Criminal Minds s06e23 Episode Script
Big Sea
Hey, is there a problem with the pump? Negative.
The pump is fine.
Stand by.
Let me check the pressure.
Good.
It's all good.
- All right.
Something must be blocking it.
- Boo! Christ, man! Kill the pump! Kill the pump! Kill the pump! Kill the pump! You gotta help me, man! Come on! The barge moves up and down the coast, repairing beaches from weather damage.
And how deep is the water that this sand's coming from? About 100 meters.
The pump spews out all kinds of stuff from the ocean floor.
And you do this every year? First time in Jacksonville.
We just moved the barge here three days ago.
Thousands of miles of open water, and blind luck uncovers an unsub's graveyard.
I had them stop the pump once I realized what this was.
We're going to need you to turn the pump back on.
If we don't keep digging, we're not gonna know how many bodies there are down there.
What'd you find? A scary math problem.
I just finished doing my Jacksonville missing persons sweep.
There are six unresolved cases, three of which are kids, And you have nine adult bodies.
Then he's not hunting here.
Widen your search.
Yeah, I will do that.
Just remember, It is difficult to I.
D.
Match a thigh bone or coccyx.
- Agent Hotchner.
- Yes, sir.
Detective Foreman.
Call me J.
T.
Not the most cushy arrangement, but it'll keep your team close to the crime scene for now.
- Thank you for setting it up.
- Of course.
This will help us preserve what we can.
Excuse me.
Yeah, I'm back.
You know, based on the parasites on the most recent kill, the unsub killed as recently as a month ago, which means he's still active.
How did you establish a timeline so quickly? By reverse engineering Mother Nature.
Each year, sand and sediment cover up the remains, creating layers on the ocean floor.
That makes sense.
The deeper the pump dug, the older the remains.
Nine victims in nine years means that he's in control of his urges.
- Any sense of the victimology? - Only that he likes variety.
Pelvic bone width indicates that he kills both men and woman, and skull structure says he crosses racial lines as well.
Agent Hotchner, excuse me.
We found three more remains.
If he's been dumping this long, it's not just out of convenience.
There's got to be an emotional tie as well.
He'll change his M.
O.
Because he has to, but he won't be happy about it.
Then he'll have the entire Atlantic to choose from.
Help! Help! Help! The sea has never been friendly to man.
At most, it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.
Joseph Conrad.
You know, that site is known for record catches of yellowmouth, so the unsub was smart enough to dump during the off season and avoid fishermen.
Then he's a local.
I'm afraid to ask.
Could this be one of my guys? We run interdiction exercises around that spot.
No, it's most likely another fisherman.
Well, how could you know? Come here, I'll show you.
See, he disarticulates the bodies at the joints.
It helps them sink.
Now, that's a skill that only an experienced butcher or fisherman would have.
The bone nicks indicate this guy inflicted a lot of pain on his victims, which means he's a sadist.
Wow.
Excuse me.
Enchantress of all things possible.
Use your imagination.
Can you enchant me with a list of boat owners in Jacksonville? You know I can, baby.
Okay, in Duvall County, we're looking at 31,047 registered boats.
Well, limit that to the boats that can only be operated by one person.
Okay, I'm gonna need a lot more than this to do that.
It's still looking like a list That makes War and Peace read like a comic book.
Hey, you okay? Yeah.
Yeah, I'm fine.
I'll keep you posted.
Aye aye, captain.
Why wouldn't you be okay? It's just in cases like these where there's only pieces, it's tough.
The best we can do is catalog them and wait for the unsub to screw up somewhere else.
You think he's moved on? If he's smart he has.
And so far, this guy seems very smart.
Have you nailed down the victimology? I found a unique evolution, actually.
The earliest victims appear to be high-risk.
These lesions are consistent with syphilis, most likely a prostitute.
This one has severely ground and missing teeth, commonly seen in excessive methamphetamine abuse.
And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, a sea change Healthier and stronger victims all the way through to number 12.
Lower-risk, harder for him to hunt.
What do we know about the first victim? You know, that one's tough.
He or she has been in the water so long, they're mostly bone fragments.
I can attempt to reconstruct You've got three hours.
I can do it in two.
Make it one.
How much has gotten out? Can't tell.
Some of these news crews are national.
If the unsub doesn't know we found his graveyard yet, he will soon.
Then we'll hear from everyone who's ever filed a missing persons report.
Maybe we can use this to our advantage.
I could talk to them.
It might feed his ego, Take the sting out of him losing his site.
It could keep him in the area.
Good.
At this moment it would be premature to comment on the details of the case.
Our goal is to identify the recovered remains as quickly as possible for the families involved.
In order to expedite that, we're asking that the families or friends of people who went missing from the east coast of the United States since the year 2000 come forward.
We'll be matching DNA to the remains, And it will be helpful for us to have a personal item from each of the missing persons.
An article of clothing, a hairbrush, a blanket, a pillowcase, photographs or medical or dental records if you have them.
We're also looking for items of significance to help us determine the last known whereabouts of each of the victims.
Correspondence like letters or emails will be helpful.
Morgan was telling me how difficult these cases can be.
Who did he lose? Aunt Yvonne, how you doing? Derek, is my baby girl on that beach? We've talked about this.
There's no reason to think she'd be down here.
She went missing seven years ago and from Charleston.
That's east coast, just like your boss said.
Come on now, Auntie.
We both know what happened to Cindi.
Somehow you're just gonna have to learn to accept it.
I'll stay in touch.
Okay.
Thank you, Derek.
Some years back, Morgan's cousin fled a stalker.
She made it to South Carolina.
She was never seen or heard from again.
Was it the stalker? He killed himself two weeks later, so we never found out for sure.
But Morgan's profile led straight to him.
So whenever unidentified female remains turn up, he gets that call.
Why are you doing this? Come on, man.
Come on, man, talk to me.
No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Listen! Not again.
Why are you doing this? Son of a bitch! Alex Cottle, Beth Riley, Louise Jones, come with me, please.
We were working on a gene therapy project at Johns Hopkins when Samantha got the news.
Parkinson's.
- That must have been pretty rough on her.
