History Monster / CriminalMinds

* [[spoiler:[[EnfantTerrible Danny Murphy]]]] from "A Shade of Gray", who [[spoiler: killed his seven-year-old brother by force-feeding him pieces of model planes.]] He's notable as the only [[spoiler:underaged]] killer on this show with no FreudianExcuse whatsoever. Prentiss felt that he could be at least ''slightly'' less messed up with psychological help, however, so at least in her book, he's not ''entirely'' over the line.

* [[spoiler:J.B. Allen]] from "Foundation", who abducts little boys, rapes and tortures them for years on end, then, once they get too old for him, murders them by ''burying them alive''. Not to mention the [[spoiler:''bite marks'' found on Angel and the fact that he had to get his teeth recapped...[[ParanoiaFuel just imagine how many kids he had to bite and how hard he bit to have that happen]]]].

* [[spoiler: James Stanworth]] from "25 to Life". Not only did he stab Carrie Sanderson and her little daughter Abby to death, but also managed to [[spoiler: place the blame on Donald Sanderson, sending him to jail.]] He also killed another woman to satisfy his psychopathic urges that couldn't manage to keep hidden anymore. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Unluckily for him, this last murder puts the BAU on his traces.]]
** He's also implied to be a [[spoiler:CorruptCorporateExecutive, and is trying to become a corrupt politician. He's heavily hinted to be well-connected enough to have gotten away with everything... if only he hadn't committed the third murder]].

* Just two episodes into the season, "Proof" gives us the truly unique Cy Bradstone, an utterly horrifying SerialKiller who tortures and kills women who [[spoiler:remind him of a girl he tried to rape as a teen, and who later went on to marry his brother]], in ways that destroy their senses, at one point ''pouring sulfuric acid down a girl's throat''. The reason he's truly unique is that he's ''mentally disabled'', having been deprived of oxygen in the womb, and unlike the similar unsub in "The Uncanny Valley," this isn't played for sympathy ''at all''; on the contrary, it's mentioned that although he's disabled he's smart enough to know that his disability means people will be more likely to trust him, and uses that as a lure to snatch more victims.
** He tries to rape his own niece because she reminded him of his first victim. He's also a raging sadist, who injures women out of misogyny, and is absolutely gleeful when he tells his brother what he's done. He's not a handicapped man taking out his anger on the world. He's a sadistic psychopath who happens to be handicapped.

* Randy Slade from "Painless". A teenager with a very bad case of [[AGodAmI god complex]], whose sociopathic tendencies weren't noticed due to his school achievements. One day, he walked into che school cafeteria, where he dared everyone to look at him, shooting them if they didn't. He then killed himself with a bomb that caused even more victims.
* Clark Preston from "A Thin Line," a crooked real estate developer who hires crooks to commit crimes in neighborhoods so people will leave them and he can buy up their property dirt-cheap, not caring about who gets hurt in the slightest. He only gets worse from there. He starts a mayoral campaign, having his faithful toady murder entire families (including a ''baby'' in one case) and pin it on innocent black and Hispanic people to add fuel to his blatantly racist campaign platform. Fortunately [[spoiler:unlike a lot of wealthy perps on this sort of show, who use their resources to expertly cover their tracks and pull a KarmaHoudini, he was dumb enough to use an ordinary phone to relay his orders to his toady, allowing the FBI to get him in the end]].
* [[spoiler:J.B. Allen]] from "Foundation", who abducts little boys, rapes and tortures them for years on end, then, once they get too old for him, murders them by ''burying them alive''. Not to mention the [[spoiler:''bite marks'' found on Angel and the fact that he had to get his teeth recapped.... [[ParanoiaFuel just imagine how many kids he had to bite and how hard he bit to have that happen]]]].

* The unsub's [[EvilMatriarch horrifically abusive grandmother]] in "Profiling 101." She blamed her daughter for ''being raped'' because it resulted in the conception of an illegitimate child, and therefore her daughter was apparently being "sinful." When the daughter [[DeathByChildbirth dies in childbirth]], Grandma takes custody of her son, and proceeds to beat him, make him sleep in the doghouse, forced him to wear dresses, and repeatedly sat on him until he stopped breathing, just for giggles. Her grandson, as a direct result of her abuse, becomes a brutally misogynistic SerialKiller. Though she's a helpless invalid in a hospice by the time we meet her in the present, she's still something of a KarmaHoudini, as she never really pays for her creation of another monster.

