Criminal Minds s14e13 Episode Script
Chameleon
1 [Birds chirping.]
[Electronic safe beeping.]
Hmm.
I got your coffee.
Are we gonna talk about this? I'm late.
Traffic's already a mess.
David, come on.
Have you seen my keys? They're in your hand.
- I - Stop.
How are you feeling? Um, I don't I don't know when I'll be home.
Don't wait up.
[Elevator bell dings.]
Hello, sir.
Hi.
Hey.
Uh, when do the bandages come off? The doc says a week.
How are you doing? Good.
I'm good.
I think he's been here all weekend.
Should have seen it.
Should have seen it.
Why didn't I see it? How much sleep have you gotten since we got back? It was right there.
It was right there, and I didn't see it.
None of us did.
How are you doing? Fine.
Not you, too.
You're tired of people asking you how you're doing? Yes, I am.
Do you know what this is? It's an open investigation.
That's all.
We lost the first time, but we'll get another chance.
Yes, we will.
This team doesn't take care of me.
I take care of them.
That's my job.
Maybe it's because you do that job so well, we want to be there for you when we can.
You went through something terrible out there, but you can't keep it bottled up.
You know that.
So, Dave, there's really only one question, and it's not "how are you doing?" It's, who do you trust enough to say "I'm not doing so good"? What happened? I got sent home by the principal.
You ready to talk about it? [Inhales and exhales.]
[Breathing heavily.]
[Man yells.]
Rossi, voice-over: I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't breathe.
I'm here.
I'm here.
- Thanks.
- [Cell phone chimes.]
Ah.
It's Portia.
So how is my soon-to-be stepdaughter doing? She likes to share quotes with me.
Here's today's.
Stephen King wrote, "the most important things are the hardest to say.
" How weirdly appropriate.
Come on.
We are getting married in 3 weeks.
And if we want this to work, you have to let me in.
It started when we got called in on a single.
A single homicide in Nashville, Tennessee.
That is, firefighters responded to a house fire in the Green Hills neighborhood and were able to put out the fire before it destroyed everything, but they discovered the body of Monica Feinstein, with a complete face lift.
And I'm not talking about the kind that you need a weekend and a bottle of aspirin to get over.
I'm talking cheek to cheek, neck to noggin.
Her whole face was lifted, like, removed from her Lewis: All right.
Well, burns on the body were limited to the legs and feet, but knife marks went all the way down to the skull.
Possibly symbolic.
Were the cuts postmortem? They were.
Cause of death was strangulation.
So the face is a trophy.
He took it with him to relive what he did.
Reid: As with Jeffrey Dahmer, killers often collect body parts to combat a feeling of inadequacy.
They see the trophy as an extension of their own identity, something they'd rather die than give up.
How did the unsub set the fire? Garcia: Firefighters sourced the flames to a lit stove and then discovered evidence of corroded gas pipes.
The gas pipes are made of galvanized steel, and the house is only a few years old.
The unsub could've used sulfuric acid to mimic the effects of corrosion.
Yeah, he's gone to great lengths to make the fire look like an accident.
No forensic countermeasure.
Burning the house down would be a perfect way to cover your tracks.
The sophistication suggests this isn't his first, and he's probably planning more.
Wheels up in 20.
Did you find any other victims? Not on the first sweep.
[Beeps.]
So we discussed what we knew on our way to Nashville.
Monica Feinstein, 52.
Taught preschool, volunteered in a soup kitchen.
Single mom, adult son.
About as low-risk a lifestyle as you can get.
Prentiss: And there's no sign of forced entry, so, the unsub was either someone she knew or didn't see as a threat.
He sets the fire to destroy the evidence, but he could also be setting it to hide his own shame or disgust for having taken the face.
Yeah, that's true, but even if it was a trophy, he might've hated himself for wanting it.
Rossi: Most unsubs have a love-hate relationship with their compulsions.
Which in this case would be erotophonophilia.
Krystall: Erotophono-what? It's a $10 word for lust murder.
It involves the mutilation of body parts the unsub finds most attractive.
Now, it could be feet or kneecaps, but it's usually breasts or genital Ok, got it.
Got it.
- You asked.
- OK, well, you know, maybe we should have a safe word or something.
Maybe you should just tell me when to leave something to the imagination.
Deal.
Ok.
So in this case, it was the face.
Why? That's the question we pursued when we landed.
Simmons: According to the autopsy, the cuts on Monica were rough and imprecise.
But he had already strangled her.
He had the time and control to do what he wants.
He had no reason to rush.
Based on his skill and organization, it's not inexperience.
It could be that he loses control because he's obtained gratification.
A dopamine rush is similar to drug addiction, where a feeling of euphoria suspends fine motor skills.
Prentiss: Monica Feinstein has a grown son? Yeah, Carl, age 19.
He goes to Tennessee Tech.
Prentiss: Let's bring him in.
If the unsub was somebody Monica knew, he might be able to give us a suspect.
Yeah.
I know exactly who did this.
His name's Mac.
He, uh He was dating my mom.
What can you tell me about him? Dorky, boring.
[Sniffles.]
He always wore these, uh These wool sweaters.
He never stayed over.
He said he wanted to protect my mother's virtue.
The kind of guy that would go out of his way to appear nonthreatening? Yeah.
You went right after him as your mother's killer.
How come? Because yesterday I came home to help my mom around the house.
Mac: Don't worry, honey.
I'll be home soon.
[Chuckles softly.]
I love you, too.
Bye.
- Hey, who's that? - âHuh? Oh, ho.
Hey! Carl, I was I was just Carl: No, no.
Who, uh, who was that? Is everything all right? No.
He just said "I love you" to somebody on the phone.
Uh [Chuckles.]
Yeah, my mom.
Oh, yeah? You call your mother "honey"? Yeah, I do.
Monica: He does.
I've heard him.
He checks on her several times a day.
Ok, have you ever met his mother? No, I haven't, but Hey, let's clear the air and address what's really going on here, yeah? You're being protective of your mom.
Heh! And as you should, because she is an incredibly special woman.
But I want to I want to prove to you how pure my intentions are with her, because I know this has been fast.
Um, I've been waiting my whole life for you And I don't want to wait any longer.
What? What? [Exhales.]