- I was her best friend, and all I ever got was this postcard.
"Weze, I'm not going back to school.
There's nothing there for me.
I need to find myself.
Love, Sammy.
" Does this sound like her to you? Not really, no.
She would have written a 12-page letter.
But she addressed it to "Weze.
" She's the only one who called me that.
I'd like to keep this if that's all right? It may be evidence.
I Yeah, okay.
Thank you.
Did you happen to bring anything of hers that we could get DNA from? Well, everyone on the project mapped their DNA into the database.
I'll need that information.
You know, on this first victim, the more I work on this skeleton, the more I question its condition.
The ocean floor preserved the other remains remarkably well.
I think something else caused this.
Could this be the age of these bones as opposed to the others? Well, he's significantly older.
Arthritis in the joints puts him in his late 50s, but that doesn't account for this degree of breakdown.
In fact, nothing in the ocean would.
If the unsub's responsible, maybe he didn't disarticulate this victim but he tore him apart instead.
And look at this.
This bone has a defensive wound, like he held it up before the blow came down.
I think the bone-smashing occurred while the victim was still alive.
Overkill.
He worked out a lot of aggression on this victim.
He didn't do that with the others.
That would indicate a personal relationship.
- Father? - That would be my guess and not a good one, based on the low calcium levels consistent with alcoholism.
Think it's time to rethink Cindi? Rossi, the only connection right now is Charleston.
It's weak.
Victim number 5 is an African-American woman in her 20s who died in 2004.
That's not weak.
My aunt has spent years obsessing over Cindi's last few hours.
She doesn't go out.
She doesn't sleep.
She forgets to take her medication.
It's killing her, Rossi.
It hasn't been easy for you, either.
But everything I've learned as a profiler has taught me that it's not about what I want to be true.
It's about what I can prove.
So I can't go there.
We got a match.
Meet our first confirmed victim, Dr.
Samantha Cormick.
Since her DNA profile was already developed, we were able to save a couple of days.
So he dumps here and hunts in Charleston.
Tourist spot.
Larger victim pool.
It's a 250-mile trip back here.
It's a lot of exposure.
Torture takes time and privacy, and disarticulation is a mess.
You know, he could have a mobile torture chamber in his truck or trailer.
We've seen that before.
Or maybe he doesn't drive at all.
He could do it all from his boat.
Well, if he gets them on board in Charleston and sails them out here, he would have time for both.
And nobody would even notice a fisherman tossing chum into the water.
Hello.
Garcia, we've got more information about the unsub's boat.
It might help you narrow your list.
- Okay.
Bring it.
- Can you give us boats with cabins Large enough to hide a torture chamber? Torture chamber? Because that would, yeah, Totally be listed in the manufacturer's specs of amenities.
Try cabin dimensions.
Start at 10 by 10 feet and cap it at 30.
That is totally gonna take forever because I gotta go record by record.
You are lucky I love you.
Bye.
We need to go back to the families and see who else got a postcard.
This might finally be a link to victimology.
Sending goodbye postcards as a ruse is a gamble.
Even if written under duress, the victim could sneak their own message into it.
I don't think this was written under duress.
You said Dr.
Cormick wasn't taking medication for Parkinson's, right? Look at her handwriting.
No indication of tremors or shaking.
There's a drug called trilamide.
In minute doses it treats Parkinson's, but its main use is for seasickness.
Something a fisherman would have access to.
And criminals in South America.
Intel reports say they figured out a high dose makes the victim totally compliant.
Yeah, they slip it in your drink or blow the powder in your face and nasodermal absorption's almost immediate.
You're instantaneously susceptible to any suggestion.
There have been reports of locals letting thugs into their apartments to rob them, even helping them load the getaway trucks.
Dad, please.
Don't listen to him.
Fight it.
Okay.
Understand? Yes.
Good.
It's me.
It's James.
Choose one.
Good.
That's gonna be the knife you kill yourself with.
We got four more postcards.
Samantha makes five.
Any patterns geographically? Geographically, each victim was from a different state.
But they all went missing from Charleston? Two of them did.
The other three were mailed from Miami.
He's bouncing between two cities? You know, Miami makes a lot of sense.
It's a coastal town with a lot of tourists.
And by alternating hunting grounds, he ensures that neither city pays too much attention to people going missing.
But why these five? What connects them? Right now it's just the postcards.
They may be the Rosetta Stone that we need.
You know, the victims write the postcards, but the unsub dictates the message.
He might have revealed something about himself through them.
Start a linguistic profile.
We need to sit down with the people who got these postcards.
No, boats around here get handed down from generation to generation.
So none of the locals would fish in Charleston and Miami? A guy like you're describing, he starts bringing in blackfin from Carolina or kingfish from Miami, we'd notice.
Well, if you hear of anything that might help, please give us a call.
We need to rethink how our unsub finds his victims.
These guys are loners.
Our guy isn't.
Yeah, our guy needs good social skills, a boat that's inviting, recreational.
What if he runs a charter outfit? Plenty of customers in Charleston and Miami.
So he takes out a group, but how does he pick his victim? He starts with the passengers that are traveling alone.
That lets him know they're vulnerable.
Harmless questions would tell him who would miss them back at home.
And if they pay with a credit card, he'd just tear up the transaction.
Then there's never any record of them being on board.
Well, that might tell us how he's hunting.
The question is who? - What brought your son to Miami? - Work.
He kept saying this was it.
This is the fresh start he needed.
When did you start to get worried? One week, maybe.
Why did it take you so long to file a missing persons report? I got this postcard, and it's her handwriting.
I lived with this handwriting for four years.
I didn't think to question it.
So you'd say she was a responsible person? Come on, Rossi.
Yes.
Next question.
Look, Derek, I know it's unpleasant.
But we're looking at the risk level of all the victims, even the potential ones.
Cindi didn't drink.
She didn't do drugs.
She kept a steady job.
- And what about the stalker? - What about him? Did she sleep with him? You know the answer to that.
Well, maybe you ought to rethink it.
Maybe you'll remember something.
They went on one date.
He got one good-night kiss.
But this was a classic power-assertive stalker, and I'd seen enough of these cases to know how they end.
So you encouraged her to move.
