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“ | Because I wanted to. | „ |
~ Jeffrey, when asked why he killed other children. |
Jeffrey Charles is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "The Bogeyman". He is an underage serial killer who preys on other children in his small town.
He is portrayed by Cameron Monaghan, who also played Elliot in The Mentalist, Eddie Sandow in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska in the TV series Gotham.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Jeffrey Charles was born in Ozona, Texas. He was very close with his father James, until his mother left his father. Along with his mother's abandonment and his father spending more time at school with other children, Jeffrey began to resent other children. One day, Jeffrey took his aggression out on a boy named Robbie Davis and beat him to death with a bat. Having liked the initial murder, he took Robbie's backpack as a trophy and went on to kill two more kids. In order to cover his tracks, he covered the body of an old hermit named Joseph Finnegan with leaves and began living in his house, as it had been rumored that it was haunted. Jeffrey suffered a severe dairy allergy, so he’d duct tape containers with dairy products in them, like his father taught him, and leave them uneaten.
The Boogeyman[]
After the third murder, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit are assigned the case and initially believe the killer to be an adult. Upon hearing stories of the Finnegan house, the BAU investigate and discover food trays, which they're able to pull two sets of prints from. They also discover Finnegan's body hidden under the leaves and rule him out as suspect. One of the sets of fingerprints matches James Charles and the BAU show up to his house to apprehend him. They get to the house right as he's in the middle of disposing of a pack containing Nicholas's red cap. BAU Agent Derek Morgan tackles Charles and interrogates him.
Wanting to protect his son, James stays silent, until Jason drinking a mug of coffee reveals Jeffrey's the one allergic to dairy, which allows Special Supervisory Agent Jason Gideon to make the connection to the trays in the house. Jason sobs, saying he found Nicholas’ cap in Jeffrey’s drawer, admitting he left Jeffrey at the house and doesn’t know where he ran off to. Meanwhile, Jeffrey takes a little girl named Tracy Belle out into the forest, saying he knows a shortcut. He makes several attempts to hit her with the bat, but the BAU agents arrive and Gideon apprehends Jeffrey. When questioned why he murdered his classmates, he claims it is because "he wanted to." Afterwards, he is taken away in a police car and likely institutionalized. Before leaving, he and his father have a moment, and James begins to sulk over his son's departure.
Victims[]
- Robbie Davis - Bludgeoned with a bat.
- Nicholas Faye - Bludgeoned with a bat.
- Sarah Peterson - Bludgeoned with a bat.
- Tracy Belle - Attempted to bludgeon with a bat; was rescued.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Jeffrey is inspired by multiple real-life killers:
- Peter Woodcock, a Canadian, then-teenaged serial killer of children with a history of childhood anger issues, leaving the kids mutilated to death in isolated locations.
- The Oakland County Child Killer, a serial killer of children in Michigan that terrified the community into changing their safety regulations, similarly to ones after Jeffrey's murders.
- Rod Matthews, a man responsible for killing classmate Shawn Ouillette when they were in their teens in 1986, also by luring him into the forest and bashing him with a baseball bat.
- Eric Smith, a killer with childhood anger issues and a murderer of a boy from his years of when he himself was just a child, with a similar age and physical appearance to Jeffrey. Smith has now been released from prison.
- Jesse Pomeroy, a.k.a. "The Boston Boy Fiend", a killer with a similar childhood who took his rage out on other children as a teenager.
- Jeffrey is the youngest serial killer in the entire run of Criminal Minds, only being twelve years old at the time of his final murder.
- However, the youngest killers in the show's run were Danny Murphy and the youngest son of the Romani Family, both of whom were only nine years old when they committed murder.
External Links[]
- Jeffrey Charles on the Criminal Minds Wiki