Will you marry me? Oh, of course I will.
[Chuckles.]
It's beautiful.
I love it.
Carl, voice-over: I couldn't stand watching her make such an awful decision like that, so I left.
He must've killed her as soon as I was gone.
You have any photos of Mac? My mom, she posted a lot on social media.
Here's all his contact info.
Alvez: Paul Mclntyre, aka "Mac.
" He dated Monica two months before he proposed to her.
And the address he gave her was a fake, and the phone number that he gave to her was for a burner that's now been disconnected.
Reid: You know, it could be an unsub who targets a lonely hearts victimology Middle-aged women who are emotionally susceptible to his charisma.
Jareau: And he takes his charm and harm seduction all the way up to the proposal and kills them.
[Cell phone ringing.]
Prentiss: Garcia, what'd you find? Ok, I ran this photo of Mr.
Mclntyre through facial recognition, and I'm telling you with my full confidence he does not exist.
And I want to be really clear about this.
I'm not saying he covered his tracks.
I'm saying this guy is a stone-cold apparition.
Is there anything in the creation of the false identity we can track? Ok.
According to his faux dating profile, he values family and serving the homeless, which would be really cute if, you know, he didn't cut her face off and burn her house down.
Helping the homeless was exactly what Monica was interested in.
The unsub was creating a persona tailor-made to get her guard down.
What about financial records? Garcia: Oh, this is where things get really nasty.
Actually, the part about the face is the nasty thing, but I'm sending you the specifics on this.
Shortly before dating Monica, the unsub opened a bank account using this fake identity.
He used it as a fence to create an untraceable offshore account.
He was draining Monica's money the whole time they were dating.
Garcia: And then the low-down, lying sleazeball closed said account.
And we all know what that means, don't we, my pretties? He's a con man.
[Clicks tongue.]
Lewis: Yeah, but con men resort to violence only out of necessity.
If he had a false identity, it would have been easier just to skip town than murder Monica.
Maybe after the proposal, Monica discovered he wasn't who he said he was, and then he killed her to protect his anonymity.
But then why go to these lengths? Why start the fire? And, more importantly, why cut off the face? I was wondering that, too.
I mean, I've met my share of con men dealing blackjack in Vegas, but all they care about is the score.
Exactly.
His ritual didn't match what a typical grifter would do.
So why go through all that stuff with the face and the fire? We weren't sure.
And while we were trying to figure that out, he'd already left the state Rossi, voice-over: And did what every con man does when they're on the run.
He started over.
[Turns water on.]
How about this? Woman: Turn to the left.
Now to the right.
It's great.
They're all great.
I also like the tan one and the navy one.
You are literally no help.
[Door opens.]
Ohh.
I'm sorry I'm late, honey.
Meeting in Nashville went long.
Didn't get on the road till 1:00.
Aw.
- Hey.
- âHey.
Chatty gal.
She'll get used to this.
- I love this.
- âOh, this? Mm-hmm.
Something I just threw on.
You know what I was thinking.
Maybe we'd try that new Italian spot unless you're too tired.
- Nonsense.
- No? Just let me settle in for a second, huh? Ok.
[Moans softly.]
Mm.
[Sighs.]
- Oh, oh.
- Be still.
You know, it wouldn't be so bad if you had cleaned it properly in the first place.
You big baby.
So Let's review.
On the one hand, you have a Casanova con artist sweeping a middle-aged woman off her feet while emptying her bank accounts.
And on the other, we had a killer carving faces off.
You said there were no other cases.
Not at first until Prentiss realized we were looking in the wrong place.
We didn't take his forensic countermeasure into account.
It's the arson.
And that's the element we overlooked for previous murders.
Bae, hit me.
Prentiss: Garcia, look into accidental fires in Tennessee, where a middle-aged woman was killed.
Here I thought you were gonna task me with something bone-crushingly bleak and depressing.
Accidents middle-aged.
Limit the search to women in their 50s who were dating a younger man.
Entering Cougarville.
Rawr.
It's gonna take me a hot minute to hack and slash through all this social media.
2, 3, 4, 5, 7 hits, still counting.
Con artists typically target someone with a void in their life.
So what made Monica an optimal target? Her son left for college last year.
She was living alone.
Garcia, of those 7 women, how many of them had children who moved out just before they were killed? Putting on my empty nester filter.
Boom.
Clarissa Carney, age 54.
Died in a fire in Memphis 5 months ago, two adult children Clare and Damian Carney.
Ok, let's bring those kids in here and see if they recognize our unsub.
Clare: That's him.
He don't look anything like this.
Mom called him Mike.
She said he was a godsend after our dad died.
A godsend.
How exactly? Clare: He was interested in all the same things she was interested in.
Took her on trips.
Which she loved.
Bought her all kinds of gifts.
Notice anything strange about the relationship? I was a little worried when they got engaged.
It was a little fast.
Clare: And then he disappeared just as fast.
He proposed, and then the next day, the fire happened.
He didn't even come to the funeral.
Alvez: Did he have access to your mom's bank accounts? No.
Why? Are you sure? He didn't try taking any money from your mom? No.
In fact, we were surprised at how much she left us in the will.
It was over 7 figures.
You said you had a picture of him? She emailed this to us when they took a trip to Chicago.
Rossi: We learned a lot from the photo.
Krystall: He's older in this picture.
Beard, different glasses, different hair color, different eye color, which means he's wearing colored contacts.
Con men know how to change their look.
Well, not to this length.
Take a look at his first identity again when he was Mac.
Ok.
Imagine something with me.
It's not gonna be gross or scary, is it? No.
Just close your eyes, listen, and put yourself there.
Rossi, voice-over: Con men are creatures of habit, which is a nice way of saying they're fundamentally lazy.
Like most psychopaths, they get bored easily.
They change just enough about their appearance to keep their con alive.
This guy did more than just change his clothes and hair.
Based on our interviews, we learned that he altered his mannerisms, his body language, even his accent.
[Mock Southern accent.]
You are so darn beautiful.
You're not so bad yourself, mister.
Ha ha Oh, my god.
Man: I said, wow! I said, wow [Indistinct singing on soundtrack.]
Rossi, voice-over: Now, a man who can change that much.