Now, you never told me that.
Now, why did she go to Charleston? I don't know.
I told her to pick a city and not to tell anyone, and that included me.
Well, let's think about it for a second.
Had she been there before? Did she have friends there? Maybe she just wanted to be close to the ocean.
What? The whole family was picnicking on the lake.
And all the kids ended up on paddle boats.
- And was Cindi on one of them? - No.
No, that's what's weird.
She stayed on the shore the whole day.
Tell your son you abandoned him.
I didn't.
Do it.
Then why did you give up custody? I couldn't afford the lawyers anymore.
It just got to the point where I had to get on with my life.
But he wouldn't let you.
Would he? Tell him you hate him.
- No.
- Do it! Tell him exactly how you felt at that time.
I I just stopped loving you.
You have something you want to say to your father? Dad.
Please.
Stop stabbing yourself.
The unsub we're looking for is a 30- to 40-year-old fisherman currently chartering his boat to tourists trying to find a victim of medium risk.
What's medium risk? Say your car breaks down in a bad neighborhood.
Once you're outside your normal routine, there's a greater chance for victimization.
Hence, medium risk.
Each of these victims was trying to start over.
They were out of a relationship or starting a new job, But to this unsub, they were abandoning their responsibilities.
We can tell this in the messages that he forces them to write.
"It's too much.
" "There's nothing for me here.
" "It's better if I leave.
" We believe this anger stems from his first victim his father.
Most likely a local fisherman, definitely an alcoholic, and based on this unsub's level of sadism, violently abusive.
He's also the first person to abandon the unsub.
Walked out on his family, maybe, even wrote a postcard like this.
So the unsub picked a site of significance to them both, a spot known to local fisherman that he turned into his prison.
But that's gone now, so where will he head next? Well, he can't go back to that spot, but he won't leave Jacksonville, either.
That prison was his responsibility, And without it, he'll cling to what he knows.
He'll change his M.
O.
, and that'll make him erratic.
He'll escalate his sadism, and he'll kill uncontrollably until he finds another spot in the ocean to replace this one.
Thank you very much.
Aunt Yvonne.
He said you would need DNA.
I hated you when you left.
Did you know that? Yeah.
So why did you even take me back? James I couldn't live without you anymore.
And I won't let you go again, I promise.
Dad, what are we gonna do? I'll figure it out.
I was right, wasn't I? You found her body on the beach.
Actually, we're trying to rule her out.
I know you, Derek.
I know that look in your eye.
There is something, isn't there? Auntie, I've been doing this job a long time.
The things I've seen I don't want to drag you into them.
Honey, I'm already in.
You don't have to protect me.
I need to find out about my Cindi.
All right.
One of the victims that we found fits Cindi's general description.
I am not saying that it's her.
But if it is, something doesn't add up.
- I'm hoping you can help.
- That's why I'm here.
Was Cindi afraid of water? No.
She loved to swim.
It's just that one of the 4th of July picnics, I remember she wouldn't get on the paddle boats.
Oh, well, boats were a whole different story.
If Cindi as much as sat in a canoe, she'd get violently seasick.
He's not finding his victims through his boat? If he tried to talk Cindi into a charter, she wouldn't even stop.
His ruse doesn't fit her.
We don't know that she's victim number 5.
I still rushed her DNA to Quantico.
They're working on it for me.
But until we get a confirmation, we can't make any assumptions based on her behavior.
I'm not saying that we throw away the profile.
I'm just saying let's expand our thinking.
Magic 8-ball.
Garcia, we're looking into other ways that the unsub might be finding his victims.
What are the victims' histories in Charleston or Miami? Of the five we've I.
D.
'd so far there isn't any.
Maybe he meets them in transit.
How did they get there? Right.
Right.
Okay.
Um, but there's nothing there, either.
But how is that possible? These people are starting their lives over.
The whole point is to travel.
Even if they paid cash, Garcia, there'd be a name on a ticket.
Yeah.
No, I agree with you, but my binary boxes are never wrong, So however these folks got from point A to point unsub, there's no record of.
This guy's not abducting them in Miami or Charleston.
He's grabbing them while they're en route.
Clean it up! Dad! Dad! Heh.
You know, if the unsub's abducting in transit, how can he cover it up? I felt like we were close with the charter idea.
Maybe he doesn't abduct them off a boat.
The details of his ruse were right.
What means of transportation doesn't issue a ticket in advance? Passenger trains.
A conductor can hand-write a ticket once you're already on board.
Actually, most of the smaller stations aren't even manned.
You have to buy tickets on board.
You know, the train is a concept that attracts people who are trying to start over.
The appeal of escape, of romance.
If he's a conductor, he's in a target-rich environment.
My men pulled a body out of the water.
Agent Morgan's at the autopsy now.
The wounds on the thigh show hesitation marks.
An unsub this experienced wouldn't display that.
I don't think the unsub did.
The angle indicates left-handed dominance.
The file says this guy was left-handed, too.
You know, if he'd been given trilamide, the unsub could have forced him to cut himself.
It makes sense for a sadist with abandonment issues, but why didn't he finish the job? The victim must have gotten a chance to escape and took it.
But how? The trilamide kept him compliant enough to hurt himself.
It overcame his self-preservation instinct.
Well, then another instinct must have been stronger.
- Like what? - A protective one.
This guy was mentally and physically compromised, but he still went after the unsub with everything he had.
Who would he fight that hard for? A child, Garcia.
Search nationwide missing persons reports for men traveling with their kids.
Am I looking for a son or daughter? We don't know yet.
No, no, I'm sorry, honey.
No dice.
Hey, what if they're not reported as missing yet? Yeah, of course not.
When the unsub met them, they were starting over.
All right, baby girl, new deal.
USPS change of address notices, people moving into Florida and South Carolina.
Done.
All right, eliminate women, wives, couples.
Narrow it down to men only.
So we're thinking divorced dad here, right? Yeah, but not just any divorced dad.
This guy wants as much distance between his son and his ex-wife as possible.
So look for custody disputes, injunctions, allegations.
The messier the better, Garcia.
I get you.
I'll call you right back.
Take it.
Go ahead.
