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| “ | Did you see it? The darkness? The light? Did you see? | „ |
| ~ Whitaker to his victim Samantha. |
Chase Whitaker is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Epilogue". He is a terminally ill serial killer who brings his victims to the brink of death and revives them so they can tell him what death is like; when they don't give him the answer he wants, he kills them.
He is portrayed by Sam Murphy as an adult, and by Drew Osbourne as a teenager in flashbacks.
Early life[]
Whitaker was raised by his abusive, alcoholic father Daniel, who became especially violent towards his son after his wife, Chase's mother, left him. Daniel beat his son mercilessly even after the boy was diagnosed with lymphoma at age 10, and did not seem to care when Chase's cancer went into remission two years later.
When Whitaker was 16, he went on a fishing trip with his father. One night, he finally stood up to Daniel, who responded by punching him in the face so hard that he fell into a lake and nearly drowned. Daniel tried to revive him, but was too drunk to perform CPR correctly. Believing Chase to be dead, he buried the boy in a shallow grave. Moments later, Chase regained consciousness, dug himself out of the grave, and hit his father in the head with a shovel in a fit of rage; he then dragged his father to the lake and drowned him. He was institutionalized for killing his father, but was released at age 18.
As an adult, Whitaker worked at a state park called Ridge Canyon Lake. In 2011, his lymphoma returned in a far more aggressive manner, and he was given three months to live. He watched a news story about Jake Shepard, a criminal who became a born-again Christian after a near-death experience in which he claimed to have seen an angel who told him that it was "not his time" to die. Whitaker seeks Shepard out and asks him what death is like, but when Shepard did not give him the answer he wanted, Whitaker flew into a rage, strangled him, and drowned him. Determined to learn what death felt like before it happened to him, Whitaker began kidnapping people, strangling them to the point of death, and then resuscitating them so he can ask them what it felt like to die. When rthey did not give him an answer he found satisfactory, he would drown them.
In "Epilogue"[]
After Whitaker kidnaps and kills camper Nick Scirvin, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) starts investigating his murders, profiling the killer as being injured or sick because he had stopped moving his victims' bodies, and as having medical training because he performed CPR on his victims. They also deduce that he works as a park official because of his comfort level with and apparent emotional connection to the area. Finally, they realize that the killer suffers from a terminal illness because he chokes his victims to the point of death and revives them; they believe he is trying to find out what is in store for him when he dies.
Meanwhile, Whitaker fails to resuscitate his latest victim, Lacey Campbell, and the frustration aggravates his worsening condition to the point that he starts coughing up blood. Determined to make up for his previous mistake, he incapacitates and kidnaps Samantha Braun and her young son, Evan, and non-fatally drowns them. He begins coughing up blood after reviving them, however, giving Evan the opportunity to escape. Whitaker catches him and tries to drown him again.
Just as Whitaker is about to kill the boy, however, the BAU shows up and holds him at gunpoint. He reluctantly lets Evan go, and attempts suicide by diving into the lake. As he drowns, he sees a vision of his spirit swimming toward a bright light. At the last moment, however, BAU agents Emily Prentiss and Spencer Reid save his life by pulling him out of the water, telling him, "It's not your time."
Whitaker is then imprisoned, and presumably dies of lymphoma while incarcerated.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Whitaker is inspired by multiple real-life serial killers:
- The purported "Smiley Face Killer", a suspected American serial killer of drowned college man across the Midwest, which was unpopularity posited by detectives and a professor.
- Rodney Alcala, a.k.a. “The Dating Game Killer”, an American serial killer that, as mentioned in the episode, also suffocated and resuscitated people to kill them, and had previous exposure to reality TV, specifically winning a game show for a date, but the woman rejected him and set him off.
- Edmund Kemper, a.k.a. "The Co-Ed Killer", a serial killer of women and girls with failed ambitions in law enforcement, having been previously abused by his mother and institutionalized for killing his grandparents. Kemper would use ruses to kidnap and murder the women he targeted, before killing his mother and one of her friends, he tried to escape, but turned himself in when not getting the attention he wanted.
- Richard Evonitz, a serial killer/rapist of teenage girls with an alcoholic, abusive father guilty of drowning Evonitz as a child, and drowning his dog to death, which warped Evonitz into homicidal rages.
External links[]
- Chase Whitaker at the Criminal Minds Wiki
