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“ | If anybody ever found us, remember what I told you. Daddy's the only one that loves you. | „ |
~ Michael Clark Thompson brainwashing his captive, Amelia Hawthorne. |
Michael Clark Thompson is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Hostage". He is a pedophile who kidnaps prepubescent girls and holds them prisoner as sex slaves, all while brainwashing them into believing that he is their "daddy".
He was portrayed by Daniel Roebuck, who also portrayed Samson Tollet in River's Edge, Mark Bishop in L.A. Noire, and B.J. in The Walking Dead.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Thompson's mother died in childbirth, leaving him in the care of his father Nate, an abusive misogynist who remarried five times and treated each of his wives like servants and sex objects, thus teaching his son that women existed merely to serve men and bear children. Nate was ultimately imprisoned for assaulting a prostitute.
As an adult, Thompson worked as a repairman. He was sexually fixated on little girls, and wanted daughters that he could molest.
His main client was an elderly woman named Clara Riggins, who depended upon him to run errands. Thompson told her neighbors that he was her grandson, and so they thought nothing of him taking over her house after she died. He buried her body in her backyard. He also turned her basement into a torture chamber, and began planning to act out his long-held fantasy of kidnapping little girls and holding them prisoner.
In 2001, he kidnapped eight-year-old Amelia Hawthorne and spent the next several years emotionally and sexually abusing her. She bore him two daughters, Lily and Jasmine, who he also molested. By then, Amelia was effectively brainwashed, thinking of Thompson as both her father and her husband; she even allowed him to change her name to Violet. When Amelia grew too old for him, Thompson manipulated her into helping him kidnap and imprison Gina Bryant and Sheila Woods, whom they renamed Rose and Daisy. In 2015, Thompson impregnated Sheila, but she suffered a miscarriage.
"Hostage"[]
One night, Thompson comes home from work to find that Gina has escaped, and Sheila's miscarriage has turned septic. Panicked, Thompson and Amelia go on the run, leaving the desperately ill Sheila behind. They drive around for days, with Thompson refusing to let Amelia use a restroom and berating her for needing food.
Meanwhile, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) investigates after Gina goes to the police and tells them about the kidnapping, although they are too late to save Sheila, who dies of sepsis. They profile the kidnapper as a convicted child molester who imprisons his victims for years in his house, which was left to him by a deceased female relative, who lives within walking distance of a grocery store, and whose skill with locks and carpentry suggests that he works with his hands, probably as a repairman. BAU Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia investigates men in the area who fit this profile until she finds Thompson.
BAU Agents David Rossi, Aaron Hotchner, and Derek Morgan find Thompson asleep in his car with Amelia in the backseat. He runs when they try to arrest him, but Morgan tackles and subdues him, breaking his wrist in the process. They take Thompson and Amelia to a hospital, where a nurse puts Thompson's wrist in a cast while Rossi and Hotchner interrogate him. Thompson insists that he loves "his girls" and that he saved them from unloving homes. When Hotchner says he knows that Amelia bore him daughters and demands to know where they are, Thompson tries to use them as leverage, saying that he left them only enough food and water for a few days and will let them starve to death unless Hotchner arranges for him to go to a minimum security prison for less than a life sentence. Finally, he says that he wants to speak with "Violet" one last time.
Rossi and Hotchner reluctantly take Thompson to see Amelia, who is still convinced that he loves her. When he embraces her, however, she suffers a flashback of the first time that he raped her, and recovers a memory of her real parents. She finally sees Thompson for what he is, and hits him while reclaiming her real name. Enraged, Thompson refuses to tell Rossi and Hotchner where his daughters are.
Fortunately, however, Garcia is able to locate them using Thompson's geographical profile, allowing the BAU and local police to rescue them. As Rossi and Hotchner take Thompson away, they tell him that, since he rejected their deal, he will spend the rest of his life in prison as a known child molester, the lowest form of prison life. Moments later, however, Sheila's mother Eileen shoots Thompson in the heart with a revolver, killing him instantly.
Trivia[]
- Thompson is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Ariel Castro, a.k.a. “The Monster of Cleveland”, a serial kidnapper and rapist of numerous girls, conceiving children with them, and ultimately caught when one of them escaped and the other two were rescued.
- Kenneth Parnell, a pedophilic kidnapper and rapist responsible for kidnapping Steven Stayner, repeatedly raping him for seven years while lying Steven was his “son”, then abducting Timothy White. Steven escaped with Timothy to save him from rapes, and Parnell was arrested.
- Phillip Garrido, the rapist and captor responsible for the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard, as well as impregnating her and withholding her from her children.
- Steven Oliver, the kidnapper, rapist, and brainwashed of Jessyca Mullenburg, before she was rescued after months and shown photos of herself and her loved ones to even remember her real name.
- Jeff Doucet, the kidnapper and rapist of Jody Plauché, which resulted in Doucet’s murder with a revolver by Jody’s father Gary Plauché, for which Gary only faced parole.