How do you think he would feel about himself? [Mclntyre laughs.]
Shh.
Ha ha! Mm.
Mm.
[Yells.]
[Clatter.]
[Exhales deeply.]
Krystall, voice-over: Like he had no identity Like he had no face.
[Scoffs.]
That's when we knew it was time to deliver the profile.
The unsub we're dealing with thinks he's a con man, but a con man wouldn't leave money in the bank like he did with Clarissa Carney.
Reid: This man is a malignant narcissist and misogynist who fundamentally hates the women he takes advantage of.
He can't reveal who he truly is to them, so at the moment of their greatest happiness, he destroys it and takes their face.
Now, a hatred this severe, where rage trumps money, indicates that our unsub has a damaged relationship with the primary female figure in his life, most likely his mother.
Wait.
Why his mother? Couldn't he just be some guy with a broken heart? Something must have happened during his formative years to produce this level of violence.
He's been nursing this anger for a long time.
The time he spends with his marks is our best lead right now, and although he goes to great lengths to hide his face, he probably uses all or part of the same cover story in his con.
And the details he recycles might be helpful to our investigation.
There might be some bread crumbs in there that help lead us to where he is now.
Or, more likely, they'll tell us who he was to begin with.
Krystall: Ok, I know this part from dealing cards.
Every bluff has a tell, and that tell is the truth seeping out.
That's right.
A con man keeps his story straight by drawing from his own life.
But to get those details, we needed to find more victims.
Did you find them? Garcia did, once she expanded her search beyond state lines.
But as we were pulling those families, he'd already moved on to another target.
Ok, you two are just the cutest team ever.
- Careful now.
- Yes, ma'am.
Don't leave me hanging.
Ok.
Tell me, what do I have to do to get on your good side? Well, for starters, you could maybe explain something to me.
What? What are your plans with her? Well, uh Honestly, I don't I don't know right now.
It's early.
We we just started seeing each other.
Look Just don't hurt her, ok? Krystall: He did hurt her, didn't he? Yeah.
How did you know what happened? I mean, you weren't there.
We gathered that from interviews after the fact.
And as we brought in the families, we drilled down on the unsub's back story, and that's how we found a pattern.
He told my mom he worked for a high-powered consultant firm and traveled all over the country.
And what about where he was from? - Did he ever tell you that? - Yeah.
He said he was from Aberdeen, Mississippi, his hometown.
Yeah, that's right.
Aberdeen, Mississippi.
He told a story about his daughter.
I think her name was Grace.
Grace.
Yeah, she, um, she was only 5 years old, back in Aberdeen.
Yeah, he said that Grace drowned when she was young.
Yeah, drowned in the bathtub.
And that it was his mother's fault.
Carl: She left Grace alone.
Grace bumped her head in the bath and drowned.
Yeah, he never forgave her after that.
Prentiss: So let's assume that part of the unsub's story is true.
Letting his daughter die could be the source of his rage toward his mother.
We profiled something in his more formative years, though.
You know, the drowning could be the culmination of the mother's lifelong neglect towards the unsub.
Well, most grandmothers would watch their grandchild like a hawk in the bathtub.
You know, as confidence games go, his story is both utilitarian and elegant; drowning garners instant sympathy from his victims.
How big is Aberdeen? It's about 5,000 residents.
Why? Town that small, it shouldn't be too hard to find a record of a tragedy that big.
Rossi: But in this particular instance, it was.
Prentiss, on phone: Any luck? Sadly, I tell you no.
Aberdeen is a little too small.
The police haven't digitized the records yet, let alone anything from the early aughts.
We'll have to go through them by hand.
I'll send Luke and Matt.
Krystall: So you did and that's how you caught him, right? What? David, what is it? We were closing in on him, but the woman he was with Mary She made a terrible mistake.
Mary, I didn't do anything to deserve a meal this extraordinary.
What's the occasion? Well, I wanted tonight to be special.
[Chuckles.]
Special? Mm-hmm.
Listen, Bill, uh, I got you something.
What's that? It's Hawaiian koa wood.
Mary: It reminded me of when you said that you always wanted to go to Kauai.
Well, I've been saving up points and paid sick days, enough for us to go on a modest but extended honeymoon.
Honeymoon? I knew that you were the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the moment we met.
And I know this isn't how it's done, but, Bill, would you be my husband? Mary: Oh.
[Giggling.]
I love Hawaii.
[Giggling.]
No! That poor mother and daughter.
What they went through.
You said you were closing in on him, and The path went through Aberdeen, Mississippi.
Matt and Luke went down there.
Rossi: In an accidental death like that, witnesses certainly wind up in a police report.
So they looked for smaller, petty crimes he might have been busted for.
They searched arrest records for fraud.
Instead, found one for bigamy.
Whoa.
Of course.
He proposed with every crime.
I mean, he'd leave a trail.
Except it wasn't his record.
It was the unsub's mother.
Roberta Lynch, 62.
Starting in the late seventies, she hopped from suitor to suitor, getting them to marry her and then taking them for all they're worth.
An arrest in 1991 revealed she had a son, Everett, who was playing second fiddle to the con she was busted for.
Having a con woman for a mother would have instilled the narcissism and misogyny that we profiled.
Ok, the path to finding him is through his mother.
Where is she now? South Mississippi state prison.
She's doing 25 to life for killing a boyfriend in a domestic dispute.
Sounds like that runs in the family, also.
Krystall: I imagine a con woman would be pretty tight-lipped.
That was our assumption, too, but she wasn't quite what we expected.
[Buzz.]
We appreciate you speaking to us, Mrs.
Lynch.
Oh.
My degenerate lawyer is who talked me into that plea deal.
Now I'm stuck in this box until I'll be sportin' depends underneath the jumpsuit.
[Chuckles.]
But it also means that I'm an open book.
Oh.
[Giggles.]
Sorry.
So what can I do for you, brown eyes? Mrs.
Lynch, we, uh Oh, please.
You got to call me Bobbie.
Hmm? But not you.
Nope.
You call me Ms.
Lynch 'cause you're a bad, bad boy.
I, uh, don't know what to say to that.
Ha! Still got it.
â[Chuckles.]
Bobbie, we're here to talk to you about Everett.
Yeah, all right.
