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| “ | I did all this to save you from a life of misery, of pretending to be somebody you're not. | „ |
| ~ Caleb entreating Harvey Morell to join him. |
Caleb Rossmore is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "True Genius". He is a copycat serial killer who emulates the crimes of the Zodiac Killer in order to "win back" his estranged friend and former accomplice Harvey Morell.
He was portrayed by Jeff Newburg.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Rossmore is a genius and chess prodigy who is obsessed with true crime, particularly serial killers such as the Zodiac, whom he idolizes. As a teenager, he and his only friend, fellow chess prodigy and Zodiac aficionado Harvey Morell, tortured and murdered seven-year-old Robbie Shaw, the younger brother of a classmate who bullied Rossmore. They had worked up the courage to kill the boy by first torturing and killing animals. They buried Robbie's body in Morell's backyard, and it was never found.
After high school, Rossmore and Morell drifted apart, especially after Morell started dating Marisa Devon, whom Rossmore had a crush on. Over the years, Morell became wealthy and successful, while Rossmore drifted through a series of menial jobs because he could not stand being surrounded by his "inferiors".
Morell eventually got engaged to Marisa, further embittering Rossmore, who felt she would never understand him the way he did. While he resented Morell for "leaving" him, he also desperately wanted him back, so he decided to start killing people according to the Zodiac's M.O. in the hopes of getting Morell's attention and impressing him.
"True Genius"[]
Rossmore guns down a couple, David Atley and Nicole Puli, in their car and leaves Zodiac memorabilia at the crime scene. He then sends the police a cipher like the ones Zodiac sent. The next day, Rossmore attends Morell and Marisa's engagement party, and gives a toast to Morell's soulmate, hoping Morell realizes that he is talking about himself. Morell either does not understand the reference or chooses to ignore it, and also turns down Rossmore's offer of a bachelor party in Las Vegas. Marisa takes pity on him, however, and persuades Morell to go with him to Vegas.
When the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) starts investigating the copycat Zodiac murders, Agent Spencer Reid decodes Rossmore's cipher, which leads them to Golden Gate Park. There, the BAU apprehends a man they believe is the killer, who turns out to be a messenger whom Rossmore had paid to deliver a letter reading "You're not as smart as you think you are.".
Meanwhile, Rossmore attacks a couple in Albany Park and stabs them to death while dressed in the Zodiac's infamous "murder suit". He later meets with Marissa, and gets into an argument with her in which he tells her that she and Morell are wrong for each other. She senses that he is trying to tell her he loves her, and gently tells him that they can only be friends. Enraged, he attacks her as she gets into a cab, killing the cab driver and kidnapping Marisa.
That night, Rossmore takes Morell on an "adventure" in which they play a game they played as children, pretending to track down the Zodiac by profiling one of his crime scenes. They trace "Zodiac's" movements to an abandoned Chinese restaurant, where Rossmore presents Marisa, gagged and bound. Rossmore tells a horrified Morell that he is "giving" her to him to kill, just like they murdered Robbie. At that moment, Reid, who has trailed them to the restaurant, bursts in and tries to arrest them. Morell tries to blame Rossmore for Robbie's murder, but Reid says that the crime was likely his idea, and Rossmore merely followed along to make him happy. He then reveals that Morell is planning to move to China, something he had not told Rossmore. Angry about this, Rossmore tells Reid where Robbie is buried, and Reid arrests both of them.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Rossmore appears to be partly inspired by Heriberto “Eddie” Seda, a.k.a. “The New York Zodiac Killer", a copycat of the original, unidentified "Zodiac Killer".
- Rossmore and Morell are inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood, a former couple and duo of killers who showed their devotion by smothering elderly patients at the nursing home they worked at, before they split up and one of them confessed to the police.
- Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two "boy geniuses" who kidnapped and killed a boy to commit the “crime of the century”, only to get caught. The Alfred Hitchcock movie Rope (film) is inspired by the case, and the relationship dynamics between the villains, Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, are the same as Rossmore and Morell.
External Links[]
- Caleb Rossmore on the Criminal Minds Wiki
