  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. | „ |
| ~ Justin Leu quoting Dante as he kills his victims. |
| “ | I have to finish this journey. | „ |
| ~ Justin Leu as he tries to kill his last victim. |
Justin Leu is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Burn". He is a serial killer who targets abusive father figures and tortures and kills them in ways that mirror Dante's The Divine Comedy.
He was portrayed by C.S. Lee as an adult and Austin Chandra as a teenager.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Leu's mother died of cancer when he was 10 years old, leaving him and his older brother Todd in the care of their abusive, alcoholic father, Raymond, who would beat them mercilessly for the slightest failure, even locking them in the shed for getting less than perfect grades. Todd eventually committed suicide to escape the abuse, while Social Services took Justin from his father and sent him to a series of foster homes. One of his few refuges from the trauma of his early life was reading Dante's The Divine Comedy, which had been his and Todd's favorite book, he identified with Dante's journey through Hell, while Dante's fictional companion, Virgil, reminded him of his late brother.
As an adult, Leu became a high school English teacher, and was known to be strict with his students. He formed a close bond with one student, Nathan Chow, who was also a fan of the The Divine Comedy, and saw him as a surrogate for both Virgil and Todd. After Nathan graduated from high school and went to a local college, Leu went to visit him and saw that he was a social pariah, abused by his classmates in ways that reminded Leu of his father. At around the same time, Leu's father died, causing him to lose contact with reality. He then decided to help Nathan "through" Hell by committing murders based on Dante's book, chosing fathers and father figures he viewed as abusive and punishing them as a way of holding his father to account for his abuse in ways he failed to do when he was alive.
"Burn"[]
Leu murders four men in less than two months, as he asphyxiates his first victim, electrocutes the second, strangles the third, and sets the fourth on fire while he is still alive. He carves Roman numerals into the mouths of each victim, representing the Circle of Hell he believes they belong in.
The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) investigates the murders, and quickly they realize that the killer is inflicting the divine punishments depicted in Dante's book upon his victims. They profile the killer as an educated older man working with a younger partner, seeing himself as Dante to his partner's Virgil. Technical analyst Kevin Lynch researches the Internet for violent references to Dante, and finds Nathan, who is on the verge of being expelled from college for blogging about torturing people in ways that mirror the punishment of the damned in Inferno, the first book of the The Divine Comedy. Agents David Rossi and Jennifer Jareau interrogate Nathan, who brags about committing the murders, but they quickly see that he is lying when he describes killing a woman. They deduce that he might have been given a copy of Inferno by a teacher, and Lynch finds records of Leu's relationship with Nathan, as well as his childhood abuse history. He then becomes their prime suspect.
Meanwhile, Leu sets his sights on a new victim, a man he sees hitting his son for having cavities. As he stalks the man, he also changes a student's grade from a B to an A after the student says that his father will "kill him", seeing in the boy a reflection of the abuse he suffered. Leu then attacks his intended victim outside of his father's house, forcing him at gunpoint into an open grave while hallucinating that the man is his father, berating him for being weak. As he begins burying the man alive, however, Jennifer and fellow BAU agent Derek Morgan arrive and hold at gunpoint, revealing that the endgame of his plan, to kill himself to represent Dante's final circle of Hell, reserved for suicides, will not punish his father or bring back his brother. Broken, Leu drops the gun and falls to his knees, begging his father's forgiveness as Morgan and Jareau take him into custody. Leu is then institutionalized.
Trivia[]
- Leu is inspired by multiple real-life and fictional serial killers:
- Edmund Kemper, a.k.a. "The Co-Ed Killer", a serial killer of women reportedly motivated by taking out his aggression on the women he didn't take on his abusive mother, who fought with him and locked him in the basement.
- John Doe, the main antagonist of the Se7en franchise; a delusional, abused serial killer of various people out of his obsession with the seven deadly sins, which unlike Leu's spree was ultimately completed.
- Nathan is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Seung-hui Cho, the similarly troubled mass murderer guilty of the Virginia Tech massacre.
- Numerous users on 4chan who posted school bomb threats later revealed to be hoaxes.
- Both Leu and Nathan are inspired by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two teenagers guilty of the Columbine High School massacre, which also involved plans of bombings for mass murder-suicde that set off only half their planted explosives.
External Links[]
- Justin Leu on the Criminal Minds Wiki
