"I'm sorry I didn't run this by you first, but this monster raped, strangled, and then posed three young women. He is smart, he's organized, and he's evil. Worse, he's escalating."
— Maggie Bell about Robert Burke IV, Original series, "Apex"
The FBI's New York City field office, Fugitive Task Force, and International Fly Team have faced all manner of criminals, killers and fugitives during their pursuit of justice. A select few, however, manage to stand out in terms of sheer depravity.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
open/close all folders
Examples
- "Pilot": Robert Lawrence is a wealthy, smug, smarmy Neo-Nazi and the secret mastermind behind a bombing spree throughout southern Brooklyn. A year prior, Lawrence attempted to blow up a synagogue he had campaigned against. Forming an alliance with the ruthless El Salvador gang MS-13, Lawrence aims to take over the drug trade from the Mac Bawlers, planning to use the money to further his white supremacist agenda and hoping that by using the MS-13 it will spark a race war between them and the other black gangs. Lawrence has an entire apartment building blown up, killing over twenty residents, including children, all to kill the Mac Bawlers leader. Then later sets off another bomb, killing their second leader and his girlfriend. Foiled in his attempt to blow up a rec center used as an unofficial neutral ground by all the gangs and realizing the FBI is onto him, Lawrence has the final bomb filled with nails and shrapnel and placed at a community meeting in response to crisis, intending to kill hundreds of civilians.
- "Green Birds": Khalim Barhom is an egotistic ISIS chemical weapons expert, notorious for gas bombings throughout Syria and Iraq. Arriving in America, Barhom targeted vulnerable disenfranchised teenager girls through the website, the Dark Jihad. Brainwashing the girls into proving their loyalty to him, Barhom has them enact terrorist attacks using the deadly neurotoxin Tetrodotoxin, with a spray bottle that is rigged to inject them with the same poison after use as they were no longer useful. His first attack on a popular deli's salad bar succeeded in causing thirteen people to die in agony over several hours, and nine more to be hospitalized. Planning four more attacks each on public eateries such as a farmers' market and a hotel breakfast buffet hoping to kill as many people as possible. Succeeding in causing two more deaths, Barhom planned to continue his spree in other cities throughout the rest of America, until the entire country was consumed by fear of their own food. Confronted by the FBI, Barhom took a hostage at knife point and revealed his pride in "his work", boasting about it being his "path to glory".
- "Prey": Stephan "Snake" Tsarko is a stoic, but sadistic, misogynistic psychopath, who works as the muscle of Jacob Roscha's Human Trafficking ring. Snake and two of his goons spend three days straight gang raping each woman to break their wills—having done so to over fifty women—then brand them with a heated knife, before they are forced into prostitution, some even forcibly given cosmetic surgery to increase their value. Keeping the women in line through fear, Snake personally murders anyone who breaks a rule or get ill, having done so already to eighteen women. Admitting to only be involved to fulfill his enjoyment of others' suffering, Snake openly enjoys murder, stabbing each victim thirty times in a euphoric mania. Snake then cuts out their brands, which along with some photos and locks of hair he keeps as souvenirs. He buries the bodies in full view of his balcony, so he can spend evenings reminiscing about each murder with a drink or a cigar. Upon the FBI closing in, Snake attempts to tie up the loose ends, murdering the doctor who provided surgery by throwing him out of his apartment window, and attempts to strangle Agent Bell. Caught, Snake turns on the others to ensure his own protection.
- "Apex": Robert Burke IV is a member of the wealthy Burke family, and secretly a "sick and twisted" narcissist with an obsession with photography, who moonlights as the Apex Killer. Using a conservative dating website to find victims who won't tell their families, Burke lures out women he wants to photograph, drugging them so they're paralyzed but conscious. Taking them back to his private studio Burke rapes and then slowly strangles the women with a cord, all while photographing them. Dumping their bodies specifically so the light and location will look beautiful for the crime scene photographs. Having already done this to seven victims under the radar, following his wife leaving him for drugging and raping her, Burke switches MO, deciding he wants fame. Killing three women in his native Manhattan so the authorities will connect the deaths, Burke sends a letter to the mayor's office to take control of the narrative, declaring killing his "birthright". Corned by the FBI, Burke declares himself "Apex" and dies trying to kill his eleventh victim.
- "Money for Nothing": Mason Simonian is a smug, sadistic, and utterly merciless career criminal who presently works as a brutal Loan Shark. Regularly preying upon people's desperation and greed to encourage them to borrow more, Simonian holds them to the inflexible standard that if ever late for a single repayment, then he will slaughter their entire family, including any children. Already responsible for at least ten murders, when his latest customer proves he can get the money—he just needs a bit more time—Simonian pretends to agree only to kidnap the woman he believes is his girlfriend and makes it clear he has exactly one hour, before Simonian kills her, then him and his elderly parents.
Examples
- "Caesar": Cleo Wilkens is an egotistical, cold-blooded thug with delusions of grandeur. A senior member of the Rolling Sixes gang, Cleo, upon discovering their leader and her childhood friend Tyrone "Ty" Jackson wanted to retire, murdered him for going "soft". Personally attacking a meeting of two treacherous Sixes and three Loco Diablo members, Cleo massacred them all, starting a brutal gang war on the streets of the Bronx so that she could live out her fantasy of being a great military leader. Taking over the Sixes, Cleo began expanding their drug trafficking and organizing attacks on the Diablos, resulting in five more murders. Enjoying her newfound publicity, Cleo attempted to capitalize on it, lying that the authorities had killed Jackson and framing their efforts as an attack on their community, hoping to escalate events into a full-blown race war. Executing another Six for treachery, Cleo planned to rob the Diablos' stash house and use the funds to win the war. Only active a single week, Cleo managed to cause death and destruction on a scale few could match.