Give it your best shot.
Like your father did.
Gut it.
Gut it! I'm getting it now, baby girl.
That's our victim.
My beautiful SSA Derek Morgan, you deserve a raise.
Gary Rhymer of Virginia just got full custody after his wife failed drug test number 3.
Who's the child? His name is James.
He's 15.
Enrolled to start school next week in Mount Pleasant, which is east of Charleston.
Looks like Gary has a sister there.
How about how they're traveling? No.
Sorry, babe, there's no record of that.
Just like the others.
Thanks, doll.
None of the family members could confirm a train line for us.
So what do we do, we just rule it out? No.
There's one person we haven't asked.
- Who? - Your aunt.
The train? Did she ever mention it? No.
She never told us anything.
You said it was safer that way.
You know, when your Uncle Paul was still alive, he took the train to Myrtle Beach.
Really? What was the line? The Silver Star.
Cindi visited him once.
- By train? - Yes.
Auntie, that's a 36-hour-trip.
How old was she? Sometimes we want something so bad that our minds will invent details.
- But - No, listen to me, please.
I want to find Cindi for you.
Believe me, I do.
But right now he has someone else's child, Someone we can still save.
We can't afford to be wrong.
I'm sorry.
I was just trying to help.
I know.
I know.
That's okay.
Try to remember.
Did she visit him? Yes.
But she flew.
I remembered all the paperwork I had to fill out.
She was an unaccompanied minor.
James took the train three summers in a row during his parents' divorce.
His aunt from South Carolina bought the tickets, filled out the unaccompanied minor paperwork, which is why it didn't show up in my search.
What's the train line? Surf Rider.
It makes stops in Jacksonville, Charleston, and Miami.
Cross-reference your list of boat owners with railroad employees.
I got a hit on a last name.
Chuck Wells, local fisherman, son Blake, conductor on the line.
And there it is.
He didn't show up for work this week.
Is there a current address? No.
Only a boat in the dad's name, which moved to Norfolk in 2000 when the mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She died a few months later.
Dad walked out, and the unsub had to punish him for that.
James doesn't fit the victimology.
It doesn't make sense the unsub would take him.
He picked up on a father-son relationship that reminded him of his own.
What he didn't count on was Gary fighting for James' life.
How do we know the unsub hasn't already killed James? So far he's only punished people who've abandoned their responsibilities.
But that's exactly what James is to him now, a responsibility.
The unsub's gonna get angrier and angrier at that kid, and when he does, he's gonna become more like his father.
I was just about your age when I started working here.
That son of a bitch said I had to earn my keep.
And then he'd beat me, he'd take my paycheck, and he'd drink it away! Get up.
Garcia narrowed the unsub's history with his dad down to two locations.
Seaside Pier, which is where Chuck Wells used to dock his boat.
All the locals do.
It's the cheapest spot to tie off.
She also mentioned a cannery on St.
John's River.
That place went out of business last year.
It's abandoned.
The dad brought his catch there while the unsub worked the floor.
Started at 16, which is roughly the same age as James.
All right, we'll split up.
Morgan, you take one SWAT team and go to the cannery.
Detective Foreman and I will take the other, - and we'll go to the docks.
- Okay.
We can be in both locations in five minutes.
One day I was late for work, and my dad broke my arm.
And he told me to keep gutting.
And I cut and I cut till I passed out.
Now gut the fish.
Yeah.
Morgan, he's not here.
I think you've got him.
I see the boat, Hotch.
Let's go.
No.
I won't do it.
Pick up the knife.
Or what? You gonna break my arm? No.
I'm gonna slice your throat.
Blake! FBI! Stand down! Stand down! Do not shoot! Everybody stand down.
Drop it.
Drop the knife.
Stand back.
Stand back! Okay.
Okay.
I'm gonna put this away, all right? I just want to talk to you.
Come on, man.
Look at James.
He's just a kid.
Blake, you don't hurt kids.
You're not that guy.
You have no idea who I am.
I know that you're a smart man.
You had a long run at killing under the radar.
But I also know that we can learn a lot from a man like you.
See, studying men like you is my responsibility.
And I'm telling you, if you let James go, we can be a part of your life.
We won't abandon you, Blake.
What makes you think I want to teach you? Look at your alternative, man.
My guys are ready.
They will take the shot, and they will kill you.
What happens after that, Blake? Do you really think you're gonna get to see your mom again? Or maybe it'll just be cold dark, empty like the water where you put your dad.
It's your choice, man.
Get him out of here.
Take him.
All right, Blake, here's how it works.
We verify every word you say against forensics and records.
You lie to me, deal's off.
What do you want to know? Let's start with how you abducted these victims.
Carol Reed.
Oh, I could smell the fear on her.
Oh, she promised me she would do anything if I'd let her live.
Your method of abduction? She was easy.
She was a meth addict.
I just told her I was holding.
Alton McKee.
I caught him off guard.
He was running away from his nagging wife.
He couldn't stop calling her a bitch.
You're really enjoying yourself, aren't you? You making up for your loss? What loss is that? Well, it must have really gotten under your skin That they stumbled onto your perfect little hiding place.
Not really.
How do you know I don't have a dozen more just like it? It's a big sea.
No.
Blake, it's the same place where you dumped your own father.
He was the most important one, so you had to come back here and dump the other bodies.
I didn't dump her there, did I? She means something to you, doesn't she? They're all special to me, Blake.
If you can't remember her, we can just move on.
I do remember her.
You want to know, Agent Morgan, who she cried out for right before I made her slice her own throat? Go ahead.
Tell me.
You.
She cried out for you.
Where were you when she bled out on the floor of my boat? You are a sick son of a bitch.
But you didn't kill her.
I did kill her.
No.
You didn't.
And I was very clear about the rules.
Deal's off.
I did kill her.
You said you wanted to learn from me, and now you won't listen! Hey, come back here! Agent Morgan! I did kill her! How did you know? He knows his victims' names.
He didn't know Cindi's.
Agent Morgan, you get back here! Agent Morgan! Did you find her? No, Auntie.
I'm never gonna know, am I? He picked out her picture.
He did? Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We are tied to the ocean, and when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch, we are going back from whence we came.
