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| “ | I don't kill because I don't have to. | „ |
| ~ Cullen's most famous line. |
Daniel James Cullen is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "The Crimson King". He is a serial killer who carves messages in his victims' bodies, and one of 13 escaped convicts whom Peter Lewis, one of the series' recurring villains, uses to wreak havoc on the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU).
He is portrayed by Kraig Dane.
Overview[]
Cullen is an "injustice collector", a type of serial killer who believes the world has wronged him and murders people as revenge for the slights, real or imagined, he has suffered. His signature is to carve accusatory and insulting messages into his victims' foreheads (if female) or abdomens (if male), and then leave them in the middle of nowhere to die of blood loss and exposure. Nicknamed "the Crimson King" in the press, Cullen was eventually apprehended by FBI Agents Luke Alvez and Phil Brooks, but not before he managed to disembowel the latter.
He was incarcerated in Virginia Supermax Prison, but was freed by a group of anarchists who invaded the prison in a failed attempt to free their leader, Eric Rawdon. Before the prison was put back in lockdown, Cullen managed to escape, along with 13 other serial killers. While the majority of the escapees were captured or killed by the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), Cullen evaded their grasp - unbeknownst to them, because he was kidnapped by another serial killer, Peter Lewis.
In "The Crimson King"[]
Lewis drugs Cullen and subjects him to a series of psychological tortures designed to erase his memories and sense of self. He then leaves Cullen alone with another of the escaped prisoners, Brian Phillips, whom he has conditioned to believe that he is Cullen, and told that the other man is "stealing the credit" for the Crimson King murders.
Phillips trued to carve the word "impostor" into Cullen's abdomen, but is interrupted by the BAU, who have discovered his whereabouts thanks to a combination of profiling and Internet sleuthing from technical analyst Penelope Garcia. Alvez, who has recently joined the BAU, reluctantly stops Philips from killing Cullen, and arrests them both. Cullen, who has no memory of Alez or of what he did to Brooks, thanks Alvez for saving his life. Enraged, Alvez tells Cullen what he did to Brooks and demands that he say the late agent's name, but Cullen cannot. Alvez's fellow agent Spencer Reid tells him to let it go, and takes Cullen into his custody. Cullen, whose homicidal urges have disappeared along with his identity, is then presumably institutionalized.
Trivia[]
- Cullen is confirmed to be partly inspired by David Parker Ray, a.k.a. “The Toy Box Killer”, a serial rapist and suspected serial killer with a similar M.O. of torture and restraints, also operating in the South.
External link[]
- Daniel Cullen on the Criminal Minds Wiki
