Craig O'Laughlin is the major antagonist of The Mentalist TV-show. He is the lover of Grace van Pelt, but he turns out to be Red John's mole. He is played by Eric Winter.
Biography[]
One day, a new boss is sent to Patrick Jane's department. This boss turns out to be Madeline Hightower. She immediately establishes herself as a very strict boss. She also somehow knows about the relationship between Wayne Rigsby and Grace van Pelt, Patrick's friends from his department. Since love affairs between representatives of the same department are prohibited, Madeline demands that Rigsby and van Pelt break up, which they are forced to do. Van Pelt finds himself another guy from a completely different police department. It turns out to be a certain Craig O'Laughlin, completely unlike Wayne Rigsby. Craig turns out to be a pretty smart and friendly police officer. He sometimes even helps Wayne during the arrests of criminals. Everything is heading towards the wedding of Craig and Grace. Wayne is not offended. He understands everything. He even volunteers to come to the wedding. However, at some point, Patrick exposes and arrests serial killer Todd Johnson. And everything would be fine, but Todd is killed in his cell. He only manages to hint that he is connected with Red John. The investigation begins. J.J. Laroche, another representative of another police department, interrogates everyone (primarily Patrick). Soon he has a list of five names of people who seem most suspicious to him. He suspects Madeleine Hightower. Soon Manuel Montero, Todd's friend, is killed. The evidence points to Madeleine. Patrick helps her escape. He decides to conduct his own investigation and involves the team he works with. They decide that if the killer is not one of the remaining four, then it is Laroche himself. They tell the other four and Laroche himself the hotel number where Madeleine should be (the numbers are different, but one above the other). Madeleine is not in any of them. She is in another place. Van Pelt and two police officers are with her. That same day, a woman breaks into the room that was given to Gale Bertram. When Kimball Cho and Wayne Rigsby break in, she says she committed suicide. Bertram is suspected of killing Todd and Manuel. However, Patrick suddenly realizes that the woman had a rope with her for a reason. She was going to move to another room. The room that O'Laughlin was given. He is the traitor. Patrick tells Lisbon about his guess. And his guess is immediately confirmed by Craig's behavior. He kills the police officers responsible for Hightower, but is killed by van Pelt. She worries about this for a long time. Soon, Craig's spirit appears to her and claims that he loved her in life. Later, Grace talks about this with Patrick and he calms her down.
Trivia[]
- He is somewhat similar to Gorman. Both are sent to kill other criminal (Todd Johnson and Justin DeGeorge respectively) and try to kill Teresa Lisbon, but are killed by Grace Van Pelt.