Criminal Minds Series Rewirte: Season Five

Solitary Man: Final Part

Nancy's abduction hit the news pretty quickly. You just hope the unsub doesn't see it and dump Nancy's body out of fear. Penelope has been all over the HSK database and connected four more victims to the unsub. That brings his count to ten. If your team can figure out why he's choosing his victims, you'll find him easily.

After bringing Courtney to the police station, your team works on putting every victim's name and picture on the bulletin board. He started killing months before you thought he started. His first victim was a woman named Erika Joy from Lexington, South Carolina. She disappeared from a truck stop. According to her rap sheet, she did everyone she could for a living--a lot lizard. The other victims were waitresses, gas station employees, and even a female trucker. The only one who was married is Nancy even though she is recently a widow.

Nancy has been given the most amount of time in the news than the other women. She doesn't fit the unsub's MO. He had to have a reason for taking someone so far from the spectrum of the other victims.

"He had to have walked right by that minivan. Why didn't he take Courtney?" Emily asks.

"Maybe she's too young."

"She's closer to the victims' ages than her mother. That parking lot was deserted. He could have taken Courtney and nobody would have seen a thing. Instead, he walks past her."

"That's not who he wants. He watched Nancy. He followed her because he wanted her."

"So much so that he left Courtney as a witness? What could be that important?"

"You have your thinking face on," Derek says to you. "What's your theory?"

"What if he took Nancy because she is a mother? When I saw Tanya's body on the side of the road, she was in the fetal position. She looked like she was sleeping. That's exactly how a parent would care for their child. The other victims weren't mothers, Nancy is. Maybe this unsub is looking for someone to be a mother for a child, maybe his own?"

"It's a good theory. Tell that to Hotch."

You're about to when you notice Hotch and Rossi walk into the room.

"I heard," Hotch says. "It's good to have you back."

You can't help but smile at the small accomplishment.

"Nancy's been missing over twelve hours," JJ informs the team. "If he jumped on the I-40 before we got the police blocks out, he could be three states over by now."

"We don't think he has time for that. He's courting these women. He needs them in Edgewood."

"There are over eight hundred truckers on this list," Hotch sighs and looks at the list Penelope sent over. "We have to get Garcia to run background on all of them."

"Listen, I've already given you a list of all the trucker stops that we've checked in town," the sheriff says.

"We're gonna need to check them again."

Derek and Rossi head out to a truck stop to ask about truckers to try and narrow down the list, and they manage to get the manifest of the truckers who visited the stop. They come up with seventy-six truckers who are independent with Penelope's help. If this man is killing women and driving cross country with them, he has to be independent.

"Alright, so let's go over this again," Derek says after he and Rossi return. "This offender is preferential to young women mid to late twenties. He takes his time watching them. He makes sure there are no witnesses. He kills them twelve to twenty-four hours after abduction."

"Only now that timeframe's getting shorter."

"Then he comes home to Edgewood where he's home and he feels safe. There's no rape involved. So, is it the companionship he's after?"