John F.
Kennedy.
The pump is fine.
Stand by.
Let me check the pressure.
Good.
It's all good.
- All right.
Something must be blocking it.
- Boo! Christ, man! Kill the pump! Kill the pump! Kill the pump! Kill the pump! You gotta help me, man! Come on! The barge moves up and down the coast, repairing beaches from weather damage.
And how deep is the water that this sand's coming from? About 100 meters.
The pump spews out all kinds of stuff from the ocean floor.
And you do this every year? First time in Jacksonville.
We just moved the barge here three days ago.
Thousands of miles of open water, and blind luck uncovers an unsub's graveyard.
I had them stop the pump once I realized what this was.
We're going to need you to turn the pump back on.
If we don't keep digging, we're not gonna know how many bodies there are down there.
What'd you find? A scary math problem.
I just finished doing my Jacksonville missing persons sweep.
There are six unresolved cases, three of which are kids, And you have nine adult bodies.
Then he's not hunting here.
Widen your search.
Yeah, I will do that.
Just remember, It is difficult to I.
D.
Match a thigh bone or coccyx.
- Agent Hotchner.
- Yes, sir.
Detective Foreman.
Call me J.
T.
Not the most cushy arrangement, but it'll keep your team close to the crime scene for now.
- Thank you for setting it up.
- Of course.
This will help us preserve what we can.
Excuse me.
Yeah, I'm back.
You know, based on the parasites on the most recent kill, the unsub killed as recently as a month ago, which means he's still active.
How did you establish a timeline so quickly? By reverse engineering Mother Nature.
Each year, sand and sediment cover up the remains, creating layers on the ocean floor.
That makes sense.
The deeper the pump dug, the older the remains.
Nine victims in nine years means that he's in control of his urges.
- Any sense of the victimology? - Only that he likes variety.
Pelvic bone width indicates that he kills both men and woman, and skull structure says he crosses racial lines as well.
Agent Hotchner, excuse me.
We found three more remains.
If he's been dumping this long, it's not just out of convenience.
There's got to be an emotional tie as well.
He'll change his M.
O.
Because he has to, but he won't be happy about it.
Then he'll have the entire Atlantic to choose from.
Help! Help! Help! The sea has never been friendly to man.
At most, it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.
Joseph Conrad.
You know, that site is known for record catches of yellowmouth, so the unsub was smart enough to dump during the off season and avoid fishermen.
Then he's a local.
I'm afraid to ask.
Could this be one of my guys? We run interdiction exercises around that spot.
No, it's most likely another fisherman.
Well, how could you know? Come here, I'll show you.
See, he disarticulates the bodies at the joints.
It helps them sink.
Now, that's a skill that only an experienced butcher or fisherman would have.
The bone nicks indicate this guy inflicted a lot of pain on his victims, which means he's a sadist.
Wow.
Excuse me.
Enchantress of all things possible.
Use your imagination.
Can you enchant me with a list of boat owners in Jacksonville? You know I can, baby.
Okay, in Duvall County, we're looking at 31,047 registered boats.
Well, limit that to the boats that can only be operated by one person.
Okay, I'm gonna need a lot more than this to do that.
It's still looking like a list That makes War and Peace read like a comic book.
Hey, you okay? Yeah.
Yeah, I'm fine.
I'll keep you posted.
Aye aye, captain.
Why wouldn't you be okay? It's just in cases like these where there's only pieces, it's tough.
The best we can do is catalog them and wait for the unsub to screw up somewhere else.
You think he's moved on? If he's smart he has.
And so far, this guy seems very smart.
Have you nailed down the victimology? I found a unique evolution, actually.
The earliest victims appear to be high-risk.
These lesions are consistent with syphilis, most likely a prostitute.
This one has severely ground and missing teeth, commonly seen in excessive methamphetamine abuse.
And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, a sea change Healthier and stronger victims all the way through to number 12.
Lower-risk, harder for him to hunt.
What do we know about the first victim? You know, that one's tough.
He or she has been in the water so long, they're mostly bone fragments.
I can attempt to reconstruct You've got three hours.
I can do it in two.
Make it one.
How much has gotten out? Can't tell.
Some of these news crews are national.
If the unsub doesn't know we found his graveyard yet, he will soon.
Then we'll hear from everyone who's ever filed a missing persons report.
Maybe we can use this to our advantage.
I could talk to them.
It might feed his ego, Take the sting out of him losing his site.
It could keep him in the area.
Good.
At this moment it would be premature to comment on the details of the case.
Our goal is to identify the recovered remains as quickly as possible for the families involved.
In order to expedite that, we're asking that the families or friends of people who went missing from the east coast of the United States since the year 2000 come forward.
We'll be matching DNA to the remains, And it will be helpful for us to have a personal item from each of the missing persons.
An article of clothing, a hairbrush, a blanket, a pillowcase, photographs or medical or dental records if you have them.
We're also looking for items of significance to help us determine the last known whereabouts of each of the victims.
Correspondence like letters or emails will be helpful.
Morgan was telling me how difficult these cases can be.
Who did he lose? Aunt Yvonne, how you doing? Derek, is my baby girl on that beach? We've talked about this.
There's no reason to think she'd be down here.
She went missing seven years ago and from Charleston.
That's east coast, just like your boss said.
Come on now, Auntie.
We both know what happened to Cindi.
Somehow you're just gonna have to learn to accept it.
I'll stay in touch.
Okay.
Thank you, Derek.
Some years back, Morgan's cousin fled a stalker.
She made it to South Carolina.
She was never seen or heard from again.
Was it the stalker? He killed himself two weeks later, so we never found out for sure.
But Morgan's profile led straight to him.
So whenever unidentified female remains turn up, he gets that call.
Why are you doing this? Come on, man.
Come on, man, talk to me.
No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Listen! Not again.
Why are you doing this? Son of a bitch! Alex Cottle, Beth Riley, Louise Jones, come with me, please.
We were working on a gene therapy project at Johns Hopkins when Samantha got the news.
Parkinson's.
- That must have been pretty rough on her.
- I was her best friend, and all I ever got was this postcard.
"Weze, I'm not going back to school.