That doesn't surprise me.
When was the last time you saw him? That kid's been in the wind since he was 22 or And he's never reached out.
Heh! He never even came to visit me.
You tell me, what kind of son treats his mama that way? Especially after everything that I taught him.
What did you teach him? Well, he was my little soldier.
He was My partner in crime.
We were just a couple of rolling stones, making our way across the Bible belt.
You're talking about your cons, right? [Giggles.]
That's right, muscles.
See, I would find some gullible schmo [Sobbing.]
And I'd tell him how we I was thrown out on the street with my poor kid.
[Normal voice.]
You know, nothing opens up doors like a blubbering 7-year-old, I tell ya.
Ha! They would fall ass over elbows, just And then, pretty soon They'd get down on one knee and I would just take 'em for every last nickel.
Then you know what would happen? What? [Giggles.]
We'd laugh.
Oh, my, we would laugh so much just about these poor, helpless chumps.
Ha! Where do you think Everett might be right now? I don't know.
I got no idea.
But heh! Given that the feds are lookin' for him, I surmise that he's still runnin' cons, and guess what.
You're never gonna catch him 'cause I taught him everything I know, everything, and that is enough to keep him always just out of your reach.
He's killing his marks now.
Alvez: But we think he's doing it because he can't kill you After what you did to Grace.
- Grace? - Yeah, your granddaughter.
The one you let drown, you were supposed to be watching her? [Scoffs.]
Took away my utensils, just 'cause I shivved some pretty bitch last summer.
Forgive me, agents, but I think that I've answered enough of your questions.
Jareau: The detail about the drowning hit a nerve with Roberta.
Which suggests there's another element of truth to Everett's back story.
Now, he puts himself in the submissive role that he and his mother would take advantage of in her cons.
So every time he gets down on one knee with his victims, he hears his mother's laughter ringing in his ears.
Roberta said that she taught Everett everything he knows.
What if there's a pattern in that? Prentiss: What kind of pattern? Following her trail, maybe, going to the cities where her con worked, thinking he can work the same magic.
Hey, Rossi's right.
All 3 of Everett's kills happened in cities where his mom conned a man: Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville.
He's even mirroring the order in which his mother visited each city.
- Where did Roberta go after Nashville? - âLittle Rock.
Well, that's got to be where he is now.
[Vacuuming.]
[Phone rings.]
I was getting lonely.
What do you need? We think our unsub's next target lives in Little Rock.
I need you to assemble a pool of potential victims based on our victimology women roughly 50 years old, recent empty-nesters.
No bout a doubt it.
Jareau: Limit your search to women on dating websites, specifically those interested in getting married.
Ok, women in Little Rock looking for A little rock.
Prentiss: Send us their dating profiles and social media.
- We'll work it on our end.
- Yeah, yeah.
Krystall: That must have been a long list of potential victims.
Rossi: Reid does have a knack of finding the black cat in the coal mine.
Got him.
And that's how you caught him, finally.
No, it is how we found him, but what we didn't know was that the unsub's mother made a phone call from the prison after we left.
To her son.
To her lawyer, and since that's privileged, we don't know exactly what she said, but we can hazard a guess.
You tell that rotten bastard that the FBI is on his ass, and how dare he, how dare he bring my granddaughter into his And that's not my fault.
He did what he did to to poor little Gracie.
That's not on me.
Rossi: Because of that, we lost the element of surprise.
She said what? Ok.
I'm gonna need to improvise a little bit, ok? [Whimpers.]
So here's what we're gonna do.
[Crying.]
So you were walking into a trap.
I I can't leave this next part to the imagination.
It's ok.
Just Just take your time.
Rossi, voice-over: We underestimated.
Krystall: Underestimated what? Rossi: How many women he killed.
[Sighs.]
So With those first 3 victims Rossi, voice-over: We were barely scratching the surface.
Once we were inside the house, we heard her screaming.
- Help! Help me! - âUpstairs.
We need to clear the back of the house.
- I'm with you.
Go.
- Krystall: Who, the mother? - Rossi: The daughter.
- Please, you got to help me! Hey, don't worry.
We're gonna get you out of here.
He took her! You have to save her! Reid: No sign of him or Mary.
Lewis is with Rossi and Simmons.
Where did he take your mom? There's a barn in the woods out back! Rossi, check the woods behind the house.
Look for a barn.
[Mary whimpering.]
We got you.
[Duct tape rips.]
It doesn't make sense.
The faces are his trophies.
He wouldn't leave them behind if - He knew we were coming.
- Please! You have to find her! Don't worry.
We're gonna find your mom.
All right, now what's your name? Grace.
I'm Grace.
Please! He's gonna kill her! Grace? - Daddy! - [Screams.]
Oh, my god.
She was his daughter? Yes.
Mary Cullen did have a college-age daughter, but she was at college.
- Grace never drowned? - No.
And this was the first time he brought her in on one of his cons.
We didn't see it, and it almost got us all killed.
[Gunfire.]
Simmons: Find out where he's shooting from! [Duct tape rips.]
[Gunshot.]
Rossi: Take the other side.
I'm going to try to flank him from behind.
Yeah.
[Breathing heavily.]
Rossi, voice-over: My last thought was, "don't black out.
" If you black out, you're dead.
" And then I blacked out.
We saved Mary, we arrested Grace, but he got away.
You'll catch him.
Except this guy, he's a chameleon.
He could walk up to me with a gun in his hand and I'd never see him coming.
That's where this came from.
[Gasps.]
Rossi, voice-over: He left me a reminder of what he could do.
He could have taken my face if he wanted.
He didn't.
You know, sometimes you lose on this job.
I get it, but this is the first time in a long time that I was beaten by someone younger, faster, stronger than I am.
But that's what's been bothering me about this case That maybe I'm Just not as good as I once was.
Maybe I'm a half a step slower, maybe Maybe I shouldn't be out there because next time Next time, I won't wake up.
You left something out.
You didn't say smarter because he isn't, and that's how you're gonna catch him because that's how you always catch 'em.
You're not the only one that lost.
He lost, too.
And even I know where you have to go next.
Thank you for listening For - [Kiss.]
- âFor being here.
Do you want me to go with you? No.
I've got to do this one on my own.
