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| “ | I did it. I killed all those women in 2007. I tried to be good, but in these last few weeks, I couldn't help myself. I had to kill again. | „ |
| ~ Manning trying to take credit for Floyd Feylinn Ferell's murders; also his final words. |
Marcus Manning is the secondary antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Lucky Strikes". He is a copycat serial killer who mimics the crimes of cannibalistic serial killer Floyd Feylinn Ferell.
He is portrayed by Jaime Barcelon.
Early life[]
Born and raised in Bridgewater, Florida, Manning harbored cannibalistic sexual urges from a young age, and began acting them out violently in grade school when he bit a chunk out of a classmate's ear. His parents sent him to a therapist, Dr. Diana Dugan, who treated him for depression and social anxiety, unaware of his true pathology.
Manning was bullied in high school, the most severe incident occurring when he was a sophomore; several of his classmates stole his clothes while he was showering in the locker room, pelted him with bars of soap, and left him to be found, naked and sobbing, by his gym teacher. The incident worsened his feelings of isolation and hopelessness, and led him to suffer from impotence.
As an adult, he joined a Bible study group at his local church in an attempt to control his urges. There, he met Floyd Feylinn Ferell, a cannibalistic serial killer on supervised home release to his sister from a psychiatric hospital. Sensing Manning's emotional weakness, Ferell took Manning under his wing, pretending to counsel him as a cover for his true intentions: to manipulate him into committing murders that mimicked his own so he could convince his doctors that he was innocent and be released.
Ferell taught Manning how to copy his murders down to the last detail - by cutting off their fingers and legs, carving Satanic symbols into their bodies, and force-feeding them their severed fingers before finally slitting their throats. He also showed Manning him a warehouse where he had kept his victims. He then helped him kidnap and murder his first victim: Evonne Westfield, his sister Johanna's fiancée.
In "Lucky Strikes"[]
One month after killing Westfield, Manning kidnaps and murders a prostitute named Rebecca Strong, cutting off her fingers and carving Satanic symbols into her body in an exact mimicking of Feylinn's murder of Abby Kelton. This gets the attention of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), who had profiled and apprehended Feylinn 10 years earlier, and who believe that he is killing again with the help of a submissive partner.
Manning meets with Feylinn at the Bible study group and discreetly hands him a bag containing the severed fingers of Strong's left hand. As Lee-Anne Kelton, Abby's mother, curses Feylinn for killing her daughter, Manning uses the distraction to slip away into the church's restroom, and eats the remaining fingers. After BAU Agents Matt Simmons and Luke Alvez interrupt the study session to bring Feylinn in for questioning, Manning ambushes and kidnaps Lee-Anne in the church parking lot.
Meanwhile, BAU Agents David Rossi, Jennifer Jareau, and Tara Lewis examine Westfield's body, and conclude from the hesitation cuts on her skin that the killer was inexperienced. Reasoning that Feylinn had recruited his partner from a place they both frequented, they question his sister, who says that the only place Feylinn goes outside her home is Bible study. Realizing that the submissive partner must be a member of the Bible study group, they have Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia look into public records of each member, and she finds Manning's sealed juvenile criminal records. BAU Supervisory Agent Emily Prentiss talks to Johanna and Dugan about Manning's history of antisocial behavior and fascination with cannibalism, and realizes that he is the killer.
Manning takes Lee-Anne to Feylinn's old house, and begins rubbing lotion on her so he can cook and eat her. Before he can hurt her, however, Rossi and Alvez bust in the door, having deduced that Manning would bring her there because Feylinn had already told them about the warehouse, making it unsafe as a killing ground. They try to tell Manning that Feylinn is using him, but he refuses to listen, insisting that he committed all of the crimes attributed to Feylinn; he then cuts his own throat and bleeds to death.
Feylinn's lawyer uses Manning's dying declaration of responsibility for the murders to convince Dr. Lode Barren, the head of the psychiatric hospital, that he is innocent, even as Rossi objects. Moments after Barren declares Feylinn fit to be released from the hospital, however, Prentiss and Alvez arrive and inform the review board that Manning's autopsy revealed that he had eaten only five of Strong's fingers, giving them cause for a search warrant to make Feylinn undergo an X-ray that would show he eaten the other five. Rossi then adds that, since Barren has just declared Feylinn mentally competent, he must now stand trial for every one of the murders he committed. They then arrest Feylinn, who shouts and thrashes in protest now that his plan has been ruined.
Trivia[]
- Manning is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Veronica Compton, an attempted murderer copying the crimes of the “Hillside Stranglers” to make the arrested killers look innocent.
- Heriberto Seda, a.k.a. “The New York Zodiac Killer”, a serial killer and copycat of the Zodiac Killer with modifications to fit his own M.O. and even attacked his sister and her boyfriend. Seda also resembles Manning in appearance.
External links[]
- Marcus Manning on the Criminal Minds Wiki
