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“ | Daddy! Help me! | „ |
~ Joe calling out to his father as he is arrested. |
Joe (surname unknown) is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode “Damaged”. He is a special needs carnival employee and the mentally and emotionally incompetent killer of the parents of three children he followed home.
He’s portrayed by Matthew J. Cates.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Little is known about Joe’s history, other than he had the regressive mindset of a child and worked in a traveling circus under his father Landon. It’s implied by his profile Joe didn’t have great social skills and would regularly follow around people he liked and wanted to play games with beyond their comfort, fighting angrily when he was upset, which led to Landon defending his actions and pleading no repercussions for his sake. One such instance in Indianapolis was when he gave a young Connie Galen a poorly made balloon, while she was at the carnival with her parents and her siblings George and Allie. As their parents Richard and Diana saw Joe following them around, they went home early.
Joe tracked them all the way to their house while Landon didn’t notice he was gone when working on ride maintenance. Joe went into the master bedroom when he meant to find the kids, and Richard reflexively defended the household by grabbing an ax and striking Joe with its blunt end. Joe was shaken and mad, so he took the ax and violently hacked Richard and Diana to death, regretting what he did and placing them in their bed. Landon, having tracked Joe’s movements, stumbled upon the scene, cleaned everything up except for one fingerprint to wasn’t in the system, and took Joe back with him. The siblings stumbled into their parents’ bedroom and were horrified and screaming from the site of their violently disfigured bodies.
"Damaged"[]
For the next twenty years, Landon ensured he’d teach Joe a lesson to keep him straight, taking him back to Indianapolis to remind him of his crimes. Every year, Joe would deliver toys and prizes from the carnival as an annual apology, and in the most recent year, he left a stuffed animal directly in Connie’s car while she was at work. BAU Agent David Rossi was haunted from never being able to solve the case, keeping the family’s charm bracelet as a reminder and having been one of the first on the scene after recently capturing a garden-variety serial rapist around the same time. The Galens were always spiteful with him, never wanting him to come back because of his failures to close the case and believing he sent them the toys.
When he came back on the twentieth anniversary, the grown siblings again turned him and the agents away, until Rossi was startled that they received the gifts. They constructed a profile based on the items the Galen’s showed them, and Rossi realized the killer was a carnival employee. Connie finally remembered Joe, confirming him as the killer based on his profiler. The team spoke to Landon, and he confessed to everything, trying to say Joe didn’t mean anything wrong and that he’s a good son. Joe, seeing the agents, hid under a tarp over a ride, but a broken garbage bag left a trail leading straight to him, the agents found him and, guns drawn, ordered his surrender. Joe cried out for Landon, and as the agents pulled out, pinned him to the ground and arrested him, Landon pleaded to Joe to not fight them while he was sobbing uncontrollably. Joe was likely institutionalized due to his diminished capacity, Landon facing his own chance of imprisonment.
Trivia[]
- Joe is inspired by multiple real-life murderers:
- Caleb Fairley, a murderer of a mother and daughter at his family store, who was executed for his crimes and bares stark resemblance in appearance to Joe.
- Paul Cox, a killer of a couple in his childhood home, who he stabbed to death after returning there in a drunken stupor and envisioning them as his parents. He confessed in an AA meeting five years later once he had recollective nightmares, and once his confession was admitted despite being under religious confidentiality, he was convicted and imprisoned.