[Keys jingling.]
Let's talk about your father.
[Electronic safe beeping.]
Hmm.
I got your coffee.
Are we gonna talk about this? I'm late.
Traffic's already a mess.
David, come on.
Have you seen my keys? They're in your hand.
- I - Stop.
How are you feeling? Um, I don't I don't know when I'll be home.
Don't wait up.
[Elevator bell dings.]
Hello, sir.
Hi.
Hey.
Uh, when do the bandages come off? The doc says a week.
How are you doing? Good.
I'm good.
I think he's been here all weekend.
Should have seen it.
Should have seen it.
Why didn't I see it? How much sleep have you gotten since we got back? It was right there.
It was right there, and I didn't see it.
None of us did.
How are you doing? Fine.
Not you, too.
You're tired of people asking you how you're doing? Yes, I am.
Do you know what this is? It's an open investigation.
That's all.
We lost the first time, but we'll get another chance.
Yes, we will.
This team doesn't take care of me.
I take care of them.
That's my job.
Maybe it's because you do that job so well, we want to be there for you when we can.
You went through something terrible out there, but you can't keep it bottled up.
You know that.
So, Dave, there's really only one question, and it's not "how are you doing?" It's, who do you trust enough to say "I'm not doing so good"? What happened? I got sent home by the principal.
You ready to talk about it? [Inhales and exhales.]
[Breathing heavily.]
[Man yells.]
Rossi, voice-over: I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't breathe.
I'm here.
I'm here.
- Thanks.
- [Cell phone chimes.]
Ah.
It's Portia.
So how is my soon-to-be stepdaughter doing? She likes to share quotes with me.
Here's today's.
Stephen King wrote, "the most important things are the hardest to say.
" How weirdly appropriate.
Come on.
We are getting married in 3 weeks.
And if we want this to work, you have to let me in.
It started when we got called in on a single.
A single homicide in Nashville, Tennessee.
That is, firefighters responded to a house fire in the Green Hills neighborhood and were able to put out the fire before it destroyed everything, but they discovered the body of Monica Feinstein, with a complete face lift.
And I'm not talking about the kind that you need a weekend and a bottle of aspirin to get over.
I'm talking cheek to cheek, neck to noggin.
Her whole face was lifted, like, removed from her Lewis: All right.
Well, burns on the body were limited to the legs and feet, but knife marks went all the way down to the skull.
Possibly symbolic.
Were the cuts postmortem? They were.
Cause of death was strangulation.
So the face is a trophy.
He took it with him to relive what he did.
Reid: As with Jeffrey Dahmer, killers often collect body parts to combat a feeling of inadequacy.
They see the trophy as an extension of their own identity, something they'd rather die than give up.
How did the unsub set the fire? Garcia: Firefighters sourced the flames to a lit stove and then discovered evidence of corroded gas pipes.
The gas pipes are made of galvanized steel, and the house is only a few years old.
The unsub could've used sulfuric acid to mimic the effects of corrosion.
Yeah, he's gone to great lengths to make the fire look like an accident.
No forensic countermeasure.
Burning the house down would be a perfect way to cover your tracks.
The sophistication suggests this isn't his first, and he's probably planning more.
Wheels up in 20.
Did you find any other victims? Not on the first sweep.
[Beeps.]
So we discussed what we knew on our way to Nashville.
Monica Feinstein, 52.
Taught preschool, volunteered in a soup kitchen.
Single mom, adult son.
About as low-risk a lifestyle as you can get.
Prentiss: And there's no sign of forced entry, so, the unsub was either someone she knew or didn't see as a threat.
He sets the fire to destroy the evidence, but he could also be setting it to hide his own shame or disgust for having taken the face.
Yeah, that's true, but even if it was a trophy, he might've hated himself for wanting it.
Rossi: Most unsubs have a love-hate relationship with their compulsions.
Which in this case would be erotophonophilia.
Krystall: Erotophono-what? It's a $10 word for lust murder.
It involves the mutilation of body parts the unsub finds most attractive.
Now, it could be feet or kneecaps, but it's usually breasts or genital Ok, got it.
Got it.
- You asked.
- OK, well, you know, maybe we should have a safe word or something.
Maybe you should just tell me when to leave something to the imagination.
Deal.
Ok.
So in this case, it was the face.
Why? That's the question we pursued when we landed.
Simmons: According to the autopsy, the cuts on Monica were rough and imprecise.
But he had already strangled her.
He had the time and control to do what he wants.
He had no reason to rush.
Based on his skill and organization, it's not inexperience.
It could be that he loses control because he's obtained gratification.
A dopamine rush is similar to drug addiction, where a feeling of euphoria suspends fine motor skills.
Prentiss: Monica Feinstein has a grown son? Yeah, Carl, age 19.
He goes to Tennessee Tech.
Prentiss: Let's bring him in.
If the unsub was somebody Monica knew, he might be able to give us a suspect.
Yeah.
I know exactly who did this.
His name's Mac.
He, uh He was dating my mom.
What can you tell me about him? Dorky, boring.
[Sniffles.]
He always wore these, uh These wool sweaters.
He never stayed over.
He said he wanted to protect my mother's virtue.
The kind of guy that would go out of his way to appear nonthreatening? Yeah.
You went right after him as your mother's killer.
How come? Because yesterday I came home to help my mom around the house.
Mac: Don't worry, honey.
I'll be home soon.
[Chuckles softly.]
I love you, too.
Bye.
- Hey, who's that? - âHuh? Oh, ho.
Hey! Carl, I was I was just Carl: No, no.
Who, uh, who was that? Is everything all right? No.
He just said "I love you" to somebody on the phone.
Uh [Chuckles.]
Yeah, my mom.
Oh, yeah? You call your mother "honey"? Yeah, I do.
Monica: He does.
I've heard him.
He checks on her several times a day.
Ok, have you ever met his mother? No, I haven't, but Hey, let's clear the air and address what's really going on here, yeah? You're being protective of your mom.
Heh! And as you should, because she is an incredibly special woman.
But I want to I want to prove to you how pure my intentions are with her, because I know this has been fast.
Um, I've been waiting my whole life for you And I don't want to wait any longer.
What? What? [Exhales.]
Will you marry me? Oh, of course I will.