There's nothing there for me.
I need to find myself.
Love, Sammy.
" Does this sound like her to you? Not really, no.
She would have written a 12-page letter.
But she addressed it to "Weze.
" She's the only one who called me that.
I'd like to keep this if that's all right? It may be evidence.
I Yeah, okay.
Thank you.
Did you happen to bring anything of hers that we could get DNA from? Well, everyone on the project mapped their DNA into the database.
I'll need that information.
You know, on this first victim, the more I work on this skeleton, the more I question its condition.
The ocean floor preserved the other remains remarkably well.
I think something else caused this.
Could this be the age of these bones as opposed to the others? Well, he's significantly older.
Arthritis in the joints puts him in his late 50s, but that doesn't account for this degree of breakdown.
In fact, nothing in the ocean would.
If the unsub's responsible, maybe he didn't disarticulate this victim but he tore him apart instead.
And look at this.
This bone has a defensive wound, like he held it up before the blow came down.
I think the bone-smashing occurred while the victim was still alive.
Overkill.
He worked out a lot of aggression on this victim.
He didn't do that with the others.
That would indicate a personal relationship.
- Father? - That would be my guess and not a good one, based on the low calcium levels consistent with alcoholism.
Think it's time to rethink Cindi? Rossi, the only connection right now is Charleston.
It's weak.
Victim number 5 is an African-American woman in her 20s who died in 2004.
That's not weak.
My aunt has spent years obsessing over Cindi's last few hours.
She doesn't go out.
She doesn't sleep.
She forgets to take her medication.
It's killing her, Rossi.
It hasn't been easy for you, either.
But everything I've learned as a profiler has taught me that it's not about what I want to be true.
It's about what I can prove.
So I can't go there.
We got a match.
Meet our first confirmed victim, Dr.
Samantha Cormick.
Since her DNA profile was already developed, we were able to save a couple of days.
So he dumps here and hunts in Charleston.
Tourist spot.
Larger victim pool.
It's a 250-mile trip back here.
It's a lot of exposure.
Torture takes time and privacy, and disarticulation is a mess.
You know, he could have a mobile torture chamber in his truck or trailer.
We've seen that before.
Or maybe he doesn't drive at all.
He could do it all from his boat.
Well, if he gets them on board in Charleston and sails them out here, he would have time for both.
And nobody would even notice a fisherman tossing chum into the water.
Hello.
Garcia, we've got more information about the unsub's boat.
It might help you narrow your list.
- Okay.
Bring it.
- Can you give us boats with cabins Large enough to hide a torture chamber? Torture chamber? Because that would, yeah, Totally be listed in the manufacturer's specs of amenities.
Try cabin dimensions.
Start at 10 by 10 feet and cap it at 30.
That is totally gonna take forever because I gotta go record by record.
You are lucky I love you.
Bye.
We need to go back to the families and see who else got a postcard.
This might finally be a link to victimology.
Sending goodbye postcards as a ruse is a gamble.
Even if written under duress, the victim could sneak their own message into it.
I don't think this was written under duress.
You said Dr.
Cormick wasn't taking medication for Parkinson's, right? Look at her handwriting.
No indication of tremors or shaking.
There's a drug called trilamide.
In minute doses it treats Parkinson's, but its main use is for seasickness.
Something a fisherman would have access to.
And criminals in South America.
Intel reports say they figured out a high dose makes the victim totally compliant.
Yeah, they slip it in your drink or blow the powder in your face and nasodermal absorption's almost immediate.
You're instantaneously susceptible to any suggestion.
There have been reports of locals letting thugs into their apartments to rob them, even helping them load the getaway trucks.
Dad, please.
Don't listen to him.
Fight it.
Okay.
Understand? Yes.
Good.
It's me.
It's James.
Choose one.
Good.
That's gonna be the knife you kill yourself with.
We got four more postcards.
Samantha makes five.
Any patterns geographically? Geographically, each victim was from a different state.
But they all went missing from Charleston? Two of them did.
The other three were mailed from Miami.
He's bouncing between two cities? You know, Miami makes a lot of sense.
It's a coastal town with a lot of tourists.
And by alternating hunting grounds, he ensures that neither city pays too much attention to people going missing.
But why these five? What connects them? Right now it's just the postcards.
They may be the Rosetta Stone that we need.
You know, the victims write the postcards, but the unsub dictates the message.
He might have revealed something about himself through them.
Start a linguistic profile.
We need to sit down with the people who got these postcards.
No, boats around here get handed down from generation to generation.
So none of the locals would fish in Charleston and Miami? A guy like you're describing, he starts bringing in blackfin from Carolina or kingfish from Miami, we'd notice.
Well, if you hear of anything that might help, please give us a call.
We need to rethink how our unsub finds his victims.
These guys are loners.
Our guy isn't.
Yeah, our guy needs good social skills, a boat that's inviting, recreational.
What if he runs a charter outfit? Plenty of customers in Charleston and Miami.
So he takes out a group, but how does he pick his victim? He starts with the passengers that are traveling alone.
That lets him know they're vulnerable.
Harmless questions would tell him who would miss them back at home.
And if they pay with a credit card, he'd just tear up the transaction.
Then there's never any record of them being on board.
Well, that might tell us how he's hunting.
The question is who? - What brought your son to Miami? - Work.
He kept saying this was it.
This is the fresh start he needed.
When did you start to get worried? One week, maybe.
Why did it take you so long to file a missing persons report? I got this postcard, and it's her handwriting.
I lived with this handwriting for four years.
I didn't think to question it.
So you'd say she was a responsible person? Come on, Rossi.
Yes.
Next question.
Look, Derek, I know it's unpleasant.
But we're looking at the risk level of all the victims, even the potential ones.
Cindi didn't drink.
She didn't do drugs.
She kept a steady job.
- And what about the stalker? - What about him? Did she sleep with him? You know the answer to that.
Well, maybe you ought to rethink it.
Maybe you'll remember something.
They went on one date.
He got one good-night kiss.
But this was a classic power-assertive stalker, and I'd seen enough of these cases to know how they end.
So you encouraged her to move.
Now, you never told me that.
