Criminal Minds in Criminal Minds

Laura Twomey

The CBS television series Criminal Minds depicts an array of criminals in their twelve seasons. The show is about an FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit (the BAU) that is consistently requested all over the country to help local crime fighters catch and stop prominent killers from terrorizing their towns. Most episodes have a different killer in a different city, although some episodes follow the same killer over a period of time. One of these killers, known as “The Reaper,” has a series of episodes following his actions until it his time on Criminal Minds culminates violently in the season after his introduction to the show. Other killers, like Danny in “A Shade of Gray,” show up in only one episode and are put out of the agents’ minds thereafter. These differences in the lengths of killers’ time on Criminal Minds supplements the differences in the kinds of killers they are. The show’s representation of murderers includes a wide variety of killers. It successfully displaying the diversity of killers that there is in real life.

In the episode “Omnivore,” there is a killer called “The Reaper” who targets people in Boston. He is an important criminal because ten years before, one of the agents in the BAU, Agent Hotchner, had tried to catch him. The Reaper, however, had stopped killing and gone into hiding before Hotchner and his people could catch him. The Reaper had made a deal with one of the policemen, Shaunessey, that he would stop hunting people if the law enforcers stopped hunting him. The contract expired when one of them died, and in the episode “Omnivore,” Shaunessey is able to tell Hotchner about their deal before he passes away.

The Reaper is very organized and patient, using the ten years left of Shaunessy’s life to lay low and plan his future attacks. In the present day, Shaunessey dies, so The Reaper starts killing again. Hotchner is determined to catch The Reaper this time. To help the hunt, the BAU contact the only surviving victim of The Reaper, George Foyet. He was stabbed many times by The Reaper, but was saved by the paramedics.

The big twist in this episode is that George Foyet is actually The Reaper. He made himself seem like one of his own victims by stabbing himself, so that he would not be caught, and so that he could be involved in the thick of his own investigation. 

Foyet is a very smart and manipulative killer. After he harmed himself to seem like a victim, he went underground for ten year, “hiding” from himself. He knew how to erase all of his online information, not only hiding from the FBI agents, but also supporting his ruse that he was hiding from The Reaper. The tech analyst with the BAU could not find any online paper trail for him, proving that Foyet is tech savvy and intelligent. He also craves power. He leaves clues for the agents at every crime scene; he takes something from his victim from one crime and leaves it at the next. He has a system and it is his way of holding power of the agents trying to find him. His other way of gaining power was when he made the deal with Shaunessy to stop killing people for the rest of Shaunessy’s life. He was able to get the FBI to stop looking for him, a power move that any killer would be proud to play. 

He is also a narcissist. One of his goals in life is to be famous for his crimes. In this episode, the killer is a narcissistic, power hungry, 40 year old man with high intelligence and extreme patience. He knows what he is doing and plans all of his kills, often using detailed ruses.


In the episode “A Shade of Gray,” the killer is a contrast to George Foyet. He is an eleven year old boy named Danny who kills his little brother when he breaks his model plane. Unlike Foyet, he only kills one person as spur of the moment reaction. His kill is not planned, and he does not purposefully, mentally choose to murder his brother. What makes him a dangerous person, though, is not only the fact that he violently kills his brother at the age of eleven in a fit of rage, but also his response to the situation. He only seems to feel bad about his actions when he realizes that they may have gotten him in trouble. At the end of the episode, Agent Prentiss reveals that Danny is a sociopath. He has no ability to feel remorse.

These two episodes of Criminal Minds show a drop of the wide diversity of criminals that the show portrays. The show’s representation of killers accurately shows the wide variety of criminals in the real world. Every person has a different reason for what they do and a different combination of mental qualities that encourage them to engage in terrible, violent behavior. Criminal Minds successfully portrays this wide diversity of criminal minds.