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| “ | If this is a trick, I will kill all of us. | „ |
| ~ Lindsey threatening to kill the BAU and herself with an explosive device. |
Lindsey Vaughn is a recurring villain in the TV series Criminal Minds, serving as a supporting character in the Season 3 episode "3rd Life" and a major antagonist in Season 12. She is an assassin and crime lord who works with another assassin, Cat Adams, to frame FBI Agent Spencer Reid for murder.
She was portrayed by Gia Mantegna.
Early life[]
Lindsey's mother was murdered when she was a child by Irish gangsters who employed her father, Jack, as a hitman, as revenge for his testifying against them. Lindsey and her father went into the federal witness protection program for 10 years, under the protection of FBI Agent Pat Mannen.
Lindsey was a "daddy's girl" who worshiped her father and adopted his amorality and indifference to human life as her own. She was nevertheless charming and highly intelligent, and adept at manipulating people into giving her what she wanted.
Appearances[]
"3rd Life"[]
Lindsey and Jack are moved to Chula Vista, California, where she befriends her classmate Katie Owen. One night, Lindsey and Katie go the movies, where they are approached by her former classmate Ryan Phillips and two other men. They offer her and Katie a ride home, which Lindsey accepts. Phillips and his accomplices kidnap the girls and hold them prisoner in an abandoned house, raping and torturing Katie for hours, in front of Lindsey, before finally strangling her to death with a belt. It is implied that Phillips rapes Lindsey, as well.
Jack tracks the kidnappers down and beats one of them nearly to death, provoking Phillips to take Lindsey to the high school she attends, which is closed for the weekend. There, he advances on Lindsey, intent on killing her.
Just then, however, Jack bursts in, flanked by the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), who have been trying help Jack find the kidnappers and rescue Lindsey. Jack incapacitates Phillips, and Lindsey tells her father to kill him. BAU Agent Spencer Reid pleads with Jack to spare Phillips' life, reasoning that, if he kills Phillips in front of Lindsey, he will be condemning her to a life of violence just like his. Jack nevertheless gives in to his rage and shoots Phillips dead. Because he is an important witness against the mob, the FBI declines to press charges against him, and move him and Lindsey to Arizona, once more under new identities.
"Spencer"[]
Over the next 10 years, Lindsey uses her father's contacts in the criminal underworld to become a contract killer in her own right, working for several Mexican drug cartels, for whom she traffics their product and performs at least 15 assassinations - all using her father's gun. She also meets Cat Adams, another freelance assassin, and they become lovers. Adams then tasks her with aiding her plan to discredit her archnemesis - none other than Reid - by framing him for murder.
Lindsey stalks Reid for months as he frequently goes across the Mexican border to buy medication for his Alzheimer's-stricken mother, Diana. She follows him during one such trip, in which he is consulting with an Alzheimer's specialist, and doses him with scopolamine, which makes him highly suggestible. After she stabs the doctor to death and plants Reid's fingerprints on the knife, she seduces him by pretending to be his deceased girlfriend, Maeve Donovan. She then convinces him to drive out to the middle of the desert with several vials of her clients' drugs in his car. He is arrested for murder and drug trafficking, just as Adams had planned.
"Unforgettable"[]
Lindsey murders Cassie Campbell, Diana's caretaker, and convinces Diana that she is Campbell. She goes with Diana to visit Reid in prison, where Reid - who had realized via a cognitive interview that the doctor's killer is a woman - recognizes her and realizes that she set him up. Reid tries to warn his mother, but Diana is in too much of a fog from her medication to pay attention, and the guards lead him back to his cell, literally kicking and screaming. Lindsey then kidnaps Diana and puts her, bound and gagged, in the trunk of her car.
"Red Light"[]
Lindsey disguises herself with a blonde wig and sunglasses as she stops for gas, all while muffling Diana's screams for help. The station attendant makes a pass at her, which she ignores. Moments later, he sees the all-points bulletin that the BAU has put out on her and calls 9-11; she shoots him dead as he tells the emergency dispatcher where she is. Adams, who is being interrogated by Reid in her cell, calls Lindsey and tells her to let Diana talk to prove to Reid that she is still alive. Lindsey does as she is told but then blows up another car to make Reid think his mother is dead, and then drives away.
She meets with corrupt prison guard Lionel Wilkins, whom Adams paid to spy on Reid in prison, and he helps her move an unconscious Diana into his cabin; Lindsey then shoots him dead. She puts an explosive device in the cabin and times it to explode when the BAU arrives at the cabin, which Adams had deduced they would do.
She shows no emotion when the BAU shows up to arrest her, casually remarking that she is waiting for a phone call. Both her and BAU Agent Emily Prentiss' phones ring, and Lindsey threatens to set the bomb off if Prentiss is playing a trick on her. Prentiss answers her phone, which displays a live feed from the prison - courtesy of BAU Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia - showing Reid confronting Adams with the fact that her unborn child is not his, but Wilkins'. Enraged, Lindsey curses Adams for cheating on her. Prentiss then tells her that, if she kills herself, Adams wins. After a moment of indecision, Lindsey disarms the bomb and lets Diana go, which ruins Adams' plan. She then surrenders and allows the BAU to take her into custody. She is presumably imprisoned for life.
Trivia[]
- Lindsay is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Tracey Tarlton, the murderer of Celeste Beard's husband Steven, who Tracey was ordered to shoot desd before Celeste abandoned her to take the fall. Tracey turned on Celeste and sold her out too.
- Stephen Wayne Anderson, a freelance serial killer hitman qanting to be a killer all his life and working for cartels, being caught when he killed an elderly woman was arrested while squatting in her home.
- Marion Albert Pruitt, a serial killer and career criminal catched too late to stop his crimes in part due to exploiting his ststus in witness protection.
- It is suggested that, since she has adopted several different identities both as an assassin and in the witness protection program, "Lindsey Vaughn" may not be her real name.
- Gia Mantegna, who portrays Lindsey, is the daughter of Joe Mantegna, who portrays David Rossi, one of Criminal Minds' main characters.
External links[]
- Lindsey Vaughn on the Criminal Minds Wiki
