magnetic ◊ criminal minds

xv.

xv. 52 pick-up
( season four, episode nine )

"VANESSA Holden, age twenty-five," Jordan presented. "Last Friday night, she was clubbing with her sister. A stranger, white male, roughly her age, picked her up. They left the club at one AM, went back to her place. He forced her on her hands and knees," she pulled up the picture onto the screen of the victim, blood under her body, "and then he cut her open, just below the stomach."

"Woah," Morgan breathed out.

"Yeah, pretty rough," Rossi said.

"Gutting causes the intestines to spill out," Reid stated. "You can survive for a few hours, actually. Even days."

"Post-mortem indicates that he slit her throat at five AM," Jordan said.

"So he disembowelled her, but didn't kill her for four hours," Rossi said.

"That's definitely sadistic," Lyra signed.

"Could be a sexual sadist," Prentiss agreed.

"Yeah, I thought so too, but I found two priors from a year ago," Jordan said. She passed the files to Rossi, who passed them around the table. "Prostitutes, actually, in motel rooms."

"Okay, so keep running with it," Morgan said. "Why do you think this is the same UnSub?" he asked.

Jordan posted some more pictures. "In Vanessa Holden's apartment, the following were discovered. Bleach, ammonia, trash bags, all in a triangular pattern," she stated. "One year ago, motel room, bleach ammonia, trash bags, also in a triangular pattern."

"He's cleaning up," Prentiss said.

"Maybe trying to hide his tracks," said Morgan.

"It could be a sign of remorse," Reid said.

"Apologizing for the murder by minimizing the mess," Rossi said.

"But there's one other commonality between both sets of murders," Jordan said. "Bleach and ammonia were found under the victims' fingernails."

"He makes them clean their own murder," Lyra signed. Talk about sadistic.

"It's the same UnSub," Hotch said.

♢

"So if the UnSub changed victimology, does that make him organized or disorganized?" Prentiss asked.

"Well, prostitutes point one way, club girls another," Morgan said.

"Could he be building up confidence?" Lyra signed.

"That's a big leap," Hotch said from his seat beside her.

"The triangular arrangement of the cleaning supplies is interesting," Reid said, looking at the pictures.

"Obsessive-compulsive?" Hotch guessed.

"Might have been institutionalized," Prentiss said.

"We're missing the forest for the trees here," Rossi said. "This guy started with prostitutes, a high-risk victimology, took a year off, came back, killed a socialite."

"No forced entry, no coercion of any kind," said Morgan.

"Exactly. So how does our UnSub go from Loser of the Year to Don Juan?"

"Actually, as Byron interpreted him, Don Juan was an ironic reversal of sex roles, and when..." Reid cut himself off at Hotch's look. "And that's about it."