* The Reaper. Dear god, the Reaper. That man is HighOctaneNightmareFuel personified. His bloodied evil grin at the end of "Omnivore" will haunt you in your sleep.

* Karl Arnold in "The Fox" would break into houses, take the family residing there hostage and live with them for several days before stabbing the children and mother to death and shooting the father, making sure to show him his dead family right before killing him. Additionally, in "Outfoxed" it's revealed he actually beat the male children and raped the female ones, and that The Reaper is his pen-pal. He also used his position as a family psychiatrist to gain their trust. Oh, and when the FBI finally caught him, he ''threw a baby at them.''
** And why does he do this? His wife left him, taking their kids, because he was too much of a control freak, so he does what he does so that the families can see what happens when the father isn't "strong", like him, and kills the father last just to rub that point in. In his own mind his controlling nature was a sign of good parenting... and he slaughters other innocent families to prove it.

** Jacob was so wretched that his death is a CMOA for a main character. He acts incredibly smug about knowing where the bodies are and the FBI having no clue. Then, as he is being strapped to the Electric Chair, Hotch lets him know that one of his victims (His wife's son that he ordered her to kill) is alive and well and he was fooled and betrayed by his partner and never realized it. The look of anger and defeat on his face as the hood is pulled down is beautiful to watch.
* TheMole in "Secrets and Lies," [[spoiler: CIA Deputy Director Bruno Hawks]], is a subtler example. He sells out his country to terrorists, signing the death warrant of a really brave informant lady and her painfully adorable kids in the process. Gideon speculates that whoever TheMole is would have suffered some sort of great trauma recently, causing them to snap, but [[spoiler: he's wrong, Bruno did it just for ''money''.]] And, infuriatingly, [[spoiler: he's one of the countable-on-one-hand number of ''Series/CriminalMinds'' unsubs who may have gotten away scot free, depending on how one interprets the admittedly very ambiguous final scene of the episode (though the alternative is he was either locked up in some top-secret prison, or was quietly executed by the Agency]].

* Carl Buford from "Profiler, Profiled". Utterly unrepentant, and didn't see himself as doing anything wrong. He also pretends to be a humanitarian. And he molests children [[spoiler: including Derek Morgan]]. He also murdered at least 3, with one being to frame Derek.

** All things considered, Reid got off lightly- remember the adultress and the dogs?

** Also, his last words? "Just let me do my job!" Irrepentant, smug and cruel until the very end.

* Floyd Feylinn Ferell from "Lucky," who killed women after forcing them to eat his previous victims' fingers, and [[spoiler: feeds one of his victims to the search parties out looking for her.]]
* Before [[spoiler: George Foyet]], there was another criminal who went by "the Reaper," Glenn Hill from "True Night." His screentime totals to twenty seconds tops, but in that time we see him order his street gang to ''rape a pregnant woman to death'' while he forces the woman's fiance to watch, and subsequently attempting to eviscerate the fiance. Why? No reason given, one assumes they were just in the mood to do that that night and simply went with the first people they encountered. The twist? [[spoiler: He's the episode's ''victim''.]]

* The Reaper. Dear god, the Reaper. His bloodied evil grin at the end of "Omnivore" will haunt you in your sleep.
** Let's go a little more detail into ''why'' he deserves to be on this list. He disappeared years ago after a long, unsolved killing spree (his last victim was [[spoiler:actually himself, having learned exactly where one can be stabbed non-fatally so he could inflict multiple wounds on himself]], allowing the Reaper to disappear without casting any suspicion in the right direction). After returning, one of his first acts is slaughtering a bus full of passengers, and although he's caught at the end, he escapes due to [[CrazyPrepared ''memorizing the layouts of every prison he might be sentenced to.'']] Then he goes after Hotch personally, stabbing him in painful, non-fatal ways as a form of torture (and there may also have been a sexual aspect to the torture we didn't see). It gets worse, as then he goes after Hotchner's family- [[spoiler: he kills Hotch's ex-wife while Hotch and the BAU team listen over the phone, and insinuates that Hotch's son is next. Fortunately, Hotchner gets there in time to avoid that, but the Reaper attacks him, and Hotch ends up beating him to death with his bare hands out of sheer rage and need to defend himself and his son]]. The Reaper is acknowledged as such a CompleteMonster in-universe that, when she hears the end of the tale, Strauss, who is leading an enquiry into the events in which she has repeatedly tried to implicate Hotch in some way, is shocked and lets him go with her full condolences for what he's gone through.
** Rossi deduces that he is also sexually aroused by teenage girls, and by torturing them, because when they are his victims he usually takes his time before killing them.
* [[spoiler:[[EnfantTerrible Danny Murphy]]]] from "A Shade of Gray," who [[spoiler: killed his seven-year-old brother by force-feeding him pieces of model planes.]] He's notable as the only [[spoiler:underage]] killer on this show with no FreudianExcuse whatsoever. Prentiss felt that he could be at least ''slightly'' less messed up with psychological help, however, so at least in her book he's not ''entirely'' over the line.