[Chuckles.]
It's beautiful.
I love it.
Carl, voice-over: I couldn't stand watching her make such an awful decision like that, so I left.
He must've killed her as soon as I was gone.
You have any photos of Mac? My mom, she posted a lot on social media.
Here's all his contact info.
Alvez: Paul Mclntyre, aka "Mac.
" He dated Monica two months before he proposed to her.
And the address he gave her was a fake, and the phone number that he gave to her was for a burner that's now been disconnected.
Reid: You know, it could be an unsub who targets a lonely hearts victimology Middle-aged women who are emotionally susceptible to his charisma.
Jareau: And he takes his charm and harm seduction all the way up to the proposal and kills them.
[Cell phone ringing.]
Prentiss: Garcia, what'd you find? Ok, I ran this photo of Mr.
Mclntyre through facial recognition, and I'm telling you with my full confidence he does not exist.
And I want to be really clear about this.
I'm not saying he covered his tracks.
I'm saying this guy is a stone-cold apparition.
Is there anything in the creation of the false identity we can track? Ok.
According to his faux dating profile, he values family and serving the homeless, which would be really cute if, you know, he didn't cut her face off and burn her house down.
Helping the homeless was exactly what Monica was interested in.
The unsub was creating a persona tailor-made to get her guard down.
What about financial records? Garcia: Oh, this is where things get really nasty.
Actually, the part about the face is the nasty thing, but I'm sending you the specifics on this.
Shortly before dating Monica, the unsub opened a bank account using this fake identity.
He used it as a fence to create an untraceable offshore account.
He was draining Monica's money the whole time they were dating.
Garcia: And then the low-down, lying sleazeball closed said account.
And we all know what that means, don't we, my pretties? He's a con man.
[Clicks tongue.]
Lewis: Yeah, but con men resort to violence only out of necessity.
If he had a false identity, it would have been easier just to skip town than murder Monica.
Maybe after the proposal, Monica discovered he wasn't who he said he was, and then he killed her to protect his anonymity.
But then why go to these lengths? Why start the fire? And, more importantly, why cut off the face? I was wondering that, too.
I mean, I've met my share of con men dealing blackjack in Vegas, but all they care about is the score.
Exactly.
His ritual didn't match what a typical grifter would do.
So why go through all that stuff with the face and the fire? We weren't sure.
And while we were trying to figure that out, he'd already left the state Rossi, voice-over: And did what every con man does when they're on the run.
He started over.
[Turns water on.]
How about this? Woman: Turn to the left.
Now to the right.
It's great.
They're all great.
I also like the tan one and the navy one.
You are literally no help.
[Door opens.]
Ohh.
I'm sorry I'm late, honey.
Meeting in Nashville went long.
Didn't get on the road till 1:00.
Aw.
- Hey.
- âHey.
Chatty gal.
She'll get used to this.
- I love this.
- âOh, this? Mm-hmm.
Something I just threw on.
You know what I was thinking.
Maybe we'd try that new Italian spot unless you're too tired.
- Nonsense.
- No? Just let me settle in for a second, huh? Ok.
[Moans softly.]
Mm.
[Sighs.]
- Oh, oh.
- Be still.
You know, it wouldn't be so bad if you had cleaned it properly in the first place.
You big baby.
So Let's review.
On the one hand, you have a Casanova con artist sweeping a middle-aged woman off her feet while emptying her bank accounts.
And on the other, we had a killer carving faces off.
You said there were no other cases.
Not at first until Prentiss realized we were looking in the wrong place.
We didn't take his forensic countermeasure into account.
It's the arson.
And that's the element we overlooked for previous murders.
Bae, hit me.
Prentiss: Garcia, look into accidental fires in Tennessee, where a middle-aged woman was killed.
Here I thought you were gonna task me with something bone-crushingly bleak and depressing.
Accidents middle-aged.
Limit the search to women in their 50s who were dating a younger man.
Entering Cougarville.
Rawr.
It's gonna take me a hot minute to hack and slash through all this social media.
2, 3, 4, 5, 7 hits, still counting.
Con artists typically target someone with a void in their life.
So what made Monica an optimal target? Her son left for college last year.
She was living alone.
Garcia, of those 7 women, how many of them had children who moved out just before they were killed? Putting on my empty nester filter.
Boom.
Clarissa Carney, age 54.
Died in a fire in Memphis 5 months ago, two adult children Clare and Damian Carney.
Ok, let's bring those kids in here and see if they recognize our unsub.
Clare: That's him.
He don't look anything like this.
Mom called him Mike.
She said he was a godsend after our dad died.
A godsend.
How exactly? Clare: He was interested in all the same things she was interested in.
Took her on trips.
Which she loved.
Bought her all kinds of gifts.
Notice anything strange about the relationship? I was a little worried when they got engaged.
It was a little fast.
Clare: And then he disappeared just as fast.
He proposed, and then the next day, the fire happened.
He didn't even come to the funeral.
Alvez: Did he have access to your mom's bank accounts? No.
Why? Are you sure? He didn't try taking any money from your mom? No.
In fact, we were surprised at how much she left us in the will.
It was over 7 figures.
You said you had a picture of him? She emailed this to us when they took a trip to Chicago.
Rossi: We learned a lot from the photo.
Krystall: He's older in this picture.
Beard, different glasses, different hair color, different eye color, which means he's wearing colored contacts.
Con men know how to change their look.
Well, not to this length.
Take a look at his first identity again when he was Mac.
Ok.
Imagine something with me.
It's not gonna be gross or scary, is it? No.
Just close your eyes, listen, and put yourself there.
Rossi, voice-over: Con men are creatures of habit, which is a nice way of saying they're fundamentally lazy.
Like most psychopaths, they get bored easily.
They change just enough about their appearance to keep their con alive.
This guy did more than just change his clothes and hair.
Based on our interviews, we learned that he altered his mannerisms, his body language, even his accent.
[Mock Southern accent.]
You are so darn beautiful.
You're not so bad yourself, mister.
Ha ha Oh, my god.
Man: I said, wow! I said, wow [Indistinct singing on soundtrack.]
Rossi, voice-over: Now, a man who can change that much.
How do you think he would feel about himself? [Mclntyre laughs.]