- "Vanished": Samuel Smith, despite appearing a charismatic unassuming man, is secretly a selfish pedophile and a dangerous sexual predator. At only 14, Samuel abducted and raped an 8-year-old boy, before drowning him in a lake. As a grown man he kidnapped 11-year-old David Caine, isolating him in the middle of nowhere to use for his perversions. Over the next nine years, Samuel regularly raped and brutalized David, even baiting him to try to escape just to further crush his hope, leaving David so psychologically broken he forgot his identity and name. Following David reaching adulthood, Samuel began targeting another child, Caleb Vaughter. Seducing Caleb's mother Caroline Vaughter to get close to him, Samuel stabbed Caroline and her elderly mother to death. Imprisoning Caleb in a makeshift bunker, Samuel planned to wait until the heat died down then break him as he did with David. Cornered by the FBI, Samuel, not willing to face prison, committed suicide, leaving Caleb to suffocate to death, his last words taunting the agents that they would never find him.
- "Run-Hide-Fight": Rob Murphy is an incredibly smug, spiteful, and selfish former mall security guard. Fired for grand larceny, Rob responds by masterminding a mass casualty event. Convincing his three accomplices to assist, Rob waited until the mall was sufficiently full, blocked the entrances with homemade bombs, then from the safety of his home has his accomplices rampage with assault rifles, aiming to indiscriminately slaughter the hundreds of random shoppers and staff inside the mall. Even when caught, an utterly unrepentant Rob refused to lift a finger to help, uncaring as his accomplices died, while having secretly left a hidden bomb fitted with a timer hidden aiming to ensure his former manager's death.
- "Greatest Hits": Jackie "The Fox" Bianchi was an infamous New York hitman during the 1980's. Jackie racked up 14 successful hits for the Lucretia Family, including: shooting a capo into the open grave at his mother's funeral; garrotting a rival with his belt; and gunning down an underboss, along with his associate and driver, at a drive through. Faking his death to escape the Feds, decades later Jackie created his own podcast solely so he could boast about his many murders. Discovering Joey Messina had taken to recreating his assassinations against civilians, Jackie contacted him to encourage him and feed his delusions, leading to the brutal murders of six other innocents, solely because he viewed Joey's murders as a tribute to his ego.
- "A Man Without a Country": Trofim Sarkov is a vicious Russian oligarch who finds himself sanctioned during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Sarkov is introduced orchestrating the killings of half a dozen federal officers in order to get back his confiscated painting. When the fugitive task force foils Sarkov's attempt to get the painting back, Sarkov threatens to murder their families as payback. Starting a terror campaign against the US, Sarkov begins by assassinating important US officials, and later ends up escalating by unleashing military grade nerve gas on the New York subway system in an attempt to kill tens of thousands of innocents. Sarkov holds no loyalty to anyone but himself, and even slaughters all of his men to make his getaway easier. Sarkov is also a dreadful father who kidnaps and abuses his daughter into going with his plans to discredit the Ukrainian resistance, and later tries to hand her over to the Russian embassy to be tortured and murdered just to save his own hide by getting back into their good graces.
- "Chains": Brad Wallace is a bespectacled, cruel man and one of the most evil people faced by the Fugitive Task Force. Brad is a human trafficker with an exceptionally vile modus operandi and has been pimping his daughter Ollie to pedophiles for years since she was 5. Encountering Analyst Hana Gibson, who tries to save Ollie, Brad kidnaps and brutalises Hana and holds her hostage, intending to sell her as a Sex Slave. Brad later kidnaps a baby, intending to sell it to be abused. When Hanna escapes with Ollie and the baby, Brad tracks her down, revealing to Hanna that he intends to sell her to be raped and abused by 100 men until she's broken.
- "Trying to Grab Smoke": Lloyd Eckersley and Fred Dobbins are a smug, slimy duo of predators, who roped in over 100 vulnerable young women into their pornography business, falsely promising the material would never be shown in the USA. Personally participating in each video, the duo coerced or flat-out threatened their victims into participating in extremely explicit acts, then uploaded the videos online for profit. Fleeing the country to avoid criminal charges, the duo in retaliation posted the personal information of each woman who tried to sue them online and sent copies of their videos to all their contacts. The resulting harassment led to Kayla Clancy committing suicide, which Lloyd and Fred tormented her father over. Setting up in Prague and going into business with Antek Kral, the duo were soon producing videos again with local vulnerable women, while using Kral's site to ensure none of their victims videos could be taken down.
- FBI's "All That Glitters", Most Wanted's "Exposed", & International's "Pilot": Colin Kent is a wealthy businessman who intends to gain blackmail material on numerous wealthy men across the world via human trafficking schemes. Kent lures in young women and girls, pimping them out to wealthy pedophiles to film it and control those in the ring. Girls who step out of line are summarily eliminated when no longer of use. Upon being discovered, Kent flees to Europe where it is revealed his trade is widespread on multiple continents.