* The Reaper. Dear god, the Reaper. That man is HighOctaneNightmareFuel personified. His bloodied evil grin at the end of "Omnivore" will haunt you in your sleep.

** The Company itself qualifies: a group of men who all keep their wives/girlfriends/mail-order-brides brainwashed and sexually-submissive to them. They also abuse the children they have with these women, leaving them in a cabin and forcing them to sleep in the same room, with no parental contact except for Christmas.

** The Company itself can qualify, especially in how they treat children. They leave them in a cabin and force them to sleep in the same room, with no parental contact except for Christmas.

* Malcolm Ford from "The Company", the man that kidnapped Morgan's sister and kept her hidden for eight years. He abused, beat, and outright broke her. He's manipulative and knew exactly how to handle the FBI as well as getting out of jail with a fellow member of "The Company"

* [[spoiler:J.B. Allen]] from "Foundation, who abducts little boys, rapes and tortures them for years on end, then, once they get too old for him, murders them by ''burying them alive''. Not to mention the [[spoiler:''bite marks'' found on Angel and the fact that he had to get his teeth recapped.... [[ParanoiaFuel just imagine how many kids he had to bite and how hard he bit to have that happen]]]].

* Then of course there is Frank. Gideon has been tracking him for years and said that he is the worst killer he has ever come across. Frank's MO is to kidnap people, paralyze them with a drug that allows them to be perfectly conscious as he tortures them, dissects them with surgical tools and puts a mirror on the roof so they can see themselves being cut apart. The worst part? He has been at this for decades and is believed to have killed hundreds of people all over North America. He is diabolically smart and has escaped capture until he wants Gideon to find Him. Gideon thought he had seen the absolute worst of humanity before Frank came along.

* Mason from "To Hell and Back". He is responsible for the horrific murders of over ninety people and feeding their bodies to pigs. He is completely sociopathic, noting that his victims were merely homeless people. The kicker is that he is quadraplegic and has been getting his mentally retarded brother to commit the murders. He even brags that juries wouldn't convict a handicapped man and has no problem with letting the police kill his brother. His end (getting blown away with a shotgun by the brother of one of his victims) is very well deserved.

* TheMole in "Secrets and Lies," [[spoiler: CIA Deputy Director Bruno Hawks]], is a subtler example. He sells out his country to terrorists, signing the death warrant of a really brave informant lady and her painfully adorable kids in the process. Gideon speculates that whoever TheMole is would have suffered some sort of great trauma recently, causing them to snap, but [[spoiler: he's wrong, Bruno did it just for ''money''.]] And, infuriatingly, [[spoiler: he's one of the countable-on-one-hand number of ''CriminalMinds'' unsubs who may have gotten away scot free, depending on how one interprets the admittedly very ambiguous final scene of the episode (though the alternative is he was either locked up in some top-secret prison, or was quietly executed by the Agency]].

* [[spoiler:J.B. Allen]] from "Foundation, who abducts little boys, rapes and tortures them for years on end, then, once they get too old for him, murders them by ''burying them alive''. Not to mention the [[spoiler:''bite marks'' found on Angel and the fact that he had to get his teeth recapped.... [[ParanoiaFuel just imagine how many kids he had to bite and how hard he bit to have that happen]]]]

* [[spoiler:J.B. Allen]] from "Foundation, who abducts little boys, rapes and tortures them for years on end, then, once they get too old for him, murders them by ''burying them alive''.

* [[spoiler:J.B. Allen]] from "Foundation, who abducts little boys, rapes and tortures them for years on end, then, once they get too old for them, murders them by ''burying them alive''.

* [[spoiler:D.B. Allen]] from "Foundation, who abducts little boys, rapes and tortures them for years on end, then, once they get too old for them, murders them by ''burying them alive''.

* Randy Slade from "Painless". A teenager with a very bad case of [[AGodAmI god complex]], whose sociopathic tendencies weren't noticed due to his school achievements. One day, he walked into che school cafeteria, where he dared everyone to look at him, shooting them if they didn't. He then killed himself with a bomb that caused even more victims.