Shh.
Ha ha! Mm.
Mm.
[Yells.]
[Clatter.]
[Exhales deeply.]
Krystall, voice-over: Like he had no identity Like he had no face.
[Scoffs.]
That's when we knew it was time to deliver the profile.
The unsub we're dealing with thinks he's a con man, but a con man wouldn't leave money in the bank like he did with Clarissa Carney.
Reid: This man is a malignant narcissist and misogynist who fundamentally hates the women he takes advantage of.
He can't reveal who he truly is to them, so at the moment of their greatest happiness, he destroys it and takes their face.
Now, a hatred this severe, where rage trumps money, indicates that our unsub has a damaged relationship with the primary female figure in his life, most likely his mother.
Wait.
Why his mother? Couldn't he just be some guy with a broken heart? Something must have happened during his formative years to produce this level of violence.
He's been nursing this anger for a long time.
The time he spends with his marks is our best lead right now, and although he goes to great lengths to hide his face, he probably uses all or part of the same cover story in his con.
And the details he recycles might be helpful to our investigation.
There might be some bread crumbs in there that help lead us to where he is now.
Or, more likely, they'll tell us who he was to begin with.
Krystall: Ok, I know this part from dealing cards.
Every bluff has a tell, and that tell is the truth seeping out.
That's right.
A con man keeps his story straight by drawing from his own life.
But to get those details, we needed to find more victims.
Did you find them? Garcia did, once she expanded her search beyond state lines.
But as we were pulling those families, he'd already moved on to another target.
Ok, you two are just the cutest team ever.
- Careful now.
- Yes, ma'am.
Don't leave me hanging.
Ok.
Tell me, what do I have to do to get on your good side? Well, for starters, you could maybe explain something to me.
What? What are your plans with her? Well, uh Honestly, I don't I don't know right now.
It's early.
We we just started seeing each other.
Look Just don't hurt her, ok? Krystall: He did hurt her, didn't he? Yeah.
How did you know what happened? I mean, you weren't there.
We gathered that from interviews after the fact.
And as we brought in the families, we drilled down on the unsub's back story, and that's how we found a pattern.
He told my mom he worked for a high-powered consultant firm and traveled all over the country.
And what about where he was from? - Did he ever tell you that? - Yeah.
He said he was from Aberdeen, Mississippi, his hometown.
Yeah, that's right.
Aberdeen, Mississippi.
He told a story about his daughter.
I think her name was Grace.
Grace.
Yeah, she, um, she was only 5 years old, back in Aberdeen.
Yeah, he said that Grace drowned when she was young.
Yeah, drowned in the bathtub.
And that it was his mother's fault.
Carl: She left Grace alone.
Grace bumped her head in the bath and drowned.
Yeah, he never forgave her after that.
Prentiss: So let's assume that part of the unsub's story is true.
Letting his daughter die could be the source of his rage toward his mother.
We profiled something in his more formative years, though.
You know, the drowning could be the culmination of the mother's lifelong neglect towards the unsub.
Well, most grandmothers would watch their grandchild like a hawk in the bathtub.
You know, as confidence games go, his story is both utilitarian and elegant; drowning garners instant sympathy from his victims.
How big is Aberdeen? It's about 5,000 residents.
Why? Town that small, it shouldn't be too hard to find a record of a tragedy that big.
Rossi: But in this particular instance, it was.
Prentiss, on phone: Any luck? Sadly, I tell you no.
Aberdeen is a little too small.
The police haven't digitized the records yet, let alone anything from the early aughts.
We'll have to go through them by hand.
I'll send Luke and Matt.
Krystall: So you did and that's how you caught him, right? What? David, what is it? We were closing in on him, but the woman he was with Mary She made a terrible mistake.
Mary, I didn't do anything to deserve a meal this extraordinary.
What's the occasion? Well, I wanted tonight to be special.
[Chuckles.]
Special? Mm-hmm.
Listen, Bill, uh, I got you something.
What's that? It's Hawaiian koa wood.
Mary: It reminded me of when you said that you always wanted to go to Kauai.
Well, I've been saving up points and paid sick days, enough for us to go on a modest but extended honeymoon.
Honeymoon? I knew that you were the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the moment we met.
And I know this isn't how it's done, but, Bill, would you be my husband? Mary: Oh.
[Giggling.]
I love Hawaii.
[Giggling.]
No! That poor mother and daughter.
What they went through.
You said you were closing in on him, and The path went through Aberdeen, Mississippi.
Matt and Luke went down there.
Rossi: In an accidental death like that, witnesses certainly wind up in a police report.
So they looked for smaller, petty crimes he might have been busted for.
They searched arrest records for fraud.
Instead, found one for bigamy.
Whoa.
Of course.
He proposed with every crime.
I mean, he'd leave a trail.
Except it wasn't his record.
It was the unsub's mother.
Roberta Lynch, 62.
Starting in the late seventies, she hopped from suitor to suitor, getting them to marry her and then taking them for all they're worth.
An arrest in 1991 revealed she had a son, Everett, who was playing second fiddle to the con she was busted for.
Having a con woman for a mother would have instilled the narcissism and misogyny that we profiled.
Ok, the path to finding him is through his mother.
Where is she now? South Mississippi state prison.
She's doing 25 to life for killing a boyfriend in a domestic dispute.
Sounds like that runs in the family, also.
Krystall: I imagine a con woman would be pretty tight-lipped.
That was our assumption, too, but she wasn't quite what we expected.
[Buzz.]
We appreciate you speaking to us, Mrs.
Lynch.
Oh.
My degenerate lawyer is who talked me into that plea deal.
Now I'm stuck in this box until I'll be sportin' depends underneath the jumpsuit.
[Chuckles.]
But it also means that I'm an open book.
Oh.
[Giggles.]
Sorry.
So what can I do for you, brown eyes? Mrs.
Lynch, we, uh Oh, please.
You got to call me Bobbie.
Hmm? But not you.
Nope.
You call me Ms.
Lynch 'cause you're a bad, bad boy.
I, uh, don't know what to say to that.
Ha! Still got it.
â[Chuckles.]
Bobbie, we're here to talk to you about Everett.
Yeah, all right.
That doesn't surprise me.
