The most depraved killers in 13 seasons of Criminal Minds – and 6 times our heroes almost died

Fourteen seasons, 314 episodes – it’s not an understatement to say this crime procedural series is a ratings hit for CBS. You can now stream Seasons 1 to 13 on Showmax as you follow the members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) investigating crimes committed by the worst of the worst criminals.

The personal stories of the team of behavioural profilers also features throughout the series – their relationships with one another as well as their private lives – and while they work their cases, they themselves often become the victims.

What is a procedural, exactly?

A procedural is a genre that focuses on how crimes are solved or some other aspect of a law enforcement agency, legislative body, or court of law. Episodes are usually self-contained, which allows viewers to pick up or leave off without losing the plot. Criminal Minds took the ball and ran with it by including certain features in every episode.

For example:

• The voice-over quotes by one of the team members at the beginning and end.
• The rhythm and flow of the narrative is almost always the same, beginning with Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) briefing the team on the newest case, followed by SSA (Supervisory Special Agent) Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) – and in later seasons, Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) – telling everyone “wheels up in 10” before they boarded their lovely private jet to fly to save the day.
• The investigation leads up to the delivery of the unsub’s (unknown subject) profile, and inevitably a rescue of the next victim in the nick of time.

6 times our heroes’ jobs put them in jeopardy

The murderers, rapists, child molesters, serial killers, kidnappers and general all-round nasty people doing appalling things form the core of the series, but it’s when they begin stalking our favourite characters that things get really intense. After all, we “know” these guys.

In a three-episode (14-16) arc in Season 2, the endearingly nerdy Dr Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler, who later went on to direct several episodes) is held hostage by delusional serial killer Tobias Hankel (played by James van der Beek of Dawson’s Creek fame). Reid was repeatedly tortured and forcibly injected with Dilaudid, which made him hallucinate about his past, and he became addicted.

In episode 23 of Season 9, Reid was shot in the neck; in the following episode and season finale, it was revealed the bullet barely missed his carotid artery and he underwent surgery, where his life was in more danger right there in the hospital. Most of Season 12 revolves around Reid, beginning with his mother being accepted as a participant in a groundbreaking study on Alzheimer’s, moving on to him being arrested for murder and incarcerated. A hit woman he previously arrested tries to pin her pregnancy on him

The hotness that is SSA Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) had a very special connection to his Baby Girl Garcia, until he left the series after Season 11. He got shot several times along the way, and in Season 11, episode 15 he was attacked by a group of men and abducted while buying ice cream. In the follow-up episode he was tortured, beaten and burned. Two episodes later, and he’s back in another hostage situation.

Season 3, episode 8 sees Garcia being shot and nearly dying after going on a date with someone she thought was the man of her dreams. She recovered quickly but no sooner was she out of hospital than she was attacked again; the aggressor is revealed to have a “hero homicide complex”, putting people in danger to save them for his own glory.

JJ (Jennifer Jareau played by AJ Cook) is abducted and tortured in episode 14 of Season 9; Aaron Hotchner – or Hotch as he is affectionately known – lost his wife as a result of the job. In Season 12, he officially resigned after being put into witness protection due to his son being stalked by Peter Lewis, aka Mr Scratch. Lewis was a serial killer by proxy, hacker, and stalker who first appeared in Season 10. He later escaped along with 12 other serial killers in Season 11 and targeted the BAU throughout Season 12 before his death in Season 13.

Prentiss stepped into Hotch’s job, and she wasn’t without her dramas either, effectively dying in Season 5. Prior to that, she and Reid were held hostage by a religious cult in Season 4, and her life was repeatedly in jeopardy as she put herself in the firing line.

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The 10 most terrifying murderers in Seasons 1-13

Putting aside the trials and tribulations experienced by our heroes, here are 10 of the grimmest criminals in the series (in no particular order, other than chronological) to make you shudder.

The main antagonist in this season, Frank Breitkopf (Keith Carradine) used ketamine to paralyse his victims so they were unable to move, but they were awake for everything being done to them until they died of exsanguination. 

Cannibal Floyd Feylinn Ferell (Jamie Kennedy) hunted his victims, turned them into chilli and then fed them to the unsuspecting volunteers looking for the missing girls. 

This is the one in which Reid and Prentiss were held hostage by religious cult leader Benjamin Cyrus, played by late-90s heartthrob Luke Perry. He made such an impression that his character was woven into the series’ landmark 300th episode.

George Foyet aka The Reaper killed Hotchner’s wife after killing dozens of others. To hide from suspicion but to remain privy to information, he stabbed himself multiple times to play the victim. Foyet (Christopher Thomas Howell) featured in six episodes, ranking as the most-seen killer in the show (in one episode, he appeared in a dream). 

Roger (Bud Cort) and Anita Roycewood (Beth Grant) kidnapped 12 children over the course of a decade and kept them in their house, pretending that they were their own. The couple owned a funeral home, so they killed the ones who didn’t behave and cremated them. 

Rocky Horror Picture Show and IT (original movie) star Tim Curry plays Billy Flynn, a serial rapist and spree killer with one of the highest body counts in Criminal Minds, having killed an estimated 216 people between 1984 and 2010. Using rolling blackouts in LA as a window of opportunity, he was nicknamed Prince Of Darkness.

This one makes the list because it’s an episode based on a true story, in which the BAU investigated the crime spree of a newlywed couple. The episode focused on the couple’s addictions, dark pasts, and their inability to complete the 13th step (responsibility) at AA. In real life, in the 1950s Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate killed 11 people across Nebraska and Wyoming, after their parents disapproved of their relationship. 

Thomas Yates (Adam Nelson) claimed to have murdered over 101 women throughout the years leading to his capture. The notorious “Womb Raider” was famous for ripping out the vocal chords and removing the reproductive system of his female victims, and making agent David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) come visit him every year on Rossi’s birthday to get the name of a new victim.

When he was a child, Adam Rain’s (Brad Dourif) father was killed in a robbery. Years later, after waking up from a coma following a car accident, Adam reverted to a childlike state and returned to the puppet theatre his father owned. To put on a show about the experience of losing his father, he kidnapped a man and a woman, dislocated their joints, and turned them into marionettes to control for the performance.

Peter Lewis (Bodhi Elfman) aka Mr Scratch began as just another unsub the team was hunting, a man who used hallucinogens and hypnosis to force his victims to kill their loved ones. He also targeted and psychologically tortured multiple members of the team, making him one of the worst they encountered.

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