--> '''Karl Arnold:''' So he could see what happens to families when the head of household isn't strong... wives wither... children perish... [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel but me? I'm an excellent father.]]

* TheMole in "Secrets and Lies," [[spoiler: CIA Deputy Director Bruno Hawks]], is a subtler example. He sells out his country to terrorists, signing the death warrant of a really brave informant lady and her painfully adorable kids in the process. Gideon speculates that whoever TheMole is would have suffered some sort of great trauma recently, causing them to snap, but [[spoiler: he's wrong, Bruno did it just for ''money''.]] And, infuriatingly, [[spoiler: he's one of the countable-on-one-hand number of ''CriminalMinds'' unsubs who may have gotten away scot free, depending on how one interprets the admittedly very ambiguous final scene of the episode]].

* The killer from "Legacy". He views homeless people as subhuman specimen who should be exterminated. So he kidnaps Them and brings Them to his torture chamber where He puts Them through agonizing physical and mental torment before disposing of Them in a fire (While They're still alive). And he's been doing it for a very long time. He even gives Them the opportunity to escape by telling Them They can leave if They make it out in a certain amount of time (They rarely do). In the end, He is shot and killed by the BAU and one only wishes he had suffered more.
* Then of course there is Frank. Gideon has been tracking him for years and said that he is the worst killer he has ever come across. Frank's MO is to kidnap people, paralyze Them with a drug that allows Them to be perfectly conscious as he tortures Them, dissects Them with surgical tools and puts a mirror on the roof so They can see Themselves being cut apart. The worst part? He has been at this for decades and is believed to have killed hundreds of people all over North America. He is diabolically smart and has escaped capture until He wants Gideon to find Him. Gideon thought He had seen the absolute worst of humanity before Frank came along.

** Let's go a little more detail into ''why'' he deserves to be on this list. He disappeared years ago after a long, unsolved killing spree (his last victim was [[spoiler:actually himself, having learned exactly where one can be stabbed non-fatally so he could inflict multiple wounds on himself]], allowing the Reaper to disappear without casting any suspicion in the right direction). After returning, one of his first acts is slaughtering a bus full of passengers, and although he's caught at the end, he escapes due to [[CrazyPrepared ''memorizing the layouts of every prison he might be sentenced to.'']] Then he goes after Hotch personally, stabbing him in painful, non-fatal ways as a form of torture (and there may also have been a sexual aspect to the torture we didn't see). It gets worse, as then he goes after Hotchner's family- [[spoiler: he kills Hotch's ex-wife while Hotch and the BAU team listen over the phone, and insinuates that Hotch's son is next. Fortunately, Hotchner gets there in time to avoid that, but the Reaper attacks him, and Hotch ends up beating him to death with his bare hands out of sheer rage and need to defend himself and his son]]. The Reaper is acknowledged as such a Complete Monster in-universe that, when she hears the end of the tale, Strauss, who is leading an enquiry into the events in which she has repeatedly tried to implicate Hotch in some way, is shocked and lets him go with her full condolences for what he's gone through.

* Mason from "To Hell and Back". He is responsible for the horrific murders of over ninety people and feeding Their bodies to pigs. He is completely sociopathic, noting that his victims were merely homeless people. The kicker is that he is quadraplegic and has been getting his mentally retarded brother to commit the murders. He even brags that juries wouldn't convict a handicapped man and has no problem with letting the police kill his brother. His end (Getting blown away with a shotgun by the brother of one of his victims) is very well deserved.

* "Mosley Lane" gives us [[spoiler: Anita, the [[EvilOldFolks creepy old lady]] who grew up in a funeral home and who has her husband kidnap young children for her to raise as her own. When the children get either too old or too troublesome, she has her husband Roger dump them in the crematorium out back.]]
** This needs far more elaboration since they're considered by fans as the worst villains in the series, even worse than the Reaper. Anita is the far more evil of the duo, even ''molesting'' several of the children on top of beating them. She's the one who does the burning too. One of the first children she took, Charlie, has developed StockholmSyndrome, which Anita uses to make him snatch more children for her.

* "The Internet Is Forever" has an unsub who [[spoiler: sends out live streaming video of murders in progress]] and an accomplice, a kindly old grandpa who [[spoiler: builds a walk-in freezer where the unsub stores his corpses, in exchange for being allowed to watch]].

** He tries to rape his own niece because she reminded him of his first victim. He's also a raging sadist, who injures women out of misogyny, and is absolutely gleeful when he tells his brother what he's done. He's not a handicapped man taking out his anger on the world. He's a sadistic psychopath who happens to be handicapped.