When was the last time you saw him? That kid's been in the wind since he was 22 or And he's never reached out.
Heh! He never even came to visit me.
You tell me, what kind of son treats his mama that way? Especially after everything that I taught him.
What did you teach him? Well, he was my little soldier.
He was My partner in crime.
We were just a couple of rolling stones, making our way across the Bible belt.
You're talking about your cons, right? [Giggles.]
That's right, muscles.
See, I would find some gullible schmo [Sobbing.]
And I'd tell him how we I was thrown out on the street with my poor kid.
[Normal voice.]
You know, nothing opens up doors like a blubbering 7-year-old, I tell ya.
Ha! They would fall ass over elbows, just And then, pretty soon They'd get down on one knee and I would just take 'em for every last nickel.
Then you know what would happen? What? [Giggles.]
We'd laugh.
Oh, my, we would laugh so much just about these poor, helpless chumps.
Ha! Where do you think Everett might be right now? I don't know.
I got no idea.
But heh! Given that the feds are lookin' for him, I surmise that he's still runnin' cons, and guess what.
You're never gonna catch him 'cause I taught him everything I know, everything, and that is enough to keep him always just out of your reach.
He's killing his marks now.
Alvez: But we think he's doing it because he can't kill you After what you did to Grace.
- Grace? - Yeah, your granddaughter.
The one you let drown, you were supposed to be watching her? [Scoffs.]
Took away my utensils, just 'cause I shivved some pretty bitch last summer.
Forgive me, agents, but I think that I've answered enough of your questions.
Jareau: The detail about the drowning hit a nerve with Roberta.
Which suggests there's another element of truth to Everett's back story.
Now, he puts himself in the submissive role that he and his mother would take advantage of in her cons.
So every time he gets down on one knee with his victims, he hears his mother's laughter ringing in his ears.
Roberta said that she taught Everett everything he knows.
What if there's a pattern in that? Prentiss: What kind of pattern? Following her trail, maybe, going to the cities where her con worked, thinking he can work the same magic.
Hey, Rossi's right.
All 3 of Everett's kills happened in cities where his mom conned a man: Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville.
He's even mirroring the order in which his mother visited each city.
- Where did Roberta go after Nashville? - âLittle Rock.
Well, that's got to be where he is now.
[Vacuuming.]
[Phone rings.]
I was getting lonely.
What do you need? We think our unsub's next target lives in Little Rock.
I need you to assemble a pool of potential victims based on our victimology women roughly 50 years old, recent empty-nesters.
No bout a doubt it.
Jareau: Limit your search to women on dating websites, specifically those interested in getting married.
Ok, women in Little Rock looking for A little rock.
Prentiss: Send us their dating profiles and social media.
- We'll work it on our end.
- Yeah, yeah.
Krystall: That must have been a long list of potential victims.
Rossi: Reid does have a knack of finding the black cat in the coal mine.
Got him.
And that's how you caught him, finally.
No, it is how we found him, but what we didn't know was that the unsub's mother made a phone call from the prison after we left.
To her son.
To her lawyer, and since that's privileged, we don't know exactly what she said, but we can hazard a guess.
You tell that rotten bastard that the FBI is on his ass, and how dare he, how dare he bring my granddaughter into his And that's not my fault.
He did what he did to to poor little Gracie.
That's not on me.
Rossi: Because of that, we lost the element of surprise.
She said what? Ok.
I'm gonna need to improvise a little bit, ok? [Whimpers.]
So here's what we're gonna do.
[Crying.]
So you were walking into a trap.
I I can't leave this next part to the imagination.
It's ok.
Just Just take your time.
Rossi, voice-over: We underestimated.
Krystall: Underestimated what? Rossi: How many women he killed.
[Sighs.]
So With those first 3 victims Rossi, voice-over: We were barely scratching the surface.
Once we were inside the house, we heard her screaming.
- Help! Help me! - âUpstairs.
We need to clear the back of the house.
- I'm with you.
Go.
- Krystall: Who, the mother? - Rossi: The daughter.
- Please, you got to help me! Hey, don't worry.
We're gonna get you out of here.
He took her! You have to save her! Reid: No sign of him or Mary.
Lewis is with Rossi and Simmons.
Where did he take your mom? There's a barn in the woods out back! Rossi, check the woods behind the house.
Look for a barn.
[Mary whimpering.]
We got you.
[Duct tape rips.]
It doesn't make sense.
The faces are his trophies.
He wouldn't leave them behind if - He knew we were coming.
- Please! You have to find her! Don't worry.
We're gonna find your mom.
All right, now what's your name? Grace.
I'm Grace.
Please! He's gonna kill her! Grace? - Daddy! - [Screams.]
Oh, my god.
She was his daughter? Yes.
Mary Cullen did have a college-age daughter, but she was at college.
- Grace never drowned? - No.
And this was the first time he brought her in on one of his cons.
We didn't see it, and it almost got us all killed.
[Gunfire.]
Simmons: Find out where he's shooting from! [Duct tape rips.]
[Gunshot.]
Rossi: Take the other side.
I'm going to try to flank him from behind.
Yeah.
[Breathing heavily.]
Rossi, voice-over: My last thought was, "don't black out.
" If you black out, you're dead.
" And then I blacked out.
We saved Mary, we arrested Grace, but he got away.
You'll catch him.
Except this guy, he's a chameleon.
He could walk up to me with a gun in his hand and I'd never see him coming.
That's where this came from.
[Gasps.]
Rossi, voice-over: He left me a reminder of what he could do.
He could have taken my face if he wanted.
He didn't.
You know, sometimes you lose on this job.
I get it, but this is the first time in a long time that I was beaten by someone younger, faster, stronger than I am.
But that's what's been bothering me about this case That maybe I'm Just not as good as I once was.
Maybe I'm a half a step slower, maybe Maybe I shouldn't be out there because next time Next time, I won't wake up.
You left something out.
You didn't say smarter because he isn't, and that's how you're gonna catch him because that's how you always catch 'em.
You're not the only one that lost.
He lost, too.
And even I know where you have to go next.
Thank you for listening For - [Kiss.]
- âFor being here.
Do you want me to go with you? No.
I've got to do this one on my own.
[Keys jingling.]
Let's talk about your father.