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“ | Ryan's mine, you slut! | „ |
~ Dana Seavers trying to kill her own sister. |
Dana Seavers is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "'Til Death Do Us Part". She is a mentally-ill serial killer who murders engaged women who she believes are her rival for the affections of Ryan Becker, her sister's boyfriend.
She was portrayed by Ashley Fink.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Dana suffered from polycystic ovary syndrome as a child, with obesity and acne as side-effects. As a result, she fell into depression so severe that she began experiencing psychosis in the form of delusions and hallucinations. She would most frequently hallucinate about her sister Nicole's boyfriend Ryan Seaver, with whom she had been in love since the seventh grade, telling her he was in love with her, as well.
At one point, Nicole put her on medication and sent her to therapy, but Dana eventually stopped both, worsening her symptoms. She even set up an online wedding registry for her and Ryan and constructed an elaborate, fantasy future with him.
Dana worked in her sister's flower shop that Nicole had inherited from their late mother, where Ryan also worked as a wedding photographer. She envied the brides for being happy and in love, and grew especially angry when they flirted with Ryan. She would then hallucinate Ryan telling her to get rid of the women so they could be together. Dana stalked the women to their bachelorette parties, knocked them unconscious, and strangled them with their own bridal sashes. By the time of the episode, she had killed two women.
"'Til Death Do Us Part"[]
The day after Dana kills her latest victim, Ashley Wilcox, she goes to work and watches angrily as bride-to-be Madison Mills flirts with Ryan and invites him to her bachelorette party. She hallucinates Ryan telling her to kill Madison, she follows her to the bachelorette party and knocks her out. She holds Madison prisoner in the basement of the flower shop while she has an imaginary conversation with Ryan in which he says, "Protect the purity of our love", she then tells Madison that she only has herself to blame as she strangles her. She dumps Madison's body in the nearby woods, covering her face in duct tape and writing "slut" on her forehead with lipstick.
Soon afterward, Ryan invites Dana and Nicole out to dinner, saying that he has a big announcement to make. Dana is excited, believing that he is finally going to ask her to marry him, only to be crushed when he proposes to Nicole, who happily accepts. She hallucinates Ryan telling her that Nicole "tricked him" into proposing, and that she will have to kill her own sister in order for them to be together.
Meanwhile, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) investigates the murders, profiling the killer as a mentally ill woman who works in the wedding industry, and who hates her victims for having the love and happiness that she wants but cannot have. They theorize that she may have recently suffered a romantic rejection, or that she has feelings for someone who barely knows she exists. Because the second victim's fingernails were chewed to the quick by someone other than her, they realize that the killer is probably in withdrawal from anti-psychotic medication, nail-biting being a common symptom. Finally, they deduce that the killer may have been triggered to start killing in the first place when someone close to them got engaged, inspiring their jealousy. Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia researches people working in the local wedding industry who have recently gotten engaged and cross-references them with mental health records of their friends and family members, and finds Dana.
Dana attacks Nicole in the shop's greenhouse, accusing her sister of stealing Ryan from her and knocking her out with a shovel. She then puts on a wedding dress she had bought for herself and sets up a bizarre wedding ceremony with a bound Nicole as her "witness". Nicole tries to talk sense into her sister, but Dana insists that she and Ryan are in love and sends him a text message from Nicole's phone asking him to come to the greenhouse.
As Dana has an imaginary conversation with Ryan declaring their love for each other, the real Ryan arrives and tries to free Nicole. Enraged, Dana puts a knife to her sister's throat, but the BAU arrives just in time to stop her. Agents Aaron Hotchner and Tara Lewis play along with her delusion, telling her that they know she and Ryan love each other, but that killing Nicole is not the answer. Dana then puts the knife to her own throat, but Agent Derek Morgan stops her from killing herself by telling Ryan to say he loves her, and Nicole to "break up" with Ryan. Overjoyed, Nicole drops the knife, embraces Ryan, and allows Hotchner to take her into custody. She is then institutionalized.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Dana is inspired by multiple real-life and fictional serial killers:
- Martha Beck, her hallucination of Ryan being Beck's conspirator Raymond Fernandez. Beck was primarily motivated by killing the women Fernandez targeted out of jealousy, as Fernandez seduced them before conning them.
- Ray Carlton, the main antagonist of the horror film He Knows Your Alone, a serial stalker and murderer of brides-to-be, over his rage from his wife leaving and after killing her first.
- She is the eighth villain in Criminal Minds to suffer from erotomania. The others being: Vincent Shyer, Maggie Lowe, Mike Hicks, Ben Bradstone, Bill Rogers, Carl Finster, Diane Turner, and Kevin Peck.
External Links[]
- Dana Seavers on the Criminal Minds Wiki