* [[spoiler: James Stanworth]] from "25 to Life". Not only he stabbed Carrie Sanderson and her little daughter Abby to death, but also managed to [[spoiler: place the blame on Donald Sanderson, sending him to jail.]] He also killed another woman to satisfy his psychopathic urges that couldn't manage to keep hidden anymore. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Unluckily for him, this last murder puts the BAU on his traces.]]

* Just two episodes into the season, "Proof" gives us the truly unique Ben Bradstone, an utterly horrifying SerialKiller who tortures and kills women who [[spoiler:remind him of a girl he tried to rape as a teen, and who later went on to marry his brother]], in ways that destroy their senses, at one point ''pouring sulfuric acid down a girl's throat''. The reason he's truly unique is that he's ''mentally disabled'', having been deprived of oxygen in the womb, and unlike the similar unsub in "The Uncanny Valley," this isn't played for sympathy ''at all''; on the contrary, it's mentioned that although he's disabled he's smart enough to know that his disability means people will be more likely to trust him, and uses that as a lure to snatch more victims.

* [[spoiler: James Stanworth]] from "25 to Life". Not only he stabbed Carrie Sanderson and her little daughter Abby to death, but also managed to [[spoiler: place the blame on Donald Sanderson, sending him to jail.]] He also killed another woman to satisfy his psychopathic urges that couldn't manage to keep hidden anymore. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Unluckily for him, this last murder puts the BAU on his traces.]]

* "The Internet Is Forever" has an unsub who [[spoiler: sends out live streaming video of murders in progress]] and an accomplice, a kindly old grandpa who [[spoiler: builds a walk-in freezer where the unsub stores his corpses, in exchange for being allowed to watch]].

* [[spoiler:[[EnfantTerrible Danny Murphy]]]] from "A Shade of Gray," who [[spoiler: killed his seven-year-old brother by force-feeding him pieces of model planes.]]
** That [[spoiler:10 year old boy]] had all the adults in the building fucking terrified for a ''very'' good reason. That autopsy report even made every single member of the seasoned BAU team feel sick and horrified. This was probably the sickest and scariest unsub of them all, because there was no trigger, no underlying cause that could possibly give him a reason for what he'd done. He had grown up in a loving, caring environment, and [[spoiler: then he killed his little brother because he had no empathy and ''could not feel a thing''. This was even complete with him ''acting'' remorseful to his parents.]]
** Prentiss felt that he could be at least ''slightly'' less messed up with psychological help, so at least in her book he's not ''entirely'' over the line.

* "Mosley Lane" gives us [[spoiler: Anita, the [[EvilOldFolks creepy old lady]] who grew up in a funeral home and who has her husband kidnap young children for her to raise as her own. When the children get either too old or too troublesome, she has her husband dump them in the crematorium out back.]]

* Frank Breitkopf in a nutshell. Among the hundreds of people he has targeted in his life, he has spared only one woman (avoiding her a horribly slow torture in an AndIMustScream condition), and has also given her wind chimes as a present. The problem? They're made of [[spoiler: human ribs]].

Either the serial killer in ''CriminalMinds'' is a great example of [[CompleteMonster this trope]], or he's absolutely bonkers.

** That [[spoiler:10 year old boy]] had all the adults in the building fucking terrified for a ''very'' good reason. That autopsy report even made every single member of the seasoned BAU team feel sick and horrified.

* In ''Mosley Lane'' we have Anita and Roger Roycewood who abduct children to raise them as their own, systematically abuse them and, before they run out of control, [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel burn them alive]] [[MurderByCremation in a crematorium]].
** This needs far more elaboration since they're considered by fans as the worst villains in the series, even worse than the Reaper. Anita is the far more evil of the duo, even ''molesting'' several of the children on top of beating them. She's the one who does the burning too.
* "A Rite of Passage" has two, Omar Morales and [[spoiler: Ronald Boyd]]. Morales is a sleazy Mexican Mafioso who enjoys dismembering bodies and sending bits of them to the victim's family. [[spoiler: Boyd]], the unsub of the episode, murders helpless illegal immigrants with a machete as they RunForTheBorder, and while it's ''possible'' racism may be a factor, it's far more likely that he simply enjoys killing and targeted illegals because they're not supposed to officially "exist" and he could therefore get away with it. He also [[spoiler: eviscerates the incredibly sympathetic Hispanic sheriff who had been helping the FBI with the investigation. Both of them are dead by the end of the episode.]]