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| “ | I'm a headhunter, a recruiter. I find people who want to be found, and I match them with people who want to find them. | „ |
| ~ Codwell admitting her crimes. |
Marion Codwell is the supporting antagonist of the Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders episode "The Matchmaker". Codwell is a British rogue federal agent and terrorism recruit directly involved in brainwashing and terror attack campaigns with the plot's mastermind, Abu Hakim Al Badi.
She's portrayed by British actress Sonya Walger.
Biography[]
Codwell had a ten-year tenure with MI6 as an interrogation specialist, where she contributed to the Abu Ghraib abuses and the CIA black site in the Balkans. Desensitized as she was, she became disillusioned with her work and retired to run a namesake consulting firm in Istabul, Turkey. She sought retaliation against the governments she worked her for the activities she was involved in, presumably out of her own guilt mixed with her hatred. She followed Al Badi's activities and ideologies she came to remember and recite by heart, then participated in his terrorism conspiracies. Their latest plan was to bomb the American consulate in Istanbul, where American ambassador Tom Wilson, who ordered a strike that killed Al Badi's brother Ahmed, was to participate in an alliance treaty signature between Turkey and Al Badi's home country Iraq. Codwell had an online alias of "Hanim Atvar" handy to lure young, redheaded, white-American teenage girls for brainwashing into being suicide bombers to execute the terrorist plan. When Julie Allen was lured from Columbus, Ohio, but she escaped to resist the brainwashing, Al Badi's accomplices chased her down and shot in her head in an alleyway. With her use for them thrown out, they targeted Emma Peters in Washington, D.C., who had a boyfriend in Turkey named Emir Bayer who lived in Antalya. Once Codwell convinces her to take a flight to try and reunite with Emir, posing as a friend of his, the group arranges human trafficker Marko Bashir to kidnap her and turn her over to the terrorists, where she's held hostage in Istanbul.
Al Badi, Codwell, and their accomplices engage in a lengthy campaign of brainwashing against Emma, saying Emir was investigating American war crimes in Iraq, showing doctored and fabricated footage to gaslight her, and even dressing her in a hijab. Emma's guilted over the arrest of Bashir, then told personally by Codwell the lie that American forces murdered Emir as a "cover-up". Emma is devastated and, feeling like she has nothing to live for, is dressed in formal wear, armed with a suicide bomb in a bag, and directed to the consulate. By this point, Codwell is tracked through her emails and interrogated by Agent Clara Seger, and Codwell denies nothing about her emails, saying she committed no crimes bring American girls to Turkey and even quoting direct passages from Al Badi, which identifies him as the mastermind. The agents stop Emma from bombing the consulate and successfully deprogram her by showing Emir's alive. He's shot when Turkish police mistake him for attacking Emma, but a bulletproof vest protects him. Overcome with relief, Emma gives up the bomb and Al Badi's group and their locations, which they never even bothered hiding from her. Codwell is detained right in her office for arrest and incarcerated on terrorism charges, while Al Badi's organization is swiftly disbanded with his and his accomplice's arrests and imprisonments.
Trivia[]
- Codwell is inspired by numerous Western female recruits into jihadist extremism plots, including Colleen LaRose and Samantha Waterwaite.
- Emma’s kidnapping appears to be inspired by the case of Danguolė Rasalaitė, a Lithuanian girl who was smuggled into Sweden, sexually trafficked, and committed suicide by jumping off an overpass, dying days later in a hospital once her life support was pulled.
External links[]
- Marion Codwell on the Criminal Minds Wiki
