Jareau: What do you got?
- Luke Alvez: Scorching patterns on the concrete indicate the unsub used some kind of accelerant.
- Matt Simmons: No signs of blood or trauma. It's likely he was killed elsewhere and then disposed here.
- Jennifer Jareau: All right. Well, our victim here is Jeremy Paulson. According to his wife, he left work early last night, told co-workers he wasn't feeling well. His car was found parked at the neighborhood basketball court. His water bottle and basketball were found nearby.
- Matt Simmons: So did he meet someone or was he just playing hooky?
- Luke Alvez: We should get local PD to canvass the area for witnesses, both here and at the park.
- Jennifer Jareau: This crypt doesn't have any voodoo markings or symbols, which is odd, considering that a lot of the graves in this area do. So maybe it's not as important to him as we initially thought.
- Luke Alvez: Well, if this doesn't involve voodoo, then why the elaborate M.O.? It's not for show. He's concealing and burning the bodies.
- Jennifer Jareau: And we found his burial ground and he barely skipped a beat. This feels less like some kind of a ritual and more like a mission. Question is, what's his grievance?
- M.E. Dr. Aristeo Caruso: So, I can tell you what kind of accelerant he used. Good old drugstore variety rubbing alcohol. That's why the burn patterns on the bodies are so uneven.
- David Rossi: These aren't defensive wounds, are they?
- M.E. Dr. Aristeo Caruso: No. The flexion of the elbows, knees, and hands is caused by the shrinkage of body tissues due to dehydration.
- David Rossi: So the pugilistic pose is a result of the body being exposed to extreme heat?
- M.E. Dr. Aristeo Caruso: Yes. And it can occur even if the bodies were dead before they were burned, which I believe was the case here.
- David Rossi: And the bloodletting, was that done postmortem as well?
- M.E. Dr. Aristeo Caruso: Yes. He sliced the carotid. Nice clean cut.
- David Rossi: So the unsub is skilled with a knife.
- David Rossi: If exsanguination wasn't the cause of death, what was?
- M.E. Dr. Aristeo Caruso: Each victim had large quantities of pure ketamine in their system. A powerful anesthetic. They were most likely injected with a pretty hefty dose.
- David Rossi: So all the violence done to the body was postmortem.
- Matt Simmons: What do you have, Rossi?
- David Rossi: A strange contradiction. The cause of death was a lethal dose of ketamine. Now, these kills may look extreme, but the C.O.D. itself was practically painless.
- Luke Alvez: Well, it's doubtful the unsub would even need to interact or create a ruse with his victims. I mean, he could just sneak up and inject them.