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| “ | I am become Death. | „ |
| ~ Hayman Vasher quoting J. Robert Oppenheimer, and his last words. |
Hayman Vasher is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "A Thousand Suns". He is a psychopathic computer hacker who remotely crashes an airliner, killing hundreds of people, to prove his intellectual superiority.
He was portrayed by John Grady, who also portrayed the titular villain in The Apparition.
Biography[]
Early life[]
A narcissistic psychopath, Vasher is intellectually gifted but socially inept, seeing other people as "inferiors", objects to be used in his experiments. He graduated from Philadelphia University of Science and Engineering and got a job as an aerospace engineer at TRX Technologies and Aviation.
While he held extreme anarchist views, he was not anti-technology, and in fact greatly admired J. Robert Oppenheimer, the inventor of the atomic bomb, as he saw Oppenheimer, a socially awkward man who became powerful and influential through intellectual achievement, as a role model and kindred spirit. His interest in Oppenheimer grew into an obsession, and he posted several rambling analyses of him and his work on anarchist chat rooms.
In 2006, he went on a blind date with Kristina Morrow, but she was put off by his social awkwardness and intense manner, and later made fun of him on Facebook. Humiliated and enraged, Vasher dropped out of society, quitting his job and moving to an isolated cabin in Colorado. He dedicated himself to creating a weapon of mass destruction rivaling the atomic bomb in imitation of his idol Oppenheimer, and over the next eight years invented a complex computerized system that would allow him to hack into passenger jets' control systems and take control of the planes themselves. His ultimate plan was to cause several plane crashes that would kill hundreds of people, which in his mind would prove that he was a genius and a worthy successor to Oppenheimer.
He also stalked Morrow, who was by now married with three children. He hacked into her social media and found out that she was going to a college reunion in Phoenix, Arizona on Trans Alliance Airlines Flight 420, and decided to use his weapon on the plane, simultaneously testing the system and getting revenge for his humiliation.
"A Thousand Suns"[]
Vasher uses his remote control system to hack into and crash Trans Alliance Airlines Flight 420 outside of Durango, Colorado, killing 151 passengers, including Morrow. The copilot, Frank Canvers, survives, which Vasher sees as a flaw in his otherwise perfect operation, and with his ego wounded, Vasher makes a hang-up call to Canvers' hospital room. He then hacks into Inter Atlantic Flight 61's computer system, planning to crash it into a football stadium, intending this act of terrorism to be "his Hiroshima" as an homage to the first use of the atomic bomb in war.
Suspecting foul play, the local authorities call in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) to profile the culprit. The BAU realize the killer hacked into the plane's computer system, and profile him as a mass annihilator who lives in the area, crashing the plane near his residence so he could see the destruction he caused. BAU Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia looks into hospital phone records and identifies Vasher as Canvers' crank caller, and also discovers his connection to Morrow through the latter's Facebook history, allowing the BAU to identify him as the killer.
Meanwhile, Vasher prepares to crash Inter Atlantic Flight 61, but is interrupted by BAU Agents Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner, and Kate Callahan, who try to arrest him. Knowing that the military has dispatched fighter jets to shoot down the plane if necessary, Vasher threatens to send the plane to a low enough elevation to provoke the jets to shoot it down. Hotchner tries to reason with him by saying that Oppenheimer felt remorse for creating a weapon that killed millions of people, but Vasher dismisses him and demands that he tell the military to call off the fighter jets. Hotchner does so, and Vasher watches as the jets fly away on his radar scanner, Vasher releases the plane, but ignores the agents' commands to surrender. He declares, "I am become Death.", echoing Oppenheimer's famous quotation of the Bhagavad Gita, and tries to regain control of the plane, forcing Hotchner to shoot him in the head, killing him. Morgan, meanwhile, destroys Vasher's control system, allowing the plane to land safely.
Trivia[]
- Vasher is primarily inspired by serial bomber Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. "The Unabomber", so nicknamed for targeting airports and academia. Kaczynski killed three people and severely injured numerous more with his explosives, having previously been an accomplished professor with an exceptional IQ before going off the grid and becoming extremely paranoid over the advancement of the world's technology, the latter in contrast to Vasher.
External Links[]
- Hayman Vasher on the Pure Evil Wiki
- Hayman Vasher on the Criminal Minds Wiki