Now, why did she go to Charleston? I don't know.
I told her to pick a city and not to tell anyone, and that included me.
Well, let's think about it for a second.
Had she been there before? Did she have friends there? Maybe she just wanted to be close to the ocean.
What? The whole family was picnicking on the lake.
And all the kids ended up on paddle boats.
- And was Cindi on one of them? - No.
No, that's what's weird.
She stayed on the shore the whole day.
Tell your son you abandoned him.
I didn't.
Do it.
Then why did you give up custody? I couldn't afford the lawyers anymore.
It just got to the point where I had to get on with my life.
But he wouldn't let you.
Would he? Tell him you hate him.
- No.
- Do it! Tell him exactly how you felt at that time.
I I just stopped loving you.
You have something you want to say to your father? Dad.
Please.
Stop stabbing yourself.
The unsub we're looking for is a 30- to 40-year-old fisherman currently chartering his boat to tourists trying to find a victim of medium risk.
What's medium risk? Say your car breaks down in a bad neighborhood.
Once you're outside your normal routine, there's a greater chance for victimization.
Hence, medium risk.
Each of these victims was trying to start over.
They were out of a relationship or starting a new job, But to this unsub, they were abandoning their responsibilities.
We can tell this in the messages that he forces them to write.
"It's too much.
" "There's nothing for me here.
" "It's better if I leave.
" We believe this anger stems from his first victim his father.
Most likely a local fisherman, definitely an alcoholic, and based on this unsub's level of sadism, violently abusive.
He's also the first person to abandon the unsub.
Walked out on his family, maybe, even wrote a postcard like this.
So the unsub picked a site of significance to them both, a spot known to local fisherman that he turned into his prison.
But that's gone now, so where will he head next? Well, he can't go back to that spot, but he won't leave Jacksonville, either.
That prison was his responsibility, And without it, he'll cling to what he knows.
He'll change his M.
O.
, and that'll make him erratic.
He'll escalate his sadism, and he'll kill uncontrollably until he finds another spot in the ocean to replace this one.
Thank you very much.
Aunt Yvonne.
He said you would need DNA.
I hated you when you left.
Did you know that? Yeah.
So why did you even take me back? James I couldn't live without you anymore.
And I won't let you go again, I promise.
Dad, what are we gonna do? I'll figure it out.
I was right, wasn't I? You found her body on the beach.
Actually, we're trying to rule her out.
I know you, Derek.
I know that look in your eye.
There is something, isn't there? Auntie, I've been doing this job a long time.
The things I've seen I don't want to drag you into them.
Honey, I'm already in.
You don't have to protect me.
I need to find out about my Cindi.
All right.
One of the victims that we found fits Cindi's general description.
I am not saying that it's her.
But if it is, something doesn't add up.
- I'm hoping you can help.
- That's why I'm here.
Was Cindi afraid of water? No.
She loved to swim.
It's just that one of the 4th of July picnics, I remember she wouldn't get on the paddle boats.
Oh, well, boats were a whole different story.
If Cindi as much as sat in a canoe, she'd get violently seasick.
He's not finding his victims through his boat? If he tried to talk Cindi into a charter, she wouldn't even stop.
His ruse doesn't fit her.
We don't know that she's victim number 5.
I still rushed her DNA to Quantico.
They're working on it for me.
But until we get a confirmation, we can't make any assumptions based on her behavior.
I'm not saying that we throw away the profile.
I'm just saying let's expand our thinking.
Magic 8-ball.
Garcia, we're looking into other ways that the unsub might be finding his victims.
What are the victims' histories in Charleston or Miami? Of the five we've I.
D.
'd so far there isn't any.
Maybe he meets them in transit.
How did they get there? Right.
Right.
Okay.
Um, but there's nothing there, either.
But how is that possible? These people are starting their lives over.
The whole point is to travel.
Even if they paid cash, Garcia, there'd be a name on a ticket.
Yeah.
No, I agree with you, but my binary boxes are never wrong, So however these folks got from point A to point unsub, there's no record of.
This guy's not abducting them in Miami or Charleston.
He's grabbing them while they're en route.
Clean it up! Dad! Dad! Heh.
You know, if the unsub's abducting in transit, how can he cover it up? I felt like we were close with the charter idea.
Maybe he doesn't abduct them off a boat.
The details of his ruse were right.
What means of transportation doesn't issue a ticket in advance? Passenger trains.
A conductor can hand-write a ticket once you're already on board.
Actually, most of the smaller stations aren't even manned.
You have to buy tickets on board.
You know, the train is a concept that attracts people who are trying to start over.
The appeal of escape, of romance.
If he's a conductor, he's in a target-rich environment.
My men pulled a body out of the water.
Agent Morgan's at the autopsy now.
The wounds on the thigh show hesitation marks.
An unsub this experienced wouldn't display that.
I don't think the unsub did.
The angle indicates left-handed dominance.
The file says this guy was left-handed, too.
You know, if he'd been given trilamide, the unsub could have forced him to cut himself.
It makes sense for a sadist with abandonment issues, but why didn't he finish the job? The victim must have gotten a chance to escape and took it.
But how? The trilamide kept him compliant enough to hurt himself.
It overcame his self-preservation instinct.
Well, then another instinct must have been stronger.
- Like what? - A protective one.
This guy was mentally and physically compromised, but he still went after the unsub with everything he had.
Who would he fight that hard for? A child, Garcia.
Search nationwide missing persons reports for men traveling with their kids.
Am I looking for a son or daughter? We don't know yet.
No, no, I'm sorry, honey.
No dice.
Hey, what if they're not reported as missing yet? Yeah, of course not.
When the unsub met them, they were starting over.
All right, baby girl, new deal.
USPS change of address notices, people moving into Florida and South Carolina.
Done.
All right, eliminate women, wives, couples.
Narrow it down to men only.
So we're thinking divorced dad here, right? Yeah, but not just any divorced dad.
This guy wants as much distance between his son and his ex-wife as possible.
So look for custody disputes, injunctions, allegations.
The messier the better, Garcia.
I get you.
I'll call you right back.
Take it.
Go ahead.
Give it your best shot.
Like your father did.
Gut it.
Gut it! I'm getting it now, baby girl.
That's our victim.
My beautiful SSA Derek Morgan, you deserve a raise.
Gary Rhymer of Virginia just got full custody after his wife failed drug test number 3.
Who's the child? His name is James.
He's 15.
Enrolled to start school next week in Mount Pleasant, which is east of Charleston.
Looks like Gary has a sister there.
How about how they're traveling? No.
Sorry, babe, there's no record of that.
Just like the others.
Thanks, doll.
None of the family members could confirm a train line for us.
So what do we do, we just rule it out? No.
There's one person we haven't asked.
- Who? - Your aunt.
The train? Did she ever mention it? No.
She never told us anything.
You said it was safer that way.
You know, when your Uncle Paul was still alive, he took the train to Myrtle Beach.
Really? What was the line? The Silver Star.
Cindi visited him once.
- By train? - Yes.
Auntie, that's a 36-hour-trip.
How old was she? Sometimes we want something so bad that our minds will invent details.
- But - No, listen to me, please.
I want to find Cindi for you.
Believe me, I do.
But right now he has someone else's child, Someone we can still save.
We can't afford to be wrong.
I'm sorry.
I was just trying to help.
I know.
I know.
That's okay.
Try to remember.
Did she visit him? Yes.
But she flew.
I remembered all the paperwork I had to fill out.
She was an unaccompanied minor.
James took the train three summers in a row during his parents' divorce.
His aunt from South Carolina bought the tickets, filled out the unaccompanied minor paperwork, which is why it didn't show up in my search.
What's the train line? Surf Rider.
It makes stops in Jacksonville, Charleston, and Miami.
Cross-reference your list of boat owners with railroad employees.
I got a hit on a last name.
Chuck Wells, local fisherman, son Blake, conductor on the line.
And there it is.
He didn't show up for work this week.
Is there a current address? No.
Only a boat in the dad's name, which moved to Norfolk in 2000 when the mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She died a few months later.
Dad walked out, and the unsub had to punish him for that.
James doesn't fit the victimology.
It doesn't make sense the unsub would take him.
He picked up on a father-son relationship that reminded him of his own.
What he didn't count on was Gary fighting for James' life.
How do we know the unsub hasn't already killed James? So far he's only punished people who've abandoned their responsibilities.
But that's exactly what James is to him now, a responsibility.
The unsub's gonna get angrier and angrier at that kid, and when he does, he's gonna become more like his father.
I was just about your age when I started working here.
That son of a bitch said I had to earn my keep.
And then he'd beat me, he'd take my paycheck, and he'd drink it away! Get up.
Garcia narrowed the unsub's history with his dad down to two locations.
Seaside Pier, which is where Chuck Wells used to dock his boat.
All the locals do.
It's the cheapest spot to tie off.
She also mentioned a cannery on St.
John's River.
That place went out of business last year.
It's abandoned.
The dad brought his catch there while the unsub worked the floor.
Started at 16, which is roughly the same age as James.
All right, we'll split up.
Morgan, you take one SWAT team and go to the cannery.
Detective Foreman and I will take the other, - and we'll go to the docks.
- Okay.
We can be in both locations in five minutes.
One day I was late for work, and my dad broke my arm.
And he told me to keep gutting.
And I cut and I cut till I passed out.
Now gut the fish.
Yeah.
Morgan, he's not here.
I think you've got him.
I see the boat, Hotch.
Let's go.
No.
I won't do it.
Pick up the knife.
Or what? You gonna break my arm? No.
I'm gonna slice your throat.
Blake! FBI! Stand down! Stand down! Do not shoot! Everybody stand down.
Drop it.
Drop the knife.
Stand back.
Stand back! Okay.
Okay.
I'm gonna put this away, all right? I just want to talk to you.
Come on, man.
Look at James.
He's just a kid.
Blake, you don't hurt kids.
You're not that guy.
You have no idea who I am.
I know that you're a smart man.
You had a long run at killing under the radar.
But I also know that we can learn a lot from a man like you.
See, studying men like you is my responsibility.
And I'm telling you, if you let James go, we can be a part of your life.
We won't abandon you, Blake.
What makes you think I want to teach you? Look at your alternative, man.
My guys are ready.
They will take the shot, and they will kill you.
What happens after that, Blake? Do you really think you're gonna get to see your mom again? Or maybe it'll just be cold dark, empty like the water where you put your dad.
It's your choice, man.
Get him out of here.
Take him.
All right, Blake, here's how it works.
We verify every word you say against forensics and records.
You lie to me, deal's off.
What do you want to know? Let's start with how you abducted these victims.
Carol Reed.
Oh, I could smell the fear on her.
Oh, she promised me she would do anything if I'd let her live.
Your method of abduction? She was easy.
She was a meth addict.
I just told her I was holding.
Alton McKee.
I caught him off guard.
He was running away from his nagging wife.
He couldn't stop calling her a bitch.
You're really enjoying yourself, aren't you? You making up for your loss? What loss is that? Well, it must have really gotten under your skin That they stumbled onto your perfect little hiding place.
Not really.
How do you know I don't have a dozen more just like it? It's a big sea.
No.
Blake, it's the same place where you dumped your own father.
He was the most important one, so you had to come back here and dump the other bodies.
I didn't dump her there, did I? She means something to you, doesn't she? They're all special to me, Blake.
If you can't remember her, we can just move on.
I do remember her.
You want to know, Agent Morgan, who she cried out for right before I made her slice her own throat? Go ahead.
Tell me.
You.
She cried out for you.
Where were you when she bled out on the floor of my boat? You are a sick son of a bitch.
But you didn't kill her.
I did kill her.
No.
You didn't.
And I was very clear about the rules.
Deal's off.
I did kill her.
You said you wanted to learn from me, and now you won't listen! Hey, come back here! Agent Morgan! I did kill her! How did you know? He knows his victims' names.
He didn't know Cindi's.
Agent Morgan, you get back here! Agent Morgan! Did you find her? No, Auntie.
I'm never gonna know, am I? He picked out her picture.
He did? Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We are tied to the ocean, and when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch, we are going back from whence we came.
John F.
Kennedy.